R/T 017 - The power of perseverance

This week's radical thing is: Testing your ideas, even when you lose faith in them.

It’s natural to get discouraged.

And it’s easy to be overcome with self-doubt.

It happens to the best of us. But letting negativity get the better of you is the worst thing you can do.

Here’s a little story about giving something a go. Even when it feels like you might fall on your face. Finishing with a smidgen of advice.

Last week I ran an online workshop with members of the Near Future Laboratory (NFL) discord.

The NFL is a collective leading the evolving field of Design Fiction - a form of speculative design. Julian Bleeker opened the door to an approach for exploring near futures in 2009 on releasing: Design Fiction: A Short Essay on Design, Science, Fact and Fiction. 

And if you're unsure, a 'Discord' is basically an online chat room.

The essay that started a movement.

Back to the story.

I’ve been sitting in an approach for creating futures scenarios for most of this year. It’s something I developed after facilitating lots of workshops. I wanted to create a tool that was simple to follow and could streamline scenario creation.

I’d been testing and developing it, but had recently lost interest. It was stuck on a virtual shelf gathering dust.

Then, a couple of weeks ago I was sitting thinking about all the ideas I’ve discarded. Years of IP sat in mental lockers, hiding in digital files and locked in notebooks. Never to see the light of day.

At that moment I made a decision. I decided that before throwing it out, I’d send this thing, ‘The Mashbox’, out into the world.

Enter the NFL Discord.

I gathered some scurvy futures pirates from the Discord to come and play with the Mashbox. I set the scene for them to act as test pilots to help develop the process and my thinking. 

Two weeks later, at 09:00 am NZT, the ping of the Zoom doorbell began. Slowly the room filled with eager, somewhat trepidatious participants. They came all the way from the UK, USA, Canada and Europe.

I was conscious not to ask too much of people’s time and had requested their presence for 75 minutes. I welcomed the group and after some quick intros, moved into the Mashbox overview. Time was ticking, so I soon whisked them off into breakout rooms to test the process - and get mashing!

Good facilitation is a balance between being available while not being overbearing. In this instance, I threw out the playbook. I stayed away from the rooms and let them get on with it. I remained a silent observer.

As time ebbed away, the process felt slow. I became concerned it was too drawn out, and doubtful it was working as it should.

Yet I remained defiant.

I gave myself a pep-talk, pivoted on the outcomes, and gave the participants a little nudge. After 40 minutes, they bounced back into the room. I wasn’t holding my breath. I was sure I’d scuppered my chances of them returning for another bite of the cherry at a later date.

Then I heard:

“We mashed the shit out of that thing!”

I needn’t have worried. In that instant I knew they’d enjoyed the process.

As the rest of the group came back, messages like “That was awesome!”’ came through the chat.

We debriefed and it was enlightening to hear everyone’s experience. I also received valuable feedback to improve the idea through further iterations. Everyone was buzzing and came away feeling like they’d received an exchange of value in a short burst of time and energy.

What was inspiring was seeing how other people use your ideas. The groups took my creation in directions I couldn’t conceive of myself. This created new ideas for what comes next. It also made me think about other ways to test things in low-risk, high-trust environments.

All-in-all, a great result.

As you get older and more long-in-the tooth, it’s natural to become more cynical about your work and practice. Even when you've got decades of knowledge and experience, its easy to get discouraged at the slightest criticism or nagging self-doubt.

The next time you find yourself judging an idea out of existence, here's my advice:

Stop and take a breath.

Give yourself some time to think how you might take a low-risk approach to test it more broadly. Then make a plan. And most important - follow it through!

You never know what the reaction might be and where it might lead you.

And if it doesn’t work?

Well, there’s always the next one.