The Conversation Factory

For this episode, I did a 30 minute coaching call with a friend of a friend that turned into a wonderful and transformational hour! Phil is a talented photographer and entrepreneur, and we spent a good section of our time looking at what conversations in this life are functional and which are missing something. He's part of solid men's group, so we use design principles from that experience to reframe how his less functional patterns are working.

As he says in the opening, part of the change was using the tools of conversation design to map friction points in his conversations with women over relationships and work to shift that conversational pattern in three ways:

One, to have the conversation he's avoiding sooner. (time)

Two, to generate multiple ways to open up that conversation.  We talk about how to "Open up" a dialogue in the most conscious, empathetic and energizing way (not to force it) and to generate multiple openings for challenging conversations to find a space that feels authentic, empathetic and effective. (ideation)

Three, to find a way to continue to converse with as much comfort and regularity with women as he does with men. (pattern)

In essence, we're talking about Rhythm. Or the technical term is Prosody:

"THE SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF METRICAL STRUCTURE, THE RHYTHMIC AND INTONATIONAL ASPECT OF LANGUAGE"

The one physical aspect of your central nervous system you can control is breath...the depth and frequency of your breathing. When you're in stress, regulating your breathing can transform that state. Just like the pace of breathing, pace and depth is an important part of a conversation that you can control: both the frequency of responses IN communication and speed OF communication.

One clear outcome of our conversation was that just like he'll go to his men's group every Monday, whether he feels like it or not, he has to make a *date* with himself to consider if he's being honest with himself and open with others. Can you make a date with yourself to consider whatever topics are critical to your own personal conversation?

At about the halfway point we shift to his ambitions in photography and his resistance to owning his ambition. We talk about incremental conversations versus a paradigm shifting conversation: Playing chess vs Sweeping the pieces of the board and creating your own type of greatness. Making the conversation on your own terms, rather than playing by the rules. (see episode 006 with Sara Holoubek where we talk about accepting/rejecting trends and I talk about non-complimentarity)

Enjoy the session! And it you'd like to have a conversation with me, just reach out on the coaching page. Show links are below.

Dave Bohm on Dialogue: Shared Pool of Meaning

" Participants [in a dialogue] find that they are involved in an ever changing and developing pool of common meaning."

http://www.david-bohm.net/dialogue/dialogue_proposal.html

Morning pages and journaling

https://www.amazon.com/Artists-Way-Spiritual-Higher-Creativity/dp/1585421464

http://juliacameronlive.com/basic-tools/morning-pages/

https://www.amazon.com/Five-Minute-Journal-Happier-Minutes/dp/0991846206

Cave Day/Deep Work

http://www.caveday.org/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00X47ZVXM

Episode 006: Sara Holoubek on Human Companies and Solving Problems that Matter

http://theconversationfactory.com/podcast/2017/4/17/sara-holoubek-on-human-companies-and-solving-problems-that-matter

Invisibilia: Flip the Script (non-complimentarity)

http://www.npr.org/programs/invisibilia/485603559/flip-the-script

Natural Cycles Model of Creativity

https://twitter.com/dastillman/status/854452090634108928

Today I talk with Dave Gray Author of Gamestorming and his new book,     Liminal Thinking. We kick things off with a Zen story and dig into why Dave wrote this new book. We hit on a wide range of topics from the nitty gritty of facilitating group conversations to organizational change being fueled more by emotion than reason. Dave's books have always opened new pathways in my brain, so I hope you enjoy unpacking some of the lessons inside with me.

One of the reasons I pulled the opening quote about drawing is that it's without a doubt the most powerful way to transform ANY conversation. Most conversations have one interface: the air. Once it's past your eardrums, I have *no* idea what's really going on inside someone's head! Drawing makes sure there's a tangible record...hell, a paper trail, of our conversation, what we've agreed to, what is in or out of the conversation. A few months ago now I helped my mom and dad work out some scenarios around selling their house and moving someplace else. Me and my brother, together with my folks, generated as many options as we could: They move, and rent out their big house, they sell it all and rent something else, they sell and buy and so on...we made a big poster for each option and then stuck up comments on each, using a format called "Rose, Thorn Bud"...which not to be too meta, is also a conversation design: We could have just done plusses and minuses, we could have done a SWOT analysis on each...but Rose Thorn Bud (which is from the boy scouts of america) is a kind of "friendly" design for conversational analysis.

We used different colors for Rose Thorn Bud, a trick I learned from teaching design thinking with the LUMA institute...and after our meeting we had a visual heatmap of how the whole family felt about all the options on the table. It really helped my folks step back from the confusion of choice and get some clarity about the steps ahead. And it helped my mom realize that she and my dad haven't tried living in enough other places to make a choice about living somewhere else...and that they ought to figure that out before they sell.

That, in essence, is Dave's point about drawing making a series of triangulations for a conversation. Rather than one person trying to hold all those points in mind, we used color and space to do it for us...a board for each future for my parents, and a map of each future.

Another point Dave makes towards the end that I want to highlight about conversation design...when I'm designing a group workshop, the question of size and time comes up. He talks about watching people at parties, and how 3-5 people can "hold" together pretty naturally...but at 6-8 it splits, unless there's someone holding it together, someone famous, magnetic or especially entertaining. There's some math there, just like how paper increases the points of triangulation to give clarity. If 4 people generate 3-5 post-its that's about 20 stickies, and lot's of possible combinations as they try to discuss and organize them all...if you add just one more person, that's 25% increase in raw information...and increases the combination possibilities exponentially. To expect that group to process the increased information in the same period of time is just unfair! That's where a facilitator can help, by making a first action clearer (and taking some options off the table) or by giving more time, a clearer organizational framework, making the stickies all contain the same types or categories of content, or by making sure the group sizes are all consistent. On the face, conversation design for group work can seem so fuzzy, but I feel like there's a lot of quantitative thinking and actual MATH that goes on beneath it.

Dave Gray

Gamestorming

http://gamestorming.com

Liminal Thinking

http://liminalthinking.com/

zen flesh zen bones

https://www.amazon.com/Zen-Flesh-Bones-Collection-Writings/dp/0804831866

Power in organizations

https://www.amazon.com/Power-Organizations-Jeffrey-Pfeffer/dp/0273016393

Finite and infinite games

https://www.amazon.com/Finite-Infinite-Games-James-Carse/dp/1476731713/r

Morning pages and journaling

https://www.amazon.com/Artists-Way-Spiritual-Higher-Creativity/dp/1585421464

http://juliacameronlive.com/basic-tools/morning-pages/

https://www.amazon.com/Five-Minute-Journal-Happier-Minutes/dp/0991846206

Monkeys watching monkeys

http://www.apa.org/monitor/oct05/mirror.aspx

Candid Camera Video of elevator conformity

http://www.openculture.com/2016/11/the-power-of-conformity-1962-episode-of-candid-camera-reveals-the-psychology-of-riding-elevators.html

Today I talk with Luminary Labs CEO and founder Sara Holubek. Luminary Labs is a really unique company that both consults with companies on strategy and also helps run massive open innovation programs for organizations. We talk about working on problems that matter, on how humans have always been more nuanced than marketers and how companies need to be creating Intelligence Engines.

One of the things that Sara helped me think about is an idea i've been noodling with about Complimentarity vs. Non-Complimentarity. How in situations, you have really only these two choices: to go with or against the current tide. Sara helped me see that the conversation between a company and the culture it's in is very similar to the conversation two people might have! Companies face that choice, too. Only, too many companies choose to go along with trends or not...not intentionally, but mostly unintentionally.  And that's the thing about design: everything is designed,  either well, or poorly, intentionally or unintentionally. Sara clearly helps companies and the people in them be more intentional about their work.

 In trying to re-design a conversation you're in,  you can shift patterns by consciously pushing with or against them. David Bohm tells a great story  about this in "On Dialogue"...a psychologist was treating a young girl who wouldn't talk to anybody. After an hour of fruitless attempts, he was exasperated and said "why won't you talk to me?"

"because I hate you" she countered: She was pushing *back* on his energy, you see?

So he asked "how long will you hate me?"

she said "I'll hate you forever"

Then he kept with it, taking the logic further "how long will you hate me forever?"

Somehow, this broke the spell and the little girl laughed. He kept questioning her refusal... somehow, taking it seriously helped shift it.

What is that behavior? He somehow accepted what was happening with the little girl, but questioning it in the right way, shifted the conversation.

I learned about non-complimentarity from Invisibilia, an *awesome* podcast from NPR. I'll link the episode in the notes: in the show opening they talk about a group of people drinking wine in their back yard who get help up at gunpoint. They tell the robber they have nothing, so they offer him a glass of wine instead...which flips the whole script of getting robbed. Spoiler alert: it ends in a group hug. Enjoy that episode from Invisibilia and enjoy this episode, too! I hope you learn something about redesigning conversations for your own context...

LINKS

Luminary labs

http://www.luminary-labs.com/

David Bohm on Dialoue:

https://books.google.com/books?id=MGGF_oF_aY0C&pg=PA39&lpg=PA39&dq=david+bohm+hate+forever&source=bl&ots=XLd7-M0_C-&sig=KIsBqx0ZloNlZXzXhu3LC2S3jMw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiu7sunzKTTAhVnw4MKHX8tB0AQ6AEIJzAB#v=onepage&q=david%20bohm%20hate%20forever&f=false

Invisibilia: Flip the Script

http://www.npr.org/programs/invisibilia/485603559/flip-the-script

Toothpaste Medium Article

https://byrslf.co/the-problems-that-matter-21b627876a64

Gartner Hype Cycle

http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3412017

The Human Company Playbook

http://www.humancompanyplaybook.com/manifesto/

Makers and Takers

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B014BR46P2/

Danny Meyer

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000OI0FCQ

EdSim Challenge

https://www.edsimchallenge.com/

Avoiding the 20 Million Dollar Mistake:

http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/delighting-in-the-possible

RAT vs MVP

https://hackernoon.com/the-mvp-is-dead-long-live-the-rat-233d5d16ab02?gi=b951b664673e

Today's Episode is a bit...unusual. My friend Gabe Gloge is interviewing me, so I'll be yapping a lot more than normal! His company, CultivateMe, helps organizations become learning organizations by breaking jobs into skills...and we try to do this for some conversation design skills!  We talk about how to break down engagements into discrete steps, tools and triggers, how a reflective practice accumulates benefits over time and how mathematical reasoning figures in all this. Enjoy!

Show Links

CultivateMe

http://cultivateme.xyz/

Kanban

http://bit.ly/kanbanimages

Dave Grey

http://www.Gamestorming.com

Liminal Thinking

http://liminalthinking.com/

Persona Profiles

https://twitter.com/dastillman/status/840605112930324480

http://mw2013.museumsandtheweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/mitroff.fig2_.jpg

Excel Timeline example

http://bit.ly/excelrunofshow

The Tick: On Counting Syllables Vs Writing a Haiku

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM_r6XCRfXE&t=4m35s

Cultivate.me in action

http://bit.ly/cultivatediagram

Agile Story Estimation

http://bit.ly/agileestimation

Johari Window

http://bit.ly/thejohariwindow

l

The Learning Organization

http://bit.ly/learningorgbook

David Whyte's 3 Marriages

http://bit.ly/threemarriages

Active Listening Script

http://bit.ly/activelisteningscript

LUMA Workplace

http://bit.ly/lumaworkplace

Inductive/Deductive/Abductive reasoning

http://bit.ly/threereasonings

Today I talk with Sarah Gallivan Mitchell, Product Owner of in-car interfaces at Faraday Future, a company focused on the development of intelligent electric vehicles.

Sarah is an Ace product designer and it was a lot of fun to talk with her about her work through the lens of conversation design. We touch on some big questions, like “How can software be sincere?” and “What’s the difference between manipulation and Modulation?” And “Why you shouldn’t listen to all of your users all of the time”

Show Notes

Sarah’s IxD17 Talk:

Talk  slides are here:

http://bit.ly/unicornhardwareslides

And content is here:

http://bit.ly/unicornhardwarecontent

Ixd17 link (video to come)

http://bit.ly/ixd17link

Faraday Futures

https://www.ff.com/

Crossing the Chasm

http://bit.ly/crossingchasms

Death Talk from IxD17

http://interaction17.ixda.org/session/spark-talks/

Agile Introduction

http://bit.ly/agilereadinglist

Active Listening

http://bit.ly/activelisteningscript

Kanban

http://bit.ly/personalkanban101

The Easy Hard Problems:

http://bit.ly/easyhardproblems

Paul Pangaro’s IxD17 Talk

http://bit.ly/conversationinterface

I first met Leland when he was giving a talk at SVA’s Design Criticism Program back in 2010 and he referenced “Finite and Infinite Games” by James Carse...I knew, right then and there, that we had to be friends!

Lee is the Chief Creative officer at Chobani, which Fast Company rated in the top 10 most innovative companies in the world. When I met him, he was one of the Founders of Collins, an agency that Forbes tapped in 2016 as an agency defining the future of brand building.

We had a wide ranging conversation where we tried to find a theory of change: can you only harness trends and follow patterns, or can you create the future? We also discuss how companies need to digest chaos and turn it into Creativity and Action through balancing volume of ideas captured, velocity of ideas turned into opportunities and maintaining a Variety of ideas in the mix. I hope you enjoy listening to Lee as much as i enjoy talking with him!

Links and Notes:

Eight Flavors, by Sarah Lohman

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/nyregion/sarah-lohman-four-pounds-flour.html

http://www.npr.org/2016/12/15/505751272/eight-flavors-the-untold-story-of-american-cuisine

Innovation through features vs The Jobs to be Done Framework

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kjcx87JmhvM

Finite and Infinite Games

https://www.amazon.com/Finite-Infinite-Games-James-Carse/dp/1476731713

IxD17 Users versus Owners (video not posted yet!)

http://interaction17.ixda.org/session/chelsea-mauldin-keynote-tbd/

Sketch notes at https://twitter.com/dastillman/status/839189078352486400

Reinventing Instagram:

http://www.recode.net/2017/1/23/14205686/instagram-product-launch-feature-kevin-systrom-weil

Harvard Negotiation Project and classes

http://www.pon.harvard.edu/category/research_projects/harvard-negotiation-project/

Other book mentioned:

https://www.amazon.com/Never-Split-Difference-Negotiating-Depended-ebook/dp/B014DUR7L2

On Improv:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_(improvisation)

Rejection vs Acceptance vs. Creation

https://www.amazon.com/Harold-Purple-Crayon-Books/dp/0064430227

https://www.amazon.com/Where-Wild-Things-Maurice-Sendak/dp/0060254920

On VUCA:

https://hbr.org/2014/01/what-vuca-really-means-for-you

On cherry blossoms and cradle-to-cradle-design

https://www.ted.com/talks/william_mcdonough_on_cradle_to_cradle_design

My whole life is waiting for the questions to which I have prepared answers.

- TOM STOPPARD , ENGLISH DRAMATIST

"

This episode was fun! I love Abby Covert, she’s a delight to talk with. It was interesting editing this episode because I could see it was more of a *conversation* than an *interview*...as opposed to episode one with Phil McKenzie, just from the waveforms.

Abby is an Information Architecture rock star, and you’ll learn more about her in the episode.

We talk about How much my mother loves her book “How to make sense of any mess”, how to really plan research to reduce bias and how to hold the space for problem framing versus problem solving.

Visit her at http://abbytheia.com/ and check out her book http://www.howtomakesenseofanymess.com/

My Guest today is Philip McKenzie, the co-host of 2 Dope Boys and a Podcast, a biweeekly podcast on trends and cultural insight. Philip is best described as a polymath.He’s a former Domestic Equity Trader for Goldman Sachs and He is a writer, rabid music fan and…. an accomplished DJ!

Today We talk about Consistency and Authenticity in Conversations between brands and the fans they seek to connect with, how companies need focus on long-term thinking, not short term gains and on growth as a false model for our times.

Phillip’s Podcast can be found at:

http://www.twodopeboyspod.com/philip-mckenzie/

A critique of mindfulness:

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/the-pbg-and-the-false-promise-of-mindfulness/

On rethinking everything currently made by Ursula Le Guin:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/20/ursula-k-le-guin-national-book_n_6188922.html

Timestamp where it gets interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et9Nf-rsALk&t=4m0s