Maniac Breakfast on March 29: Designing Innovative Trainings: Moving beyond the "sit and get"

Join us for the next breakfast meeting of UW-MANIAC on March 29 from 8-9:30a.m. in the Memorial Union! This UW-Maniac Breakfast is titled "Designing Innovative Trainings: Moving beyond the 'sit and get'” and will be facilitated by Amy Climer of Climer Consulting.

Lectures are boring. After 10 minutes we get fidgety, start zoning out, and learning goes down the tubes. Research shows that experiential teaching results in greater learning and engagement by students. In this fast-paced workshop, learn how to make your classes, workshops, and trainings more active and increase learning through reflection techniques, even if you do “lecture” a bit. Make your classes more innovative and interesting, leading to happier students who learn more!

These bi-monthly UW-Maniac gatherings allow us to share creative approaches to professional challenges, identify new tools and strategies that can help us transform creative ideas into innovative solutions, and promote relationships that can help us address emerging needs as they arise. Make sure to keep an eye out on our "Upcoming Events" page for more opportunities! If you want to register for this event click here!

For additional information, contact Harry Webne-Behrman at OHRD, 262-9934 or hwebnebehrman@ohr.wisc.edu

Get involved! Become a MANIAC. Innovate. Collaborate. Inspire meaningful change.

Innovation & Collaboration Learning Cafe Explores "Moving Ideas to Reality"

The first UW-MANIAC "Innovation and Collaboration Learning Cafe" of the academic year will be held Thursday, Nov 17th, 8:30am - 1pm at Pyle Center. The focus is "Moving Ideas to Reality: Getting Started with Innovation," and it will feature an array of tools for defining, communicating, refining, and disseminating new ideas at the onset of the innovation process. Subsequent cafes in the series (February and April) will explore the later phases of the innovation process... but this one is all about getting started:

How do you get that creative idea off the ground? How do you refine your message so it is exciting to others and is readily conveyed? Who are the people you need in order to advnace that crazy notion so it gets off the ground? These are the types of questions we will explore, with stories, graphic communication tools, an exploration of Malcolm Gladwell's 'tipping point' methods, and other activities.

Come on over! The cost is $15, including lunch.

Getting Comfortable With Complexity on October 25th!

Sudden thunderstorms, unexplained traffic jams, ants finding food, sudden social change on a global scale—these are all examples of complexity. We live in a complex world—one that is interwoven and interdependent. Yet as our world grows more complex new and interesting properties emerge that never existed before.

This October 25th workshop, titled "Getting Comfortable With Complexity" will feature presenter Christine Kelly. Christine is an independent educational designer and holds a doctorate in Science Education from the University of Maryland. She has spent that last 15 years as an environmental and sustainability educator. Her expertise includes transformative learning, complex systems thinking, online communities of practice, organizational learning and sustainability and environmental educational curriculum design.

She has created a video to get you excited for the event, check it out here!

And after, make sure to sign up for this workshop and get a chance to begin your journey of getting comfortable with complexity!

Disciplined Dreaming: A Proven System to Drive Breakthrough Creativity

Today, it seems like companies are "creatively bankrupt" and only focusing on cost cutting, efficiency and top-down control. But what they are forgetting is that creativity really is a fantastic competitive advantage and focusing on developing and expanding on creativity will make the business more successful!


Josh Linkner's book Disciplined Dreaming brings readers to a realization that creativity is the only sustainable competitive advantage for individuals and companies because it is innovative and cannot be exactly replicated. The book offers creative techniques that will prepare you to take this creativity challenge within your own organization, and will allow you to discover and ignite your own creative abilities. To do this, Linkner organizes the book in a 5 step methodology:

1. Ask: identify and clearly define your specific creativity challenge
   
2. Prepare: prepare yourself mentally and physically for the creative process to maximize creative output
   
3. Discover: explore every avenue that might lead to creative ideas
   
4. Ignite: proven techniques for sparking creativity and generating better, and more, creative ideas
   
5. Launch: make your best creative ideas a reality!

For this post, I'm going to focus on some of the techniques I found interesting from the "Ignite" phase of Disciplined Dreaming. This will give you a taste for the book, and hopefully sparks your interest to read the whole thing!

"If you're unwilling to be different, you'll never get to the next level. The very fact that the entire industry does something a particular way is a great reason to explore the exact opposite approach" -Josh Linkner

Linkner writes that one of the most common stumbling blocks is the feeling that you need to imagine and perfectly design the entire creative solution BEFORE beginning work...this is not true! Creativity is an evolutionary process. Below are a few of the techniques that I found especially innovative for sparking creative discussions. These techniques allow for creativity and are part of this evolutionary process:

• Imbizo Groups- a Zulu expression for "gathering"- this is a group of people from diverse backgrounds and disciplines who have come together to simply discuss an idea. This group has NO end goal in mind, other than the goal of exploring. The groups needs to let go of the outcome goal and simply allow for creative, diverse discussion.
• The Hot Potato-put everyone in a circle except for a note-taker then toss a football to random person who will then shout out an idea that is no more than one sentence. The person isn't allowed to think about it, analyze it, or contemplate phrasing. This allows for spontaneous creativity and creates a situation that removes obstacles such as fear.
  
• Personas-rather than thinking about a generic, one-size-fits-all audience, try crafting personas (EX: two kids in college, age 52 living in Chicago, risk-taker). This allows you to get inside the head of your audience and make them into a specific person you can relate to instead of a faceless, nameless target. Then have creative conversations while having this person in mind.
• TDWR (Think, Doodle, Write Repeat)- A doodle-unlike a chart, diagram or illustration- carries an unfinished quality to it that makes it the ideal breeding ground for new ideas. Let your mind wander without limitations or rules, don't edit, judge, plan or re-read your doodles. Many people learn and process things visually, so doodling can help spark ideas!

The book offers many more creative techniques that spark new, innovative ideas, this was just naming a few. After reading, I found that these ideas allow us to open up different paths and generate different ideas compared to regular, structured meeting that occur frequently within organizations.

Lastly, I will leave you with this quote:

“There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new system” –Machiavelli

It might be scary at first to jump away from your normal way of doing things within your organization, but if you have a positive outlook in mind and are motivated from these new creative techniques, your organization could become more competitive in today's shifting marketplace through tapping into the power of creativity.

You can purchase Linkner's book here,
see it on Google Books,
...or find it at your local library. Enjoy!

MANIAC Offers Fascinating Fall Programs

It has been an exciting summer for the UW-MANIAC group, filled with 'soirees' to the Madison Children's Museum, Sector 67 Hackerspace, Slow Food UW, and (next week) Dr. Evermor's Sculpture Park. But we're just getting started, and the fall promises some fascinating professional development opportunities, each offering fun chances to 'stretch our knowledge' into creative skills and spaces:

'Jammin' in the Fall' (9/15) is our quarterly idea networking session -- bring half-baked ideas you want to try out on others, and come ready to hear some excellent ideas that can benefit from your perspective!

'UW-MANIAC Breakfast - Semester at Sea' (9/20) offers an opportunity to hear Amy Climer's story of her experience teaching in Spring 2011 on this floating academic institution. What are some things we can learn from her experience that can be applied to our work?

'Improv Skills for the Workplace' (10/6) brings back Barry Callen and Nell Weatherwax... for a full day session! Improv comedy skills help us think quickly on our feet and respond creatively and collaboratively to surprises at work. The tools we learn can be applied to staff meetings, project teams, and even our personal efforts to keep the day flowing energetically -- come, learn some cool activities, and then take that energy back!

'Getting Comfortable with Complexity' (10/25) challenges us to dive right into the heart of our work reality: Many of the issues we face today are filled with uncertainty, dynamic forces over which we have limited influence, and factors that seem to bring about changes that are hard to understand. Yet, there are some useful strategies for assessing these challenges and developing effective responses to them... Join Christine Kelly as she takes us on this excellent adventure into complexity... we are sure to emerge with some great ideas that can be applied to our current issues!

These are great programs... and there are more planned as we continue through the semester. Be sure to read the "Raving MANIAC" Newsletter for updates, too!

UW MANIACS contribute to 'Ideas worth Spreading'

Listen in as Fellow MANIACs Harry Webne-Behrman and Erin Schneider spread Generosity and Abundance during the inaugural TEDxMadtown talk. Videos from the talk are on the TEDxyoutube channel

And of course the event would never have happened without the amazing TEDxMadtown organizing committee led by, you guessed it another UW MANIAC, Deb Gurke. I wanted to take the time and share with you my experiences from the event and hope we'll have a chance to share more innovative stories during UW MANIAC's summer soirees and future Innovation and Collaboration Learning Cafes.

This past March, I had the privilege and honor to share Rob and mine's dream of growing fruit and building community during the TEDxMadtown event. The TEDxMadtown venue brings people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TED talks video and live speakers combine to spark discussion, connection and innovative thinking around ideas worth spreading.

I wanted to share with you our story of growing fruit and building community. In 2009 we started the process of diversifying our CSA to include more perennial fruits--transitioning an acre of land-preparing the soil, planting cover crops, and managing for weeds. Specifically, we set out to grow unusual yet marketable fruit crops such as Aronia, quince, Currants, Saskatoons, Seaberry, and Elderberr. Saskatoon what? Aronia who? What are all these fruits and what do you do with them? These fruits are high-yielding, environmentally friendly and exceptionally nutritious. They blow blueberries off the antioxidant charts. We also already know and have a community of apples, pears, and rapsberries on our farm, and we though we'd meet some new fruit neighbors.

O.k. so we're into unusual fruit? What does that have to do with "Ideas Worth Spreading" and emerging stories from my TEDxMadtown talk? The shift is in not just thinking about fruit, but thinking about function and how to grow food/fruits in relation to each other. A key innovation in our projects was the use of forest garden guilds as an orchard design tool. Forest garden guilds are perennial polycultures of multipurpose plants that partition resources and create networks of mutual support. We can consciously apply the principles of plant community function to the design of gardens, our farms that mimic structure and function and also grow our food, fuel, fiber, fodder, fertilizer, 'farm-aceuticals' and fun. (Edible Forest Gardens Vol. 2 Jacke and Toenmeister, 2007). We can extend these concepts as a metaphor for how we relate to each other and live both as free and interdependent beings in a funcational way in our communities.

This is where the TEDx event helped bring my farm experiences to the community and here's what's happening as a result. Telling my story of using Forest garden guilds as a guide to grow fruit and build community have helped us transform our agriculture system ot one of sustainable abundance, community, and the ability to concentrate wealth in the form of happiness, health, and expanded ecosystem services. It's also led us to new businesses opportunities as I work to develop Just Fruit Cooperative. I was also able to get valuable feedback and support with focusing my research and development efforts for Just Fruit Coop. During the talk, I passed around a 'tip jar', inviting participants to dig deep in the pockets of their minds and share ideas, stories, and thoughts ot the question of what creates the conditions and potential for a sustainable abundant food system. I discovered ideas, resources, and made connections with sources and people I never thought of before, or had no idea existed in Madison. For eample, I am helping with the co-deign of edible forest gardens and local venues such as Fractal, a new 'hacker-maker'space' venue on Madison's East side. I met with James Carlson (another great TEDx presenter, his video is worth checking out), who also directs a creative placemaking venue in Milwaukee WI and is a Prezi wiz. I invited Jame to share his talents and insights with using Prezi at an upcoming Unconference, the Midwest Regional Collaborative for Sustainability Education, that I am involved in designing. I was able to connect forest gardens to new internet gaming technologies and met with people at the University of Wisconsin Madison in exploring how to design a Forest Garden Game for you and adults ot play with online. I've been invited to speak at community events and received an invitation to participate in the upcoming Rural Wealth and Livelihoods Conference in Washington D.C. later this year, from Chris who was at TEDx and inspired by my talk.

I believe that growing fruits and growing cooperative connections can lead to increased ecological diversity, social interconnectedness, and economic viability for our farm, for our community, for the U.S. and the world. We need to look more broadly at creating networks and spaces like UW MANIAC and TEDx to cross-pollinate and share ideas, resources, and tools as well as getting inspired by stories shaping wealth and livelihood in other areas such as education, technology, and community organizing. TEDx instilled greater confidence in myself and authenticity in my work. In these uncertain economic times, finding creative solutions and launching ideas worth spreading is critical for not only creating sustainable jobs (jobs that pay well and increase the quality of life, quality of the land, and quality of our community relations), but also creating invaluable connections.

As a farmer, it is my hope that others will be inspired by TEDx talks and help share the importance of cross-pollinating ideas for not only growing fruit, but also growing long lasting relationships with people and place. As a facilitator, I hope you will be inspired by TEDx as it helps frame the questions, set hte intentions, and transform, for example, the current story of food insecurity and scarcity for many communities in Wisconsin, the U.S., the world, to a future re-imagined story of sustainable abundance, one story, one guild at a time.

Hey MANIAC’s!

The Innovation and Collaboration Learning Café titled “Transformative Thinking, Being, and Doing” will be held on Tuesday, May 3^rd from 8:30a.m.-1p.m. in the Lowell Center! For more information and to register, click here!

These cafes seek to sustain learning about creative thinking and integrate it into the way we teach, research and work together. This workshop will explore the foundations and applications of transformative processes in our personal and professional lives. We will use storytelling, the Seven Levels of Change, Transformative Design and Theory U to better understand collaborative change.

Make sure to find out more about UW-MANIAC and Fully Prepared to Engage and keep up with our upcoming events!

Hope to see you on May 3rd for the Cafe!