Category Archives: words

words

Blog Club: Creating Conditions for Productivity

#achievementunlocked

“Productivity and the conditions that we need for it” was just suggested and settled on as today’s topic at Blog Club. In the few minutes that we were talking about it, I noticed on my phone that scientologylondon had just liked this photo of mine on instagram, so I screenshot it and instagram the notification. Bam! I just created some new content and put it out into the world for my followers! I’m so productive! Take the rest of the day off, Davis.

Well yes, and…

I had, only moments before, been preaching about social media addiction, how things like pinterest and insta can swallow my time and take me to a place that’s a bit dark and definitely poor. So, my sermon continued, for me being productive is much more connected to creating engaging content that connects me more intimately with people and helps build good business relationships. Blah!

This is my problem with the P word – it assumes a whole raft of things about what I’m doing, why, and how I get things done these days. The lines between having fun, being seen to be having fun, being seen, getting to know people who might be interested in what I’m doing and making mutually valuable connections with those people are all getting waaaaay blurred.

Sometimes we need black and white rules in order to deal with the bazillion shades of grey in everyday life. So my black and white is currently no new shiny things in work hours, focusing on being real with people and building relationship here and now, really, with you to see how you can help me and I can help you – and in order to do that I have to put down (sometimes one minute at a time) the Trump stories, the Brexit saga and anything else that starts with “OMG I can’t believe they just did that” get quiet and chat with you over a coffee.

What gets me there? Self care, self care, self care. Knowing myself well and forgiving when I screw up; connecting with love and support with everyone I know, taking a good look at myself regularly, not taking myself too damn seriously, oh some self care (a walk at lunchtime, a healthy meal, a good nights sleep). You know, all that stuff.

PS ultimately, I hope for the time when I can say “my productivity is not dependent on my conditions” but, well, probably not today!

Podcasts, words

“A bit of Blockchain” with @berniejmitchell

One of the immediate benefits of working in downtown Euston has been that I’ve been reminded of this podcast I did with Bernie a few months ago when we first started talking about the “Airbnb of Brains”.

Check it out. It has a bit of Blockchain, but it’s mostly about different ways of working together. I’m listening myself for the first time, it’s not bad!

What I'm doing, words

On Renewal(s)

C4CC index cards

This post is intended as a starting point for online collaboration – let it be a launchpad for something you make yourself.

I think the first time I heard the word renewal it was in relation to library books. If you wanted to keep a book longer than the standard amount of time, past the date due that was stamped on a sheet inside the front cover, you needed to ask for that date to be extended and this was called ‘renewing’ or ‘a renewal’ otherwise, if you kept the book too long you’d be fined. You’d have to pay money to the library as a punishment for withholding the book from other borrowers.

However if you renewed it, the librarian could check that no-one else desperately needed that book right now and give you a further borrowing period. It was the loan then that was renewed. It was re-new-ed, made new again. The book was the same book, I was the same small child, but there was a new date to remember in the front of the book, the date that must not be forgotten or ignored or else it will cost you pennies.

Library tickets in my town were brown for children and white for adults. You could take and borrow as many books as you had tickets, because you had to hand them in when you had chosen your books and had them stamped.

A new set of books for the week was so exciting. I was renewed. My collection was renewed. My imagination was renewed.

Thanks Libraries and Librarians.

You might make something that fits together with what I have here or it might stand alone. You might make something in another form or medium – a poem, a picture, a movie, a song.

Take the picture, take the words and augment them, allowing them to augment you.

You can join in wherever works best for you – I’m publishing this on my blog, on the Tuttle Moonthly publication on Medium and on Steemit. I will endeavour to pull strands together and play them back in each of these places.

announcements, What I'm doing, words

Come collaborate with me at @WorkHubs

2017-01-25_11-36-34

From this Monday, I’m going to be hanging out (as full-time as I ever do such a thing) and working in the Euston co-working space atworkhubs with the lovely Philip Dodson and Bernie Mitchell.

I’ve been to a couple of Blog Clubs on Wednesday morning and there’s also a Write Club on Thursday mornings (short planning session, get into writing for an hour and a half, quick group review). And I think Art Club too but I can’t find a link for that!

It’s a nice convenient space, right next to Euston and Euston Square stations with just the right balance of people – not too mad noisy, not too dead quiet.

They have an affordable and flexible range of membership options including day passes so if you’re looking for somewhere straight off the train at Euston, it’s a real goody.

Anyway I’ll be there and it would be good to see you too.  Ping me if you’re nearby and up for a coffee or something.

At the moment, I’m expecting to see some 1:1 clients there; run some workshops; hold some evening or breakfast events etc., but I’m open to suggestions, let me know if there’s something you think I should be using the space for.

events, words

A mini West Midlands adventure

I’ve got a few days this week in the best part of the country there is.

6709-003

At least that’s what Dudley Zoo looked like 50 years ago…

I’m travelling up to Dudley on Wednesday morning and spending the afternoon with Lorna Prescott and friends and whoever else turns up at Gather Dudley at 65 High Street. If you’re on the Black Country side, do come over and say hello. We’re going to talk about community, co-creation, creative collaboration and probably some things that don’t start with ‘c’ just for the hell of it.  Lorna’s written about it here and it does help her if you could also sign up on the Eventbrite page.

On Thursday, my tentative plan is to spend the day at the Impact Hub in Birmingham. Again, I’m open to visitors or invitations to stuff that’s going on in the City Centre.

There is a teensy-weensy plan for curry on Thursday night.  Ping me on Twitter if you want to join us.

On Friday I’m co-facilitating “A Conference on Unconferencing” with top gent Dan Slee. If you’re at all interested in self-organising events, or how to get people to do important stuff without bossing them around then this is the day for you, it’s on from 9.30 till 4pm and will be chock-full of interesting people and ideas and action.

I do love the West Midlands but I love what we’re doing there even more, so if you would like me to come and do some similar stuff where you are for a few days, please do get in touch.

words

Suggest a theme for next month’s Tuttle Moonthly

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Taking a coach for a change

In November I decided to switch my Patreon to supporting a monthly collaboration journal called Tuttle Moonthly to be published on (or as near as poss to) the full moon. It’s been a great way of focusing myself on what I’m most interested in, where I’m actually at with collaborative work and thinking about what it might mean to revive the Centre for Creative Collaboration.

I’m going to carry on doing Tuttle Moonthly but I’m going to take it off the patreon and shift that to people supporting my vlog. First reason is that it doesn’t seem fair to make the collaborative thing something that people pay to support – it should be that if you’re collaborating on stuff with me that makes money, we should have a better way of sharing that money or at least benefiting from it. So there’s a built-in barrier both to funding and collaboration. The other thing I realised is that the vlog is the thing that people are actually fans of – British modesty and self-deprecation aside, people consistently say that they like the vlog, where as Moonthly is something I want to do and needs some nurturing to get going. I think they work better the other way round.

So what to do about the Moonthly this full moon, given that I’ve also been bunged up and not very sociable for most of December and early January? Well I will pull together something to represent what I’ve done and I’m also thinking about a monthly project for people to encourage people to work on with me as well as what I’m thinking generally about collaboration, work I’m doing etc. It would be nice to have a challenge for people to work on month by month if they want to. Yeah?

So, your first task is to help me with defining a challenge for this coming moonth. Next full moon after this week is February 11th. I’m looking for fun things or a theme to focus on that we can do together – opportunities, not obligations – something I can mention to people when we meet, something you can contribute to through a variety of media, and something that’s more when we do it together rather than lots of individual contributions pulled together (although I will put aside some time each month to pull something together).

Whatcha think? What theme would like to work on for Jan/Feb?

words

Bristol and Birmingham in January: Help needed please

Hello and Happy New Year!

This is an asking for help post.  I’ve got a bit of a tickly cough otherwise this would have been a vlog.

I’ve got two things to do in January outside London, which I’d like help filling out with other stuff.

Birmingham: I’m very pleased to be co-facilitating a conference about unconferences alongside Dan Slee which is one of the outcomes of the academic work I contributed to last year.  It’s all day on Friday 20th and obvs if you’re in Birmingham or thereabouts you should come along.  It’s a paid gig but rather than rush up and back down again, I’d love to take the opportunity to do something else around Brum in the week before (or maybe the week after) – so have a quick think (and maybe look at the video below about what I do) and let me know if it sparks mutually beneficial ideas.

Bristol: The annual Devoted and Disgruntled open space is the weekend before that 14th-16th and it’s in Bristol.  Now I don’t have a paid gig to hang this off but I’d really like to go.  It’s not an expensive thing but it does all add up so if there were something I could do in the Brizzle-ish area that might pay my train fare and cover or include accommodation, that would be peachy.

These are the main things I do, but you might have seen something else in my repertoire that tickles your fancy.  My fees are always reasonable and flexible!

PS Oh yes, house gigs are a definite possibility – I’ve got a bundle of new songs that I wrote at the end of last year as well as the usual ukulele bufoonery.

PPS If you’re not in Bristol or Birmingham but you’d still like to me to come and do something, don’t be shy!

 

 

video, words

vlog 161205: Missing C4CC

 

It’s cold, it’s getting darker and we need to make it easier to work together on the things that matter, removing some of the more common barriers to collaboration that you see in this city.

C4CC removed many barriers.  We worked hard to maintain that ethos of openness in the face of pressure from institutions who had other expectations of how collaboration works.  It doesn’t just happen on its own, but you can’t make it happen either.

So here I am, trudging along on a frozen football field having a bit of a think.

Bonus Link! : I’m making a Journal of Creative Collaboration via Patreon – come see!

video, words

Vlog 161116 – Part 1 – Inspiration

I went to the London Bloggers Meetup last night for the first time in a while. It was on video-blogging and as well as hearing from and meeting some interesting people, it helped me get a few ideas about my own work slotted into place. In particular it inspired me to do more of the journaling type, this is me, here and now and what I think podcast/vlog. The first one is in the works (I went for a walk and talked into the camera, that’s my style) – I’m going to try to cut it down to something watchable today and to make it a regular feature of my Steemit output. You can thank/blame Andy Bargery who runs LBM.

I went out and realised there was far more I wanted to say than could be squeezed into a three or four minute video. So I’ve still got a couple more of these in the can and I’ll work out how to release them without overwhelming you!

I realised today how awkward it feels to me to talk about inspiration – I’m always flattered and pleased when people say I’ve inspired them, but I don’t want to admit it works the other way too.

Those of you who’ve only seen me up against my living room wall with a ukulele in my hand will be gratified to see that I can move about and that I’m lucky enough to live in a lovely place (right next to the municipal tip recycling facility).

Sorry about the wind (meteorological not flatulent)

Feedback, please!

This post was originally published on Steemit a blockchain-based blogging platform that provides a micro-payment environment for authors and content-creators. If you’d like to support my work (and perhaps get paid for your own writing), pop over there, sign up, say hello and upvote my posts!