The magical messiness of humanity
Ink stains, vulnerability and the magical messiness of humans
On my dog walk this morning, I put my hand in my pocket to find something to listen to from my Spotify. As I pulled out my phone I saw my fingers stained blue.
Oh shit! I’m wearing a new jacket that feels light and yet warm. Understated. Stylish. Yet comfortable. Fuck! NOT AGAIN!
I fumbled around in my pocket and felt the loose lid, carefully pulling out a handful of pens, including the obvious guilty party.
I get back home, get some wipes and kitchen towel and start dabbing the area. Then hunt for the stain devil I bought last time because I couldn’t find the one I bought the time before that. Luckily it was within easy reach and it was a pen specific one. Lucky me.
I deal with the stain, but fear making it worse. Who knows what will happen. Will I live with the stain if it persist?
It’s currently in the wash. So we’ll see…
It got me thinking, what could I write about?
The annoyance and pleasure of carrying around pens?
How I ruin clothes with ink stains more than anything else?
How this little human preferences and behavioural error increases my carbon footprint?
Or how I can make art out of the stained kitchen towel and wipes?
What I wanted to talk about was last night’s Group of Humans All Hands. Or one of my favourite joyful activities, following on my post about ‘Joyspan’ yesterday.
Paying the penalty
But… just a little thought pause on pen lids and carbon footprint for a minute. Due to pen lids coming off pens in my pocket. I have ruined a lot of clothes. And ended up buying more. Usually they have a habit of being my favourite clothes. So not the cheapest ones. As I end up buying more.
It just goes to show some of the many little things that can end up ruining the world around us. Whether disrupting my day, or adding to pollution that may end up damaging the world around me.
I know many more people know a lot more about all this stuff. So i’ll shut up on that for now.
And yes, I have explored pencil and pen cases, sheafs, iPad with Apple Pencil, and I have a Remarkable which I have tried to use a lot more recently. It’s not the same as having real pens to hand peeps. And I am paying the penalty. Pun accidentally written, but kept for a little joy pop.
Back to the point…
All hands, voices, and talents matter
Every month most of the members of Group of Humans get together for an ‘All Hands’ video call. We used to do it on Zoom, but there was a shift towards Google Meet/hangout, or whatever it’s called these days, for various privacy, pricing and other Ts and Cs concerns.
Good reasons I’m sure but using Google over Zoom had some (beautiful) consequences on proceedings for our end of year event.
For our end of year All Hands, Rob Noble, the Group of Humans head honcho had the bright idea of giving everyone (nearly 70 people) upto 30 seconds each over a one hour call. Thanks Rob.
The brief:
‘you all get 30 seconds to say a few words, sing a song, tell a joke, share something about the year, whatever you like’
What could possibly go wrong? What could emerge?
And, more importantly, what would I do?
The challenge of mutual intimidation
I was spending the day reviewing my notes from the coaching, and decided to switch gears to what I would talk about. 30 seconds isn’t that long.
If you don’t know anything about the Group of Humans. Let me tell you this. It’s a collection of some of the smartest, most creative, most pioneering, and most respected individuals I have ever come across.
People with market-leading expertise and experiences across a lot of diverse interests and fields. Going to space. Talking about climate change in the North Pole. Developing the world’s best brands. Writing for legendary TV series. Creating some of the industry’s favourite web work of all time. Leading huge design organisations. Pioneering music videos. Writing incredible music. Creating incredible award-winning immersive museum installations about the Ukraine war. I could go on and on…
And then there’s me. So yeh, fucking intimidating.
No swear word does it justice really. Although, the thing I have realised over time with this bunch, is that many of us feel the same. Intimidated by each other.
In some ways, that’s part of the beauty. We get to raise our games. ‘Like tennis’ as Waterfall would say.
But with the ‘humans’ it’s a balance of the talent with genuine humanity. Vulnerability. Passion. Compassion. Sensitivity. Gratitude. Acute insight. Imperfection. Curiosity. Appreciation.
I’m finding more and more that intimidating creative talent is often paired with vulnerable humanity.
That’s a topic I hope to be exploring more deeply over the coming years in something I am currently naming ‘Architectures of Resilience’.
There it is, I’ve said it out loud publicly. That’s a big step. I won’t share what it is yet. Sometimes guessing and extrapolating from two or three words leads to far more interesting ideas.
Intimidation, balanced with imperfect inspiration
So, unfortunately I didn’t get to watch the whole of the All Hands as I had to attend my youngest’s xmas carol. There was some beautiful imperfection and vulnerability there as well for sure. Just more hiding amongst the throng.
Yes, the All Hands did go on beyond the hour. But only by 10 minutes. Which was inevitable I guess.
People ran over their allotted time. 30 seconds is hard remember.
Tech issues ago ago. Sound not coming through. Yes, Google.
People muted. Yes, video calls.
People having more material than the time slot. Yes, standard.
And you know what? These were all great things to happen. Lowering the intimidation barrier, for something more meaningful, more vulnerable to come out.
Letting go of the performance
I had some little A5 sheets of paper for my bit. Positioned on some yellow card. I even setup my overhead camera again after a while of it being out of use. I could just use those as makeshift slides. Overhead projector style. A nice performative crutch so people wouldn’t have to look at me.
But, it was too hard to switch cameras in session. Yes, Google.
And yes, I could have used OBS, or there’s probably a hot key. But to be honest, it was probably just better coming from me, given the content.
I wasn’t really able to see any reactions, other than some lovely comments in the chat and a stream of emojis flooding the screen.
I was just glad to reflect on nearly 2 weeks of public gratitude, why I started it, and a better way to frame it for others.
‘Thank people while they are still alive’
Catching the end
So given I had to go to my other evening entertainment of beautiful imperfection, I’m just gonna watch the rest of the All Hands now, before I close this out…
….watches recording
…grabs coffee
And so glad I caught the extra 8 mins I missed.
Across the 70 minutes, around 50 people shared something. Typically over 30 seconds. But I don’t believe most would care about that too much. Creatives with constraints and all that.
We had so many different topics and performances, including:
- Making a cocktail.
- Singing.
- Dancing.
- TV presenting for arctic geopolitics.
- Menti polls on our focus.
- Deep work.
- Gratitude for science, partners, each other
- Jokes.
- Xmas drinks.
- Live music gigs from the year.
- Poems.
- How 2024 will be terrible.
- Optimism.
- Skepticism for their industry.
- Financial fails, and personal successes.
- Climate.
- Family.
So much. Beautiful stuff. Vulnerable. Inspiring. Levelling.
We need a diverse set of skills for 2024 and beyond
This all made me come back to the pen and the ink.
The pen-to-carbon footprint problem could have many solutions.
Value from many different expertises: fields of design, engineering, psychology, manufacturing, communications and many more.
Human selection creates a bias
When you select an employee, an agency, a consultancy, a research participant, a team to help with a design or communications solution, you are already biasing the solution space. Regardless of how consistent your process.
And it’s not easy to bring those diverse skillsets to bear on a problem, to not limit the solution space.
Although maybe the bias we as humans bring in can be valuable?
Good bias allows positive mark making on humanity
Each human has their own experiences. Their own wisdom. Their own perspectives. Their own ideas. Their own beliefs. Their own values. Of course, there will be some commonality amongst them.
But every single human can make their mark on the work. And I believe on the world. Staining it. Adding colour. Or filling in the spaces between the harder lines. Or even crossing those boundaries.
Much of modern design narratives downplay the ego, the designer, the human as part of the process. And I think that view limits the impact we can have on humanity.
Acknowledging that bias can be valuable. Eliminating it, impossible.
Or so I believe.
I also believe diversifying the input and the action can be incredibly valuable. But I believe it goes way beyond the more tangible diversity of colour, gender, race, culture, and geography. It goes a little deeper.
Into the more vulnerable layers of our humanity. And we don’t usually consciously screen or select for that.
Magic in the messy
I believe we work best when we connect on those deeper levels. I believe we do this unconsciously.
Beyond the perfect veneers of our clothing. Our polished websites with beautifully shot portfolio pics. Our brilliantly written and persuasive thought leadership.
It’s where I believe the magic lives. In the mess.
Where new ideas form between people. Connecting to a wider audience if shepherded to realisation.
And I am grateful to experience some of this magic at various times with the Group of Humans.
In the time I have been writing this, my jacket has been pulled out of the washing machine. Left to dry…
Will we embrace the mess?
I’m not sure what I’ll do if it’s still stained.
Buy something new?
Just go back to a different jacket when I meet people in public?
Or will I just live with the ink stains and wear it proudly?
Acknowledging my messiness outwardly. Not giving a fuck about what others think.
I’m not sure I’m there yet.
I’m just acknowledging my internal messiness out loud here. And appreciating the messiness of others. The imperfections. The vulnerability. The humility.
As one of the more gloomy Humans’ All Hands slots suggested, 2024 is likely to be pretty bad. Probably worse than 2023. Things are messy now. They’ll probably get more messy.
I believe if we meet mess with veneers of stubborn clarity, structure, certainty, and rigidity we’ll be disappointed.
Instead…
How can we use the magic of our own messiness to meet the messy problems ahead?
This post is part of an advent calendar challenge I have set for myself. Writing and publishing one piece a day. Whatever emerges. Although sometimes I may work on an idea sparked on another day. An exercise in getting back into the writing groove. But also re-finding my voice. Lowering the barriers of my ego getting in the way of what might be valuable for others, or at least me.
You can check the other pieces here on the newly named ‘Eclectical’ Medium publication.
I am a coach, a product-service strategy consultant, a community connector and so many other things. You can find out more about me, my many interests and how to connect them with yours here.
