The Fertile Unknown

Innovation at Google

                           Got 25-50 minutes?  If so, watch this video of Marissa Mayer, VP of Search Product and User Experience at Google. She is at Stanford Univeristy giving a talk on the
9 Slogans of Innovation and the entrepreneurial spirit at Google. The video is 50 minutes, with the first half on their philosophies and the second half Q&A.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soYKFWqVVzg

It's worth watching to hear the descriptions of there slogans in-action in their ever innovative culture, but If you only have a minute, then here they are in brief:

1. Ideas come from everywhere
2. Share everything you can
3. You're brilliant.  We're hiring.
4. A license to pursue dreams
5. Innovation is not instant perfection
6. Data is a-political
7. Creativity loves constraint
8. Users, not money
9. Don't kill projects. Morph them.

The Creative Urge to Evolve

In his Weekly quotes, Andrew Cohen, Founder of EnlgihtenNext and
What is Enligtenment magazine, offerred this quote he entitled,
A Mysterious Urge to Evolve:

When time began, for an unknown reason, something came from nothing. Suddenly, an impulse emerged—the impulse to become, to create, to evolve. This urge to take form gradually became the whole universe, ultimately including you and me as we are right now. And as human beings we experience this evolutionary impulse on many levels. At the gross physical level, we feel it as the sexual impulse, the powerful urge to procreate. At a higher level, a cognitive level, we experience this same principle as the uniquely human desire to know, to understand, to create. And at the highest level, the level of consciousness, we experience it as the spiritual impulse, the mysterious urge to evolve as consciousness. This movement in each and every one of us is not other than the one evolutionary impulse that is driving the engine of creation. When you feel the irresistible compulsion to develop at the level of consciousness, it is the big bang that you are experiencing, stirring in the depths of your own soul. ~ Andrew Cohen

To me, this quote speaks to the urge to create, the creative urge to evolve, the evoltuionary call to create - however we look at it. The place where the "evolutionary impulse" is the emergent, creative impulse. Creation is made up cre ators creating and creators emerging.

Emergent Processes

The term Creative Emergence unfolded in my consciousness 10 years ago when observing what was happening an "emergent" co-creative process in which I was immersed with a business partner. I had not heard it before, but something amazing was happening in our process where there was no compromise - where the whole of what we were creating was greater than the sum of both of our contributions.

As I started working with clients using creative emergence processes - by discovery in real time - I observed some reoccurring patterns and compiled "44 Principles of Creative Emergence" (to go in my book some day). Shortly after, I discovered that Emergence was one of the more well known principles talked about in the complexity sciences. That opened a whole new level of understanding - what I had been learning about emergent creativity fit in perfectly with what I started learning about complex adaptive systems and emergence in the natural world - and could be applied in human organizational systems. Then, I started studying improv theater and found the improv principles fit in with both the principles of creative emergence as well as the ones in complexity sciences. Suddenly, things fit more into place in my mind - we live in a creatively emergent universe and these patterns can be found everywhere.

Today I found this article entitled Emergence Processes by Tom Wiscombe at http://www.emergentarchitecture.com/pdfs/OZJournal.pdf. Here are some excerpts:

Emergence isn’t interested in parts; it is the science of wholes...

There has been a lot of talk about emergence since it was ‘discovered’ as a subset of complexity theory in the 1980s, that discovery linking back to the emergence of systems theory in the 1920s. Beyond the journalistic definition, ie. ‘to arise’ or ‘come to being’, as in ‘emerging artists’, emergence refers in fact to a very particular scientific phenomenon: the indivisibility and irreversibility of wholes-- be they structures, organizations, behaviors, or properties. In particular, emergence refers to the universal way in which small parts of systems, driven by very simple behaviors, will tend toward coherent organizations with their own distinctly different behaviors.

The natural world gives us the most vivid, real-time examples - the hive, swarming, flocking - where independent parts snap into formation and take on complex emergent behavior, behavior which is not traceable back to the behavior of the parts. Nevertheless, emergent phenomena are natural in a broader sense, and have been proven to be equally useful in describing the complex behavior of cultural, political, economic, and urban organizations.

Even the organization of conciousness into what is often loosely referred to as ‘intelligence’ turns out to be best modelled from the bottom-up as a swarm of neurons exhibiting emergent behavior. More interesting still, paradigm shifts, or changes of collective mind, appear to also be best understood as sudden coherences emerging from multitudes of independent feelings about the world. Growth and evolution, and the drive toward more complex forms of organization, therefore, are never additive and linear, but rather consistently based on the dynamics and transformative potential of emergence...

This means setting multiple processes and techniques in motion...rather than focusing on a singular formal solutions.

Nassim Haramein: "The Vacuum is not Empty"

I had the pleasure of being in scientist-philosopher-mystic Nassim Haramein's session at the Institute of Noetic Sciences conference a while back. His was one of the most interesting presentations. A multi-dimensional pioneer, he is working on a unified field theory he calls the “Holofractographic Universe.” I deeply resonated with what he was saying - not through the lens of a scientist, but through my lens of the living, fertile, fractaled, integrative, shape-forming, creative universe. He has mathematically and scientifically discovered what creators and mystics have always known - that we create by feedback and change and that we are all beings of infinite creative potential - in a very literal sense: the vacuum is not empty - it is not nothing. It is actually highly organizing and always communicating - an "unknown" that is actually fertile with creative potential. He founded The Resonance Project Foundation. You can see him speak on the Crossing the Event Horizon video on YouTube.

I found this write-up of him at The Laughing Coach Newsletter:

Nassim Haramein, a world traveler, was born in Geneva, Switzerland. As early as 9 years old, Nassim was already developing the basis for a holographic hyper-dimensional theory of everything he calls the “Holofractographic Universe.”

The Holofractographic Universe theory is a unified field theory resulting from over two decades of investigation into the geometry of hyper-dimensional systems and their relation to the creation of three-dimensional reality and all of its forces—including consciousness.

The premise of The Holofractographic Unified Field Theory research is that space is not empty, it is full. It is full of an energy that, through a specific set of fractal geometry, creates atomic structures that are themselves made of 99.999% space. It is a sea of electromagnetic flux we call the zero point energy, which has been demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt, since its mechanical effects have now been measured in laboratories.

This is nothing new, most ancient civilizations believed in a primordial soup of energy embedded within the fabric of space and in a primary geometric pattern coordinating creation. Later many of the world's great thinkers, including such scientists as Albert Einstein, Nicolas Tesla, Buckminster Fuller, and Walter Russell, believed in an all prevailing energy at the base of the fabric of space.

Haramein's findings have resulted in theoretical and practical developments based on a specific geometric array fundamental to creation. This theory has now been presented to the standard scientific community with great success, and his papers on the Holofractographic Universe will soon be followed by a book for the layman entitled "Crossing the Event Horizon."

Nassim's investigation of the geometry of hyperspace has combined quantum physics and cosmological understandings of universal forces with other sciences such as biology and philosophy, resulting in advanced unification computations that, astonishingly, relates to ancient codes left in monuments and documents around the world—including the Bible, the I Ching, the Mayan Sacred Calendar, Pyramids, and Egyptian temples. The results of his research may bring our planet to a new dimension of understanding and existence, one which was predicted by the ancients to arrive at this time in history.

Nassim is fluent in both French and English. He conducts workshops and seminars on his theories to help bring an awareness that is greatly needed in these times. His lectures are designed around his life experiences beginning with childhood illuminations and culminating in the discovery of a technology and united view that seems to have been left encoded by ancient civilizations for us to rediscover. His work may lead to some of the most important scientific, philosophic and technological discoveries in written history.

©Copyright 2000 by Nassim Haramein
All rights reserved

Precipice Improv and Emergence

I am in an improvisational theater performing group, Precipice Improv. (I'm pictured here with cast mates, from top left to bottom right, Dan Mont, Ric Anderson and Bob Adler).

We improvise full-length plays with nothing planned in advance. No structure. No outline. No character or plot development. Nothing, except for 2 locations we get from the audience at the beginning of the play. The play is then titled, "The Space Station and the Bathroom" or whatever locations we get from the audience. Two of us then run on stage and start interacting, and thus the play begins.

When the play goes well, the audience says, "That HAD to be scripted. At least some part of it had to be scripted. It looked too easy."  It was easy. When the performance does not go so well, the audience says, "That looked hard."  It was hard.

So what makes is hard sometimes, and easy others? What is the "magic formula" that allows a fully formed, coherent, organized play - with believable characters and a plot - to emerge before the audience’s (and our own) eyes?  And, what gets in the way?

What makes it work when it works?  We do not go our with a pre-formed notion of our characters or of a plot or of a conflict, challenge or situation. We just let them emerge based on our interactions, actions, and reactions. The "magic formula" is the adherence to improv principles. When we adhere to the principles of improvisation, an emergence occurs that is more intelligent and creative - and organized - than any one of us could have planned. As with any good emergence, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. By adhering to the principles, a play unfolds so original and unpredictable, that while in it, you have a sense of being entirely in flow - getting to fully experience the adventure as you create it.

The principles that allow this to happen are simple, yet profound. They seem easy, but in practice, they are almost the exactly opposite ways society navigates every day life and work situations. Thye take re-learning (I say that becuase we were born natural improvisers and then got "educated" and "civilized" out of the playful aspects of it). Below are 7 basic improv principles. There are others, but I have found these to be essential:

1. Yes And - fully accepting the reality that is presenting, and the adding a NEW piece of information - that is what allows it to move forward and stay generative.

2. Make everyone else look good - that means you do not have to be defending or justifying yourself or your position - you have a group of other who will do that for you. And you are comitted to doing that for others. Without the burden of defensiveness, everyone are free to create.

3. Allow yourself to be change by what is said and what happens - at each moment, new information in an invitation for you to have a new reaction, or for your character to experience a new aspect of them. Change inspires new ideas, and that naturally unfolds what's next.

4. Co-create a shared "agenda" - the recognition that even the best-laid plans are abandoned in the moment, and to serve the reality of what is right there in front of you. You are co-creating the agenda in real-time. In order to keep the play going, you respond to the moment and an "agenda" co-emerges.

5. Be fully present and engaged - by staying preset to each moment, getting out of planning and into being, you have a wellspring options and choices in each moment. To do so requires  engagement and attention. With engagement combined with presence and yes-anding, you can't do anything but be co-creative.

6. Keep the energy going - no matter what is given, or what happens, you accept it and keep the energy gong. Unlike in everyday life, where people stop to analyze, criticize or negate, in improv you keep moving. A mistake happens - let it go move on. The unexpected emerges - use it to move on. Someone forgot something important - justify it and move on. Just keep moving.

7. Seek the good of the whole - always carry the question, "How can I best serve this situation?" and then you have a better sense of when to run in and when to stay back, when to take focus and when to give it, how to best support your fellow performers and how to best support the scene. By focusing away from how you will look into serving the larger good, you have more creative impulses and resources available to you at any moment. And the choices you make are more in alignment with the higher levels of creative integration that form a coherent play.

So, what make it "look hard" when it is not working so well?  Simple, any violation of the principles. If one of us tries to orchestrate, or worse impose, our own agenda or plot on the piece.  If one of us tries to be the "star" and take too much focus. If even one of us is not present to what is unfolding, moment-by-moment. If one of us worries about the plot, and starts to figure out how to "save" it. If we expect someone to should respond in a certain way. In short, anything that gets out  of the moment and out of support - and into our controlling heads.

The truth is, in each performance we have some of each - some magic moments and some more effortful ones. By adhering to the improv principles, however, we significantly increase the magic and decrease the efforting. A creative, and suprisely logical, play can then emerge through that  fresh and alive energy. We, and the audience, then get to experience the real-time excitement of riding the flow of a creative emergence.

Creativity is naturally self-organizing system. We are meaning makers, and left to our own devices, our brains naturally seek order, coherence and meaning. Once you allow yourself the freedom to explore and play; set the guidelines of play -i.e., improv principles; and then get out of the way, creativity can develop and unify all kinds of things that otherwise would seem impossible.   

For me, the principles of improvisation serve a much larger purpose than creating a play - I see them as having the ability to create the life-giving container for cognitive, personal, organizational, social, political, cognitive, and spiritual transformation. I see them as rules of engagement for a more peaceful, co-generative, co-creative, sustainable world.

Hafiz poem and the Fertile Unknown

I found this poem by Hafiz, the 14th century Persian poet, to speak beautifully of the infinite richness of the fertile unknown - the place within us filled and alive with pure creative potential, just waiting to be cultivated and enacted out into the world. We tend to busy ourselves with distractions to avoid this unknown because we fear there is nothing in the "void." Yet the "empty void" is actually not empty at all - it is the life-giving, vibrant, fertile soil of invention, innovation, creative expression, transformation, wisdom and all things visionary. I think this fertile unknown can be a fun party at which to play and create if we let it.


In a Handful of God

Poetry reveals that there is no empty space.

When your truth forsakes its shyness,
When your fears surrender to your strengths,
You will begin to experience

That all existence
Is a teeming sea of infinite life.

In a handful of ocean water
You could not count all the finely tuned
Musicians

Who are acting stoned
For very intelligent and sane reasons

And of course are becoming extremely sweet
And wild.

In a handful of the sky and earth,
In a handful of God,

We cannot count
All the ecstatic lovers who are dancing there
Behind the mysterious veil.

True art reveals there is no void
Or darkness.

There is no loneliness to the clear-eyed mystic
In this luminous, brimming
Playful world.

The Ta-da List

A concept that emerged in my consciousness, while working with a client a while ago, was the idea of a Ta-Da! List -- instead of the dreaded To-Do List. Both are about getting things done, but one is heavy with the idea of having to do it, the other is energized with the feeling of getting to do it.

It totally changes the energy...makes actionable items and commitments more fun, engaging, and accessible. If puts the focus more on process engagement rather than being just a boring, or arduous, check list you need to get done.

And, like with any fun performance, you get to say "Ta-da!" afterward.

Quantum Comedy

The Global Intelligencer , and online newspaper exploring individual, social, and global transformation, is featuring an article on the emerging field of Quantum Comedy - an integration of scientific knowledge, spirituality, and creative expression used for more than just a laugh. Comic Vanda Mikoloski uses stand-up comedy as a tool for expanding awareness and inspiring new thought. Here are a few excepts from Frank Levitt's article, Stand-up comedy takes on quantum physics, on Vanda's act:

A New Thought comedy routine about consciousness and personal evolution...throw in a few jokes about particle physics, superposition and multiple potentialities existing at the same time and you begin to get the flavor of Vanda Mikoloski’s outrageous quantum comedy routine; a way-out of the ordinary laugh at life as we know it.

Take Vanda’s response to the state patrol officer who has just stopped her for speeding. “Let me explain superposition to you, officer, because clearly you’re enslaved by a Newtonian viewpoint. See, there is a Vanda going 85 in a 55, but there's also a Vanda going 55 in an 85. There's a speed of light Vanda and a perfectly still Vanda. There are many, many Vanda potentials, officer, you see? You just collapsed the wave function on the wrong Vanda, that's all.”

Interfaith director at Evergreen State College in Washington State, Chaplain Fred LaMotte says Vanda’s act is a great counter-balance for spiritual self-importance. “Vanda's willingness to be vulnerable and poke fun at her own ego is really a model of courage for us all,” says LaMotte. “Her humor is not only wild, wonderful fun: it is a breath of grace that sweeps away our self-importance and allows us to blossom in simple humanity, in the present moment. Of course, this is where spirituality really begins.”

Vanda explains. “Every now and then I know I’ve gone too far when they look at me like I’m the headlights and they’re the deer.”...But, as Vanda points out, audiences will eat steak if you feed them steak, and hamburger if you feed them hamburger. Doing what she calls “writing up,” creating higher-brow material than ordinary, works as long as you give the audience context and authentic examples. And “writing up” is what Vanda is all about.

“My intention is to have a comedy show that not only is funny, but one that actually inspires and heals people as we laugh at what unites us: our crazy humanity. What would it be like if you came back from a standup comedy show saying, ‘Well I laughed a lot and that was great. I also perceive reality from an expansive context and …I grew a limb back!’ That would be way cool. Really.”