The beginnings of the year

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Alex

2012 has gotten off to a good start. Too good to sit down and blog about it! Somehow, I’ve found a free moment, so I’m seizing it to share my goings-on.

On the strictly psychology front, I visited the DOP conference in Chester, and have been reporting on some of its highlights on the Occupational Digest blog. The blog had a fun January, essentially a structured retrospective, organising the findings from the past year into themes and actionable ‘resolutions’ that people could take on. A highlight for me was Michelle Ryan describing her research on the glass cliff.

I’ve also been involved in some development centres overseas for a large global development body. It’s been fascinating to work with some very bright and dedicated people and think about how to increase their impact for others.

Meanwhile, back at home, I’ve been writing items for job preview tools. Heard of them? They’re great – effectively, a way to increase organisational and role transparency by letting people put themselves inside the job (specifically, inside hypothetical, plausible job situations) and see whether what the job is looking for is what they can deliver – and vice versa. If designed well, it’s a tool that never disappoints: a candidate who decides not to apply after doing it makes that choice because they’ve been tipped off that it’s not for them. One who presses on meanwhile, sees it might be a good fit – or if not, and they’re simply desparate for work, at least they are advancing with their eyes wide to the reality.

I’m working with a new improv team, HMS OMG, coaching and occasionally joining them on stage. We were born from the buzzing, blooming mass of improv at the Wilmington Arms pub since September, now benefiting from some structure, a scaffold for the vines to grow upon. It’s great to be part of a developing scene as it does its thing. My other group, with which I specifically perform, is grooving along nicely, currently undercover in a development phase.

I’m involved in a fascinating project with Edmund Harriss, a math professor at the University of Arkansas. We’re using improv to help students communicate and collaborate better together. We’re working in a very Agile way, reflecting and revising as we go, and it’s a strange thing creating a course for people thousands of miles away, but so far it’s been going to fascinating places. I’ll report more on this as things develop.

I’ve just returned this week from the Free University of Liverpool, where I worked with Britt Jurgenson and the various members of FUL to explore leadership and following through body, mask and play. We even got to spend a day getting our hands mucky with papier mache, making fresh masks as leader artifacts. It was great to attend, and wonderful to see another example of an alternative education project up close.

It looks like soon my pieces in the Future We Deserve and New Public Thinking books will see print, which is exciting. There are a few other small writing pieces in the pipeline too.

So, a good start to the year. As always, I’m interested to hear about projects, collaborations and assignments that are thoughtful and aimed at doing good in the world. You can catch me at the email address written in the site header.

Play’s The Thing, a conference. 22-23rd November

Posted on November 18, 2011 by Alex

Next week I’ll be participating at Play’s The Thing, a new conference taking a multifaceted approach to exploring play and wellbeing. Gathering over two days will be, as host Pat Kane puts it, “artists and writers, philosophers and psychologists, scientists and hackers, parents and players”.

I’ll be there, representing improvisation and it’s implications for a well-lived life. On the first afternoon, I’m running an improv playshop for a limited number of participants. The second afternoon I will enjoy being in conversation with Lottie Child and Hannah Hull on Art, Play and Society

In the lead-up to the event, I’m writing a little on the Play’s The Thing blog. You may find it interesting. Strangely, I find it a bigger challenge to write directly about improvisation than to conjure connections out of less obviously connected material, such as the series of posts on craft that I started elsewhere around a year ago. I think it’s precisely because I see improvisation in pretty much everything that pinning down just what it is presents a challenge. So this is a good opportunity for me to practice! I may collect the thoughts into a single article at some stage, which will find a home on this site.

There are still some tickets left for the event, which will be a time of thinking, talking, making valuable acquaintances and above all playing. The link is here. There is also a concession, focused on enabling artists and explorers for whom funds are a concern; if this is an obstacle for you attending do email me and I should be able to get that in place.

A higher (education) calling?

Posted on October 22, 2011 by Alex

Last weekend Dougald Hine, Liane Fredericks and myself, along with a host of volunteers, hosted an unconference on Universities Past and Future. The weekend was one peak along a wave that began early this year when Dougald decided he wanted to start a university. This provocation mobilised a group of like- and unlike-minded souls, who began meeting and discussing the possibilities within the university. That group includes myself, and the things we discuss have become framed as ‘The University Project’.

As Dougald has updated on his blog, the project is better thought of as a constellation of ideas and projects, each proceeding at its own pace. But as a placeholder, it’s a useful term, and has helped make possible an event that drew people from as far afield as Austria, Romania and the US to London for a weekend of discussion and exploration.

Many things stay with me from the weekend, but foremost are the personal stories that lead people to be dissatisfied with higher education as it is, or aflame with the possibility of what it could be. Stories such as Philippa Young’s who ditched her masters at Oxford to find a more worthwhile route to develop herself, or Weezie Yancey-Siegel who at 19 is self-designing her own learning journey outside of university, drawing on and creating a diverse global network as she does so.

So what story brought me to the University Project? Well, I spent a long part of my life thinking that my route was to become a scholar, a thinker, someone who engaged with knowledge. But the reality of academia gelled poorly with my temperament and interests.

I wanted to be more eclectic, not narrower in focus. I wanted to spend more time in dialogue and engagement with those wanting to learn, but was advised to hold teaching at arms length for as long as possible, if not forever, and make sure to publish, publish, publish. I wanted a climate of support and mutual discovery, but the sharing of academic ideas often felt more like a fencing match, or sometimes a bludgeoning down a back alley. I’m delighted when friends and family have had a different experience, or feel the game is worth the candle, but for me at that time it simply wasn’t.

Luckily for me, I found arenas outside academia which meshed better with my temperament and interests. In posts that followed I was valued when I trained external groups, and encouraged within the organisation to share and develop knowledge. But I found myself still wishing for the promise of academia: the breath to stop and think, rarer still in the commercial world, the sharing of knowledge across boundaries, without the blockades of IP and competitive advantage.

My experience in improvisation and other models of thought also opened my eyes further to ways in which learning is often harmful, building ways of unseeing the world and building proprietary attitudes to creation that would contaminate even the most pure-minded of organisations.

So the opening of spaces to discuss these issues is extremely important to me. I’m already returning to research activities outside of the academy, and my teaching is ramping upward. I want to communicate how this can work for others, be informed by the investigations of others, and support the networks and institutions that will characterise higher education in the 21st century.

I’ve got a lot more to say about the project, but there’s no hurry; it’s clear that this is something that will emerge through countless conversations, hard work, joyous meetings, and countless failures. Looking back, each of us who had a hand in that uncharted journey will know that this new present is partly of our own hand.

Many of the fruits of the weekend can be found at the dedicated wiki. And the University Project blog is definitely worth a follow, if you’re interested in this sort of thing.

Play to perform

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Alex

Image of three improvisers, one looking ghostlike due to clever lighting

Jules Munn, Jonathan Monkhouse and Alex Fradera in Cellblock! Photo by LAURÈNE SÉNÉCHAL

The weekend before last I had a fantastic time performing in the Drop2 Cellblock! improvathon. For those unfamiliar, an improvathon is, as it suggests, a very long improvised performance. In this case, 26 hours long, with 80% of the cast (including myself) there for the entire time. No opportunity for sleep, a mere ten minutes backstage every two hours, and times when the cast outnumbered the audience ten to one, it demanded endurance, team spirit, and a surrender to the show. When the show closed, our collective elation pulsed across the venue. Performers are still talking about it in forums, via mail and in person, as a rite of passage, a transformative event.

I’m reminded most of the high after your very first improv show, where you realise you are more than you think you were, there are untapped qualities within you, and that the underside of fear is energy, waiting to be used. To get up and be creative, right now, visible to others, unlocks deep and powerful things. To be clear, I’m talking about something over and above the joy of engaging right/rich-brain thinking. Unlocking the brain and finding a way to continue a story, end a poem, sketch an image – this is also heady stuff. But the power of performativity adds another layer.

It reaffirmed my sense of the importance of this side of the work: inviting people into performance who may have never done it before, aren’t a proficient musician, haven’t been to drama school – all descriptions that fit myself, by the way. I love the possibilities when improvisation is used in an applied fashion: finding insights within the games, illuminating principles, connecting them to new and unexpected contexts. But just as I believe a practitioner should never forget playing simply to play, it’s just as vital to play to perform, and appreciate that experience.

You can find a review of the show in its original French here, and an adequate google translation here.

Atlantic College Learnings

Posted on October 13, 2011 by Alex

Learning from the projects we undertake is one of the most powerful ways to develop and improve. Explicit reflection on things that did and didn’t work so well is a crucial component of this, and I’m going to experiment with posting such reflections here.

This first post deals with the series of playshops I ran at Atlantic College, which on the whole were as successful as I could have wanted. However, I opened the early sessions in an overly democratic, participant-led fashion, which led to a somewhat halting beginning. I don’t normally do this, so why did I then?

I believed that making democratic, non-hierarchical interaction the theme of my keynote meant the followups had to utterly exemplify this. I wanted things to be holographic: each element reflecting the whole. Or, to put it simpler, I wanted to avoid hypocrisy.

But this belief was a trap. I felt the democracy had to take place in the room, that I needed to be led by the wants of the participants. But at the beginning of each session, these wants weren’t easy to articulate: very reasonably, given we’d only just met and there hand’t been a chance to really experience what I had to offer. I quickly realised that it was far better to put things on the table – no, moreso, to get up on the table and start kicking the things around – and see what that shook out.

What I had to offer was an array of tools, approaches and experiences to hack the ways we interact with each other. The best work I could do was to allow us to experience them together, make transparent some of their useful features, and allow space for conversation and reflection. These morsels could then be taken away and played with, tested and themselves hacked outside of the session, in freely forming groups – where things really get democratic in any case.

Once I named this to myself it was easy enough to switch things up, and the firmer hand I took definitely helped the workshop series to be more successful.

I learned that wanting things to be holographic shouldn’t override other concerns. To trust that learning continues to develop out of the room, out of your hands. And to share what you have and know that it will take the forms it needs, unique to each individual.

So, Atlantic College, thank you.

Human interaction: new approaches through play

Posted on October 13, 2011 by Alex

St Donat's Castle

I spent much of the last week of September at Atlantic College in South Wales, set in the stunning environment of St Donat’s Castle. I was there for a new tradition: their incoming student year are welcomed with a three-day conference to inform and provoke thinking they can take through their time in college and beyond. Yes, it’s a pretty amazing place.

The conference theme was human interaction, and I was lucky enough to be giving the opening keynote on leadership. I attempted to open up the term through a wide-ranging tour, united by the proposal that the present is so fluid that we need to think about leadership in a distributed manner, and start to unbundle leadership behaviours.

Reputedly no place to stand in this garden out of a statue's line of site - though I managed it!

Following this, the student body streamed into a range of sessions, ran by outside guests, teachers and second-year students. A particular highlight for me was an Open Space session on the second day, where the students showed their passions and motivation for all manner of vital projects.

My biggest regret was being occupied in virtually every slot, limiting my experience of the variety of stuff going on. At the same time it was also my greatest pleasure, having an opportunity to use impro techniques to open up conversations around human interaction and follower-leader-group dynamics. Being able to take some of this outside, during the best UK indian summer in living memory, was the icing on the cake!

I’m delighted to have made the visit, and intend to keep in touch with the goings-on at the college into the future. Once again, it’s a very special place.

Living with Uncertainty: an Improvisation Playshop

Posted on September 16, 2011 by Alex

Thursday 29th September
3pm-5.30
Cardiff, UK (Venue TBC)

How do we deal with the unknown – in our work, in our communities, in our lives? We can try and plan, predict and schedule our way through, but we’re bound to be confounded.

This highly interactive workshop offers a different mindset for dealing with uncertainty, creating and working together: improvisation. It focuses on playfulness and connection as a route to ground us in what opportunities exist at every moment. You don’t need to be an actor, an extravert or come with any special experience. Just pack a willingness to explore, try games and activities, and expect an atmosphere where it’s great to fail along the way!

In this fully interactive session you will get a taste of how improvisation can help :

- See what’s actually there

- Work with what you’re given

- Access your creativity

- Experiment with physical movement to move through ideas

- Learn how to change state when feeling blocked

- Get out of your own head and in touch with the unconscious and spontaneous

- Embrace risks

- Fail with grace and delight

- Get it out rather than get it right!

- Bring stuff into being with more confidence

The workshop will be facilitated by Improviser and Psychologist Alex Fradera.

Cost: £10 (£5 for students) – please bring the right cash on the day, we may not have change.

Booking: To book a place contact emily-a-mindfulmaps dot com or alex dot fradera-a-gmail dot com.

Paper ‘n shelves and social aspects

Posted on August 13, 2011 by Alex

What are the paper ‘n shelves considerations?So far, I have:

Physically flyer some of the local area – including home address and some contact detail
Put up a sign outside the house to encourage people in
Have the books accessible and organised enough to find them easily
Have some kind of sign-out procedure
A book bin to facilitate exchanges

Social stuff

Firstly, the trust mechanics. When it comes to lending, my current feeling is that I can be fairly relaxed. If I lose a book it’s just a sting. My thoughts were that the first lend has to be in person, they have to sign-out the book with a signature, and make sure I have a contact email – but not to demand proof of ID, location, etc.
The things I am more conscious of is inviting strangers into the home, together with transparency over a) where I live and b) if I am/am not around. Eg sending an email or stating on the site that I’m not around for the next fortnight. To be honest, I’m probably no more vulnerable than anyone who overuses Foursquare in that respect! Still, this is where there are more security thoughts for me.

Some other social considerations:

How to encourage people who aren’t motivated by getting a book, but might be curious about freely accessing learning in things that interest them, in the way they may already do online but struggle to find in the direct world?

And conversely, how not to discourage people who are grateful for the source of books but might be put off by the sense that there is an expectation of a relationship?

Street library – virtual component

Posted on August 13, 2011 by Alex

What does the virtual add?

Provides a very simple UI for viewing what’s available.
Offers some more information to reassure people that they’re not just following a flyer to a total stranger’s house. This includes home address and contact details, obviously.
Pertinent to both the above points, some information on books that is both informative and personal (“this is the book that made me realise x”).
Explains practicalities – where, how etc – both for making the first collection and reminders (What do I do if they’re not in to return it?)

Virtual – how?

For this stage – a pilot, really – I’ve thrown together two options, with a smattering of books at this stage. I haven’t added address details yet; the content is really just a skeleton.I went with librarything first (my catalogue and my profile), which is dead easy to add books using barcode scanning. However I hesitate somewhat to put personal information like addresses on a social sharing site. There’s also just a lot of cruft on the site, the UI is not friendly, and I’d be twisting it to fit what I wanted. Nice to have images though.I then threw a tiddlywiki together which could sit on my site. It’s fiddlier to add stuff – I’ve been copying from the librarything in fact, so it’s at least twice as time consuming – but it’s incredibly clean, and trivial for me to add in an address section, quotes/feedback, or announcements (eg “Book club? go to facebook.com/groups/bclub/to discuss”)Virtual – social

Neither of these options are easily moddable by others (librarything you could sign up and review the books, or overall comment on my profile, but… messy), so it cuts social out of the equation. There’s a certain simplicity about this I like – no monitoring needed – but otoh does a possible user need some reassurances that they’re not the first to respond to this random thing? I thought some excerpted quotes from emails – “thanks for the loan – was interesting stuff” might do it.I also wonder whether I should be thinking ahead to replication. Eg a proper wiki rather than tiddliwiki could make it easier for others to join in. I’m imagining 5 people on a single street with their stuff catalogued on one site, so you can search for the content you want, then reference what house number to collect it from. Another part of me says that the important question is how it works in itself, and worry about scaling later.

Looking for thoughts on ‘street library’ idea

Posted on August 13, 2011 by Alex

I’ve got a little initiative and am looking for any thoughts. If you have any, let me know in comments or tweet @alexfradera.

I’m starting up a library in my street. It’s for local people to borrow from my shelves.

My motives are

I have a lot of books that sit around doing nothing. Other people might find them interesting.
Two people who have read the same book can instantly have a chat, even if they thought they had nothing in common. I get to know more of my neighbours.
A book can act as an attractor for bringing people together who may come up with interesting things together, or fruitfully share with each other. Opening conversations is a good thing.
This could be scalable, but it works perfectly well at it’s own level. It’s a self-contained experiment, ready for replication.

If you must critique the aims then go ahead, but I’m really interested in seeing what you think the best approach is, given those aims. Note that 2 and 3 prevents delivering the books to the local library being a solution. If solutions already exist, I’d love to hear em.

There are three components to this, a virtual one, a paper ‘n shelves one, and a social one.