June 14, 2013
Slavko Martinov
Slavko Martinov is a New Zealander film-maker who created an international case around his latest work, Propaganda: a documentary which presents Western society through the critical eyes of an anonymous North Korean professor. The professor is actually Mr Eugene Chang, a South Korean expat whose life has been completely changed by the attentions the movie has received by South Korean authorities, who accused Eugene to be a North Korean spy. The accusations lead to Eugene’s marginalisation and repudiation from the South Korean community in Christchurch, New Zeland, where he lives and where the documentary has been filmed and directed by Slavko Martinov and Mike Kelland. The idea of making a case has been a brilliant intuition, yet consequences went far beyond any expectation: the film mysteriously appeared on YouTube on 18th July 2012 as a documentary provided by North Korean defectors, and it circulated as anti-Western propaganda material originating from North Korea, before the truth around the film has been revealed.
During a round table at Biografilm Festival, Slavko admits that he would never imagined that his movie would have such an impact on members of his crew’s life, he expected consequences, but on himself. He worked with legal experts and was ready to face problems, but despite the public efforts Martinov and Kelland have been doing to clear Eugene name, the three of them are officially considered North Korean agent and Eugene’s life has been tuned upside down. read more »
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June 7, 2013
LSP @ GovJam
What if I apply LEGO SERIOUS PLAY to a Jam?
I should not ask myself such questions, because when I ask myself this, I want to find out the answer. So, my latest experiment was applying LSP to a GovJam. For those who are unfamiliar with the Jam concept, a Gov or Service Jam is a global event, taking place simultaneously all around the world for 48 hours, where participants, called jammers, are called to design a service or a product on a common secret theme, which is revealed just at the beginning of the Jam. The name Jam is taken by music: in a jam session musicians improvise on a common theme and make music together. The idea in a Jam of ideas, is the same: let people improvise and jam with their ideas to make new ideas together.
In a GovJam, the goal is to design a service aimed at the local public administration. Knowing how LSP can be flexible and how helpful it is when it comes to define a common topic and for team building, I thought it could be an exciting challenge to imagine and design a LEGO SERIOUS PLAY workshop to enhance creativity and let people to jam ideas with bricks.
This turned out to be an exciting designing exercise which has been demanding but rewarding as well. Designing an LSP workshop for a Jam, revealed a number of key differences with the design of a ‘traditional’ workshops and this challenge lead to a dynamic, exciting and challenging workshop management. Thanks to the experience, I have had kind of a guerilla training in managing the unexpected and I have learnt a number of useful issues which will be useful for future workshop design.
So, I have identified 5 variables that should be taken into consideration when designing a workshop in any other situation where nothing is given and everything is improvised and based on the play-do-play-do mantra.
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May 24, 2013
Architect Gianni Cagnazzo
Gianni Cagnazzo is an Architect. But that’s not enough to fully catch his polyhedric and enthusiastic attitude towards his job and his passions. Gianni Cagnazzo is president of IEM (Indoor Environment Management) and ANAB (National Association of Bio-ecological Architecture), member of the International Academy of Colour, he is professor in bio-ecological architecture, colour design and humanisation of the built space, he gives lectures at various institutes, including ANAB IBN (Institut fur Baubiologie und Oekologie – Neuberern), UNITRE, University of Turin… Colour is his passion, therefore the question was certainly due: What is colour?
He knows how my kind of interviews work and he starts building. When he is done, he explains me his model. read more »
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May 17, 2013
Palestine seen with Israeli eyes: Ariel’s model
Ariel is an Israeli professional, holds an MBA and has degrees in sociology, anthropology and Jewish history. He was born in Argentina and has been living in Israel since 1993. We met in Tel Aviv, on a sunny day at the end of December 2011. After we talked about Israel, it was time for me to see Palestine with his eyes.
‘Build me Palestine’ I ask him.
‘Palestinians… Palestinians…’ he sobs while building his model.
When he finishes, he looks at me:
‘This man is the Palestinian… they have peace in their mind…’
I look at the model and in the attempt to get a full vision of it and to take pictures I turn it so that the minifig could face me, but Ariel stops me. I am puzzled and ask ‘Why?’
‘This man is the Palestinian and he is looking toward the opposite direction, opposite to the way… They have peace in their mind, symbolised by the green bricks…’ he shows me ‘…they are dreaming about peace… No’ – he suddenly stops and corrects himself – ‘it’s not peace, they are dreaming about normalisation and about a free state, it’s not really peace… It’s like Egypt, we have peace with Egypt since 1981, it’s been 30 years. But that’s not real peace though. 10 years ago I went to Egypt, it was in 1991 and I didn’t feel peace like I do here, they don’t like us, let’s say. You won’t see Egyptians here. They don’t come here…’ read more »
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May 10, 2013
Dr Rauf Azar – Beit Sahour medical centre’s Director
I have met Dr Rauf Azar at Beit Sahour medical centre. He is the director of the clinic since 2005. The clinic is part of the Health Work Committees in Palestine, a no profit NGO which main goal is to provide health services to the inhabitants of occupied Palestinian territories, with a special focus on patients from marginalised groups, like poor people, women, children and people with special needs. ‘This centre was founded as a clinic’ Dr Azar says, ‘then it expended and became a day care surgery centre and we are on our way to establish here a small hospital for general and reconstructive surgery’. The reconstructive surgery will be the first hospital dealing with reconstruction and it will be the first one in the Palestinian territories and it will be developed in partnership together with the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive surgery in Bari (Italy) and with prof. Michele Pascone.
Then I go straight to the point, and ask Dr Azar What is Palestine?
He does not say a word for a while. Then he looks at the bricks and without even touching them, he firmly says ‘Palestine is nothing here…’.
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May 3, 2013
Francesca Valan – Industrial Designer and Colour expert
Francesca Valan, an Italian industrial designer, is internationally considered one of the most passionate and experienced colour experts. One of the key problems, when it comes to colour and architecture, is that colour is something that architects add at the end of the design. She strongly disagrees on such an approach and after telling us, with the bricks, of course, what is colour, I asked her about Architecture. What is Architecture?
She stares at the bricks for a while and then she starts building. When she has finished, she looks at me
F. Valan – Model 1 ~ Architecture
and at the bricks and recalling the question – what is Architecture? – she simply says: ‘Rules. Geometric rules. Axes. Vertical and horizontal axes. But the main thing, it’s depletion of chromatic and material elements in favour of formal elements.’
I look at her model: it’s an interesting one, as there are a number of elements and they are all detached. ‘What are these elements you have built here?’ I ask her.
‘Volumes. These are volumes and not architecture. The yellow one, for instance, it’s a solid build following formal criteria I do not know, with improper chromatic criterion. Because colour in architecture is always impoverished. It’s kind of too obvious, if there’s any logic, this is a trivialising one.’
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April 26, 2013
Organisations as organisms
A large extend of organisational theory considered organisations from a mechanistic and traditional view. However, organisations can be seen much more like living biological organism. The etymology of the two words, organisations and organisms suggests that the two terms share something much more significant that needs to be considered and looked at: they both share their greek origin, ὄργανον – organon, “instrument, implement, tool, organ of sense or apprehension” but the word has been traced to descend by the Proto-Indo-European *werǵ- (“work, to make”).
The history of the term well reflects the shift from the original biological meaning to the much more social nature of contemporary meaning: organisation, according to the English Oxford Dictionary, appeared in 14th century in French from Latin and originally it referred to anything related to a living being. Organisation referred to the development or coordination of parts in order to carry out vital functions. From its first appearance in 1425 when the Grand Chirurgie was published and recorded the term until late 18th century, the term organisation had a specific biologic connotation. But at the end of the 18th century a new meaning come to use, and organisation started referring to “the condition of being organised; systematic ordering or arrangement; specifically the way in which particular activities or institutions are organised.” In 1790 E. Burke wrote the Reflections on the Revolution in France where he explicitly stated that society was supposed to be managed as a living organism. This passage is considered as the first evidence of the shift from the biological into the sociological realm of the term organisation. read more »
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April 19, 2013
Ciro Pirondi talks about Heritage using the bricks
This LegoView was recorded during Restauro 2013, the main event focusing on restoration, so the question was almost due. What does a well known Architect as Ciro Pirondi, director of the Escola da Cidade in São Paulo (Brazil), think about Heritage? The question, as ever, needs to be answered my way, with the bricks. I ask the question to Mr. Pirondi, put the bricks in front of him and let him to play, allowing ideas to connect and to construct a new vision. While he builds, he sings Agua de Marcio ‘It’s a Brazilian very popular song…’ he says smiling, while he builds and enjoys the process. [Watch the Video]
When he is done, I ask him to tell me something about his model, about Heritage.
Heritage and Nature as built by Arch. Ciro Pirondi
‘This is an allegory representing a bridge where men should find their balance and seek for a balance with nature… this green’ – he says showing me the green bricks – ‘represents nature’.
And then he goes on ‘I think this is a need for the 21st century’s cities… They need to find a bridge that can bring back the balance between mankind and natural nature…. ‘
The bricks and shapes are detached in his model, the human figure is not connected to any part of the model and I ask him why is that.
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April 12, 2013
![Hands on! LSP Faciitators in an LSP workshop! [Photo by Lucio Margulis]](http://legoviews.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/564754_10151530155917398_565878055_n.jpg?w=150&h=112 "Hands on! LSP Faciitators in an LSP workshop! [Photo by Lucio Margulis]")
Hands on! LSP Facilitators in an LSP workshop! [Photo by Lucio Margulis]
Every year, when April comes, LSP facilitators know that a great inspiring event is in the air. It’s the annual LEGO SERIOUS PLAY facilitators’ meeting, the most exciting event for those who practice and experience the power of LEGO bricks as a Facilitation tool. Every year an increasing number of facilitators gather in Billund, Denmark, the place where LEGO was born in 1934.
LSP is a tool which has been developed at the end of the ’90s at IMD in Switzerland based on the studies of Johan Roos and Bart Victor who introduced the “serious play” concept and process as a way to enable managers to describe, create and challenge the views of their business. The Serious Play approach was then further developed and brought into LEGO SERIOUS PLAY by Robert Rasmussen, who worked at LEGO at that time, and who is the main architect of the LSP methodology and one of the most inspiring and LSP enthusiast.
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April 6, 2013
DIKW Pyramid (Ackoff)
The importance of organisations’ relationship capital lies in the quality of the relations established by the members of an organisation, and in organisations’ capacity to turn a group of individuals into a functional team.
Such a
social and relational capital can be the driver for the creation of organisational
wisdom . Organisations have long focused on the skill base and on the accumulation of internal
know-hows, improving and encouraging people to increase their
knowledge base, as if by increasing the individuals knowledge could spontaneously have a massive impact on the whole organisation. An increase in the know-how is essential for an organisation, however, for such a know-how to become an organisational asset, rather than to remain an individual (
human resource related) skill, more efforts are needed.
If the relational capital is not adequate and constructive, knowledge of an individual remains an individual personal asset rather than becoming part of a collective and organisational environment.
To capitalise on the learning practices that have pervaded organisations in the past decade, knowledge needs to be put into action.
Know-hows need to turn into
know-whys.
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![Hands on! LSP Faciitators in an LSP workshop! [Photo by Lucio Margulis]](http://legoviews.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/564754_10151530155917398_565878055_n.jpg "Hands on! LSP Faciitators in an LSP workshop! [Photo by Lucio Margulis]")
