Cool and Important | Monkey Business

Archive for the ‘Cool and Important’ Category

How to lead a network well? ideas from AoH Karlskrona

Saturday, February 20th, 2010

Hey all,

here’s some online fruits from the Art of Hosting training I am happy to attend in Karlskrona. We have a unique opportunity to learn together with many Kaospilots, MSLS-students, Team Entrepreneurs and other inspiring people from different networks.

I hosted a session in Open Space, (which Tennessee one of our excellent hosts calls the best tool to get people into action fast) session at Art of Hosting training in Karlskrona with a calling question or topic: Networks / Tribes – How do we eliminate the limits of growth?

We started with Oliver from Kaospilots, and soon also Marco from MSLS (thanks for harvesting), Rovan one of our hosts and Vilma from TA/PArtus/SoL joined the dialogue. Thanks all for participating and supporting the thinking together.

Impact for me to host this session is that I am part of many networks (e.g. SoL, The Hub, TeamAcademy, PrecencingInstitute, WorldCafe, AoH, AppInquiry etc.) that are growing and somewhat aligned, but still I wonder how we could really leverage the power of these networks making the world better. Also a question in my head is that why there are so many of them? Could we combine or bring them together somehow? Furthermore I am really pondering what we can learn from the way Open Source communities are being organized?

So here is some of our thinking:

Potential bottle necks limiting the growth of a network are for example but not limited to following:

1. Hierarchy: It’s hard to fight to the top of the hierarchy in order to get your voice heard.
2. Exclusive Inner Circle that is hard to be part of.
3. No room for action of members, if you need to act permission it may be hard to get
4. Values and spirit are not attractive
5. Somebody is exploiting the network
6. Business Model is not sustainable and
7. Communication or the lack f it

So, how do we eliminate the limits of growth? And what is this growth we are looking for? (Money/Members/Impact/Practitioners/etc/etc?)

Or, thanks to Rovan, the new question emerged: What are characteristics of good, nourishing leadership for a network/tribe? Here are some ideas that we came up with:

1. Open and transparency of decision making process and “organizational” structure, even if it’s dynamic. No Taboos or un-written rule. The aim should be to make the system as visible as possible.
2. Empowers loads of action (systemically): What is the minimum structure needed to enable self-organizing and action?
3. Good communication culture (this is the real challenge I guess)
4. Clear process of creation and updating the leading thoughts
5. Low entrance step, it’s easy to join, accessible.
6. Inclusive, nobody is left out if they want to contribute and participate.
7. Purpose large enough but clear enough. People should feel that I want to be part of this. Purpose is container both for action and expansion. Case: 350.org brought together many networks, as did Survival Academy.

All right, I also participated in two other session of which fruits I may share online later. But I really would appreciate any comments on this so the space is still open.

Share this with your friends!

Close Bookmark and Share This Page

Save to Browser Favorites / Bookmarks

Email This to a Friend

Copy HTML:

If you like this then please subscribe to the RSS Feed.

Posted in Cool and Important, Dialogue, Meeting with cool people, Monkey Business, facilitation | 2 Comments »

Don’t Eat Yellow Snow! VillaWool Beanies available now

Monday, February 1st, 2010

Heyhou All friends of Monkey Business!

Do you remember our Beanie campaign from last year? Even though it was only two that were sold, and the other customer was myself, the beanie got into an English street fashion blog and the brand was also exhibited in NYC later on. Outo wear is doing well and kicking, I think.

We are proud to bring you new beanies to warm your precious heads this year. Sometime ago Janne came to our office smiling and clearly excited about something. He told us that he had found something explosively fantastic from shop yesterday. Well, he didn’t share us directly what is was but the next morning he walked into our office wearing a hat that had big letter writing on it: “Don’t Eat Yellow Snow!”

We were really excited about the new beanie not least because we found out that it was made by VillaWool, a 35-year old family company from Finland. We had been using their other hats for years already. And as the freezing weather doesn’t seem to get much warmer we thought it is time to contact the company for little co-operation. Also the trigger for the contact was that our friend Soren who bought the hat last year told me that his beanie got lost… So Soren et al. here is what Matti from VillaWool says about the hat:

deys (Don’t Eat Yellow Snow) slogan was originally used by the first and only original Helsinki based Ski-Store called SkiSystems somewhere in the early 70s. SkiSystems were our first customers in this beanie business. real tough guys back in the days.

We are proud to say that you can order your own DEYS beanie now. Price is 30€ including Finnish VAT and mailing all over the world. Let us know which color your prefer: white, gray (my favorite) or black (Janne’s beanie is black). You should make the order by tomorrow 12pm in order to catch the first round of orders. If you somehow missed this message do not worry but just make an inquiry for the beanie as we will order couple extra to be sold from our office directly.

Peace, Love and Bananas,

Ville

Share this with your friends!

Close Bookmark and Share This Page

Save to Browser Favorites / Bookmarks

Email This to a Friend

Copy HTML:

If you like this then please subscribe to the RSS Feed.

Tags: Beanie, Family Business, Marketing, Merchandise, VillaWool
Posted in Cool and Important, Friends of Monkey Business, Monkey Business, Products | 1 Comment »

The Yellow Man and the Art of Hosting event

Sunday, January 24th, 2010

The story of today happened last December in Copenhagen during the Survival Academy event. Every single morning, right after leaving my friend’s flat, I could see it there, standing, waiting for someone to give it a ride. Being myself still half sleep-half awake, while eating a banana as a breakfast, it always made me smile. A big smile. This sort of smile that you don’t want anyone to see you, because you think that others might think: “why is this guy laughing alone, is he going bananas?”

But there it was every morning, cheering me up and encouraging me to follow my heart, be myself and to be open to talk to the new people that I was about to meet. Let me introduce you to THE YELLOW MAN:

That’s him, yes. With a logo that seems to be taken from KaosPilot, he is concerned about what is happening in the world and is trying to offer more sustainable food delivering økologic food. He likes the yellow color too! So he is our Danish Monkey.

Maybe it was a sign, or maybe not, but I just know that what it was about to happen during one of those days in Copenhagen was something meaningful. During the Open Space session in SA, I got to know Benjamin Degenhart from KaosPilot and Kati Thomson from the MSLS crew, with whom I immediately clicked and after introducing ourselves we realized how much we and our schools had to learn from each other.

Where does the learning come from?Action, YES! That’s why we decided to start running a project together and after talking to few more people in the event we decided to organize an Art of Hosting training for our friends from our networks.

The initial idea was born about a month ago, and now with the concept more defined the event will happen in Karlskrona (Sweden) from February the 18th until the 21st. Idea is to gather up around 70-80 people from all around the world under the same roof (KP, MSLS, TA & others), connect with like minded young entrepreneurs and get an Art of Hosting training. It will be a 4 days hands on training, having conversations that matter as a great source for us to learn from the interdisciplinary teams, plus experience and learn to host circles, World Café, Open Space, Dialogue and other group processes. We, the young generations, need to start working together cross-disciplinary to tackle the complex challenges of our time. So this is the place to be!Bold, brave and caring for each other, YES!

Hosts will be Toke Moeller from Denmark, Tennesson Woolf from the US, Rowan Simonsen from UK, Simone Poutnik from Belgium, Valentine Giraud from Brazil and Jasmine Cargill from New Zealand, a truly Dream Team!

As Ben said, having those ingredients plus some extra spices from other networks together… uhja, i wanna taste that soup

Price will be 150€ for the team entrepreneurs/students and 250€ for alumni/staff, VAT included. For registration and further info you can check this web and/or write me at liher@banana.fi

I believe that the Yellow Man knew what was about to happen, but he just showed us the way. He encouraged me to be open to meet and spend time talking to new people. Plus,I happened to be in the right place at the right moment. Rest I had to do was to trust the process.

ROCK!

Lihis

Share this with your friends!

Close Bookmark and Share This Page

Save to Browser Favorites / Bookmarks

Email This to a Friend

Copy HTML:

If you like this then please subscribe to the RSS Feed.

Posted in Cool and Important, Meeting with cool people, Monkey Business, Products, Team Academy International Network, Travelling | 3 Comments »

Welcome to the Jungle Matti Nykänen & people!

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

Yes! “Life is human beings best time.”(Quote by Matti Nykaenen) We have spent the morning by cleaning our new Yellow Office. All five monkeys swinging with mops around floors, walls and toilet. Fun together! Maybe not the core substance of Monkey Business – but we found the life line from sauna.

It was really exiting to open the door to the new world which our friends Jerri&co had painted during Wednesday night. They are graffiti painters and we had not seen any sketch before hand. You step in and turn on the lights. It takes a moment and WOW! A lot of colors and amazing two different worlds at the back wall of training space (and sauna upstairs). Jungle, see, shark, huge Gorilla, VERY cool Monkey Business piece and a lot more. Easier to change aspect, maybe. Experience Economys E as Escapism and E as Esthetics starts to match. We don´t want office - we want inspiring surroundings to live and meet friends/strangers. To make world more fun and yellow. When are you coming?

Picture above is drawn by Juhis, Tupsu -a really talented young gun from the Valley of Creativity. We need to save some space on walls for him also. Facinated about cartoons & drawings? Order your own comic strip now from Juha Matti Kinnunen, Cheerful Monkey.

Tantourist.

ps. Really living mind expanding times. New office and my younger son Paavo starts to crawl at any moment…

Share this with your friends!

Close Bookmark and Share This Page

Save to Browser Favorites / Bookmarks

Email This to a Friend

Copy HTML:

If you like this then please subscribe to the RSS Feed.

Tags: Creativity, Encourage the heart, Monkey Philosophy, news
Posted in Cool and Important, Monkey Business | No Comments »

BarCamp inspired Open Space in Tiimimestarit Areenalla

Saturday, January 16th, 2010

Tatu and myself got a change to host an open space today at Tiimimestarit Areenalla (Team Mastery Arena) inspired by the BarCamp Alsace6 I participated in Strasbourg Project Factory. This is just quick post to share the ideas from Johannes about the BarCamp /Open Space and moreover about the new Prahalad book, The New Age of Innovation. This video is in Finnish, sorry for the non-Finnish speaking folks.

And below is picture of a very couragious Penquin (in reality 2nd year) Anssi and the program grid of today’s OpenSpace that the participants created.

Tonight is the 17th Anniversary of Team Academy. Should be massive! Maybe I will be doing live reporting through Twitter and Qik Live of ours. Keep it yellow! Ville

Share this with your friends!

Close Bookmark and Share This Page

Save to Browser Favorites / Bookmarks

Email This to a Friend

Copy HTML:

If you like this then please subscribe to the RSS Feed.

Posted in Cool and Important, Marketing, Meeting with cool people, Products, Team Academy International Network, Team Mastery | No Comments »

X-Mas Calender: Day 16. Theme Years of Monkey Business

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

Hou hou hou!

Monday I was participating Partus Ltd. strategymeeting (and Xmas party..) and there supercoach Stu Vainio reminded me about Team Academys theme years before achieving our vision (YHY = Top Unit of Entrepreneurship). I think that themes were planned by our head coach Johannes, but they sure wen´t into action by the people of Team Academy. Well, then I thought that we in Monkey Business should also have themes for upcoming years. So here we go.

2010 – Mahatma Gandhi – We must be The Change We Wish to see in The World. Monkey Business is about changing the world more yellow and fun. Since joining Monkey Business, I have noticed that in most of cases world is not ready to change. That is why I chose Gandhi to be be the first theme. If we don´t believe that change is possible, I don´t think that nobody else will either. Monkey see, Monkey Do.

2011 – Urho Kaleva Kekkonen – Stubbornes & Continuity. Season 2 is always the hardest. After start we won´t be so new and fresh anymore. Or will we? We have to be stubborn and brave enough to walk the path that we chose. UKK did not explain if somebody didn´t understand. He just said: “Relax, you´ll see it someday.”

2012 – Tupu, Hupu & Lupu – Year of Victories. Very often winning is about attitude. If you wan´t to win, you have to think everything through winning. When you decide to win, you will do what you have to do.

2013 – Paola Suhonen & Linus Torvalds. – Creativity & Networking. What is the difference between good and great? I don´t know. But I think that one difference at least is that great can change faster. In this fast and furious world that we live in, nothing lasts if they can´t create something new and succeed again. Life is about learning and learning is the fuel that keeps us going futher and futher. We will be Monkeys forever but our business won´t be the same forever. Like Matti Nykänen said: Living is the best part of life.

2014 – George Foreman – Ali knocked me out and I started my own BBQ. What happens 2014? You´ll never know. Will we get knocked out? Maybe.

Janne Monkey

Share this with your friends!

Close Bookmark and Share This Page

Save to Browser Favorites / Bookmarks

Email This to a Friend

Copy HTML:

If you like this then please subscribe to the RSS Feed.

Posted in Christmas Calendar, Cool and Important, Monkey Business, Uncategorized, Video | 2 Comments »

Christmas Calendar Day 15: Experience Economy

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

Lately I have heard couple of times about the challenge when the basic production in Finland just is not sustainable financially anymore. We simply cannot compete with cheaper labor of Eastern Europe or the hard working, little paid Asia. Unless our culture will change radically we have to be prepared to say: “So long basic production, so long.”

So in how deep s**t are we? Is there anything we could do? Can we build a national survival strategy? Where to start?

I am not sure, but I thought I should present you one idea that could help in some cases. Close your eyes, and think for a moment, what could it be. I put a picture here so you can really do it. Maybe have a glass of water before reading further.

Little competition here, who’s design is that candle holder in this picture?

So, what I think could be a one part of the solution is what Pine & Gilmore calls the experience economy. It can be coined to 5E’s: Education, Escapism, Entertainment, Esthetics and Espirit of de Organization. The Last one is addition by Johannes Partanen. See an image below.

Maybe the latest phenomenon that I explained through this theory is the books by Dan Brown. I haven’t read any yet but thanks to the launch of the new book he has been on the newspapers in Finland. This is what I imagine of his books. They are educative – when reading you “learn” about history, religion, symbols etc. They are also engaging and thus escapist, you forget the time and place and concentrate only on the book. It’s good entertainment, time passes and can be fun, even talking with your friends about the book. Esthetics; the books are located in cool places, Rome and Washington DC for example. Esprit of Dan Brown – Well, I guess that’s the style of his writing. Maybe someone who has read something by him could comment on this?

And one thing to say here is that Experience is always personal, though many times when it’s collective it enhances it. But everyone has their unique way of experiencing. See a good post about experiencing in here.

So how can Dan Brown help to keep the industry in Finland? What do you think? Do I need to chew the banana more or does this park your creativity?

Ville Monkey

Ps. One of the paradoxes of Dialogue in my opinion are that you need to speak from the heart and voice your opinions, ideas and inquiry directly but you shouldn’t chew the bananas ready for others. Sometimes the line between those two is hard to define. Well, to put it simply, speak from the heart but don’t chew the banana for others. Mystery is part of marketing. Did I chew it too much by saying that?

Share this with your friends!

Close Bookmark and Share This Page

Save to Browser Favorites / Bookmarks

Email This to a Friend

Copy HTML:

If you like this then please subscribe to the RSS Feed.

Tags: christmas, Dan Brown, experience, industry, Modelling, production, Theory
Posted in Books, Christmas Calendar, Cool and Important, Short Article | 3 Comments »

X-Mas Calendar Day 8

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009

Last October on a trip to London we had the chance to meet Arie de Geus together with Henna and Johanna. Arie is a very charming young spirited man, and he shared a very nice story about how the learning happens, also written in his book “The Living Company”.

He expresses in the book that the Learning comes after you “see” it, here it goes:

In the beginning of the 20^th century, a group of British explorers travelled to the heart of a jungle in Singapore. Once there, they met the head of an indigenous tribe and invited him to the city of Singapore. Keep in mind that the indigenous people had never been out of the jungle or even discovered the wheel.

By that time Singapore was already quite developed industrially and had good facilities in the harbour to import and export with big cargo ships. They toured around and showed the indigenous the entire industrial area, harbour and city centre. After that, they took him back to the jungle, and seriously asked to the indigenous: so what was the thing that attracted your attention the most?

Indigenous answered: “I could never imagine that a person could carry so many Bananas!”

The explorers were expecting some answer connected with the big ships, machines, buildings…but it didn’t mean anything to the indigenous, since he had never seen or had the need to experiment with them. The reason behind is that while they were touring around, the indigenous saw a person transporting a carry or a track full of bananas, but the explorers didn’t even realize about that. Regarding the Bananas, the indigenous had to carry them on a daily bases to feed his tribe, and he had always been trying to find new ways to carry as many as possible. He saw and learned that it was possible to carry more bananas than he had thought ever before.

I don’t know what happened with the indigenous after that but I’m sure he kept on Monkeing around and continued feeding his tribe with lots of Bananas! Arie from his side promised that he would continue sharing this story in his future talks.

Lihis

Share this with your friends!

Close Bookmark and Share This Page

Save to Browser Favorites / Bookmarks

Email This to a Friend

Copy HTML:

If you like this then please subscribe to the RSS Feed.

Posted in Cool and Important, Meeting with cool people, Monkey Business | 2 Comments »

Day 4 – for meetings with people you know but don’t expect to see on the places you go – magic of networks

Friday, December 4th, 2009

Have you ever found a bunch of old friends when participating in an event with an interesting topic but unfamiliar organization? Or going to visit a place from where you know only one person, but while being there meet many other old friends too?

This kind of coincidences happen more and more in this small earth! And I think it’s an uplifting issue because “intelligently accidental” human meetings bring extra joy in life. It just happened to me when I googled Survival Academy, an event I decided to participate to because the topic calls me to go, even though I don’t know the organization. However, by discovering better this http://survivalacademy.ning.com/ I got to know that +15 of my friends are connected in that event and we’ll potentially meet up in there. Today the same phenomenon came when I met a friend called Oliver Saarinen with whom we participated http://www.tulenkantajat.com/, and while visiting his school http://www.hse.fi/en/mikkeli I randomly met there a friend called Joonas Kallankari who was my team mate at http://www.emaxnordic.com/ in 2007. Long time, no see, but it’s definetely good to follow the curious path and choose to go in places where these good old friends can be found.

Try it today: google an event you are interested in, for example this: http://survivalacademy.ning.com/events?page=4 and see who you know out of the participants even though you might not know the organizers. Or make a date with a person you know for some cool reason but haven’t seen for a while, and see how many common friends / actions you have now. You will be surprised!

Share this with your friends!

Close Bookmark and Share This Page

Save to Browser Favorites / Bookmarks

Email This to a Friend

Copy HTML:

If you like this then please subscribe to the RSS Feed.

Posted in Cool and Important, Friends of Monkey Business, Meeting with cool people, Travelling, Workshop | 1 Comment »

Monkey Christmas Calender – Day 3

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

Dear friends,

sometimes when you hear a good song it brings back good memories. July 2008 I had an oppurtunity to see Bruce Springsteen & E Street Band live in Olympic Stadium, Helsinki. When Max Weinberg hit the drums for the first time and Bruce let his guitar sing, I felt right away, that this is the show I had been waiting for.

The gick was in late july and it was a beautiful summernight. At the end of show, after three hours head blowing rockin, Bruce and the Band had one more suprise. Even though it was hot and sweaty, everybody had strenght rock just that one more song. Below you can check the video and please, sing along: Santa Claus is coming to Town!