After spending my thinking-and-writing energy on the idea complex related to The Flow Society from last summer up until March this year, I went down for some practical applications. And now we’re rolling! I just want to spend this month’s contribution updating you with what is happening in-and-about these Community-Oriented / Crowd-Empowered projects – open branded, given to the Commons, creatively.
All projects are related in one way or another, and they count to four:
#TheFlowSociety – This is the Generic Curative Collector of the Conversations and Insights generated around the topic as such – and has its home on http://flowsociety.org
#FlowSocietySeminars – This is a series of “brainjams”, physically (hyperlocal) and virtual through webinars and web meetings, for collaborative insight driven by the ‘hive mind’ – current sessions listed on the web above
#FlowDoneSystem – This is a method and approach taking the best of worlds of all the productivity and efficiency techniques, in an own remix open for development, and using a series of web and mobile applications, giving a great clue to “how to survive, live and prosper in the flow society”
#PomodoroMix – This is a musical project helping you to enhance focus when you come to the “doing”, helping you to reach your own “flow” to the heights, depths and strengths – helping you to stay “in the zone”
So, taking it from the top.
#TheFlowSociety
All articles produced so far are now collected on The Flow Society web. The process undergone beyond this, is to revisit all written, and turn articles to edited and reworked pages, forming chapters – and finally going PDF and Print in a book on the “theory/idea” and the different sub-topics of The Flow Society. This will be done during the year, with version 1.0 of the publication to be ready with a date more clearly set beyond the crucial seminars for feedback and response of the material this far. Going from idea to application in the concrete.
#FlowSocietySeminars
Yes. Since last time of writing, a Seminar Series has started ‘in real life’, in a ‘hyper-local’ setting. The Flow Society was first introduced in a Pecha Kucha presentation in Linköping, Sweden, in the beginning of April, which later turned into a longer TED-style presentation introducing a series of ‘brainjams’ running until end of May. This series started at the newly opened “Coffice” at Norrköping Science Park – a hybrid of café and office, where I am collaborating with Norrköping Science Park in this series of four sessions. When insights from these workshops have matured, a series of open webinars, with follow-up tighter/interactive web meetings will be introduced. These webinars and web meetings will be aimed both at my regional/national scene (in Swedish, May 8) and the global (in English, May 9). The open webinars will be as said – open for everyone. The web meetings will be by invitation only, and aimed to reach value in the individual/team cases with direct dialogue and support in the concretes, getting practical and providing solutions for each and everyone in the everydayness.
#FlowDoneSystem
Still tweaking in ‘private beta mode’, the Flow Done System is in development, and soon ready to be introduced for a wider audience. It will be suggested as a way to ‘Organize Everything’, with some cloud based apps and services used to getting it all together. The main inspirational sources are GTD and Pomodoro Technique, with some remixes and twists. What we deal with is a trinity of three cornerstone to get from Here to Done, In The Flow – The What, The How and The When, together with The Who, The Where and The Why as essential prerequisites. “The What” is manifested through “documents, notes, items and files” at different stages and in changing combinations. “The How” is outlined through a series of to-do-items and issues related to “Projectizing” stuff, with Action Loops. “The When” is a mix of the booked and unbooked, and to find when is the best to do different stuff and in what order – where “Pomodoro Timeboxing” forms an essential part, living together with the calendar. Who are solo or “getting things done together” in ”confluence”, Where is “the place you work best with the stuff at hand”, where last but not least – the motivating Why is what glues all labour of love and meaning together. Finding your “YouFlow”, with the team in “UsFlow”, in harmony with the ”WeFlow”.
#PomodoroMix
In order to get things done with sharpness and focus, the “timeboxing” technique of Pomodoro is of strong recommendation. In an everydayness surrounded by internal and external possibilities of distractions, it is hard to “keep focused” and being in the flow. Music finds an answer to this for many – and I talk of my own experience. When caffeine effects are no more, I remember getting thru pressing deadlines with pumped up electronic beats of varying kinds, and lacking energy and inspiration some ambient soundscapes can get you in the mood of creativity – depending on what task at hand. With the Pomodoro principles of estimating turns of “pomodoros” – 25 minute working sessions, with five minute breaks in between, repeat four and then take a longer break, and keep records of the todos planned and unplanned, together with distractions to coach yourself to better focus – this is improving both joy, lust and results in the doing. The first demo pomodoro mixes has been presented at http://pomodoromix.es, and essentially as an effect of conversing it over an SMC lunch here in Norrköping of SMC Östergötland at the end of March, a development took place of the concept. First, I recorded some demo stand-alone mixes of 25 minutes each, but the response was that it would be a distraction to have a “ringing bell” after 25 minutes, or doing something actively beyond each pomodoro beyond the actual work – so I decided to mix them together in one flow, with five minute break tunes in between, in a less intrusive way. The result of the standalone vs the mixed together, can now be enjoyed over at http://mixcloud.com/pomodoromixes (four mixes of 25 minutes standalone, supporting a pomodoro set) and http://soundcloud.com/pomodoromixes (mixed together including the breaks of five minutes, with a mix of totally 1 hour and 55 minutes accordingly). Enjoy, and listen for yourself!
Getting it all together – supporting a societal transformation towards an open world
All this comes from the conclusion of how I can “contribute the best towards a sustainable world” – to support those being there transforming our societies through entrepreneurial activities! And also got a strong motivator when I acted with own sustainopreneurial business activities, hitting the barriers of institutional orders and structural rigidities. We need a world more open for flows to embed, include and welcome sustainopreneurial ventures, and thus my work to observe a world going with natural processes in the ecosystem at large, instead of working “against” them. The “natural state”, I believe, is “flow”, and I am here to enforce such a societal development, with a world open in the end.
I hope to see and hear you through one or more of the up and coming webinars! As said, the first webinar in Swedish May 8, 8.00-9.00, and every Tuesday morning through May beyond, and in English every Wednesday 17.00-18.00 CEST (8AM PDT / 10AM CDT / 11AM EDT / 4PM BST / 20:30PM IST). Seats are maxed to 100 – first come, first serve. There will be a number of smaller, more interactive, web meetings as well – by invitation only. More details to be found over at http://flowsociety.org/flowsocietyseminars/.
Welcome in th Flow!
Image credit: Flowsociety.org
