A significant part of my Masters project is to adopt an intelligent, mindful, distant view of myself as a practitioner and a commentator. To help me with this I have made my world tangible by simply dividing it into parts that resemble boulders and pebbles. This method of visualising my landscape was inspired by an metaphor described by Charles Leadbeater in his paper “Coming Crisis of the Creative Class”.
This model is composed of boulders, pebbles and micro pebbles. These individually weighted and labeled parts have enabled me to ask meta level questions about the value that I add through my work and to view my everyday work holistically and see where the gaps are.
When I look at this landscape I am asking these questions:
- Who visits my beach?
- What boulders work with pebbles?
- What pebbles are growing to become boulders?
- How do the boulders make money?
- Are there any pebbles growing taller than the boulders?
- Who should I invite to visit?
- How is it being sustained?
- What can I see in the distance?
- How do I find the pebble I am looking for?
- How do visitors navigate their way around?
- Are there any dangers on the beach?
- Do I like working on the beach?
- What is missing?
- What is driving me to maintain and enhance this beach?
- What will the beach look like in five years time?
It has made me realise I need to be more conscious of how often I roll a new boulder onto the beach. This takes time, dedication and focus. I am only one person and I can only sustain a certain amount.
There is rising tide of pebbles on my beach. Every minute millions of people throw a pebble onto my beach: a blog post, a YouTube video, a picture of Flickr or an update of Twitter. A puzzling collection of pebbles in different sizes, shapes and colours , in no particular order, as people feel like it. How is this managed?
This very simplified version of my world into boulders and pebbles has focused my thinking on hybrids and collaborations. I hadn’t realised until now the vast amount of opportunities I have to create new collaborations and organise my pebbles to new heights.
But what does it mean when pebbles grow taller then the boulders? My network is rapidly become the tallest attraction on the beach. The nature of social networking allows me to connect with pebbles who are friends, and twitter allows me to create lots of really tiny little pebbles.
I am really keen to hear your thoughts and opinions on this model. It is up to you if you throw a pebble towards me in the form of a comment or a little micro pebble reflection in the form of tweet.
Redjotter 
The issue I find I have is one of identity. I do and explore many different things and others often find it hard to work out exactly what I do. I find it hard to know exactly what I do sometimes too, so no surprise there. To continue the metaphor, you end up being shaped by the flow of traffic through and across your beach. Those areas that get a lot of attention carve out an identity for you that you have little control over. I don’t really yet know what that might mean, but it will be interesting to see how this all stacks up in another 20 years time.
I think this metaphor works to a degree and I can see where it is useful in illustrating a point. However, for me as a service designer with a business consultancy background it doesn’t help capture the nature of a network or collaboration as an ‘ecology’, which is how I think it really works. I have just completed a number of projects where I have collaborated with others, using a complimentarity of skills and experience to to add more value to our work and ultimately for the client. It was a symbiotic effect and one tht worked because everybody could see where the benefits lay for each other. Having rocks and boulders show separation not connectedness, it shows parts not a holistic/systems view and too much analysis and reductionism may supress what could emerge in the future. What I do like about this approach is some of the questions it raises. I think people are quite good at seeing the absolute priorities in their networks, connectedness and collaborations, often they rise to the surface, although we could be better at dealing with important things before they become urgent. My Pecha Kucha talk at the Lighthouse in Glasgow on 28th May 09 is around this subject and touches on things like collaboration, colaborative methods, open innovation and such.
Pebbles. Boulders. Beach. God, it’s great that u r trying to bring some kind of tangible reality to the enormous amount of minute-by-minute connections u r making. the only thing i’d say is that the model freezes time – and time is the most important dimension to the value of connectedness. Two aspects to this: first, there’s a really interesting diagram in the document here – http://www.aula.org/helsinkispace – that sees the evolution of network society as a forward evolution of time against an axis of more exchange/more production. in other words, as time progresses, there is more exchange/less production or less production/more exchange going on. this seems to be a better and more realistic snapshot of the tumbling reality of people joining and leaving journies. also, there’s a great thought in the extreme sport of long-distance swimming. after several miles and certain climatic conditions, there’s a moment when it’s said that “you create your own water”. it’s in this “water” that relationships, knowledge and strength take some kind of solid form or energy. another watery metaphor but maybe one that supports the continuum of networks, connectedness and collaborations and reflects the need to let go. ??
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