Posts tagged Encourage the heart
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.
What is this Monkey Business?
Apr 7th
Common desire? Trust? Shared vision? Ugh. Puzzled. Yes. Words are challenging, even dangerous, ´cos it takes time to create common understanding. And we use words to get our experiences in somekind of order or frames. Is lack of imagination the only limit? Through words we create the world we live in, thus they are important. Is the glass half full or empty, or maybe the glass just has some water in it? What happens when we are on holiday? What it does to us?
We’ve been learning the hard way that without shared vision we are like a bunch of kids in a playground. Through anxiety we have realized we need to spend more time together as a team. That’s what they say that teaming up needs, shared time and a shared challenge.
According to Senge:
Premature converge of words of the vision sucks the life energy out of it.
So how do you know that time is right? By trial & error? What are the corner stones of building shared vision?
More action. More chaos. More mistakes. More learning.
More Creativity.
More trust. Myself. Us. Monkey Business. You. World. Life.
Customers whom we want?
Mar 23rd
We Monkeys aren´t like most people. But we do need friends(customers) to play with. To learn, lead, cocreate and to make world more fun & yellow! We have to first know who we are. Seth Godin, Tribes:
“ The art of leadership is understanding what you can´t compromise on.”
Beginning of year 2010 for us has been a bit like hike in a desert. Just have to believe that the oasis will come. Seth Godin, Tribes:
” The second thing you need to know is that the only thing holding you back from becoming the kind of person who changes things is this: lack of faith. Faith that you can do it. Faith that it´s worth doeing. Faith that failure won´f destroy you.”
Cosmos has challenged us by asking: are you serious about this? Time on desert has put our values in test also. Inner pressure is sometimes almost too hard to handle. But returning back from uncomfortable zone is rewarding. Things look clear for a while – illusion of infallible.
Prahalad & Krishnan, The new age of innovation:
” Start-ups do not need well-developed proseccies.”
Form follows funtion, said someone. So what we can do is keep on doeing. Culture is the Strategy. More experiments with customers who play with same rules. So we want:
*You, whom don´t want to work overtime daily to keep up the status quo
*You, whom don´t want be sheepwalking anymore
*You, whom wants to change, yourself, organization, world
*You, whom wants to learn, all the time, everywhere, from everybody
*You, whom wants to do all this together, smiling
Eye for an eye makes the hole world blind. – Gandhi-
Tantourist.
In the spirit of Richard Branson, maybe?
Feb 18th
Is entrepreneurship like wrestling? You need to force enemy to fall time after time. You have seen the enemy – it´s you. You take punches but you need to protect the core. You have to have self disicpline to survive.
But what does it all mean when we talk about TEAM entrepreneurship? What is my mental model about it? And when we combine team entrepreneurship to creative economy? How to measure it?
Our mission is to make world more fun and yellow. So is it the main measuring scale? We do have fun and that´s something we focus on. But how to turn it into bread? Richard Branson has said that he has allways done what has felt fun. This is really giving me headache. In my heart I know the path is right. It is leading us towards better lifre. And money has very little to do with that. How do you keep up with the faith?
Tantourist. Feeling powerless.
Monkeys on the road!
Feb 5th
” I visited your website and didn´t just get what you do? ” Typical comment from our friends. What do we do? What have been doeing lately? Are we REAL entrepreneurs? How are we making world more fun and yellow?
Every Monday Morning is Monkey Monday. Or sometimes it´s Tuesday. But we need to be in face to face contact to learn, laugh and live. Last week I and Ville hoasted four hours in Lahti University of Applied science. Our hidden plan was to encourage two hundred students towards creative economy and entrepreneurship. But our visible goal was to run the best and most enjoyable schoolday of year 2010. We used stories, dialogue, mental models game and punisher vs. pyromane -exercise. In the end about 90% of students answered YES! So it was “good tennis” from us. Good Job.
Thursday Janne went to coach three days session for start up entrepreneurs in a 1,5 year long process in Central Finland, Laukaa area. And now he is ending a one similar process in Northern Finland, Posio area. Janne is our specialist for long processies. I was working for a day in Helsinkin with Brand Brothers Finland for Tammi publishers. Our task was challenging: “do what feels right”. So we worked as interaction fakirs to make some atmosphere magic…
Henna and Johanna has had several meetings around issue of HUB Jyväskylä in Helsinki, Jyväskylä and Tampere. Henna is fighting hard to save her home region, Iisalmi by entrepreneurship. And aside Henna has closed some related deals. Johanna has found a surprice for us. It´s red? We´ll see it on monday…
Ville the Fox, our geek has been coaching two days in University of Oulu with Zestmark. Aside Ville takes care of our connections to the virtual world. And he is also the brains for Monkey Business with his ideas, precence and jazz. Francis Francis X1, yellow, arrived to our office on Tuesday. And we were really exited. Not a single cup of espresso was made. Cos it was ESE(easy serving espresso) model and we returned it at the same day. The biggest failure of the week. Wednesday we had a deep three hour dialogue with Innovation Professor Antti Hautamäki from University of Jyväskylä. Themes were creative economy and cultures meaning for an area. Results will go to parliaments future forum and we are one example…
So here we go. Again. And again. Something will be remembered and alot forgotten. Take it yellow!
Tantourist.
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…
Legendary letters to Inspiring people: Esa Saarinen
Jan 19th
In Monkey Business we have been playing with idea about having a Board for Enthusiasm. That board would be responsible for encouraging us to go even further to areas where we haven´t been yet. Board for thinking with heart, for families and humanity. And at least I think that philosopher Esa Saarinen would be the MAN for Managing (firing up) that board. Who else should be in?
From Esa I have learned most about interaction, systems thinking and systems intelligence. Esas week long seminars in Cyprus are astounding experience. He is a master of storytelling. Storyes that make normal people like me to understand philosophy. “Good life is born from better thoughts. You are allways more than any of your own expectations. There is allways more good in us than what you can see.”
I send the letter to thank Esa about making my life more rich and meaningful. And to thank about Conspiracy of Positive Force which we in Monkey Business really meet at unexpected places. Esas Queen, Pipsa, has named us Monkey Babes.
ESA – keep it yellow!
Tantourist.
(Monkey Business reserves the right to change the world.)
What´s cooking Linus?
Jan 19th
Our campaign for January is wild as a Jungle and beating like a drum. Order one monkey now – and get second for free! Two monkeys for the price of one! Double amount of action, chaos and mistakes means at least six times more of learning. Maybe? Choose your Monkeys here: MonkeyBusiness_pres (Great profiles made by Nic. THANKS!)
We are supporters of fundamental freedom. Everyone is able to achieve what ever in the world – if you don´t mind who gets the honour. Pekka Himanen´s book, The Hacker Ethic, has had a lot influence to our Ideology. Passion and dedication to that, building on enthusiasm will carry on. So how can we encourage people on that? More listening to heart than rational mind? How do we help people to join enriching communities? How do we help people to find out who they really are? And what are they really passionate obout? And what is their strenght, superpower that they should build on? How do we help individuals to lead theirselves?
Linus Thorvalds created source code of Linux and story goes on. What is source code of Monkey Business? The DNA that people monkeying around are sharing? Do you feel the call?
Tantourist.
How to become a superhero?
Jan 12th
Year 2010 and new decade has started rolling really fast. And it feels good. Monkey Business coreteam has had good dialogues around issue of each player role. Henna answered to question about responsibilities that she would like to be a superstar.
That ignited my thinking – how to became a superstar? We all have super powers, I am sure. But we need help to find them, to feel secured enough learning to use them. And that is where we need communities, loving and caring surroundings. And that is why I feel so good about being in Monkey Business.
What kind of history you want to create? What is your superpower?
“God won´t ask me why I wasn´t Moses. He will ask me why I wasn´t Susya.” -Rabbie Susya-
Tantourist. In flames!







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