Massimo Curatella

Category: Posts

  • How to take a digital note, webinar by Tiago Forte

    How to take a digital note, webinar by Tiago Forte

    Live Notes, updated on 30 March 2020

    I was taking notes during the webinar. Enjoy.
    Now with the video recording, embedded.

    Introduces himself.

    Introduces Digital note taking aka Personal Knowledge Management.

    Gives basics of Zoom.

    He will collect notes and distribute after.

    Encourages to turn webcams on.

    What is the moment that you decide to take a note?

    What, How, Why

    What to take a digital note of

    1. Inspiring (for me in the future?)
      1. For instance a TESTIMONIAL notebook to be picked up
    2. Useful
      1. Source, building block, tools
      2. Use best practices to not reinvent things pre-existing
    3. Easily lost
      1. Things unlikely to find in the future? (uses questions to set criteria)
    4. Personal
      1. Unique, hard-won knowledge worth revisiting over the years

    Types of digital notes

    Tiago shows a table of content for a sample of his notes in about two months

    1. Marketing assets
      1. Everybody needs to be in marketing for their interests. Things which are difficult to come up with yourself.
      2. Example: testimonial, case studies, list of top features,
    2. Mementos
      1. Keeping track of interesting events about your work.
      2. Example: your top selling book in amazon
    3. Reference/record-keeping
      1. Practical and utilitarian
      2. Workaround for publishing ebooks on Amazon internationally
      3. E-Mail template messages
    4. New content
      1. Ex: Ideas inspiring new articles
    5. Re-purposed content
      1. Content produced as reactions to interactions online to be reused.
      2. “Content can be infinitely re-purposed”. Avoid starting from scratch, for instance when moving from one medium to another.
      3. Ex: Top Posts coming from actual community preference.
      4. Most frequently asked questions.
    6. Favorites
      1. Instapaper favorites sync-ed
    7. Call/meeting notes
      1. Interesting and useful things from calls.
    8. Contributions of others
      1. People’s contribution, feedback, revisions, comments
    9. Language to borrow
      1. Capturing the way an idea is expressed
      2. Language can and should be re-purposed
    10. Helpful models
      1. Best practices ready to be applied.
      2. Ex. an email to send when a client purchases a course, to be re-purposed for my course. Model here is more a template.
      3. Spreadsheet to keep track of podcast publishing schedule.
    11. Placeholders
      1. Empty spaces preparing for future content
    12. Research/inspiration
      1. Early stage of note taking. You read something and you don’t think when and if it will be useful. Put here anything that resonates with you.
    13. Planning/Reorganization
      1. Ex: analyzing topics of article published and turning them to tags in the blog.
    14. Preparation/Agenda
      1. Key questions for an interview.
    Tiago Forte Presenting Digital Note Taking
    Tiago Forte.

    Tiago takes questions

    Mentions P.A.R.A. system

    Which Note Taking app to use?

    Difference between paper and digital notes

    Capturing, identifying, titling, citing, searching, linking, indexing, moving, sharing. Most of it has been automated in digital. Can you do the same on paper?

    Automation allows a more fluid and fast-paced writing workflow. Integrating different services providing sources allow to make notes to converge in a consistent manner.

    Tags allow to describe content to improve search-ability.

    Linking: rather than referring to a numerical id, “links” in digital are actual working links. Sames for index. See TOC in Evernote, for instance.

    Easily moving notes between notebooks without breaking links and losing metadata.

    Demo: Ebook highlights in Kindle

    Shows how to create an highlight to be shared via email. If you send it to a special email address (for instance in Evernote) it get automatically added to your notes.

    Demo: Online Articles

    When on your mobile phone you can, for instance, save it in Instapaper and in the Read Later app you can easily read saved articles (even in dark mode, easier on the eyes). With IFTTT you can integrate “read later” apps with your “note taking” apps to gather all highlights into your notes.

    Demo: Webpage and Liner

    Select interesting parts of a web page you are browsing and with Liner you can synchronized them with your notes.

    DEMO: PDF Highlights

    Similarly, highlight with your favorite PDF reader and share the selected highlights to save them into your digital notes. Searching, you’ll be able to get back to the source.

    Readwise allows to do time-spaced reading of your notes.

    An ecosystem of tools

    Tiago shows a suite of different categories of tools to acquire, read, manage and save notes.

    Reflections

    Allowing potential combination of pieces of information to enhance creativity.

    Reviewing notes? Do not. Just retrieve them only when you have a specific context of use.

    Tools mentioned: Evernote, Notion, GoodNotes, Notability, etc. Difference between drawing apps and note taking apps, they serve different purposes.

    Your Second Brain is an entire constellation of apps. It is not just ONE software. Do not use one piece of software. You need to use your most suitable combination of digital and analogue tools.

    Why Note Taking?

    Information overload deserve to be replaced with “Information Exhaustion“. See “How Emotion Are Made“: information has physical effects, it can have direct biological impact to your body. It comes down to your quality of life.

    Every day we consume a huge amount of information. And it is increasing about 3% per year. source UC San Diego, 2014.

    FOMI: Fear Of Missing Information. So much of our life happens online and it is not realistic to abstain from technology. Similar sound to the word for “Hunger” in Portuguese.

    What is the mindset of a curator?

    Instead of having the information from outside to hit your brain directly, you create a filter between the outside world and your mind. So you strategically engage with information only when and if you need to.

    Shifting attention from public to private, from novel to timeless, from sensational to subtle, from consuming to digesting (publishing, sharing and collaborating).

    Digital Abstinence?

    Better using the metaphor of information as food. What food/information to consume? When? How can you get the right “nutrients” from the better sources?

    Building a Second Brain, The Course

    Learn more about Building a Second Brain

    Tiago’s publicly share Evernote notebook

    Gettings Things Done (GTD) deals with actionable information, while BASB deals with any other type of information.

    Zettelkasten and Daniel Luhmann

    Notes as intellectual assets to nurture the network and compound effect.

    Right intention but people tends to be too much fixated with the execution.

    The Webinar report by Tiago.

  • I don’t want everything to go back to the way it was.

    I don’t want everything to go back to the way it was.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf6A_y-LFaA

    When it’s over, I don’t want everything to go back to the way it was.

    I don’t want to go back to clog the streets.
    I don’t want to go back to invading the skies, to plunder the seas, to wear out the earth.
    I don’t want to go back to health to breathe sick air.

    I don’t want to waste time in traffic or waiting for public transport, meeting indifferent glances as if sadness were common life.

    I don’t want to go back to a male-sized world that made the rest of humanity “the others, the last, the different”.
    I don’t want to go back to a performing society that is afraid to stop in order not to lose an unsustainable record.
    I don’t want to go back to a fast time, which no longer dances with the cyclical nature of women and nature.

    And I don’t want to, I certainly don’t want to go back to a world of grown-ups.
    I want to be in a small world for children, where life is an infinite possibility to play without leaving anyone on the sidelines.
    Where nobody is another’s game but everyone is played and brings joy and their difference to make us learn.

    I want a world that changes the rules of being together to keep everyone, absolutely everyone in.
    You too who feel ignored. And you, who think you are defeated.

    I want a shrewd world where things are made for the most sensitive and before making an important gesture, ask themselves: will it bring more love? Will it hurt, especially the most defenseless?

    I no longer want to go back to mass society, with mass tourism, mass consumerism, and mass culture.

    I want a whole fragmented world.
    I want a mosaic, where each one is a slow and precious fragment, and where there is no need for bars or bans to notice the grace of this springtime.

    —Giorgia Vezzoli, 21 March 2020

    Thanks to Giorgia, the author, for allowing me to translate her work.

  • Workshop Design methods, Discovery and Ideation

    Workshop Design methods, Discovery and Ideation

    How do you facilitate Collective Intelligence?

    How I used facilitation tools and techniques to organize and deliver a series of workshops for the Observatory on the Dialogue in the Agrifood System (OsservAgro).

    Series Navigation
    Collective Intelligence Design and Facilitation

    OsservAgro has the goal of promoting a collective reflection process on the relationships between science and society by involving all agri-food system’ stakeholders: knowledge builders, businesses, knowledge mediators, decision-makers, and civil society.

    Collective Intelligence is the emergent phenomenon created by people collaborating. They co-design possible solutions to the complex problems they discover through cooperation. Co-creation leads to more inclusive and systemic solutions that are more robust, sustainable and long-lasting.

    How to design a workshop?

    A Co-Design Workshop requires these elements:

    • a Sponsor and/or a client which decide the purpose of the workshop;
    • one or more facilitators who are put in charge by the Sponsor to organize and deliver the workshop;
    • a facilitation plan, including a vision and specific objectives;
    • a location or an online facility where to hold the event;
    • technical equipment and resources;
    • participants invited to attend the workshop.

    As a facilitator, you need to adopt an adaptive and iterative design approach. You have to learn about the objectives that sponsors want to achieve, so that you can plan and design together with them the actual structured activities to be facilitated during the workshop.

    Workshop Design Phases

    Usually, I divide the workshop design work into four phases:

    1. Discovery
    2. Ideation
    3. Delivery
    4. Reflection.

    This breakdown of steps has a lot of similarities with the design thinking process, the Human-Centered Design framework, the Service design process or the Lean Startup model in the business field.

    It is based on Strategic Design and it is inspired by many of the principles you can find in: Systems Thinking and Critical Thinking.

    Second-order thinking is another approach laying at the base of a robust Workshop Design strategy. It requires reflecting critically about how facilitators, sponsors, organizers and the same participants are acquiring knowledge to see if you need to adapt your plans according to what you have discovered through action.

    The Discovery Phase

    Information gathering

    If it is your first workshop, you will need to meet Sponsors and organizers to understand as much as possible of their world. While you need to be a deep listener, you will have on the one hand to write down and have a shared agreement on the final objectives, on the other hand, you need to help them to clarify those objectives in a non-ambiguous and feasible way. Your role as a facilitator is already starting when you work with the organizers on day 1.

    (Users) Participants Research

    The facilitator needs to work as a Designer following the Human-Centred Design principles. We need to create tools, services, and co-design workshops that are solving the real problems of our stakeholders. While this requires, usually, extra effort in the Design Research phase which could increase the required budget and competencies of the designer/facilitator, it is also very difficult to access the intended audience.

    Many social innovation workshops are open to the public and not strictly planned in terms of the profile for the people invited. It becomes very difficult, due to time and resources constraints, to interact with the workshop attendees with the intention of building a more tailored workshop for all of their needs.

    There are several alternatives, from the very approximate and improvised ones (interviewing the sponsors, doing stealth guerrilla research, proto-Personas, etc)  to the more radical and blocking (refusing to work for an unknown public!).

    I was never able to do proper research and my best strategy has always been the following: never assume anything or, even better, always assume the worst possible scenario.

    The Ideation Phase

    Strategy and Planning

    The craft of deciding how to actually organize the time in a room with participants is leaning more on the art side of things rather than science. You are dealing with people so you need to take into consideration the complexity of a group of complex organisms organized to create a synergistic mind to be more intelligent than just one of them. Yes, the ingredients are there, and experience helps but as it happens for the best cooks it is only when you have a wide range of facilitation tools available, good raw matter (the people!) and a clear vision, that you can aim at great success.

    If you are preparing a workshop after the first one in a series, you will need to take into consideration any useful insights you have discovered during the previously facilitated events. This is where, in the Iterative Design approach, you apply the Adaptive Design mindset to facilitate the emergence of the final outcome most wanted by your group of stakeholders.

    Using insights from previous workshops the designers refine and adapt the goals and the delivery plan to accommodate hints and suggestions.

    You are building upon the feedback and the insights and the lessons learned from the previous workshop and you adapt your strategy and your plan in the structure of your delivery for the next workshop.

    Define the Objectives

    You need to transform requirements, needs and wants into objectives.

    When it’s impossible to define a specific set of knowledge or skills that will be obtained by participants, the facilitator needs to negotiate, at least, the general aims or artifacts the Sponsor wants to get.

    In OsservAgro’s case, there was the strongly declared aim of writing a Manifesto for the movement and a scientific publication illustrating the method and the outcomes. This was the North Star for me, as the facilitator, to drive choices and allocate resources. It was particularly useful to define the agenda for each workshop while keeping the continuity of all the design phases. I was lucky to work with clear-minded people: be very careful when you are not able to agree upon clear objectives for your workshops, it can lead you to chaos.

    Content design and knowledge

    During the preparation phase for the facilitator might be difficult to deal with new knowledge-domains, and new terminology, but this should not be the main concern for the facilitator because they are not supposed to be subject matter experts. Facilitators need to become effective collaborators by creating a synergy with the organizers in a way that they trust them and vice-versa. It’s difficult to design and deliver a workshop if there is not a solid trust relationship established since the very beginning.

    The Agenda: Designing the Structured Activities

    The Workshop Outline is the most important design tool for a workshop. A facilitator must use it as the single-source-of-truth establishing the written plan to reach the workshops’ objectives.

    Sometimes you can be explicit and take the Learning Outcome concept from the training field as a design tool. But most of the time it is impossible to state, clearly, upfront, what “by the end of this workshop participants will know…”, know what?

    We are gathering to discover together what we want to know more of, it’s difficult in these cases to state it upfront.

    According to the difficulty and the ambition and the scope of the workshop, you might need a number of preparation sessions. Sometimes, a lot of them. In my experience, I tend to work from 1 hour to one day for each actual hour of facilitation. This is one of the difficult and hidden aspects to communicate to the outside world. That is why the session design should be participatory.

    The facilitator is already starting to work since the first meeting with the sponsors and the organizers. They are more designers facilitating the process of co-designing together. Although there is less pressure for going fast and quick or having to respect specific constraints, so you are more free-flowing, the facilitator still needs to work as a designer having the goal of preparing the workshop. Especially if you need to be ready before the delivery date to support promotion activities start to prepare learning materials.

    This phase needs to be managed as a real production process. The more you iterate, the more you’re able to reach your workshop with well-crafted sessions with very clear instructions enabling participants to give their best contributions towards the workshop’s goals.

    How to collaborate

    It’s very important to establish an environment of collaboration with a very open bi-directional communication channel, between the facilitator and the sponsors.

    It is called co-design because the workshops are created together. Not only the participants are working collectively to pursue the workshop’s aims, but the Workshop Design is also collaborative and it needs to include, as much as possible, a representative group of all stakeholders. The facilitator is the orchestrator and the lead designer of the co-creation process.

    The mood and the environment between the facilitator and the organizers need to be very smooth and the right place where everybody can be included in the preparation phase.

    Not only everybody can be creative but the facilitator has the important responsibility of promoting the focused creativity of all the people involved.

    While it is important to know how to combine different design and facilitation tools with the right timing, for the right people in the right way, (un)fortunately, there are infinite ways to prepare the recipe for a successful workshop. It’s like preparing to go into the field where you must have a plan but you also need to be ready to improvise. This is something that lies on the shoulders of the facilitator because they need to be ready in a redundant and conservative way about the many areas that can be faulty.

    The facilitator’s role

    During the delivery, the facilitator is not participating at all in the structured activities. A facilitator is responsible for:

    • leading the dialogue
    • timing
    • promoting the resolution of disputes
    • negotiating debates

    And, the facilitator has a very important goal on top of all the others that is to bring the results home. The facilitator needs to do whatever is in their capabilities to reach the final objective negotiated with the organizer during the preparation phase.

    In these regards, the facilitator needs to be a project manager, a coach, an organizer of the communication flows, and then needs to be the director of this Little Big Show that is going to happen in a collective way during the workshop.

    From this point of view, it can be something really exciting. At the same time, you need to be able to get under a certain level of control of all of those aspects and be ready to improvise and cover any lack, or of any issue that will inevitably arise and still aim at creating the best possible outcome.

    Learning experience design for social innovation

    In the end, you are preparing a learning experience for a certain number of people that are going to learn, open themselves with others, discuss, work together in order to face some complex challenges. We’re talking about facing world hunger, improving the adoption process internationally, reducing the hazard of specialized workers in the heavy industries or in the healthcare or in the finance world or working in the field of social innovation in which you want to empower both the common citizens as well as scientists with the tools of clear communication with the final goal of facing problems as sustainability. The previous are some instances where I had the chance to facilitate workshops.

    Keep following curatella.com to read about the next Workshop Design phases: Delivery and Reflection.

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    Collective Intelligence Design and Facilitation

  • Facilitating Collective Intelligence for the Sustainability of Agri-food

    Facilitating Collective Intelligence for the Sustainability of Agri-food

    My experience as a facilitator of five workshops, during the years 2018-2019, for the Observatory on the Dialogue in the Agri-food System (OsservAgro).

    Series Navigation
    Collective Intelligence Design and Facilitation

    Only shared decisions are effective in the long-term

    It’s in historical moments like this that we need to think more about creating better futures. You need to act in advance to build a network of change agents that could work collectively in creating better futures. This is the main reason why I worked passionately and with great fun with the organizers of the Osservatorio sul Dialogo nell’Agroalimentare (Observatory on the Dialogue in the Agrifood System). We leveraged on the Collective Intelligence for envisioning together better futures for the systems of food and agriculture.

    A co-design session during a workshop for the Sustainability of Agri-Food Systems.
    One of the Co-Design Workshops I have facilitated for OsservAgro.

    I was the lead Collective Intelligence Facilitator for five participatory workshops held by the Observatory. I had a great learning experience with them. I met smart and wise people: scientists, researchers, teachers, communicators, managers, opinion leaders, event organizers, activists, common people, and facilitators. We investigated the stakeholders, we mapped the systems of their relationships and we ideated a better future for our Society by identifying a Vision, a Mission, and practical objectives to take action upon.

    What is OsservAgro?

    The Observatory on the Dialogue in the Agrifood System Observatory (Osservatorio sul Discorso nell’Agroalimentare) has been founded in early 2018 by:

    The key persons I worked with made a difference in how the movement has been organized and the opportunities they’ve created during the co-design sessions. I am thinking, in particular, to Andrea Sonnino, the Observatory’s Coordinator and Paola Carrabba, a tireless science researcher who worked hard to support all the activities of the Observatory. I’ve been lucky and honored to be introduced to them by my friend Marco Valente, a professional facilitator, initially involved with them.

    The problem: Agri-Food is Unsustainable

    We went through a path of collective reflection where diverse people from different backgrounds were convened together. Marco Valente facilitated the first of the six public encounters while I was responsible to organize and facilitate the remaining events.

    We discovered that there is a lack of dialogue between all parts of society: Science, Politics, Business, Media, Education, and Citizens. The linear model for knowledge transfer of the past doesn’t work anymore. In the last century, unified knowledge was generated by scholars, recognized as the official creators of such knowledge, and then it was transferred by professionals, teachers, specialists and journalists to the masses which benefited passively.

    Today, knowledge, pulverized in hyperspecialization, is communicated through fragmented narratives and languages to the large public, which on the one hand asks for more active participation in the decision-making processes which involve themselves, on the other hand, are frequently disoriented by a confused flow of contradicting information. The roles of diverse stakeholders acting as economic operators, decision-makers, influencers, and knowledge builders, became liquid, adapting to the different contexts where they act.

    This has led to confusing communication, mono-directional information flows, fragmentation of languages. This novel situation generates a climate of confusion and uncertainty, reciprocal distrust, a lack of respect for competences and roles and a difficult resolution of diverging interests. This issue is particularly evident in food and agriculture, in which interactions with consumers’ health and with the environment are concerning the whole Society.

    As a consequence, it becomes harder to make decisions: because they are not shared, because there are reciprocal distrust and a poorer recognition of the reciprocal role of everybody.

    Our approach: Facilitated Collective Intelligence

    We adopted and applied participatory methods of Collective Intelligence strongly based on Critical Thinking and Systems Thinking approaches. The agri-food system has peculiar features, but also universal elements, that is why reflecting on this system could offer important insights also for other scopes.

    Participants, in a break-out room, working on their proposal for more sustainable futures in the agri-food systems.
    Participants, in a break-out room, working on their proposal for more sustainable futures in the agri-food systems.

    In our workshops, we re-established an environment of reciprocal trust where, together, we could imagine possible futures and how to reach them. Now, we want to extend to the entire society our experience to make decisions that last longer. Only shared decisions are more effective in the long-term and we want to create a network of Change Agents to build novel sustainable futures.

    The outcome: Mission, Manifesto, and Actions

    This is the first of an article series in which I  begin to write about my experience of facilitating several co-creation workshops. In the next articles, I will tell you how we’ve contributed to writing and rewriting the Observatory’s Mission and how we laid the foundations for a Manifesto to be published. I will write more about the method and how we have defined a set of actions for specific groups of actors to activate a Network of Change Makers for the Sustainability of the Agri-Food Systems.

    While you can join the OsservAgro (if you can read Italian) to tell your story of food and territory and be part of a more Sustainable Society, keep on following me on Curatella.com to learn more about my facilitation experience with this project.

    Thanks to Andrea Sonnino, and Paola Carrabba for the help in writing this article.

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    Collective Intelligence Design and Facilitation

  • Strategic Design for Collective Intelligence

    Strategic Design for Collective Intelligence

    As a Strategic Designer, I have the duty of facilitating collective intelligence. Leaders need to make decisions. Organizations want to innovate their production process. Social impact movements organize to address social innovation. Strategic Design for Collective Intelligence helps us to be more than the sum of our parts.

    Photo by Hans-Peter Gauster

    What is Collective Intelligence?

    Collective Intelligence is the emergent phenomenon created by people collaborating. They co-design possible solutions to the complex problem they discover through cooperation. Co-creation leads to more inclusive and systemic solutions that are more robust.

    What is a Strategic Designer?

    A Strategic Designer is a Systems Thinker and a Facilitator. A Designer and a Communicator. A Strategic Designer is a problem-setter and a problem-solver. They define the context of a problem before ideating possible solution scenarios.

    Facilitators build upon the knowledge of a group of people. They organize collective thoughts through structured activities.  Collective Intelligence Facilitators make collaboration tools out of constraints. Time, resources, requirements, needs and wants become part of the context to work with.

    Strategic Designers need to know well the tools of the Design Researchers. They map Stakeholders and their Experience Journey through the realms of the context.
    A Strategic Designer makes the systems visible to the eye of participants.  Strategic Designers embody the principles of inclusive, compassionate and respectful dialogue.

    The strategic aspect of design

    Strategic Designers explore knowledge to make things clearer towards reaching refined goals.
    Among the many activities, Strategic Designers work to

    • Knowing the context
    • Knowing needs, wants and desires
    • Extracting knowledge from stakeholders: internal and external.
    • Knowing how to provide value
    • Mitigate unintended consequences

    VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity) is the natural environment where a Strategic Designer thrives. They have to trust the Design Process more than their intuition. They need the persistence to sustain the discomfort of the unknown. Their strength is in trusting the processes of research, envisioning, prototyping, testing, and iteration.

    Strategic Design leads to more rational decisions made

    A designer should not impose their opinions nor their decisions. A designer should help collaboration among leaders, including all stakeholders. A collaborative decision is more rational and more accepted by the participant in the co-design process.

    Strategic Design makes you see for the first time

    A Strategic Designer maps processes and flows, components and their interactions. A System Map shows the actual purpose of a system: that is what the system does, not what you intend it to do.

    When a leader of a large organization sees for the first time the entire production process, including every branch, from every department, and every possible action for all possible scenarios, they see their organization for the first time.

    Trying to imagine what they would think at that time: “Where was I all this time?” “How all of this could happen?”, “What is my real role in my organization?”.

    A Strategic Designer facilitates success

    A designer facilitates success through context-setting, inclusive and structured acquisition of knowledge, by leading a collaborative process where decision-makers create the best solution for their problems.

    How did I become a Strategic Designer?

    I grew into the role of a Strategic Designer through many professional and educational opportunities. I moved to the “why” part of the job without anybody to ask for it. Then, people started to ask me less about the “how” part and more of the “why”. This is how I moved from “How to do things” to “Why should we do this?” and “What should we do to get what we want and need?”

    It is a demanding role but exciting. It is a leading role but humbling. The more I work as a Strategic Designer, the more I think that every leader should embrace Strategic Design to build better products, better services, better solutions, and a better world.

  • Design is Planning

    Design is Planning

    Design is planning the purpose of something before it is made. Build more rational and useful products and services by carefully planning their making.

    We must build useful solutions

    I started to design digital products when I got sick of developing software nobody would use or would feel painful to use. I cannot stand to have my time wasted with tools and services not well designed so I decided to contribute to usefulness and rationality by facilitating toolmakers in creating more rational tools.

    What is Design?

    From a theoretical and academic point of view if you look for the definition of design you could study forever. There are so many different definitions of design that you could make a conference to disagree upon it, together, with designers.

    And that is what usually happens! But that is fine with me. As a fellow, Systems Thinker,  I like to have a multi-angled perspective and to integrate it in a more round and whole definition which is fuzzier and more fluid.

    Design is a Plan!

    When I took a Design Leadership masterclass in Rome, Italy,  with Duane Smith and Stefane Barbeau of Smith,Barbeau the first thing which struck me was their definition of design.

    Design is a plan.

    Boom!

    This has always been in my mind, forever, but never so explicit.

    To design means to plan. Oh goodness, I love this.

    Try to replace the term “design” with “plan” in any of the infinite list of combinations you can find now in the world.

    • User Experience Design → User Experience Planning
    • User Interface Design → User Interface Planning
    • Graphic Design → Graphic Planning
    • Instructional Design → Instructional Planning
    • Learning Experience Design → Learning Experience Planning
    • Workshop Design → Workshop Planning
    • Service Design → Service Planning

    This is the most ingenious verbal and conceptual invention since the man planned the wheel! (fun intended)

    Design Leadership at PI-Campus. I am designing an anti-fake news app.

    Can you taste the word when you say it? Look at the reaction of listeners: that is on another level.

    Here is a definition of Design under this point of view:

    Design is planning the purpose of something before it is made.

    So I’ve found myself attending a course on “Planning Leadership”. When I subscribed expecting to attend a “Design Leadership” workshop I had a certain set of expectations, now this is another game.

    Is planning still Design?

    Using “planning” makes immediately clear the need of talking about time, resources, goals, objectives, and management. The exotic images about expensive white boxes in luxurious Tuscan villas, immediately, fades out.

    Yes, creativity, art, craft, skills are still part of the process but “deeesaaain” is not anymore that mouth-washing ritual where you take a deep breath and remain silent waiting to evoke impalpable feelings that nobody will experience in the same way.

    (Re)Discovering what I always knew

    I have always been a planning designer in my whole professional life. And that is my approach when I have to design a software application, a mobile app, a website, a videogame but also: a training session, a university lecture, a facilitation workshop, a service, a pitch-deck, an event, etc.

    PI-Campus: Design Leadership: I was planning lunch.

    Planning the design of a solution brings things down to earth and gives designers and stakeholders a fresh bath of realism and pragmatism. You can feel that you need to ask yourself, your client, your colleagues, practical questions geared towards knowing the context of the solution you are designing. I mean… planning!

    Writing is an important part of the design process (that is: the planning), since it constitutes an envisioning activity to think about the purpose of the system you want to design and to communicate it to all the stakeholders.

    Planning at the O.K. Corral

    • What is that you want to build? And why?
    • Who is going to use your solution? And how?
    • How will they accomplish what they want or need to do?
    • When will it be ready?
    • Who is our competition?
    • Is there any demand for a product like this?
    • Are we able to build it? Can it be built at all?

    These straightforward questions are frequently considered superfluous or banal. It takes courage to avoid pretending to have all answers understood and staring right in the eye of the client, who is still supposed to pay you the agreed lump sum in advance, and ask them “What do you want to build? And Why?”. This is my version of the two cowboys meeting under a dusted sun while having slightly trembling hands reaching for their guns.

    What are you planning (to design)?

    What really makes me happy is the feedback of my creative partners, not designers by nature. At a quick reading of this concept about Design=Planning, they got it at the first shot. How do you know if they know? By asking the most straightforward and direct question:

    – “So, what is design?”

    – “Easy, Design is a plan!”

    I am so satisfied that I am thinking of planning the next articles on this topic.

    And, tell me, what are you planning?

    Related

  • Networking by communicating your challenge

    Networking by communicating your challenge

    Focusing on a specific mission is hard. If you’re not clear about it it’s even harder to communicate it. This is how it went with my presentation to Ozan Varol’s Inner Circle.

    Connecting with Smart Strangers

    I was invited by Ozan Varol to an online meeting to share my challenges with his Inner Circle Community.

    I use to commit myself to slightly embarrassing challenges to push me to get prepared. One of my tricks to learn, better and faster. Another one is to teach what you want to learn. The call was about asking for help with one of your challenges, members from the Inner Circle community would come to brainstorm solutions and give you help.

    While the poor Ozan was asking for a simple and straightforward question to ask my kind voluntary good-doers, I started to think about the meaning of life and why the Universe exists.

    Don’t you believe me?

    This was my original draft: “challenges-to-discuss”.

    If we are all on this ride together: Is it worth caring about questions that are not the most important ones?

    How can I live a more intentional life?

    How can I be financially sustainable while creating something which will outlive me and be remembered as a positive contribution to the progress of society and improvement of life on the Planet?

    How can I reach as many people as possible and increase the quality of their lives through education?

    How to dance with uncertainty?

    How to become an intervener in my reality?

    How to provide value and to whom?

    How can I engage, being useful, without being boring?

    How can I use the opportunity of raising children to improve my worldview, my beliefs, and my values?

    Not bad as “informal” and “quick” questions to submit to never met before people, kindly dedicating from 15 to 30 minutes of their time to listen to you…

    With infinite diplomacy skills, Ozan made me notice that I would have needed one, two paragraphs, maximum, to introduce my challenge to be discussed.

    Pushed to reduce my philosophical worldview to something more manageable I tried to focus on what are the most urgent themes dear to me. And I got this shortened list:

    How can I keep the habit of Writing every day.? I Wrote for 140 days, about 200’000 words

    How can I Publish every week?

    Walking at least 1’000 km per year. How can I sustain my habit?

    How can I Make a living as an independent publisher and professional?

    Obviously (dear me), this was not short enough. So while meeting with a client, replying to emails and chatting with friends (it was a calm day) I really felt inappropriate to reach meeting time with so ambitious challenges to share.

    With a lot of effort and a bit of pain, I’ve tried to focus on the single most important step I wanted to validate among the many in my grand vision.

    And finally, it started to make sense.

    This is what I finally submitted:

    Consider that  I want to become financially independent by publishing, primarily on my blog at https://curatella.com and to grow as a professional who is contributing to raising the collective intelligence through design, education, and facilitation.

    If you visit my home page and you read in particular the sentence:

    “Hi, I am Max. Here you can learn more about design, writing, facilitation, and teaching.”

    Which are linked words, would you hire me as a facilitator?

    What can I do to improve my presentation?

    But it was too late!

    Meeting time arrived and I had to introduce myself, my blog and my challenge by speaking, I scratched almost anything I’ve prepared and I’ve asked the group:

    If you read my article at:

    Facilitation is the process of learning together
    Facilitation is the set of structured and collaborative activities organized to discover, understand and learn together. The facilitator helps a group of people and decision-makers to face complex problems, producing a collective intelligence more powerful than each individual could do, alone.
    1. Would you think it is too pushy and sales-y?
    2. Would you hire me as a facilitator?

    The feedback gathered

    The great patience of the participants allowed me to get precious feedback which was:

    1. I have too many doubts about publishing. I should just write and publish without too much thinking.
    2. Even if I reduced my fields of interest to the four appearing in the Home page, I should either reduce them down to a more focussed one or find a more digestible and clear way to communicate the common thread binding them all.
    3. I should write article drafts and leave them unpublished for some days. Then, with fresh eyes, I should edit those drafts pretending they have been written by somebody else.
    4. I should enjoy more of the process of writing and publishing for the pure sake of it.
    5. Only by publishing a lot of content, I will be able to find my voice and fine-tune my content strategy while understanding better how to relate to my audience.

    I really enjoyed this improvised and unprepared collaboration. I got inspiration and motivation to write more and better and I’ve also found a more focussed challenge to face in my writing path: to be more spontaneous and to find a way to present an eclectic and multi-perspective content strategy.

    Thanks to: Ozan Varol, Christina, Cathy Cheng and all the other participants of the Inner Circle.

    Well, now is your turn: what is your question for me about my writing at https://curatella.com?

  • Facilitation is the process of learning together

    Facilitation is the process of learning together

    Facilitation is the set of structured and collaborative activities organized to discover, understand and learn together. The facilitator helps a group of people and decision-makers to face complex problems, producing a collective intelligence more powerful than each individual could do, alone.

    What does “facilitation” mean (to me)?

    “Facilitation” comes from the Latin word “facilis” which means “it can be done”. A “facilitator” is somebody who makes things “doable”, easy for somebody else.

    A facilitator is a professional who helps people to organize collective processes. They create the context and the opportunities for creativity and understanding to happen.

    Corporate meeting facilitation for the design of public service.
    Corporate meeting facilitation for the design of public service.

    In a facilitation workshop, many participants can be invited. Usually from 5 to 20 but you can have dozens or even hundreds of participants. Facilitation helps to remove any obstacle to collaborative thinking and creation. It also sets the pace and the rhythm to promote the participation of all attendees.

    During workshops, a lot of different participatory methods can be used. They give structure to the collaborative activities of participants.

    A facilitator sets the workshop objectives with the sponsors who hired them. The objectives must be clear to allow an evaluation of the facilitated activities. They also guide the facilitator to set the top priority of this learning experience. The facilitator needs to decide where to work harder and what to remove to make the workshop a success.

    Facilitation is a set of structured and collaborative activities organized with an agenda.

    UN SDG Partnership B Corp Workshop Facilitation
    From the workshop I’ve held in Cascais, Portugal, in 2017 for B Lab Europe.
    “United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for Partnership, How B Corps can collaborate“.
    Workshop Facilitation

    The facilitator covers several roles:

    • a referee,
    • a coach,
    • and a presenter.

    And works in helping, motivating and supporting a group of participants.

    Among the goals of a workshop you can find:

    • exploring a topic,
    • investigating a complex problem,
    • gathering different perspectives from different actors,
    • earning a better understanding of the context,
    • rendering explicit the causes and the relationships behind a concept,
    • ideating a set of actions to take to solve the identified problems
    • or clarifying and improving the way of collaborating and working together.

    I like to facilitate diverse and creative thinking

    I’ve been performing professional facilitation activities, for more than 20 years, in the most diverse settings with the most incredible participants:

    Facilitation Systems Change by convening diverse stakeholders.
    Facilitating Systems Change for the Sustainability of Agri-food systems by convening diverse stakeholders.
    Osservatorio sul Dialogo Nell’Agroalimentare (OsservAgro)
    • Aspiring artists struggling with new creative technological tools.
    • Professional artists in the filmmaking industries, looking for new creative methods and ways to grow as workers in the field.
    • Organizational leaders coming from any part of the world looking to become better facilitators themselves.
    • University students from very different disciplines: architecture, industrial design, humanities, fashion design, science, math and physics, photography and writing, looking for new insights from the world of Design and Technology.
    • Corporate leaders on the look for new sensemaking tools and methods to understand how to live with VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity).
    • Teachers facing the complex challenge of transferring knowledge in a jolting world towards progress and complexity.
    • Scientists, researchers, journalists, politicians, activists, and decision-makers facing the global challenges of a society in the sector of technology, agrifood, and finance.
    • Entrepreneurs working hard to create new products and services while organizing their teams and resources in an adaptive and resilient manner.
    • Thought-leaders searching for new trends to explore and to build new knowledge on.

    When I conclude a co-design workshop or a series of corporate events, I feel complete.

    I am happy when I help people establishing a productive creative network. When they face their problems with powerful intellectual tools I am contributing to raising their collective intelligence.

    Reaching the end of a well designed and organized workshop gives me immense satisfaction as a designer. Most of all, as a human being, I realized I have contributed to the progress of the community.

    Learning while facilitating

    I like to design facilitated workshops because it is one of the best occasions I have to learn. A workshop designer must learn about the needs of the organizations involved and the participants invited. At each learning experience, I am immersed in new knowledge domains that enrich me and make me more aware of the diversity and complexity of life.

    Facilitation is a crucial activity of Design Leadership.
    Facilitation is a crucial activity of Design Leadership.
    Design Leadership course, PI-Campus

    Successful facilitation is invisible and easy

    One of the best definitions of facilitation emerged while brainstorming the writing of this article: “You made facilitation looks like something so easy to create!” my creative partner told me. And that’s exactly the final goal of facilitation: to make things easy.

    As Bruno Munari said “To make things hard is easy, To make things easy is hard.” it is not easy for a facilitator to create a successful facilitation event. And successful facilitation must be easy for participants.

    Let’s make understanding easier, together

    I love facilitation. I organized and delivered workshops on the most diverse topics. I dream about writing more about my experience in facilitation and I am looking forward to the next co-creation workshop.

    A professional facilitator makes collective learning easier, and fun.
    A professional facilitator makes collective learning easier, and fun.
    From the workshop I’ve held in Cascais, Portugal, in 2017 for B Lab Europe.
    “United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for Partnership, How B Corps can collaborate“.
    Workshop Facilitation

    Do you need a professional facilitator for your co-design, co-creation and collaboration workshops?

    Let’s talk.

  • Funny constraints as learning tools for young learners

    Funny constraints as learning tools for young learners

    I designed a learning game with a group of young lads who needed to study the geometry of triangles. Funny constraints helped to keep the interest high and visual facilitation improved understanding of how knowledge is structured in the field of geometry.

    The Rules Of The Learning Game

    We started by listing all types of triangles:

    1. Scalene
    2. Isosceles
    3. Equilateral
    4. Rectangle
    5. Acute-angle
    6. Obtuse-angle

    I’ve prepared plenty of post-it notes and markers of different colors. The first column was about listing names. The second column was “Definition”. Participants, using only one post-it, wrote a very short definition of the item on the left.

    TRIANGLEDEFINITION
    ScaleneHas all different sides
    IsoscelesHas two equal sides
    EquilateralHas all sides equals
    RectangleHas one right angle, and two acute
    Acute-angleHas all acute angles
    Obtuse-angleHas one obtuse angle

    Things started to become too abstract and a bit boring. I invented a game: what if you have to explain those definitions to an Alien who doesn’t understand your language?

    This was stimulating in finding a visual way to explain the characteristics of each triangle without using words.

    Table created with participants illustrating the feature of each triangle without using words but only with a visual language made of minimal and abstract symbols.
    The table created with participants illustrating the feature of each triangle without using words but only with a visual language made of minimal and abstract symbols.

    It became obvious that we needed to find a code to communicate the nature of each side and each angle. Participants, smartly, suggested using color. So I added another column where, if you don’t want to be “invaded”, you have to convince a deaf and color-blind alien about the right description for each geometrical shape.

    In this case, learners cannot use colors so they are forced to create symbols to show similar and different features.

    An interesting application is to highlight each side and repeat their shape near the main figure by comparing their lengths.

    Example:

    Funny constraints as learning tools for young learners. Detail of how participants represented, without words, the features of an Equilateral Triangle having all sides equal.
    Funny constraints as learning tools for young learners: detail of how participants represented, without words, the features of an Equilateral Triangle having all sides equal.

    In the next activity, we wanted to build a table where we cross types of triangles, a truth-table in which we wanted to answer questions like “Can you build a Scalene-Equilateral triangle?”

    That is where beauty emerged. Look at that:

    Truth table created with learners: overview of all possible couple combinations of triangle types.
    Truth table created with learners: an overview of all possible couple combinations of triangle types.

    And after a quite long working session, during which I struggled to keep the attention and the concentration of learners we finally got an overview of all possible couple-combinations of triangle types.

    Good choices

    • Different colors for heading rows and columns (yellow)
    • Valid combinations (light blue)
    • and impossible combinations (purple).

    Improvable choices

    • Using rectangular-shaped post-its. It would have been better to use squares because it would have enhanced the symmetry which emerged from this table.

    And finally: the symmetry!

    Can you see the diagonal symmetry in the table? This is a peculiar characteristic of this type of truth-tables. And it’s also a property that you can use to check results. In the previous figure. If you check carefully there’s not perfect symmetry. This helped me, at first, unfortunately not the learners, to spot an error.

    Compare the previous table with the fixed one to see the difference:

    Truth table created with learners: overview of all possible couple combinations of triangle types. But this is the right one! Can you spot what we fixed?
    Truth table created with learners: an overview of all possible couple combinations of triangle types. But this is the right one! Can you spot what we fixed?

    Symmetry helped to check the rightness of the results and, if you recognize this pattern, it would help you in saving time: you could fill in only one-half of the cells, the other half is specular. Moreover, the diagonal where there are combinations between the same items you don’t have to think particularly hard: an equilateral-equilateral triangle is just… an equilateral triangle.

    And if you really could not spot the difference between the two versions of the truth table, here is the solution:

    Animation showing the differences between the wrong, asymmetrical truth table and the right, symmetrical one.
    Animation showing the differences between the wrong, asymmetrical truth table and the right, symmetrical one.

    Pros and Cons of Using Symmetry as a Learning Method

    This simple and straightforward thinking tool has the following features:

    1. Visualizes geometrical shapes
    2. Compares geometrical features visually
    3. Combines and contrasts different types into combinations, highlighting: identities, differences, similarities.
    4. Makes use of color-coding to highlight notable characteristics
    5. Makes use of space: bi-dimensional data visualization
    6. Promotes pattern recognition: symmetry and specular repetition
    7. Makes fun use of constraints (deaf and color blind aliens forcing to use symbols and colors instead of words). Learning as a game

    Disadvantages and critical areas:

    1. Attention demanding: for a young pupil, it could take too long to build the two tables. If needed, split the activity into two sessions.
    2. Comfortable room required: you need to have a large wall to hang the tables.
    3. Material preparation: be prepared with lots of post-its, at least 3 different colors and shapes, and 3 different colors of felt-tip markers.
    4. Growth-mindset is a must: allow participants to make a lot of errors without any hesitation nor punishment. Just throw away the post-its not deemed to be adequate or not clear enough.
    5. Adaptability and lean thinking: suggest participants to improve any post-it as soon as they perceive there is something wrong. Just replace the old ones with newly written ones. There should be a continuous refinement of the solution without thinking too much.
    6. Embody and act: role-play the “aliens”: “I am deaf, I cannot read”, “Uhm this is not really clear to me, I cannot see a triangle here”. And so on.
  • What to write about

    What to write about

    What should you write about? How can you find the inspiration for a new article or a new diary post? What is capturing your attention and is worth of further thought? What does deserve to be put in words for somebody else to be read?

    If you know already why you should write, read along to go on a journey to find what to write about.

    What keeps you awake at night?

    The negative things. Your financial sustainability. Your health concerns. Your anxieties, your worries. Your greatest fears. Your regrets, your remorse, your sorrows, your pains.

    The positive things. Your wildest dreams, your ambitions, your aspirations and your inspirations. How to become an artist, a writer, a painter, a filmmaker. How to grow a child, a partner, a relationship.

    Write about what keeps you awake at night.

    How to save the world

    Does the world need to be saved? Be more specific: what can you do to improve even one little component of that huge system called “the world”? How can you be a better human being having a positive impact on society and the environment? Are you rich? How can you do effective philanthropy? What’s the best way to use money, wealth, and abundant resources to improve the lives of as many living beings as possible?

    Write about it.

    You’re not rich? How can you have a positive impact on the world and the ecosystem without having infinite resources? Or, just a little? Or, nothing?

    That’s even better: write about it.

    Write about how you are going to save the world.

    Checking your knowledge: what do you know?

    Writing clarifies thought. And the clarification passes through the assessment of your knowledge. Try this exercise: what do you know? Pick a topic, the one you cherish the most, your passion, your professional field. What is, actually, that you know about it? Would you be able to open a blank document and to, without reference, write everything about it in a clear and systematic way? What are the foundations? The key concepts? Principles and values? Tools and techniques? Methods, tricks, attitudes, behaviors, traps?

    Write about it. Write about what you know. And then, check what your wrote against the most authoritative sources you can find: how much of it is comparable? What did you get right? And wrong? What did you miss?

    Write about it. Write about what you discovered by doing an improvised and unprepared writing session about a topic.

    Understanding and Learning: what don’t you know?

    What is that you need or you want to understand? What skills do you need to acquire to perform better in your job, in your athletic discipline, in your spiritual endeavours? How do you know that you know?

    And, maybe, the most important question is: how can you discover those things that you don’t know you are ignoring?

    Write about it.

    Write about the things you don’t know and you want to learn about.

    Create your Knowledge Matrix

    Keep track of the topics falling in the category of “The Things You Want To Write About”. The list will be embarrassingly small, at the beginning. And by curating it, it will become amazingly long.

    You need the equivalent of the Anti-Library proposed by Umberto Eco: the books you still have to read. You need a Knowledge Matrix, a systematic and structured list of topics you want to write about crossed with canonical questions.

    What are the writing prompts to start researching and writing about a topic?

    Begin with the most famous and immediate ones:

    1. Why
    2. What
    3. How
    4. When
    5. Where
    6. Who

    Just as a starter. But, be aware. Researching a topic by intersecting the knowledge about it with philosophical questions doesn’t necessarily lead you to a well-written essay. That’s another story. But in order to write you need first inspiration and raw material to build up your exposition. The Knowledge Matrix is a starting point, a creative tool to put you in the position of having always something to write about. Moreover, following the Canonical Questions you can aim at being exhaustive and critical.

    Write for your future self.

    What is that bothers your about your life? What do you want to change about it? What knowledge and intellectual resources do you think you’ll need more? What is the inspiration that you are missing? What catches your attention because of an unexplained intuition?

    Write about it.

    Write for your future self. Don’t think too much, write organized units of knowledge to be addressed at your future self. You are, at least, two persons, and they can be very different: your current being and your future version of you. Take the person in the future as somebody else and, with loving care and dedication, write to them as the dearest friend you can have. What do you want them to know?

    Write about what your future self needs to know.

    Write for your “past”

    What is that you would have wanted to know when you were younger? What is that you wanted to know when you were 8? Or 80? What did you want to know last year?

    Write about it. Pick a real person, that you love or care about, that you know and at least can relate to. They should be younger than you. They could be much younger than you: think about children, for instance. What is that you know and is in your experience that you want to pass to them as your legacy?

    Write about it. Write about what you would have wanted to know at the age which, currently, is somebody who you care about.

    Write, unconsciously

    If you make an effort to develop a habit of writing daily, you could equip yourself with one of the most powerful skills a creative could have: free-flowing creation.

    Read also:

    how to create the habit of daily writing.

    When you stop being aware of your surroundings and focus only on your fingers tapping. On the words, slowly, appearing on your screen. And when you start to finally listen to your inner voice, but not the symbolic one: the voice of your mind. The real “you”, talking in your head. When you are in the creative flow, in a focused, undistracted, intense session of writing, non-stop. When you are “in the flow”, you have established a direct connection with your brain.

    You can recognize this heavenly state when you see words appearing on the screen which almost surprise you. When you reach the capability of writing almost as fast as the speed of your inner voice talking, then you are “in the flow”. Nothing can interrupt you. There is no pressure, no guilt, no fear. And words just appear out of nothing.

    That moment, there, is when you can be purely creative. Listen to that voice, the most inner expression of your being. Listen with dedication and love. Just let it flow without interruption. Your goal is not to say meaningful things or to explain what you are writing.

    Just write. Write your mind. Write your thoughts.

    Only after rest, reflection and editing you will be able to dive into the sea of your written thoughts to fish for precious pearls. Only after having collected, cleaned-up and curated your thoughts as precious gems you will be able to create intellectual jewels out of them.

    Write about it. What have you discovered while you were in the free-flowing creative mode?

    You don’t know what to write about? Read

    Read. Whatever is in your reach and in your interests. Read books about known or unknown topics. Read newsletter, blogs, online articles. Read newspapers. Read whatever could bring you new concepts and inspiration with the voice of somebody else.

    But, here is the point, write about what you read. You should not just keep your eyes entertained by serifs and sans-serifs. By glyphs of beautiful fonts printed on the most precious paper. You have to engage the author with critical questions. And you have to stop, at the end of each meaningful section, and rewrite the concepts in your own words.

    Write about what you read. Do not be a passive reader ingurgitating millions of words about which, for the majority, you will forget about. Stop, question and reflect about what you read. Summarize it and enrich it with your knowledge, make connections with related concepts. And write about it.

    Be always capturing inspiration

    Keeps a notebook near your bed and write down any thought or dream as soon as it happens. It will become the source of your writings. If you write fiction it can be the inspiration for a story or a character. Otherwise it can be a hint about your unconscious mind and you can study it to learn more about the intimate you.

    Write about any inspiration you come up with and keep it safe and organized.

    Curate your archive of writings

    Create a central archive of anything that you write. Enrich each document with a proper title, a description and maybe some tags to categorize it. Capture the essence of the context around it: when did you write? Where were you? Take the occasion to probe your mood, your feelings and your thoughts about it. How did you feel? What was the emotional context in which you wrote that? It will become a multi-purpose archive of your life: a diary, a sketchbook, an emotional journal, a performance tracker.

    Create your list of writing prompts

    You should have your list of writing prompts, extend mine, add your personal ones, make experiments and refine it.

    Did you find my list of creative source of inspiration useful? Will you use it? Are you already using some of those prompts? What writing prompts would you add?