From the Archives: We Play in Centuries!

Originally posted by Gail on April 27, 2016

In civilizations with long nows, says Brian Eno, "you feel a very strong but flexible structure . . . built to absorb shocks and in fact incorporate them."  From The Clock of the Long Now, by Stewart Brand, 1999

When Matt and I began working together, he was just coming out of two years of deep learning and reading. He was looking at the patterns embedded within Cybernetics and systems theory, requisite variety and other systems coming out of the 30 and 40s.  We both read Future Shock and many, many other books on the future.  Many were brilliant until the end.  But in the end, no one offered brilliant solutions; in fact, there were no solutions leading to a better world.  The ideas fizzled out or were merely small linear transition steps. 

Matt was teaching a course: Redesigning the Future and part of his assumptions were:

  • There would be as much global social/economic and technology change in the next 30 to 40 years as there had been since the middle ages;

  • That most individuals had more capability then kings and queens of the past.

  • Each of us had more freedom and license to change and design our world than any time in known history.

I was working in education where everyone should have been thinking and designing for the future. Success for a teacher is 15 to 25 years in the future when their students would mature and begin to shape their own futures. Thinking beyond getting students through the year was rare for teachers.

It was clear to us that the future was happening by default, not design!

Thus as we designed and developed our first group workshop focusing on the future. We incorporated Matt's assumptions into our thinking. One of the first modules we did was a 100 year time line ... 50 years back and 50 years into the future.  Since our first workshops were family inclusive we had a number of young children who participated in creating the time line.  It was an amazing snap shot of a future in the making.  Participants moved backwards and forwards writing down their memories and assumptions.  Great fun and participation.  One idea sparked another and another as people came up one at a time and added a thought.  It was a worthy part of our SCAN. They began to see how they could shape the future, using the new found capabilities Matt had shared with them. And, best of all, participants, all from different sectors of a community began to trust each other. They were creating something together!

By the early 80's we had incorporated our into our vision the idea: "Everyone engaged in rebuilding Earth as a work of art"  Many of the participants were contributing powerful ways of seeing and sensing patterns.

Then we began working with Ernst & Young and while they put up with it, SCAN was just something they had to get their clients to endure. The time line was no longer essential, or if it was, maybe we could move it out five to ten years from the present.  Clearly the future vision and near term were in no meaningful way connected, one to the other.  As Ernst & Young sold to Cap Gemini, the time line got more and more sub optimized. It became tactical instead of exploratory, visionary, inpactful. This is not to say the work they did was not useful. It was and is. But rarely, does it ask enough of participants to think big, be bold, or to step up to transformation.

I tried several times to reserect the importance of playing with the future, looking at possiblities. Never did Matt or I see this as forecasting or predicting but rather an informed brainstorm.  The more we opened ourselves to the possibilities put on the timeline, the more prepared we would be to see reality when it came our way and could respond to it by design, not default. 

In the fall of 2014, a few of us met in Victoria and I once again incorporated the time line into the overall design of our two days together. It began slow but as our conversations warmed up to different thoughts it became more and more apparent that thinking about the future, playing long term, was at the core of our process and method.  We were about so much more than helping a corporation, or non-profit, or government deisgn for a six-month gain! As humans creating a world far into the future, our responsibility was to become foresighted, visionary, fruitful. This was practical and important.  We held the idea close wanting to develop it more, wanting it to become rich, essential, and not get dumbed down to fit within a tiny window.  We met again in 2015 with a slightly larger group and gave it more meaning. 

Since that time, I think each of us present in those sessions have been including We Play in Centuries concept in different ways.  I have liked the ways we have used it and how participants are stepping up and engaging with the future.  Each round brings new ideas and possibilities.  I actually think that an exciting one or two day event could be wrapped within We Play in Centuries and I'm looking for people who think so too! This is the work of Tomorrow Makers. 

Matt and I began our work in the 20th century. We are now well into the first 1/5 of the 21st century.  Our children may well be facing the quesion for how long they want to live. Forever? Perhaps. Certainly well into their 100's.  What kind of world are we creating for the 22nd century? Will we use our power? Our design essence? Our communities to create the world as a work of art?

Let's create a civilization with a long healthy now!  Can we say we have been good ancestors?

 

 

From the Archives: Turn Around Sam

"Anyone can talk to a tree but not everyone can carry on a conversation because they will not stay still for long enough. Sometimes it takes a whole day for a tree to tell you its name." Tokien

Joanna Macy speaks of the great turning... our turning away from a world no longer working to something more fit, more thriving for all those who are part of Universe, and in particular, Gaia, our Earth planet. In my day to day life, it is difficult to see the changes happening ... the great turning in the becoming. Rather, I keep wondering when it will begin. And then I think of Turn Around Sam one of the many characters in Tom Robbins' Skinny Legs and All. In the book, Turn Around Sam is a living statute that turns around so slowly that no one can see him move, yet move he does turning in a complete circle several times a day... everyday in a New York park.

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From the Archives: Good Enough to be True

Originally published by Gail June 12, 2019

One time a participant in one of our DesignShops came up to us after a DesignShop and shared this thought. “My Mom would always say when something good happened, ‘Oh this is too good to be true!’ But now, I have turned that saying around and I will be looking for things ‘Good enough to be true!’

Why is it that we are so willing to accept bad news? What keeps us from believing we are worthy of good news? These questions are vitally important to consider as we go about creating a world that works for all of us… to design our collective well-being by design, not default.

Matt and I in our early days with our MG Taylor Process would develop simulations customized with the clients objectives in mind. These simulations were challenging and often showed the clients where they were vulnerable. By participating in the simulation they were directing their own future. A knowledge worker core team played the role of newspaper. We imposed one rule on them. “When the participants acted negatively about an idea or a headline we published, we would pile it on, adding one negative headline after another. However, when one of the teams would publish a positive response to an article or situation, we would pile on positive headlines. And do you know what? When the participants caught on to the negative/positive headline offerings, they began to really put their heads down and find positive solutions to the situation. They stopped griping, whining. They were eager to contribute, to find good paths forward.

Today, the news seems mostly bad. One crisis after another is reported. One killing after another. One failure after another. Recently, however, I am beginning to see some really positive and action oriented good news. By looking I am discovering that there are thousands of people working hard to solve the problems we have created for ourselves and Earth, this place we call home. WOW! Are we reaching a tipping point where good news can be recognized and honored?

The Tomorrow Maker challenge to design a new operating system for humanity is being well received as are many other bold initiatives. Lets celebrate and act with these projects, make them better, take them further. I would truly like for us as global citizens to recognize that the world we are creating with so much good energy and purpose is intact, Good enough to be true! We can celebrate the old world crumbling, no longer useful as it morphs and transforms into a culture of “Yes, just watch us step up to the challenges and opportunities the future is offering us.”

I believe that together we have choices we do not have as individuals. Its a scary world to be an individual in todays world. But collectively, wow, there is no stopping us and we are good enough to be true. And working together in no way stamps out the fact that we are each unique, unrepeatable with our own contributions to make.

Look for good news. Add to it. Record it; pass it along. Imagine our delight in 2030 to 2040 when we wake up to the fact that we have/are creating a world that works for 100 percent of humanity while restoring Earth, our home planet. We are good enough to be true!