To think of...
Subscribe to this page via RSSTo make sense of – sense and sense – in the latter sense…
How often do we hear: “You have to listen to your feelings. What do you feel about that? Hod does that feel? It’s hard to express my feelings, Feelings are the most important in life. You are so rational you must use your feelings when you decide etc etc”. The word “feeling”, our sense of feeling has for a long time had a lot of meanings. The good thing is that we as human beings can use the word in a variety of situations. The bad thing is that people misunderstands and miscommunicates and most often without knowing that we do so. It probably origins from the root of the word where one root is the latin word of ‘sensus’, which amongst other things means: faculty of feeling, perception, sensation, sense; emotion. As you already notice, here’s where it tends to be indistinct or flexible depending on your presuppositions.
Our old friend Aristoteles named our senses, sight, hearing, feeling, sense of smell and taste. Today scientists argue of how many senses there are – and it’s more of a scientific fight – but most people would say that we have at least six senses if we also add the sense of balance. Sense has by the way also ‘sensus’ in its origin. In everyday situations we often mix the word ‘feeling’ with when we experience something with our senses and this can lead to misunderstandings. When we see the blue sea and hear the high sound of the waves when they come ashore, we often tend to say, when we think back to that specific situation: I felt the waves and the sea. You could have felt the waves and the sea, especially if you where there swimming, but more likely you were standing at the shore and the waves and the sea evoked memories which you expressed carelessly and said that the memories, where feelings as if you put equal sign with feelings and sensory impressions.
Feelings have evolved to be an umbrella term for all experiences which makes it hard for us human beings to grasp when we talk about our sincere feelings or when we use the word heedlessly and mean sensory impressions. It also tends to depress the other senses when we express ourselves. Just look in a daily newspaper and you find the inflation of the word. Impressions from the senses causes feelings. Impressions from the feelings are just one way of experiencing.
To put it another way, the prefix ‘syn-’ means united, acting or considered together as in: synchronise. Maybe we instead of using the word feeling – ubiquitous – we should say ‘synfeeling’ when we recieve sensory impressions which lead to experiences…
So, in which contexts do I use ‘feelings’ and when do I use the rest of my senses to express my experiences?
Leave a comment!Presupposition # 11 – To measure, or not to measure: that is the question
The prevailing norm when it comes to improvements or when setting targets is that they have to be measurable. “If you can’t measure – you can’t improve” is a statement most managers or consultants express. A question that comes to one’s mind is; where’s the origin of this presupposition? Most people doesn’t reflect upon it or question the presupposition. Of course it’s valid but to think that it’ll be valid everywhere is where it tends to be dangerous and sometimes also very wrong. One example: at the moment a giant industry; the event industry (which in this case is a wider and larger expression for the MICE-industry and also include educations) tries to find ways to measure the ROI on events. Why?
All people knows that an experience can’t be objective and if you measure things that are immeasureable, what it’s worth? Of course you can measure experiences however the result of such measures you can’t rely on in reality since unconcious processes in the human brain at the moment can’t be measured. As you notice, the last sentence which is absurd, summarise the issue in a good way.
So the questions one might pose to oneself before deciding to measure things is: “What’s the intention behind the measurement, What shall I use the results for & Can the results be valid at all?”. Another way of describing the issue is the Swedish pop group The Cardigans’ song title “For what it’s worth”. The lyrics is about relations but the title is very valid in this case!
Leave a comment!An end has a start… and it’s all about preparations
Most retirements or ends of careers are done by a speech or a press conference. Two fantastic athletes and great sportsmen and two persons who really have influenced their respective sports are Mats Sundin and Andre Agassi. Andre Agassi made a speech directly after his loss to Boris Beckers fellow countryman and namesake, Benjamin Becker in the third round of US Open in 2006.
Mats Sundin held a press conference late september 2009 when he announced his retirement. Please watch the different ways these two fantastic players decided to end their careers. Mats Sundin’s press conference is in Swedish although you can grasp the essence by watching the first minute and reflect upon his body language.
Do they have the same intentions with their speeches?
Why do you remember one ahead of the other?
Leave a comment!Presentations
We meet more people than ever. We are in meetings more than ever. We present things more than ever. Albeit these facts there are probably no other area within organisations, where small changes can lead to huge improvements. Cause one thing is for sure; we don’t present better today than we did 50 years ago – although all technical aid we have!
One simple presupposition to start with is what has become a misinterpretation. We call Key Note, Powerpoint and similar programs for speaker aid. It isn’t. It is an aid for the audience to understand the messages the speaker has. If we all start by changing our vocabulary, our mindsets will also eventually change and we might not need to experience all detailed, busy slides with too much information, that we do every day in every organisation – all over the world.
So, what’s the main reason with my next presentation (to inform, to affect, to please)?
What’s the intention of the presentation?
How do I show that?
Leave a comment!Presupposition # 10 – The Stockholm Syndrome
The Stockholm Syndrome refers back to the robbery of Kreditbanken at Norrmalmstorg in the centre of Stockholm. The event took place from August 23 to August 28 1973. The bank robbers held the bank employees hostage and the victims became emotionally attached to their captors, and even defended them after they were freed from their six-day night mare. Since then it’s called the Stockholm Syndrom when the hostage shows signs of loyalty to the hostage-taker.
Wyatt Cenac from The Daily Show traveled in April 2009 to Stockholm to test the hypothesis of ”Sweden – the socialist nightmare” which was based on the presupposition (something tacitly assumed beforehand) that it’s difficult to live in Sweden. Watch the two episodes where he desparately seeks support for his presuppositions. During the first one he amongst others visits Scania Trucks and pop star Robyn’s place. In the second part he meets a former Swedish minister and Bjorn Ulvaeus from Abba.
Great reports and lots of fun.
Leave a comment!Isomorphism # 4 – The Mantis Shrimp
It’s not the first time that the human race copy ingenious situations or cases from nature (e.g. velcro), but it’s probably the first time mankind borrow ideas from the mantis shrimp. The mantis shrimp lives on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and it has the most complex vision systems known to science. The eyes of the shrimp can help mankind to make better optical devices in the future using liquid crystals that have been chemically engineered to mimic the properties of the cells in the mantis shrimp’s eye.
Are there situations, cases or phenomenons in my ordinary life where I can mimic things from nature?
Leave a comment!Climate change – presuppositions and intentions
October 24 is proclaimed by the organisation 350 as an international day of climate action. The 350 organisation drives an international campaign to build a movement to unite the world around solutions for changing the climate. The figure 350 comes from the parts per million limit for CO2 in the atmosphere. Parts per million is one way of measuring the concentration of different gases, and means the ratio of the number of carbon dioxide molecules to all of the molecules in the atmosphere. According to the organisation our atmosphere contained 275 parts per million of carbon dioxide back in the beginning of the 19th century and nowadays the planet has 390 parts per million CO2, and it’s rising by about 2 parts per million every year.
This year they succeeded to gather people in more than 180 countries for more than 5000 events on October 24.
How powerful are our presuppositions and intentions when changing the climate?
Intention: To cause scenes
Improv Everywhere has been around since 2001 with the simple and clever intention to give people cool stories to tell, summarised in “we cause scenes”. They have done so by creating different events from fake U2 concerts to get people to not wear pants on the NY subway. You’ll find almost all pranks on the website below.
No rules, no corporate values, no corporate strategies, no hierarchies but a movement soon spread all over the world with just; a clear intention.
Leave a comment!The Fun theory – Visual and auditive creativity
We all know that we’re not moving enough every day. We all know we can contribute more to achieve a sustainable world. We also know that it’s the small steps we all do in our everyday life that really make impact. Do most of us change our habits? No.
Some creative persons in Sweden have been thinking of this and the factor of fun was missing according to them when they created this campaign for VW; ‘Blue Motion’. Together with our visual and auditive sense they have produced some real astonishing and creative ways which really changes peoples behaviour from how we reclaim glass bottles to how we take the stairs instead of the escalator. If it’s a lasting change – we don’t know but it probably is – and it really doesn’t matter cause it hopefully inspires to thoughtfulness in other areas (isomorphism) also. Watch the videos below and just think of where you can make changes in your everyday life.
Leave a comment!Beds are burning – tck tck tck
The climate meeting in Copenhagen will be a meeting people refer to irrespective of the results, since there are a lot of expectations for the summit. Over the years there have been lots of different mucic projects – with mixed results – where famous artists gather to raise awareness for a specific issue. This is the case for Copenhagen 09 also but this time the artists have chosen an already known song with a strong political message and symbolic. At the closing ceremony in the Olympics 2000 in Sydney, Midnight Oil performed the song all dressed in black with “sorry” printed on their shirts.The song is “Beds are burning” from 1987. Originally it’s about giving native Australian lands back, but it has been remixed and re-phrased to suit this purpose. The video itself is really worth watching even though you don’t like or sympathise with the message. Watch it and just reflect upon it!
Leave a comment!