Posts tagged Creativity
SURPRISE!
Oct 31st
Don´t do,
if you don´t do with full heart
-
Don´t even start.
-Jama Jamas father-
How could we get people – to behave differently?
How could we get people in flames?
How could we get more people to focus in impossible?
I love you Alex Castellarnau!
Aug 11th
Never met you, never heard about you. Instantly fell in love after receiving these principles freely translated by @Hennaism. Alex you ROCK! Original video here in spanish. These principles make me fly, cry and almost die. Really encouraging me about Monkeys being on the right track. THANKS!
Alex: After more than 5 years of experience in IDEO, we identified six principles to build environments that create innovation
1. “It’s about how we learn, not about how much we gain financially.” Not to do but to learn. The return should be learning, not economic performance.
2. Do not define a job desccription 100 % clearly. Employees come to explore and define what their job is.
3. Helping employees to explore fully their passions at work.
4. Each employee is its own brand. There are as many brands as there are people in organizations.
5. Our leaders must reflect, not direct, they have to be a mirror, no arrow. The CEO goes from executive to be explored and to be evangelist.
6. We have no destination but a good sense of direction. We have some knowledge and we have good tools for the road.
This empowering and explosive flying kiss goes to Alex and Henna, well to everybody who accepts to take it:
Tantourist – playful, everyellow and redcheeked acticboy really feeling alive. YEH!!!
Tape with thousand euros!
Feb 1st
I strongly believe that memories are the only possessions we should collect during our lives. Yesterday Ville talked about blog writing and refered it a bit: “are we happy with sharp drill bits in our rack or happy cos´ borrowed them to a friend”. So in Monkey Business we are sometimes taking it to – Do The Never! Or how could you explain to friend or customer that we are using about same amount Euros monthly to tapes, pins, t-shirts, coffee, ext. than we get salary? Or sometimes even more…
And we try explain it to ourselves that it´s marketing, tribe marketing. And same time happily admitting that we get very exited about these “side track purchaces”. It just feels good! And as you can see – last diktator of Finland, U.K.K – Urkki – Kekkonen, clearly shares the message. Year 2011 theme for Monkeys is U.K.K – stubborness and relentless. Thanks to Sanna for these ultimate kool coasters. And thanks to Asier and Funky Projects for giving us tape back in May 2007. It took allmost four years to implement it in MB…
You get what you measure – they say. So we have started to measure quality and free thinking time spent in hammock. Every 15 minuts gives you a credit. Hammock is electicity free zone, no lab tops etc. According Jussi T. Koski we should spent weekly two times two hours only focusing on thinking, slowing down. If you want to be creative. If you want to follow task list given by your boss – just keep on performing. So how do you explain this Hang Loose – measure to a logical engineer? Luckily I don´t have to. And results after 21st days in Hammock are that first podium place is shared between Johanna, Ville and Tatu. With only four credits/pp, only one hour in 21st days. How mutch is that? What is it? What are doeing? Are we thinking? Are we monkeys?
Human energy is the thing we need to increase. Sun really gives it at this time of year. And hammock. And all the little things I manage to live present. Those are the only things I can remember.
Activboy Tatu learning Zen Riding
ps. Want some tape? Come and get it.
Tiina came into the HOUSE!
Sep 22nd
Little things are often the biggest ones. Last winter when moving to this new location we had a wellcoming party. And I called a little local newspapers to come and visit us. And they did and writed an article(below).
Well it´s all in finnish, chaotic and so on. The thing is that you newer know who will read an article like this. And what it will cause in the head of the reader. Neither did we. About three weeks ago I got an telephone call. It was Tiina. She wanted to come and see us. So I ansvered YES. Tiina came and started telling:” last spring I saw that article and decided that I´want to work in a place like that. And here I am. Ready to rock.” So here she is, photo taken this morning. And she brought some liqourice to us also, yellow, in the front of the picture.
Well you can see Tiina´s work here. She is a professional illustrator. (the one who can draw cool pictures, creative and so on.) And we have encouraged her to use that ability. And she has taken it into the action. She has contacted BusinessArena to co-operate in graphical facilitation. And she has been visiting local center for starting entrepreneurs(Luotsi). And said that it was depressing:” they told me to came back with countings and numbers. Not very enthuastic. Are they trying to kill the entreprenial spark in me?” On the other side of the table was sitting Hans, old team mate of Johannas&mine. Hans had got samekind of experiment with Luotsi. So here you can see how Hans normally protects himself against idea killers. (Hans is the humanbeing at the right side of the picture. On the left is a Sunflower brought from Villes homeyard at Paltamo.) Anyway, yellow both.
So what I am thinking is that how do we really help others to be at their best on what they do? And I am really happy that Tiina came to visit us. By Matti Nykänen:” Give chance a break “. Let´s aim for enriching each other. For little things. Let´s listen our hearts and numbers will follow. It´s not about the idea – it´s about the attitude.
Tantourist – always on travel
Learnigs from the Jungle!
May 7th
Working together really shapes the partnership and cocreation. Last week Wed 28th of April till Sat 1st of May we had a learnig journey called Jungle Trip. It was first real cocreational project with CoMind. It took place in Helsinki, Jyväskylä and Taulun Kartano, Toivakka. Dialogues took place in plane, train, buss, smokesauna, pool, lake, walk… Thoughts were ignited by Esa Saarinen, SOL City, Team Academy and Design Factory. And we did learn a lot. Here is my short reflections about Jungle:
1.) Dialogue. Well obviously it´s the key element in cocreation. There can´t be shared undestanding without dialogue. And in Monkey Business we have learned to do “dialogue on the spot”. Short sessions between coaches- what´s happening and what do we want to happen next. Then we know what is the next move. When we know what we are aiming to – it´s easier to improvise. -> Goal!
2.) Culture. Or system. From the aspect of interaction. Someone has to lead in the beginning to make people interact. And then take care about culture througout the process. And this is something that separates TeamAcademy from many places. And this is something that will have a big role in DesignFactorys future. Team Academy is very down to earth and pragmatic, learning by doeing. Design Factorys comes to the same play-yard from different aspect, knowledge focused. And strongest tool in TeamAcademy are Leading Thoughts and yearly process of checking them.
3.)Braveness. We only become exellent by following our passion. We know who we are and how monkeys do things. We have to stand for our cornerstones. Our friend PAMPAM said it nicely:”The more serious someone is, the less I trust him/her”. So we need to remain the contact to our heart. Speak from it and to follow it.
What did you learn?
Thanks alot CoMind and all adventurers. “Unexpected is the spice of life.”
Tantourist, still alive.
Welcome to the Jungle Matti Nykänen & people!
Jan 21st
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…
Monkey Business Design Philosophy
Oct 30th
We are working on building a new lay out for our blog (and there’s a blog in Finnish coming up too!) and for that process I wrote out some of the design philosophy down. This is version 0.5 BETA but I thought I should still drop it out for you. Here’s the classic banana with classes drawn by Lady My of MyJok back in late 2007.
1. Our mission is to make the world more fun and yellow. Our design are also fun and colorful.
1. Things are as they look and feel to a person. Not as somebody intents them to be but as someone experiences them.
1. All yellow is good. Our graphics don’t need to follow one clearly defined pattern or a set of rules, but part of our brand is that the visuals change a lot.
2. A Banana drawn by Lady My is the banana for us. We will stick to that until something totally explosive comes to our way.
3. All monkeys and bananas are part of our design strategy.
4. Our graphics should be aligned with our style. That is yellow, playful and sincere. Our Graphics and Designs should enhance the same message.
6. We like skateboarders, clothing designers, surfers, musicians and other party people in general. The idea is to enjoy life and have fun. Our designs should also follow that ideology. We search for ideas and inspiration everywhere but nature and pop culture especially.
7. We like to promote a wide range of designs and designers. We work with people we like and think are cool. We want to have loads of different designs.
Have a yellow weekend everyone!
Ps. The book recommendation of this week is by Hugh MacLeod and is called “Ignore Everybody – and 39 other keys to creativity.” I read it over the summer and is a quick read and gave me quite a few insights. There loads of good quotes and even more insightful drawings. Some of the things he writes and draws seems a bit cynical to me but he cleared it all by saying this: “Anyone can be an idealist. Anyone can be a cynic. The hard part lies somewhere in the middle i.e. being human.” That’s the spirit I guess. You can read plenty of samples of the book at Hugh’s website.
Monkey Business – Story about our name
Oct 15th
Many people ask where does the name Monkey Business come from. Here is the story. Fresh from Angers where it all started, now written at Team Entrepreneur‘s office. Team Mastery 1 participants Gilles, Laurent and Herve got a three year program launched here with 18 teampreneurs just two weeks ago! Sanna is coaching here with Gilles. Fantastic job, guys. Fantastic.
Herve Explains the name of the game called Experience Economy to the teamsters.
The name of Monkey Business has a strong connection to Angers, a city in the Western France. Me and Tatu started in Team Mastery‘s 1st promotion back in Dec 2006 in Finland, and then the second session with the theme of Leadership was held in Angers. Team Mastery is an international coaching program for people who want to learn team coaching Team Academy style.
So the second session was about Leadership. And as all the weekend/adult/entrepreneurs programs coached by the Team Academy / Partus there is a birth giving of new knowledge in the Friday evening. (The sessions are from Thursday 12pm to Saturday 12pm =48hrs of intensive dialogue and team work). I remember that this particular session was not so easy for me. It was confusing – maybe it was about the difference between a coach and a leader, and also I remember one member of our team was not comfortable with the atmosphere, as it seemed very business oriented with the aim of creating more and more entrepreneurs – Where is the idealistic part and saving the world? Well, I remember that in our birth giving we asked everyone that what is their mission in this world or what they dream about. I think almost everyone dreamed of a better world in a way or another.
Then, the second birth giving was about Fertile Emptiness. I remember Sari, Emmanuel and Javier R. (in the picture above on the right taken at the Team Academy Euskadi’s 3rd Anniversary) was in that group. But what was really the ignition for our name was the third team’s birth giving about the Evolution of Leadership. It was a theatre play and it took place in the gardens of our agriturismo place. 1st scene was from the jungle were monkeys were leading one another by running around and making loads of noises. That was a key. Laurent from CoMind and Tatu could really make some cool (and loud) monkey noises and movements. Another interesting and hard-to-forget scene of that birth giving was the 3rd scene were Claude from Strasbourg and TA Alsace had climbed in the tree, and repeated the word “Awareness”. (Tatu confirms this story and say that it was harder to actually get him safely down but we managed.) It was the Guru-model of Leadership. Then there was a still 3rd level, but I cannot recall what that was. (Tatu says it was working and learning together). Here’s a picture of Claude whom I was happy to meet this Sunday.
So it was in Angers that the seeds for our name Monkey Business was sowed but the name came up in the third session of Team Mastery in London. Our friend Javier Ruiz of Labein and TA Euskadi brought with him a game that went like this: “If you were an animal, what animal were you?” Tatu said Monkey, I think I said Puma (because I used to play Ice Hockey in a team called Pumas). But then Sanna said that I would be Sloth, which is a kind of Monkey, too.
Well this game wasn’t quite enough to make the name yet. There were some people talking about the book by Ridderstråle and Nordström called Funky Business. It was Tatu who was around in another conversation where he heard Monkey Business, and a bulb lit in his head: “That’s it! That should be the name!” And the good thing was that we were going to go and do in our first coaching project outside Finland with Labein right after the session in London so we got to develop our idea of Monkey Business a bit further. On that trip we also met with folks of Funky Projects, and the artist called Lady My who eventually draw the famous Banana for us. But that is another story that deserves a post of it’s own.
New Design Coming Up for Monkey Business
Sep 21st
We’ve made a deal with Jaakko from Kuvituskonttori to design a new image for Monkey Business. But he is not the only one visually talented friend of ours. Also, there’s a very promising young designer working currently at Intotalo who has a skill hard to match when drawing monkeys and other illustrations. Juha-Matti has drawn for example a great comic strip about Tupsu the Monkey and a superman Monkey.
This is our latest Design by the Tiimiakatemia bookshop host Esa. He gave it to us in the first page of a small notebook at the Team Mastery Arena (which was quite a success, by the way!) I think it’s rather cool and maybe this will be the design for our next T-shirt. And yes, the point of this post was to say that if there are some eager designers and or people with some eye for the visual candy please let us know. We are building a roster of artists, and we need loads of graphics in the future. My inspiration has come for this kind of organization and style initially from Mambo from Australia and and more recently also from Control Clothing from Finland. Cool stuff indeed by both of them, I think. Story by Ville Monkey
Nic Mepham Singing the Blues about Yellow
Sep 7th
Our friend Nic Mepham, the creative agent from Kajaani Finland, also working for Intotalo Kajaani came by Jyväskylä this last Thursday. As he arrived in the evening he said that he has an intuition that we should go and visit Team Academy: “Maybe someone is there.” So I saw the bike of Petrus outside and I thought he was probably working on Team Mastery Arena but we found out that he was there for a training session of his new rhythm and poet orchestra Mahtavaa Tennistä (Amazing Tennis in English). He was there with a guitar and Nic wanted to participate. This is the result!
Quite amazing, isn’t it?
Nic also taught me (Ville) a little about how to sing blues, and we got into a deep dialogue about creativity, courage and coffee. Those three C’s are Nic’s thing. Aki of Spym was challenged about his thing and Petrus was encouraged to play his own songs. I think that’s what we should all do. Just as William Isaacs in his book Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together tells a story about one piano playing consultant who is being asked: “Who plays your music if you don’t do it yourself?”
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