Floris: My Social Inventions
The Playlist of a Polymath
This is a partial overview of my social inventions. It’s a showcase to some of my work and an eye-opener of the possible range people can have. If they allow themselves.
The Upside
Variation is what I love. And it brings the advantage of seeing connections between many fields. It also has led to many different assignments. I helped Italian business trainers in Venice make their workshops more experience-driven. I played king on a real castle. I was asked to boost educational innovation in Ukraine. I offered game storms to make city managers more creative. I helped test an escape room. I have been a corporate fool helping to enlighten a business meeting. Led an improvised choreography with over 80 dancers. Cowrote a children television series. Co-founded several schools and a festival. And more.
The Downsides
But before you think it’s all fun, “I want this too”, realize three things. 1. It is very tough to sell to people that don’t know you unless others said they had to ask me. Because what do I offer? It’s not clear and I have seen people not believe the range. 2. Being very creative is not enough. My work also asks to combine psychology, concept design, and understand the context. And also, people with just one great idea and good business focus reach often further. 3. And each time I read an article claiming now the ‘age of the creatives’ starts, or finally ‘generalists will be more in demand’, I wonder. Too many cling to what they know. And hiring someone who seems to take everything playfully, yet dares to ask uncomfortable questions can feel threatening. As a consequence, it was often the risk-takers within organizations that asked me. Thank you brave leaders who did. You know who you are.
The List of Inventions
So here’s a list of explorations in many different fields. After each field, I mention one or a few inventions and the driving question behind them. When available there’s a link to a broader explanation. And at the end of the article I link to an article describing my method.
1. SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Counter for Life Questions*
Children are conscious humans with wisdom of their own. How to make that visible?
Behind a counter sit children, most often age 8–12, to answer your life questions. The result impresses every time. Children get a boost in confidence and feel they matter. (Some) Adults are stunned, children are not empty vessels you pour knowledge in to get adults. They have a mind of their own and see way more than most adults are aware. Easy concept, yet there are some important aspect to keep in mind when applying this idea. Ask me, if so needed.
2. MUSIC
Learn piano improvisation with the Florissimo Method*
Should piano students lose their love for music because of boring repetitive exercises?
Learn to Play Music on the Piano in 15 Minutes and be able to improvise for the rest of your life. Don’t expect sudden technical genius, for that you’ll need additional lessons. Yet this approach lets you play, have fun with mistakes, and contains an important life lesson: the search for the music is the music.
3. SPORTS
Switchball, a Cooperative Sport*
Is a sport that trains some 21st-century skills you need possible?
This sport is crazy fun. Players have to shift balances, change roles, deal with changing rules, alliances. Switchball thus lets you train modern skills, like adaptability, serving the bigger picture, dealing with complexity. It also proves competition is not the only driver for action, as, in this sport, you can’t win at the cost of others. Will you be its next Hero or Buddha?
Here you can also see one of my weaknesses. This could be a foundation, promoting this sport, but running foundations is really not my thing. But I can be hired to come and play.
4. EDUCATION
Integral Education Model
What if we approached the whole being in education?
The dominant focus on knowledge in education has a reason. This way we optimize measuring progress (which is different from optimal learning!). A lot is lacking, like personal development, understanding our relationship with the world as a whole, and acquiring social skills preparing to help you have a positive impact on the needs of your community and environment (this last will be crucial for the future of humanity). This model helped design the curriculum for Knowmads and influenced others.
Curriculum Design
What if education was not a matter of achieving levels, but a journey, where we learn to express our best self and find the means to turn that into a profession?
I contributed a lot to the curriculum design of the little creative business school, Knowmads, I co-founded. I made a mix of theory U and the Hero’s Journey in a guiding sketch mixing the personal journey and the tribal journey (each class was called a tribe). Here you see a simple cleaned-up version. The education included the very personal, like healthy work-life balance, pragmatic business projects, global overview, and what you’d love to contribute to the world. The full year education is gone, but courses are still offered.
Workshop: Make Money With Your Weaknesses*
What if we embraced and celebrated our weaknesses?
School mostly offers failing students either one of two options. Either you drop this topic (if at all possible) or you work very hard to get proficient in it. I wondered about this. I find in all weaknesses is a talent hidden. I made most of my money thanks to my weaknesses. Laziness helped boost my creativity. Insecurity made me very sensitive to crowds, which boosted my facilitation skills. Etc. So I designed the workshop ‘How to Make Money With Your Weaknesses?’ In it, participants break through harsh (self) judgments and find hidden powers within themselves and define who might be needing that gift.
Flourish&Fly
Currently I’m also running a small educational playground to develop more natural learning. No teachers, no tests, no curriculum, more learning among friends. We meet every Friday online to develop ourselves and each other.
5. SOCIAL UNDERSTANDING
The Flourish Needs Cycle
Many consider with Maslow’s pyramid that self-actualization is the pinnacle of achievement. I wondered what should it serve?
Too often self-actualization ends up as optimal self-gratification (even when that is not the intention). We don’t, nor can live in a bubble. Based upon this I designed an improvement that includes our ecosystem and our need that it stays healthy at all times. Thus self-actualization must lead to service towards the bigger whole.
6. BUSINESS TRAINING
The New Smart*
What if we defined goals in a way we could emotionally relate to and that would trigger imagination and action?
I worked with artists and entrepreneurship. Many don’t relate at all to the classic business approach. Targets, goals, score, planning, these words mean little to them. The same goes for many other people as well. People are not machines. Hence I came up with the goal-setting that felt more natural and exciting.
Since then I found many variations on this concept, some better, but I tend to forget which. ;)
Workshop Future Proof Leadership
How prepare for and deal with increasing complexity and crisis?
End of 2019 I was asked by Umana Forma, Italy, to design the Workshop “Future Proof Leadership” for business owners in the Veneto region, in hindsight just in time to prepare participants for the arrival of Corona. One part of the workshop was these five ways to deal with complexity or lack of overview.
In our increasingly complex society trying to grasp it all with just the mind is becoming counterproductive. It may help more to be deeper immersed and act with all senses open. Hence these five attitudes explained further in the linked article.
DEALING WITH INCREASING COMPLEXITY
- Awareness: Overview through the Body. The body knows so much more than our brain, about what is going on. We can learn to listen to its wisdom.
- Responsibility: Leadership by taking part. The body listens when we immerse ourselves. Avoid becoming an entitled out-of-touch leader.
- Wisdom: Achieving by not doing. The path of the least resistance and putting trust in others may achieve more than pressure, control, and power.
- Co-Creation: Collaboration through diversity. Societies work like swarms. You need many people and ideas filling in gaps you can’t even see.
- Glocal: Local actions supporting global impact. When the whole can’t be known, improve local realities rather than spook the mind with assumptions.
7. GROUP RITUALS
How to get people engaged in a way that deepens the experience?
Classic Painting Pose*
Over recent years up to 2020, I’ve led large group rituals (alone or with a partner), to open and or close several festivals. Aside from setting the tone, helping newcomers, clarifying principles, and bring people in touch with their purpose in the festival in less than half an hour, the organization often also wants visual moments. To create such a great visual memory I came up with the Classic Painting Pose. Part of the trick is also to get everyone quickly and for only a short time in a pose. For me, the phrasing, enthusiasm, clarity, (friendly) strictness, and stimulation are all part of the design. Partially that is planned, yet also asks a lot of presence of mind on the spot.
8. COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE
Collective Wisdom Dance
How can we grow in accordance with fundamental principles of what it means to be alive in a collective society? Can we at the same time have everyone bring in their own individual essential questions and all get our answers too?
With this and other questions in hand, I invented the Collective Wisdom Dance. My starting conviction was: The fundament is that we can shine in accordance with our society as a whole. All we need is conscious dancing in a certain state of wakeful flow. This dance form will help you to get there and reflect when you shine. After all, we can see all of society as an informing dance as well, where you can take up your best role or keep bumping into people feeling lost. This dance reveals and speeds up that process in a safe environment.
Swarm Leadership
Can we lead each other, without leaders? Can we evolve together, each bringing in their special gift, personal perspective?
What started as group exercises for large group improvisation in theatre and dance, became something more. I found I could use the same principles to clean up a festival, after the event with volunteers. Andwaddoyeknow? It saved us immensely on time. Instead of team leaders getting (new) assignments while volunteers wait, everyone swarmed the terrain as intelligent ants, knowing what to do. It also led to workshops for managers who have way more trust in people wanting to do the right thing. Follow the link to find out how it works.
Swarm Festival
Can we organize small neighborhood improving festival with no leaders, no commerce, leaving the location cleaner, more beautiful and have fun at the same time?
Due to Corona testing this concept has yet to start, but due to experience with all ingredients I have high hopes.
9. MATH
The Reality Gap Formula*
Is a number a good representation of reality?
This formula shows us that calculations never represent the full story. “The Tao we talk about isn’t the real Tao.” What we consider normal math is purely trained disconnection from context. €1 euro on a table is not 1€. It’s also a table and the relationships of those involved. $5 isn’t the same $5 from one person to the next. To treat it as the same will reward some and hurt others.
10. THEATRE
I’ve been a theatre improv teacher for 30 years. Many exercises have been designed, often on the spot. This one was always a favorite.
Deathball, cooperative violence*
How to learn collaboration as a competitive human being?
Deathball is probably the most photogenic (because of slow-motion) and the most ‘violent’ (nobody gets hurt) collaboration game in the world. It’s awesome cooperation and concentration exercise and it’s almost a sport. The paradox in the game is that: In order to win you have to overcome your inner competitive ape!
Another invention was as playwright. Could I make plays for very different sets of players? Especially amateur groups often have a hard time seeking plays fitting their number. Enter the Quorum.
The Quorum
A Quorum is a play that can be played by a diverse set of players. This makes it much easier for players to find plays that fit their group. How does it work? In these plays, what’s left out is who exactly says what. This is is up to the players to determine. Groups divide lines to fit their amount of players. The definition of characters and their motives may change because of allotted lines. Each quorum (plural Quora), or sketch, will offer a range for a possible group size. Here you can find a few short ones.
11. SPIRITUALITY
The Way of the Fool
(link to earlier workshop) (link to article on applied fooling at protests)
Can I live playfully, freely and yet be of meaning to others? Where and how to learn this?
What started as a playful workshop (series), can be considered as a Spiritual Path in itself. I always had a high interest in the archetype of the (holy) fool. Me, often being a little bit of an outsider, more lighthearted and playful than most, felt at home here. I also found that the archetype can play a huge role, in group settings as a social acupuncturist or corporate/festival fool. Since there’s not a large request for this role, I mostly keep it low key. Yet it has played a liberating role in my own life and for participants in each workshop about it.
Guru, or Satsang, Battle*
Why do we all look up to Guru’s? Don’t we all have deep inner wisdom? Can anyone become a Guru?
This irreverent concept arose from a joke, that turned out to have great meaning. It combines the concept of (rap) battles with guru teaching. So I had a chair, wonderful assistants, and a tent full of people. Everyone could become Guru and offer teaching (Satsang) in the chair. And every 3 minutes we voted someone in our out of the chair. The one who stayed longest in the Guru chair would be declared winner. This ‘joke’ led to deep insights on how to listen deeper within. We learned what makes a Guru, that most people have a sense of ‘knowing’ that can be activated, whether as Guru and or as audience, listening to who has ‘it’. (NB: Do not copy this concept without asking more, it’s more tricky than it seems to get right)
12. GAME DESIGN
“Sick Democracy”, the Game
Can I make a fundamental flaw in democracy experiential in a fun way?
This dirty little game exposes a fundamental flaw in democracy. This flaw is being exploited by those who profit most from it. The current voter suppression within the USA has made this game’s message more urgent. Play to understand, win to corrupt, corrupt to win. This can be played with 3–13 players and with materials one often already has at home.
Inner Leadership Game (currently in development)
How can teachers/trainers develop people’s inner leadership in a gamified experience, even when they hardly have time or experience in that?
Here is an example of some cards of such a game. It can be played with groups ages 16+ to help develop personal leadership and self-reflection in groups, classes, teams. It’s still being tested, but initial experiences are very positive.
13. LANGUAGE
New Words
How to make the not noticed visible to others?
I love how new words can help to see or understand things you couldn’t before. Here are a few examples I came up with:
Gaudi Factor: The distance people will travel to see the ‘frivolous useless art’ in your city determines the Gaudi Factor. Like Gaudi’s art draws millions.
Play Design: Developing ideas by making them directly experiential in the ‘here and now’. Innovation the way children improve their games; playing.
Possibility Rush: The awesome moment when new ideas tumble over one other and everything seems possible and people go “Yes, yes, yes, and…”
It’s a Victory in Iraq (saying): Winning so that it creates a bigger mess. Like on a personal level, you win the argument, but it ends the relationship.
14. TEACHING STORIES
I was wondering, can I make essences clear in the ancient art ‘funny’ little stories with several layers of meaning? Here is one example.
The Mulla and 5G
This time Mulla Nasruddin is dancing wildly in the city square. People gather and wonder what this is about. “5G got me, 5G got me, 5G is killing me!” He shouts with anxiety and desperation in his voice. “But Mulla,” one of the villagers who actually read a newspaper tries to stop him, “Don’t you know they haven’t even started building them here. The closest one is more than a thousand miles and 3 years away!” “You see, you see!” the Mulla cries out, “You see how strong its radiation is! It’s not even close and it’s already upsetting my life!”
15. CARTOONS
How to make our incapability to stop producing so much terrible waste visible?
People often don’t realize how cartoons demand a very different way of thinking. To practice that thinking I used this blog, using medieval art.
16. GRAPHIC DESIGN
Can I summarize an essence in a logo?
Having been an illustrator at some point, I tried my hand at logo design only a few times.
EndNote
All Inventions marked with a *, either started as a playful joke, or as a playful, let’s try this. Often it was the impact of the initial set up in real world reactions that kind of forced/convinced me to take the ‘joke’ seriously. I find few people just give ideas a go. I consider it my richest resource to now findings.
Aside from these, I’ve developed quite some management role-playing games for training purposes, over 50 different workshops, filmed commercials, wrote short stories, poetry, theatre shows, dabbled in (common sense) science, and more. So I’ve been a creative most of my life.
If you’d love to be creative in any field too, then this blog post I wrote about boosting your creativity may help: Play as Innovation Tool You’ll find that the ‘Tree Technique’ mentioned in it is quite present in the starting point of the concepts presented above.
And if you need a creative who can step in almost any field and add something new, look no further and call me.
by Floris Koot
Process Alchemist in Education, Gaming, Events & Society
