Doing not talking

Just 3 short weeks after our Service Processes and Methods course was the Global Service Jam 2015. What a blast…and what an excuse to bring out the shiny new tools that Marc gave us. I don’t know about anyone else from the SID programme but I was able to utilise both the tools taught to us as well as the facilitation methods.

I know it sounds crazy but after all those Marc Stickdorn heads were circulated for his birthday photo, I couldn’t get his lessons from earlier in February out of my head. That is why I took one of those heads and wrote him a thought bubble. “What would Marc Stickdorn do?” I was inspired by all the Christians in the US who try to answer difficult problems by asking themselves what Jesus would do. It was the same thing (in my mind anyway).

I was trying to channel my inner Marc to have the strength and clarity to proceed through the next 48 hours to change the world…well, that is what we were told we were doing.

Letting go: the theme is what? Huh? Did he just say….?

As a first-timer I felt strangely calm (it might have been naivete) as the process started. The anticipation of the revealing of the theme and the inspirational talks by Jani Turku and Anton Schubert were a great start to the event. I really enjoyed the humour and the ease at which Jani was able to teach us some lessons about interaction and fun. Who knew it could be so interesting repeating 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3! But I also enjoyed Anton’s inspiring story of his “humble beginnings” as a mechanic.

As for the challenge…I think that everyone was stumped when the theme was revealed. I even sarcastically joked that “that must be the theme” when the instructions for the origami fortune teller was revealed…unfortunately I was right. What a theme. Not what I expected at all. But it really put us all in the same boat. This isn’t something that one person could say that they knew and that they were an authority on…it was a leveller for sure. The atmosphere when everyone (finally) realised the theme was electric. The buzz was confusion, anticipation…but mostly confusion from what I saw.

The theme is what??

Digging Deep: Divergence

I really liked the first brainwriting session we had after the reveal. We were kind of like “a deer in headlights”.  It was nice to have a little time to sit with your thoughts on how this could connect itself to anything at all. Some people really struggled with getting ideas to write down and others just let themselves go. It was great to see the range. This was a great start to the initial diverging part of the process.

And then there were 6 ideas…

This was my first Service Jam but it certainly will not be my last. What a high! I loved every minute of it…even the Roasted Rooster we had for dinner (poor rooster). The mentors there were great too. I cannot thank them enough- their questions and advice were well placed. Our team at least with Hakån went from winning the “bullshit award” in his words (on Friday night) to coming up with an idea by Sunday that he said should have the name trademarked. That comment on the Friday night really made us think about what were were doing but also allowed us the freedom to re-visit another idea that we had rejected. Which turned out to be an amazing and freeing (although time-consuming) lesson.

I wanted to give you all an overview of the event (rather than the process of our specific team) so I hope that you will consider joining in the future…you definitely won’t regret it!

Written by Pamela Spokes, SID 2014