Working with the Garage Door Open

A few weeks ago my position was eliminated at Liberty Mutual. Honestly, I'd been building toward something new for a while. The elimination just removed the last reason to wait.

So here's what I'm doing. And I'm going to do it with the garage door open.

I've spent the last couple of years quietly developing a facilitation practice called Playing with Complexity. It lives at the intersection of improv, complexity science, and experience design. The short version: I help creative teams navigate uncertainty through embodied, playful experiences that actually change how people work together.

To do that well, I need to go deeper on some things I've been circling for a while.

Here's the plan.

This Monday, March 16 I'm attending a Fast Futures training from the Institute for the Future. Ninety minutes on signals and drivers of change. This is the foundational skill of futures thinking I've been meaning to develop properly. I'll be sketchnoting it.

Starting now through early April I'm working through the Cynefin training series from Dave Snowden. Cynefin is one of the most credible frameworks for making sense of complexity in organizations. I've been adjacent to it for years. Time to go in properly. It's video-based, which isn't my favorite format, but it includes a book and I'll be sketchnoting as I go.

April 9 I start a five-week cohort at IDEO U's Human Centered Systems Thinking. Combining the analytical tools of systems thinking with human-centered design to make sense of complex challenges. Four hours a week, cohort-based, which is how I learn best.

Running alongside all of this: a backlog of YouTube conversations with complexity science practitioners I've been meaning to watch. I'm treating those as a Tiny Experiment. I’ll sketchnote three, see what emerges, decide what to do with the rest.

I have an accountability partner. My friend Chris and I are meeting every two weeks to talk about what we're learning and what's emerging. He's been a thinking partner for years. Having him in the loop makes it real.

What I'll be doing here is leaving the door open. I’ll be posting rough doodles / sketchnotes. Half-formed thoughts and things that confused me. Things that connected unexpectedly. Short posts, mostly (with a drawing sometimes). Occasionally something longer when an idea emerges.

I'm not waiting until I have something polished to say. That's the whole point.

If you want to follow along, this is the place. If you're working in similar spaces (complexity, futures thinking, facilitation, improv) I'd love to know you're out there.

The garage door is open.