Getting physical is about gesturing, sketching, visualizing, touching and making objects; idea work as the interaction between the body and the physical world.
TIPS FOR GOOD PRACTICE
- Make it physical (displays, diagrams, maps, brain maps, models, artifacts). Get your thinking into your hands together with your colleagues.
- Groups tend to concentrate on the knowledge they already share. Think of your problem in terms of a physical problem space. To enter each rabbit hole in a group, make a physical map of the problem space, and work systematically through all rabbit holes.
- Change your physical surroundings in accordance to the knowledge purpose. Walking, talking, sitting, standing, wandering, running, biking, golfing, etc.
- Establish low threshold environments for producing and documenting ideas on the fly, at the speed of imagination.
- Protect sacred spaces, and distinguish between places for (i) deep and prolonged concentration, (ii) intense interaction, (iii) places for serendipity, collision areas (iv) places for visualization of imaginations (iv) informal talking and walking.
- Reinforce unplugged interaction.
Readings for inspiration
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996) Creativity. HarperCollins.
Mortensen, T., Carlsen, A. and Gjersvik, R. (2007) “Unplugged. Dialogue objects and imaginative space in exploration creativity”. Paper presented at the 23rd EGOS Colloquium in Vienna.
Rosenfeld, R. (2006) Making the Invisible Visible. Replica Books.
Turkle, S. (2009) Simulation and its discontents. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Tversky, B. (2009) “Spatial cognition: Embodied and situated”. In Philip Robbins & Murat Aydede (eds), The Cambridge handbook of situated cognition. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 201-216.
Tversky, B., Heiser, J., Lee, P. and Daniel, M.-P. (2009) “Explanations in gesture, diagram, and word”. In Coventry, K. R., Tenbrink, T., & Bateman, J. (eds.), Spatial Language and Dialogue. Oxford: Oxford University Press.