Le Grand Tour D'Asia: Day 26 of 58

Watching People Watching People Watching

February 02, 2010

Learning Moment: Singapore

I love gatherings. Some of my favorite places in Asia are just gathering spots.

Yokohama Koen, The Bund in Shanghai, Orchard Road in Singapore, Shibuya Station, and Waikiki Beach are all locations where I love to hang out. In all of these places, you find older men who like to sit and watch the world move by in a flurry of color and sound.

These men just soak it all in - not needing to participate. They are happy just to watch.

I'll probably be one of those old guys some day.

I enjoy watching people, of course. But I also enjoy watching people watch other people.

This gentleman is sitting in Albert Mall, where Chinese New Year festivities are underway. He's witnessing thousands of people walk by: buying flowers, praying at the local temple, picking out fruit, and seeking a little prosperity from the gods of fortune.

A New Year Present for all of you...

2009 was a year that could be described with many words: challenging, interesting, difficult, adventure-filled, risky, disappointing, surprising, and opportunity-filled are just a few that come to mind.

Though I did no business travel - for the first time since 1989 - Angie and I still found plenty of excitement.

I assembled this Learning Moments Calendar 2010 to share some of my favorite learning moments of the year with family and friends. Feel free to distribute it...

Range of Vision - The World Through My Lens

This is a continuing series of slideshows from my travels. Enjoy!


Range of Vision 2.o - Wildlife

Here are some of my favorite wildlife photos that I've taken.

Range of Vision 1.o - Images of Asia I meet a lot of people as I travel throughout Asia and the world, and I take a lot of photos of them. Here are 125 of my favorite people photos .





Technical/design note:
I've been struggling for years with how best to present my photos.
I don't like just hanging them up on the web where anyone can download and use them.
On the other hand, I want friends, family and colleagues to be able to see the images.

My compromises has been:

• to post small photos, like I did at rangeofvision (too small)
• to watermark the images, like I do at hues.smugmug.com and deviantart.com (too distracting)
• to use a password-protected gallery and send out invite (too restrictive)

None of these were satisfactory, so I'm trying a different option - photos presented as video, assembled using Picasa software..

Let me know what you think!

Facilitating with Metaphoric Images

We've been experimenting with metaphoric images in our facilitation lately.

I first saw them used in 2006, when I was attending Coach U in Singapore. The facilitators there used them 3 or 4 times during the week.

I did some web research when I returned, finding two primary sources - VisualsSpeak and The Center for Creative Leadership's Visual Explorer.

After reading about the images, I decided to build a set with my own photos. It's not that hard. You just pick photos that are ambiguous - that can be taken positively or negatively.

We've been using them for team sessions. A typical facilitation exercise starts with, "pick an image that represents the state your team is in today". Then, we might ask them to pick an image that represents what they'd like the team to look like in the future.

What happens next is a little bit of magic. The images grab some part of our right brain, but then we must explain them using the logic and words of our left brain. The result is a bit like truth serum. Feelings are expressed before the mind can suppress them, often surprising the person speaking those words.

It's a great way to start or end a session.
You can let participants choose their images, or you can hand them a random one and have them force a connection.

We've been using them with a number of individuals and teams.
In every situation we've tried, they've moved the conversation forward.

I bought a couple sets from VisualsSpeak for my colleagues recently.
I also saw the Visual Explorer set at The Leadership Challenge Workshop.
Both sets work fine. You can't go wrong with either.
Still, I prefer to use my own set - heavily loaded with Asian images - for my facilitations.

Bali Dreaming

We head to Korea (and then Israel) tomorrow, but tonight my thoughts are of Bali.

I've been going through a bunch of my slides and moving them to my photo website - hues. Tonight, I added some more shots of Japan and Thailand.
I also created new galleries for Vietnam and Bali.

I love both countries, but Bali ranks a little higher for me.
Probably because of the music.
I'm a sucker for the rhythms of the gamelan.

Of course, you can't complain about the views, either!