Experiments

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Experiment	Date & Team	Design & Data Summary	Lessons, Decisions, Questions	Newest Comment
You Are What You Track	January 7, 2019 – February 22, 2019 Eugene Eugene, Amy	Hypothesis: We’re doing better than we think we are Start an internal blog where we log success stories related to the DIY Strategy / Culture toolkits. Import data we already have. Commit to logging new stories regularly.
Post-Meeting Drawing	November 12, 2018 – December 7, 2018 Eugene Eugene	Hypothesis: Drawing a picture after a meeting will help me remember what happened at the meeting Refrain from taking notes during meetings beyond Next Steps / Decisions Made. Draw a picture within 24-hours of the meeting.
Alignment Accounting	August 29, 2018 – September 28, 2018 Eugene Whomever I can recruit	Hypothesis: Logging our group activities regularly will help us find the right balance between task and process work. Create a spreadsheet for tracking task vs process activities Use it for a month Iterate	This experiment was a fail. Wasn’t able to recruit anyone, and didn’t do it myself. However, I got good feedback from Renee, who really reinforced for me the challenge and mindset of not feeling like you have time for anything other than “the work.” Asking these folks to spend 15-30 minutes / week tracking was a challenging ask. Put this to bed for now.	Eugene 2:32 pm on August 29, 2018 Log in to Reply Here’s the Google Spreadsheet template. Make a copy to use. Here’s me explaining how to use it: #alignmentaccounting
The Podcast, Take 2	August 20, 2018 – September 28, 2018 Eugene	Hypothesis: A three-question format will achieve my desired sweet spot around intention, reach, and effort. Interview and share five audio recordings of practitioners answering the following three questions: What’s your story? What was a great experience you had collaborating with others? Let’s workshop a real-life example of your practice. (Need to figure out how to frame this question.) I want to highlight practitioners who are: Doing great work Not widely known Values-aligned, especially around craft Production constraints: No more than two-hours of post-production per recording Publish them on my blog (might as well)	Only did one interview Need to make sure I schedule enough time to make it spacious. Doesn’t work as well if person feels time-constrained. Interviewee felt really self-conscious about meeting my goals rather than just going with the flow and trusting me as an interviewer. Need to figure out how to make the space safe. The prep ahead of time might not be the best way. Will hopefully revisit again, but putting it to bed for now.
Monthly Inbox Zero – 1	July 2, 2018 – October 5, 2018 Eugene Eugene	Hypothesis: Two months of Inbox Zero a month at a time will enable me to get a handle on my email overall. Goals: Better follow-through Better prioritization Manage overwhelm / anxiety This is basically a test in chunking email management. Rather than DMZ my email (which I’ve tried before), I’m committing to being at Inbox Zero at the end of each month for that month and the previous month only. In other words, by August 1, 2018, I should have zero emails from June and July 2018 in my inbox. This not only means I’m caught up for that month, but it also means I’m gradually shrinking my inbox (versus doing Monthly Inbox Zero only, which would keep my inbox at more or less its current size). I’ll try this for three months to see how it goes.	I didn’t achieve total Inbox Zero for the months I did this, but I did zero out some months, and my inbox has been manageable for the first time ever really. I think this is Yet Another Example of how tracking (in combination with goal-setting) is a powerful change agent. Continue this through the end of the year.	Eugene 2:02 pm on August 1, 2018 Log in to Reply The good thing about this experiment is that it’s made me much more conscious about pruning my email. July was a tough month for me. With the 2.0 launch of the DIY Strategy / Culture toolkits as well as the launch of my coaching workshops, I got a lot of email, and wasn’t able to zero out this month. On the upside, my April and May inboxes both shrunk substantially, and my June inbox went to zero. #monthlyinboxzerominusone
Trellocize It!	June 26, 2018 – July 27, 2018 Eugene Eugene	Hypothesis: Quickly and easily converting checklists into Trello tasks will get me into the habit of using them. Create a Google Spreadsheet app that converts a checklist into Trello items. Timebox development to one-day. Use the checklist for one upcoming project.	I was more or less able to create the app in the time allotted, but I got stuck when trying to implement a generic authentication mechanism for Twitter. If I had hardcoded authentication, I probably would have had something working. Because the app’s not done, haven’t gotten to test it yet! I’ve felt on many occasions that I’d like to have an app like this, so I feel like the use case for me is strong. Not sure when I’ll be able to prioritize this, however.	Eugene 4:31 pm on June 27, 2018 Log in to Reply I spent about two hours the past two days playing with Google Apps Script and researching the Trello API. I’ve got something basic that parses the spreadsheet. Now I need to create Trello cards. I tried using this library, but the authorization code went into an infinite loop. I think the easier thing to do is to just hard code the authorization for now, at least to get this working. I can play with a more elegant solution later. #trellocize
Weekly Clarity	April 16, 2018 – May 14, 2018 Eugene Eugene	Hypothesis: Duende’s Clarity alpha template will help me manage my daily and weekly priorities more skillfully. Use two sheets of Duende’s Clarity alpha toolkit for two weeks. Log real-time reactions, reflections upon completion.	I didn’t end up using it more than once. The data I captured in the Updates is complete. I didn’t carry it around with me, and I happened to be gone a lot, which probably contributed to me not using this more than once. However, even doing this once validated the value of a more rigorous weekly practice of examining (and documenting) my high-level priorities. It’s hard to build that habit! Would love to try other things.	Eugene 11:40 am on April 16, 2018 Log in to Reply Likes: This was pretty easy to fill in, because I use Trello pretty extensively. But simply adding the additional discipline of using the Eisenhower Matrix is oh so valuable! I like the day labels! They add a useful dimension to the matrix, and they’re also fun. Confusion: The different headers on the left side versus right side of the page are confusing me. Are you testing two different designs? I’m assuming each page is one week? Wish I had a slash between month and day on the headers. I know what the legend (with the dot, star, etc.) is for, because you explained these to me the other day, but without that explanation, I would have been completely disoriented and would have probably ignored these. I kept these empty at first, then just ended up filling in the days. I suppose this would make more sense if I were using this in a chunk larger than weekly (which I suppose I have the option for on the left side), but you’re making me think pretty hard to understand this, and I’m not sure I’m getting the requisite amount of value for that. Not sure what the dotted lines above the quadrant are for. I just realized that I put things in the wrong quadrant. Because of where the labels are, I assumed that the Urgent-Important quadrant was on the upper left rather than the upper right. Or maybe I did put it in the right place? I noticed the lower right is shaded, perhaps implying that I should de-prioritize those items because they’re less urgent and less important? #duendeclarity
More Collisions!	April 2, 2018 – June 1, 2018 Eugene Becky-Stuart, Roy-Eric, Rob-Eugene, Sven-Linda, Jonathan-Peter, Darcy-Aubrey, Karen-Jake, Anna-Donata, Jeff-Cat, Lisa-Mathan, Allan-Alexa	Hypothesis: More frequent contact will enable us to collaborate more effectively and quickly Each of us will pair up and check in with each other for one hour/week for eight weeks.	Survey results: Heard back from 8 people representing 6 pairs (out of 11 pairs) Average was about 4 checkins per pair (target was 8). Normal distribution with a high of 6 and a low of 2. 8 people posted on WhatsApp over 8 weeks (April 14-June 7), with 11 takeaways posted What was valuable? Connection with partner. External sounding board, cross-pollination, cheerleading Referrals and potential partnerships Rare treat to have open conversation with a pre-set agenda Deep conversations around practice In a few cases, timing was challenging Zoom (video) was better than just audio. Face-to-face was best. Do differently? Possibly assign partners based on compatibility (e.g. geography, timezones, interests, etc.) Or, let people self-organize. One pair really liked the openness, another needed more guardrails. Maybe repeat the framing, emphasize that there are no expected “deliverables” from these conversations, just connection.	Eugene 3:38 pm on August 2, 2018 Log in to Reply Finally compiled the responses and some numbers from this experiment: Heard back from 8 people representing 6 pairs (out of 11 pairs) Average was about 4 checkins per pair (target was 8). Normal distribution with a high of 6 and a low of 2. 8 people posted on WhatsApp over 8 weeks (April 14-June 7), with 11 takeaways posted What was valuable? Everything!!!!! The insights, mentorship, advice, reading list, rekindling our professional connection from several years ago! I think I’m going to hire one of his students as a full time staff member of my small firm 🙂 I could go on and on — he inspired me to start writing up case studies, reading new literature, etc. The collider was such a profound, but ephemeral event. These sessions have provided a great way to continue to tap into that energy and insights on a sustained basis. It’s a bit like Burning Man decompression events – returning to your regular routine after a transformational experience, you want a way to stay connected with that experience with others who’ve been there. These conversations have a great way to do that. These sessions have also been a great way to have an external sounding board for new ideas. Being paired up with someone who had adjacent but distinct areas of expertise, we’ve been able to continue the cross pollination conversations from the collider and served as both cheer leaders and sounding boards for each others individual projects. Although we only checked in 3 times, talking with my partner was awesome and I always came away intellectually stimulated. This has led to some potential partnership work around analyzing interdependence…. we will see how this evolves but looks promising. It was a rare treat to have stimulating ‘open conversations’ without a pre-set agenda (rather than a “phone meeting)- and then see what emerged. It was great. We met regularly—almost every week. The conversations were inspiring and very fruitful! We had a few calls, but we haven’t put anymore on the calendar. I think the timing was tough with him still being in the academic year. I’d love to continue with another partner if we do another round. What was most valuable was having deeper conversations about big issues of practice – both pain points and inspiring ideas — and they also helped identify and explore core issues that we both experienced (which was a kind of validation). Fascinating conversations about what we’re each doing. Questions we’re both asking about large-scale collaborative change work. Talked about writing something together. He has a special, wonderful spirit — intellectually curious. We both sensed that we could learn a lot from each other. The timing just didn’t work out. Emergent: Anna with Linda: Had an incredible ongoing connection with Linda Booth Sweeney. She was in the next town from me. She invited me to join her book club. Went on walks. That ability to connect in-person was so helpful to form that cohesiveness and glue. Do differently? Nothing! I think it worked perfectly. It was light touch enough that it encouraged us to take ownership of it and make it our own! It was just perfect and I’m so grateful for the suggestion and the experience. Nothing jumps to mind. One thing we’ve done that I’d continue to do is to use Zoom as our communication method. Having video vs just audio has made the conversations more human and allowed us to share ideas and documents readily during our chats. I am not sure what I would have done differently, but I am glad that we got to see each other f2f when you came to the community of practice meeting. Video in aid of f2f interactions/relationship is when it works best. If we did not meet in person it might have been something I would have done differently. Maybe would have been helpful to get some kind of guideposts / guardrails for how to do this. Maybe we felt like we had to produce something or that it had to be deep, meaningful, super productive conversations. Maybe it felt more like work than connecting. #collision
Colearning Strategy Retreat 4	February 1, 2018 – July 31, 2018 Eugene Eugene, Odin, Anya, Kate, Greg	Hypothesis: Pulling off an actual retreat (i.e. not at someone’s house) requires committing to dates / location at least four months in advance. Commit to dates (July 26-27) for next retreat at end of current retreat. Announce the dates, and give people ~1 month (by March 9) to commit. Once we have a number, reserve a location, and collect the money. Do the retreat!	Despite heroic efforts from Kate, Odin, and Anya, we never landed on a retreat location. On April 6, we ended up changing the retreat dates to July 19-20 on Odin’s request. We ended up deciding to do the retreat at Odin’s house.
Colearning Strategy Retreat 3	December 4, 2017 – February 2, 2018 Eugene Eugene, Cherine, Odin, Anya, Kate	Hypothesis: Individual practitioners will want to participate in a two-day, self-organized retreat at least an hour away from where we all live (i.e. NOT held at someone’s house). Pick a date (January 30-31) and location (Bay Area), and invite the other colearners to: Declare their individual goals and requests of others Co-design the retreat Do the retreat! Debrief at the end of the retreat.	From the standpoint of the declared hypothesis, the experiment failed. We couldn’t decide on a retreat location (even though we tried), and ended up doing it at my place in San Francisco. 5 participants (down from 8 from last time), including 4 repeats. No out-of-towners this time. Everyone found it valuable once again. Want to do another one in June. As the host, I thought it would be more stressful, but it turned out to be far less. I didn’t have to go anywhere, I didn’t have to pack anything, and I didn’t have to do a lot of setup. We have a good culture of all contributing to food / snacks, which also makes it easier. I also had a similar reaction as Anya did the last two times; I love having people in my space! Especially given the timing (I’ve been very busy professionally), I loved hosting, and would happily do it again. This time, we picked new dates at the end of our retreat (July 26-27). We’re going to ask for commitments by March 9, then will find and commit to a retreat location. The idea is that if we all commit early and pay in advance, we’ll be able to pull this off.
Biorhythms	July 26, 2017 – August 1, 2017 Eugene Eugene	Hypothesis: Tracking my energy, focus, and mood every hour for a week will reveal natural rhythms that will help me optimize my day. Every waking hour for seven days, track Energy, Focus, and Mood on a five point scale in a Google Spreadsheet. Set a calendar reminder to make sure I update the log. Carry around a small notebook when I’ll be away from digital devices. After seven days, analyze the data and see if there are trends.	I only managed to successfully track for 3.5 days. When I was home, it was fine (but still difficult). When I was traveling, it was impossible. Over the weekend, I went to a wedding that was far away, and that completely disrupted my logging. Still, one pattern was clear. I didn’t notice any cycles per se, but I did notice a strong, steady focus in the morning through lunch, then a gradual decrease in energy and focus, with no up-swing afterward. Possible future experiments: What activities could I do to create an up-swing after my post-lunch decline? Try to move all meetings (especially non-essential) to the afternoon, so I can reserve my mornings for focused work.	Eugene 5:45 pm on July 28, 2017 Log in to Reply I was inspired to try this experiment after reading this personal productivity article. For the most part, there was nothing new for me in this article, but I was intrigued by the section on tracking your biorhythms. I decided to basically try his experiment almost exactly — same frequency, same time period, same dimensions (i.e. Energy, Focus, Mood). The only difference is that I chose a five point scale rather than three. (I noticed he was using decimal points, which to me defeats the benefits of using a three point scale.) A few things I’ve noticed after a few days of tracking: It’s challenging to answer these questions consistently. What’s the difference between Energy and Focus? My mood doesn’t really fluctuate based on time of day. I’m not noticing any cycles, and I’m not sure that any of these dimensions are strongly correlated to time of day (other than I have more energy in the beginning of the day than the end). All three dimensions also seem related to type of activity (e.g. exercise, meetings, writing, eating, etc.). #biorhythms
LinkedIn Re-publishing vs Linking	June 20, 2017 – June 30, 2017 Eugene Eugene	Hypothesis: Linking to Faster Than 20 blog posts on LinkedIn will result in just as much engagement as re-publishing. Share a link to the next two Faster Than 20 blog posts Measure views and engagement, and compare to results of Untapped Social Media Potential	I definitely have an engaged audience on LinkedIn that I've been ignoring. Either sharing a link or republishing will result in views I wouldn't otherwise get at low cost. However, republishing seems to result in a lot more actual views (i.e. people reading the article itself, not just seeing a reference to a link) than just sharing a link. Keep republishing articles on LinkedIn for the time being. Maybe track the best days and times to post.	Eugene 8:51 am on July 6, 2017 Log in to Reply I published, “Invisibility Doesn’t Serve the Work,” on June 20, 2017. I simultaneously shared a copy of it on Medium and a link to it on LinkedIn. On LinkedIn, I got 197 “views of post in the feed.” Previously, I had gotten 33 and 65 views of the full articles I had shared there. However, clicks are probably a better comparison, because the feed view only contains a few sentences and the link. According to Google Analytics, I got 7 clicks from LinkedIn. Engagement-wise, my sharing received 4 likes and 0 comments (compared to 5 likes and 0 comments and 25 likes and 5 comments previously). There were two views on Medium after the first day, but no reads. Then I asked Kate to click on Recommend. Since then, the post had 11 views, 5 reads, and 2 recommends (vs 2, 0, 0 and 2, 1, 0 previously). In both cases, I shared in the morning, which may have had something to do with the engagement numbers. #linkedinrepublishingvslinking #mediumcrickets
Medium Crickets	June 20, 2017 – June 30, 2017 Eugene Eugene	Hypothesis: Three Medium recommends is enough to start getting visibility without more broad sharing. Republish two Faster Than 20 blog posts on Medium Ask one friend to recommend the post. Watch and wait for two days. Rinse and repeat with at least two more friends. Measure views and engagement, and compare to results of Untapped Social Media Potential	I only ended up testing with one solicited Recommend. Views and engagement definitely went up significantly. I got no click-throughs to my website that I know if. I suspect that Medium does have more potential for virality then my blog, but I would have to put more effort into sharing it up-front. Not sure I want to publicize Medium over my blog (which increases the visibility of my website and the potential for folks to see other links there) or that my social media feed has enough traffic to justify publicizing both links. I'm going to stop posting to Medium for now. I don't see any immediate low-overhead benefits, and I'm not wanting to invest in longer-term benefits there for now.	Eugene 8:51 am on July 6, 2017 Log in to Reply I published, “Invisibility Doesn’t Serve the Work,” on June 20, 2017. I simultaneously shared a copy of it on Medium and a link to it on LinkedIn. On LinkedIn, I got 197 “views of post in the feed.” Previously, I had gotten 33 and 65 views of the full articles I had shared there. However, clicks are probably a better comparison, because the feed view only contains a few sentences and the link. According to Google Analytics, I got 7 clicks from LinkedIn. Engagement-wise, my sharing received 4 likes and 0 comments (compared to 5 likes and 0 comments and 25 likes and 5 comments previously). There were two views on Medium after the first day, but no reads. Then I asked Kate to click on Recommend. Since then, the post had 11 views, 5 reads, and 2 recommends (vs 2, 0, 0 and 2, 1, 0 previously). In both cases, I shared in the morning, which may have had something to do with the engagement numbers. #linkedinrepublishingvslinking #mediumcrickets
The Martian	May 1, 2017 – May 5, 2017 Eugene Eugene	Hypothesis: One person sharing a short video takeaway every day for five days will inspire others to share as well Eugene will record and share a short video takeaway of what he’s learning and thinking about every day for five days. He’ll share the videos on the E3 WhatsApp channel and on his Faster Than 20 #colearning channel. He’ll then see what responses he gets after another week.	More people followed my videos than I expected, including some people who are following my YouTube channel. I put in almost no effort in publicizing, so it was a good reminder that I do have an audience, and even leaving lazy trails can be valuable. Nobody was inspired to share their own video takeaways, although people did respond to the content of some of the videos. My biggest takeaway was a bit of a surprise. I always thought my sharing muscle is strong. It's not. It's toned, but it could use more maintenance to stay strong. Experiment with other ways to share more aggressively as a way to build my sharing muscle.	Eugene 5:24 pm on May 5, 2017 Log in to Reply It was fun! I actually looked forward to doing it today! #themartian
A Way Forward III	May 1, 2017 – May 31, 2017 Elissa Elissa	Hypothesis: If I make space for poetic reflection twice a week then I’ll feel more grounded and be more present in my work. Elissa will take time for poetic reflection, written in her notebook, twice a week. Alison to send email reminder to Elissa to reflect once a week, including link to her design log.	Not documented
Spire	April 27, 2017 – May 3, 2017 Eugene Eugene	Hypothesis: Spire is unobtrusive, easy-to-use, and provides useful, timely stress data. I'll wear a Spire during business hours (more or less) for six days (in theory, one charge and also covers the weekend trip I'm about to take), and I'll capture what I learn here.	How obtrusive was it? Surprisingly unobtrusive. For the most part, I forgot about it. I forgot it going through security at the airport, I forgot to take it off my pants. Apparently, it's washing machine proof, which is good, because I could easily see me mistakenly putting it in the wash. For some reason, it was a bit obtrusive with one particular pair of shorts, but not overly so, and I'm sure I could have adjusted it. How easy was it to use? Very. Didn't have any connection issues, battery life is great, charging is easy, app is more or less straightforward. What did you learn? When I'm talking to folks, my breathing tends to be tense When I'm on my computer or phone, my breathing tends to be focused I am incredibly sedentary in my day-to-day The vibrating feature is great, because I have greater self-awareness about my tense breathing, which enables me to make adjustments I can definitely see myself using this for self-care experiments. I'd like to do some longer-term tracking to see if I can detect / validate patterns, then start setting some targets based on that. I'm not sure yet whether or not this might be useful for my original intention, which is to provide real-time data for meeting facilitation, but it's still worth experimenting Do a followup experiment where I track more data and analyze for patterns. Potentially build a dashboard as part of this. Do a followup experiment with one other person where we compare our data and analyze for patterns. Eventually do a followup experiment where we start using these more intentionally for meetings.	Eugene 1:00 pm on May 6, 2017 Log in to Reply Another cool feature of #spire: Sending weekly reports that compares your aggregates to others similar to you. Here’s mine from last week:
Colearning Strategy Retreat 2	April 24, 2017 – July 5, 2017 Eugene Eugene, Brooking, Odin, Anya, Renee, Kate, Travis, Shirley	Hypothesis: A two-day, self-organized retreat will give all of us enough time to do our own individual strategic work while also benefitting from each other’s feedback. Pick a date (June 29-30) and location (Bay Area), and invite the other colearners to: Declare their individual goals and requests of others Co-design the retreat Do the retreat! Debrief at the end of the retreat.	8 participants (up from 4 the last time), with two out-of-town participants (L.A. and Portland) and three repeat participants. The only person who didn’t repeat from last time was from out-of-town (St. Louis). Two days worked! Again, it helped to do it at Anya’s house. People once again felt like it was a valuable space. New people felt embraced. Good way to on-board folks into the community. January and June feels like a good rhythm More well-defined recommended designations of solo vs peer time is helpful. Do it again in January 2018. More well-defined recommended designations of solo vs peer time. See if we can drum up interest in doing a real retreat (i.e. not at someone’s house).	Eugene 6:14 pm on June 30, 2017 Log in to Reply Reflections / Next Steps for Colearning: Brooking: Was so tired. Now energized again, partially because of brownie bits, partially because of conversation with Eugene. Didn’t know what I wanted to do, made up goals, appreciated that every conversation I had with all of you I learned. Open Space seemed like right approach. Anya: What a gift to have all of you in this house, time together. Brought love and light to this place that will continue after you leave. Appreciated everyone’s support Didn’t check off fully anything. Half checks. Feedback: You already did it, so freakin’ finish it. The stuff that I defined for myself is done, just have to complete it. Next time, want to be more clear with self and what I want to do. Just being a part of conversations I learn so much. Got a lot, and really appreciated that. Hard for me to ask for stuff. Still want to know what everyone else is working on. Realizing how amazing it is to ask for help, have someone else ask to jam on things. Now feeling like might reach out and ask if anyone wants to talk, know that people will be honest with me. Feel like wasn’t there for me on Slack. Shirley Hesitant to come. “I’m not ready for this. I need to spend time in my own cave and be ready with questions.” Eugene: “This is our cave.” Perfectionist in me, not prepared to interact with people. Internal struggle. Worked on personal vision statement yesterday. Appreciated and accomplished some of the other things Great opportunity to be present with you all Renee Like that we set out Solo time and Peer time on second day. Appreciated that little bit of structure. Knew that could have quiet time during Solo time. Haven’t done full Open Space before, so neat to see that take shape. Loved the peer exchanges. In beginning, checkins were rich and wanted to have conceptual conversations. That idea wasn’t as interesting as real peer support. Glad switched gears in my head. Hard to ask for peer support unless it’s reciprocal. Maybe there’s a way to frame it to encourage it? Odin Really appreciated this space Practice of taking the space. How do you structure it? Really good at it in some ways, bad at others. Get leaky and lazy. Liked the Open Space. Jump in and say, “Here’s how it could look.” Liked serendipitous solidarity. Like anchors of group checkin time as well. Checked all boxes. Not complete, but enough work for set of nested maps guiding me moving forward. Kate Second Renee’s comment about getting estimates in advance for private vs peer work. Coming in for second day felt a bit out of sync. Have to own that, but if knew that this group really needed solo time would have helped. January was much smaller group. Doing peer stuff easier. As we add a few people, having more knowledge helps. Doing short WYDWYD videos in advance, and committing to watch. Next time: More breaks More clarity on timing. A lot of things that were planned didn’t happen because flowy. Time, but more clarity helps. In advance: What percentage do we want for Solo vs Peer support? More of a push to have it structured in advance. Do another in January. January and June works well. Experiment: Monthly call to check in on each other’s work. Virtual brown bag? Peer assist? Turn it into video blog? Record on Zoom. Anya will organize. Odin can offer Zoom account. Lunch time? Odin will help. Design week of? Can nudge each other. Experiment: Odin hosting lessons learned summit. Possible quarterly complement. Anya, Brooking. Process for on-boarding, off-boarding. Kate and Eugene and Brooking. Thank Yous and Checkouts Eugene for fiat Anya for hosting Snacks Talking about my feelings Helped my dog feel comfortable and heal Context in which I feel like I can help. Pleasure of feeling support and mutuality of it Appreciating Kate for going with flow. Didn’t fully give her space to get into the schedule Learned something from every one of you Beginning of colearning, wanted more than online watercooler, but wasn’t able to swing with the checkin. Becoming more of what I wanted it to be initially. Interesting reflection. “If you meet a man of great intellect, you should ask him what books he reads.” This group has expertise in rare space. Couldn’t take on current and potential work if didn’t have something like this behind me. If there’s something I don’t know, know that I can ask you all. Huge. Amazing to think of all of us doing that. Eugene printing out stuff. Enjoyed being off duty in that way. Welcoming me into this. Generosity with which you shared your own experiences. Reading Radical Hope. Kind of feeling this is a group that inspires. Amazing to be in community that recognizes each other’s strengths and sees power in that. Mutual recognition that everyone has knowledge, power. Practice of setting day aside Not coming at collaboration directly. Group that believes and practices and sees power in individual work and collaboration. How do we make space for those collaborations to build? Learn so much by being in conversation about it. Never experienced a group so expert and so easy to be a part of it. Everyone approaches it as, “We’re all learning.” Collective leadership! It’s awesome! #colearningretreat2
Untapped Social Media Potential	April 10, 2017 – April 21, 2017 Eugene Eugene	Hypothesis: Re-publishing my blog posts on LinkedIn and Medium will reach more people without having to do any additional work. Re-publish two blog posts on LinkedIn and Medium, with notices at the beginning and end referring to Faster Than 20 Measure views and engagement	Success! LinkedIn is a great, underutilized channel! Medium, not so much, at least without additional work. Keep re-publishing to LinkedIn (although test other dimensions — see questions below). Try removing first paragraph referral to Faster Than 20 on Medium to see if that has any impact. What impact would the following factors have on engagement for LinkedIn? Link to Faster Than 20 vs re-publish Day and time How many Medium Recommends would be required before people start seeing the post?	Eugene 7:34 am on April 22, 2017 Log in to Reply This recent Medium post has interesting (but inconclusive) numbers and thinking comparing virality and conversion rates between Medium posts versus her blog. Here are her followup recommendations. #mediumcrickets #untappedsocialmediapotential
Kardashians	March 27, 2017 – April 7, 2017 Eugene Eugene, Jodie, Alison, Mark, Elissa	Hypothesis: If we share short videos with each other five days a week for two weeks, then we will find sharing with each other easier and more compelling. Each person will make a video on WhatsApp of their learnings once a week. Monday: Eugene Tuesday: Jodie Wednesday: Alison Thursday: Mark Friday: Elissa Eugene will set up an automated email reminder to you on the day you are supposed to share the video.	Technically, we hit minimum success. However: We ran into technical roadblocks that made it hard The email notifications helped some of us Even if we hadn’t, once a week for two weeks isn’t long enough to establish a habit Make sure everyone has resolved their technical problems. (Already resolved for 2/3 people.) Instead of repeating the Kardashians experiment, Eugene wants to do a “The Martian” experiment (which someone had proposed as the original name for this experiment), where he does a video wrap-up of what he’s thinking about once a day for five days. Wants to see if others are inspired to do the same (or at least to share their thinking) without pre-committing to an experiment. We have not yet tested a version of this experiment where we broadcast videos publicly (or at least with a larger audience). Something to think about for a future iteration.	Eugene 2:57 pm on April 26, 2017 Log in to Reply In Week 1, everyone tried to share a video, but only two were able to successfully, with one emailing an audio recording as a proxy. In Week 2, two of us shared a video on our designated date, one sent one later, and two skipped. As of today (almost three weeks after the experiment ended), only I have shared an extra video (a Kardashians wrap-up on the Monday after the experiment ended). We defined minimum success as at least one person sharing a video unprompted, so technically, this experiment succeeded. #kardashians
Umm…	March 24, 2017 – March 24, 2017 Eugene Eugene, Mark, Alison, Elissa, Jodie	Hypothesis: If my peers throw paper at me whenever I say, "umm," I will eventually stop saying "umm" so much. At the beginning of our day-long meeting, ask everyone to make a paper airplane or crumple up paper, and throw it at me throughout the meeting every time I say, "umm."	Simply having the group accountability made me more self-aware about what I was saying, including other fillers I often use I also became much more aware of when others used fillers Light, fun feedback really helped, and it also helped lighten the meeting overall. Mark's virtual feedback and celebratory sign especially made me laugh Slowing down my speech was the most effective way for me to avoid using fillers, and I think it makes me a more effective speaker / communicator overall I want to make reducing my filler usage an overall priority. Replicate this experiment as often as possible — it's light, and I can do it in both professional and personal situations.	Eugene 8:16 am on April 19, 2017 Log in to Reply It’s been four weeks, and I haven’t had the chance to replicate the #umm experiment in another meeting. But I have shared the story a lot, and I also find that I am much more conscious about saying “umm.” Speaking more slowly continues to be the best way for me to avoid saying “umm.” I’ve also become more hyper-aware of my other fillers: “you know,” “right?”, “the reality is,” etc. I am probably using the other fillers in place of “umm” at times. Would be interesting to record a few meetings, count the umms / minute, and compare the results over time.
Spacious and Free Work 2	February 27, 2017 – March 3, 2017 Mark Mark	Hypothesis: If I intentionally increase and track my use of leaning in and handshake practices in meditation, then I’ll experience less overwhelm / anxiety in my work situation. (I might also notice an objective shift in work efficiency, improved sleep, diet, and exercise.) Every day during for one week, Mark will mediate. He will incorporate lean in and handshake practices. Email notification and link with Whole Life Challenge for documentation.	There’s NO good reason to not take the time to meditate every day. My whole week and felt sense of things being OK was palpable. Documentation during first part of week increased my sense of commitment and focus on this experiment for later part of the week even though documentation fell off some. I will build calendar/e-mail reminders and live link to documentation into future experiments. I don’t think I'll do another iteration — seems fairly self-generating at least for now. Might shift to an experiment to increase daily exercise — which I’ve been doing poorly at despite it being a Whole Life Challenge commitment for which I regularly lose points for non-performance! How to take micro-level personal experiments and translate to org’l/movement context? How might I increase even further my follow-through on documentation? (Imp’t. Because I think documentation is a key to greater follow-through, at least for me.)
Spacious and Free Work	January 10, 2017 – January 17, 2017 Mark Mark	Hypothesis: If I intentionally increase and track my use of leaning in and handshake practices in meditation, then I’ll experience less overwhelm / anxiety in my work situation. (I might also notice an objective shift in work efficiency, improved sleep, diet, and exercise.) Every day during for one week, Mark will meditate. He will incorporate lean in and handshake practices.	Trust my practice not my feelings. Writing down a reminder of the things I can do and having it on my altar to remind me. When I have my practice, I was craving less caffeine. Had familiar learnings before yet don’t always apply them. List on my altar of things that are good for me. Take list with me when I’m headed on the road. Is there some way I can send myself a daily reminder to fill out the documentation? (eg get a calendar invite to send an alert with the link to the design document, that gets delivered when I’m online, mid day- as a .)
P3 (People + Projects + Principles)	January 3, 2017 – March 17, 2017 Eugene Eugene + anyone who happens to follow along	Hypothesis: If I spend one-hour a week openly documenting what I’ve learned from key people and projects, then I’ll have a good-enough first draft along with constructive feedback from other practitioners. Spend one hour a week (timeboxed) for 10 weeks trying to free-capture learning from different people and projects on Faster Than 20 wiki. People: Doug Engelbart Jeff Conklin Gail and Matt Taylor Chris Dent Kristin Cobble Projects: HyperScope Wikimedia Genentech Delta Dialogues Compile list of folks interested in tracking. Announce new posts once a week. Invite discussion on Loomio. If folks feel comfortable engaging directly on wiki, can do it there too. Conference calls?	Finished on-time after 10 weeks. Ended up cutting a project (for content not timing reasons) and also skipping a week, but it all worked out. For the People, I needed to up my allocations to three hours a week, and in reality, it took longer, because I found myself thinking a lot about these folks throughout the week and jotting down notes so I wouldn't forget. The main reason it took so long, however, was that I felt the need to include more narrative and context so that others could understand the piece. This may have felt of greater importance, because I wanted to let my peers read my descriptions of themselves. I decided to just go with bullet points with my Projects, and I was easily able to finish the work in an hour a week. The approach made it doable in bite-sized chunks, and it resulted in principles grounded in experience, which raised my confidence in them. I've been wanting to do this for several years, with several false starts, but this is the first time I actually finished the work to my satisfaction! It was relatively easy to pull together a set of draft principles after completing 10-weeks of free capture and engagement. I simply aggregated all the lessons, clustered, and pruned. I then did another iteration where I cross-referenced the work with previous attempts to pull together principles, and settled on five high-level principles. I posted links to my descriptions on Loomio, then shared links to Loomio on the E3 WhatsApp group (five people) and on my Colearning Slack (seven people, not counting three also on WhatsApp). In a few cases, I emailed links to specific people. As far as I could tell from limited and (in some cases) indirect feedback, everybody in E3 read at least some of the posts. Both Jodie and Alison said that reading these helped them understand the approach I was taking to our STP work together. I heard from nine people overall. Most of the feedback was a simple acknowledgement, but some of the feedback surprised me in their depth. The feedback didn't end up helping me pull together the principles, but they did deepen relationships and other people's understanding of me and my approach. It was a nice win, although because the People write-ups ended up taking three times as long, it didn't come for free. Test the draft principles on as many practitioners as possible, both colleagues and people who barely know me. Iterate.
Video Storytelling	December 14, 2016 – January 17, 2017 Elissa Elissa, Jodie, Eugene, Alison	Hypothesis: If we create a narrative video about E3 with multiple voices and share it, then we’ll learn what portions of the narrative are compelling to people. Participants will make a short video selfie (2 min max) about E3 in a storytelling format by 1/11/17. EP and AMB to have video call and record it so that Adrienne’s voice will also be included. The prompts that we came up with on our last call were: Depth of this process, different from action learning cycles because is traditional. How is this deeper and more rigorous? What is it about fast cycles times that are so critical in this time? (why particularly fit this time) Not overlooking crises of our time but way of dancing with it. Tap into multiple ways of knowing. Elissa will then compile these into short video by 1/16/17. We will share the video in multiple settings to multiple people: Elissa to share at her meeting with Ellen and Jen at the Compton Foundation on 1/16/17. Eugene will have a parallel share of his video via social media and his website and track people’s reactions. Jodie will share via email with Linda Wood, who has responded well to newsletters and she will share opinions with you about narrative and language.	Not documented
Colearning Strategy Retreat	December 5, 2016 – January 23, 2017 Eugene Eugene, Anya, Kate, Kellee	Hypothesis: A one-day, self-organized retreat will give all of us enough time to do our own individual strategic work while also benefitting from each other’s feedback. Pick a date (January 20, 2017) and location (Bay Area), and invite the other colearners to: Declare their individual goals and requests of others Co-design the retreat Do the retreat! Debrief at the end of the retreat.	We pulled it off! It required fairly minimal organization (it helped a lot that Anya hosted). Four people was a good size. Kellee was new to the group (except for Eugene), but she integrated well. Speaks to the strong relational baseline / trust of this group. One day was great and valuable. Would be better to have two or even three days. Anya’s space is great. Felt like a retreat for the rest of us. But it’s extra work / burden for host, even though we all pitched in, and not sure how much of a retreat she felt like it was (although she said she really liked hosting us and found it valuable). Do it again in six months! Go for two days next time, and see if we can attract more people.
Values Agenda	June 30, 2016 – September 1, 2016 Elissa, Jodie Elissa, Jodie	Hypothesis: If Jodie & Elissa take Elissa’s value survey, analyze survey results together, and cull out foundational vision and values, then we will understand more about what our common values based agenda could be. Jodie will take Elissa’s Values Survey Jodie and Elissa will meet to do analysis together! (7/18 at 12:30 - 2pm), Overview of system Talk about Report Have another conversation... Create next steps, pull out learnings	Incomplete / stalled
Emergent Agendas	June 18, 2016 – July 25, 2016 adrienne adrienne	Hypothesis: Rating and tracking my experiences sharing this work with others will help me understand what works and what doesn't. Documenting feeling at end of agenda for self and by folks I served.	adrienne did not formally collect this data. The structure of experiment templates doesn’t fit with adrienne’s modality of work. This process feels difficult to participate in as it is not part of formal paid work. Emergence needs feedback loops but/and hard to structure for it. Some people need a lot of data, but this doesn’t align in situations of quick emergence. How do we support people in emergence, moving through values alignment, emotional landscape, etc? How do we build embodied trust in emergent processes?
Joint Landings: Funder Talking Points	May 10, 2016 – July 25, 2016 Elissa, Jodie Elissa, Jodie	Hypothesis: If we create shared talking points about each other’s organizations, then we’ll be able to weave in connections, speak with confidence about each other’s work, and create more opportunities when we talk with funders. We’ll meet to share what we’d like to have shared about our own orgs by the other person. When opportunity arises we will share about the other’s work with funders.	We tried out working in a culture of abundance rather than scarcity, walking the talk of collaboration over competition. And it worked! Indicator of level of trust is a joint staff retreat so relationships are deepened.
Doodle Insights	April 26, 2016 – July 22, 2016 Eugene Eugene, adrienne, Mark, Alison, Elissa, Jodie	Hypothesis: If I share something handwritten to the group about the STP network strategy process once a week without context, then those who already don’t know much about the project will learn enough to care and get up to speed on context and those who already know a lot will reflect on what I share. Doodle something about the STP network strategy process for 15 minutes once a week, then share the images on cel.ly group, Creating Conditions.	Many things were validated. Can communicate ideas visually without being a skilled artist (I do think visually). Visuals are good succinct way of communicating ideas If I keep doing it, I’ll get better Surprise: Jodie printing out and framing pictures. Feels like kids’ parents putting up on fridge. Does that mean it helped the team? If so how much? When exercise a sharing muscle it encourages you to do it even more Try doing it for another 4 weeks and share it more broadly on Instagram or Twitter. Try internal Miles River experiment, what would happen if we did it regularly What could we do to assess the experiment more rigorously? Automated google form email quiz What happens when I’ve drawn all the principles? HMW measure shared understanding in MilesRiver through doodles? HMW build our synthesis muscles on MileRiver Team?
A Way Forward	April 26, 2016 – July 25, 2016 Elissa adrienne, Mark, Jodie, Eugene, Elissa, Alison	Hypothesis: If I share a series of poems about our internal experimentation/innovation process at MAG, people will 1. Want to know more; 2. Have a fuller although still fuzzy understanding of the changing landscape and our experiments going forward at both the felt and intellectual levels. I will continue to reflect in creating writing form, our experiments and my reflections on them and share at least 5 pieces in text and audio (and possible visual) form on an ongoing basis and completing the sharing more than 3 days before our next in-person gathering. Everyone will be compelled to respond to at least one of the pieces at least once. I will post links in Adrienne’s cell.y group. And later more select links here for archival sake (unless we storify). Audio (pieces 1-5) Text (pieces 1-8) Completing the sharing more than 3 days before our next in-person gathering	Giving a specific number of poems is irrelevant. It’s the impact that is relevant. That impact could come from one poem or 16 depending on the poem. Also, writing the poems is not just a function of making time. There is an internal process of arriving at that place that does not really have a relationship with linear time. Sometimes the poems appear quickly and seemingly out of nowhere. Other times the well feels bone dry, the field fallow even though we know there is momentum in stillness. With the help of some words from Eugene, I’ve come to realize that importance of understanding what experimentation of this kind requires of us on a human level. I’m curious how we combine this way and depth of knowing with our more “photo-real” log-like sharing of what we are actually doing in our experiments.
Joint Landings	April 26, 2016 – July 25, 2016 Elissa, Jodie Elissa, Jodie	Hypothesis: If we talk more often and in a focused way, then we will gain traction and have next steps to move forward in at least one of four areas. Elissa & Jodie will meet via phone (if not in person) at least twice exploring potential areas of joint experimentation and landing on a joint experiment (or more than 1) to carry forward with next steps identified. The rest of the group will be curious, ask questions, and have ideas beginning to percolate that may support the emerging experiments. We will share video clip within a week of each meeting and update the group on Celly. We will update the group in our full group calls so that they get documented in our meeting notes.	Being in a rigorous practice with support and accountability moves work. Give it resources if you want it to happen. So we give it more meaning and resources and that matters. Using an experiment frame helped give work between Jodie and Elissa (MAG and STP) more flexibility and space to explore what it could be without committing. Trust was built. STP not committing to be a main partner in spring of 2017 with MAG because of capacity, will lift it up to funders and STP will participate OD Network Development - there is interest but not a priority so on pause. Practice Sharing our learning. Start that with values based work. We should have funder talking points around each other’s work and spread these memes of how our work weaves. Move forward with another experiment around values based agenda.
Tender Transparency in Action	April 26, 2016 – July 25, 2016 Alison adrienne, Mark, Jodie, Elissa, Eugene	Hypothesis: If meeting notes are open by default from now until the next in-person meeting, we will find that (a) they get shared one time outside of the group and everyone in E3 feels good or not harmed; (b) Convos that don’t happen because of self-censoring are minimal; (c) there is collective responsibility to tender transparency (eg. do you want to share this?). Alison will make a new meeting log, track reminders of tender transparency and responses to prompt post meeting. If people share the meeting log with another person, they will give that person specific permission to view the google document and inform the group that they have shared the notes with this person.	Reminding people about tender transparency at beginning and end of calls was helpful. It was a breakthrough to realize that tender transparency didn’t mean that it was going public, rather we could share it with people we trust and so that people can learn and grown this work with us. Tender is that we want increase the space for learning, not cause drama. Because we had agreed at the beginning to make meeting notes tenderly transparent it made it easy for Elissa to share them, eg. we didn’t have to put in extra work to share about our meetings! Keep tender transparency going.	Eugene 10:45 pm on July 25, 2016 Log in to Reply #tendertransparency
Celly	April 26, 2016 – July 25, 2016 adrienne, Alison adrienne, Mark, Jodie, Eugene, Elissa, Alison	Hypothesis: If i create a text thread on Celly for our group and invite people to post links, pics and whatever form of sharing they want to indulge in, then we will share and form / deepen our culture of sharing and learning intimately with each other (and increase good feelings). Adrienne will make a Celly group. People will text when they have an update to share about their experiment.	Using a shared messaging platform was unifying and accessible. Having Alison to track the data was key. Cell.y helped E3 members feel unified and connected. Provided scaffolding for communication that we needed. Helpful to have thread and narrative all in one place and on our phones. Allowed some mirroring and reflection that was in real time or much closer to real time than scanning across google docs on our computers less frequently. Liked that it was on phone, felt different that getting on computer. The scaffolding and Alison as support in moving E3 along helped E3 group be more generative and say yes to trying more things. E3 will move from using Celly to a WhatsApp group.	Eugene 10:53 pm on July 25, 2016 Log in to Reply #celly
Journaling Reflection	April 18, 2016 – April 24, 2016 Mark Mark, adrienne, Alison, Eugene, Jodie	Hypothesis: Sharing meditation-induced diary entries with E3 will change how I use my diary Building on my initial idea of sharing meditation-induced diary entries about feelings and thoughts related to deep culture change at MAG, I've come to clarity on the form for my experiment. It's 5 days long, starting today, with each day focused on the 5 ingredients of MAG's "special sauce" — Multiple Ways of Knowing; Inner Work; Systems/Complexity; Leadership Spectrum; and, Equity.	It feels pretty vulnerable to share like this but I'm committed to doing it and trust you all to not share these around. (Thanks!) Thought that experiment might change the way he uses his diary but it did not. He trusted group either through personal experience or through other’s recommendation. Late to start the experiment, yet successful in that there was response and he completed it mostly as he designed. This could be in part because of the time constraint, it was a one week experiment. C+ = others read and reacted, intimate view F = prompting macro level group learning
Vlog	March 1, 2016 – April 24, 2016 Jodie Jodie, Elissa, Eugene, Alison, Mark	Hypothesis: If I share a series of 1-2 videos logs of what I am learning through our network planning and experimentation process, then it will help me to capture my learning and support me in sharing the learning beyond my organization and specifically with this group.	Verged on feeling like a to do and that was originally what she’d defined as failure. Learned that she doesn’t have enough time. Needs time to do this, to feel abundant and a sense of possibility, to be creative. Felt great saying I failed. Intention of sharing helped bring thoughts together.
Photography Trail	March 1, 2016 – April 24, 2016 Eugene Eugene, Alison, Elissa, Jodie, Mark, adrienne	Hypothesis: If I leave a trail of photographs and other short nuggets about the Social Transformation Project network strategy process without much context or explanation, those who follow the trail will learn enough to: 1. care; and 2. get more rapidly up to speed on the surrounding context.	Started with the idea of fun with photography and ended up posting meeting pics. Didn’t yet check in via a pop quiz to see if people were paying attention. Will ask about caring. Self Grade: F (w/scream face)
Poetry	March 1, 2016 – April 24, 2016 Elissa Elissa, Alison, adrienne, Eugene, Jodie, Mark	Hypothesis: If I share a series of poems about our internal experimentation/innovation process at MAG, then people will 1. Want to know more; 2. Have a fuller although not thorough understanding of the changing organizational landscape (I’m pretty sure that’s a nose but it looks like it’s where the ear should be…). 3. Be able to connect that organizational landscape to the world outside of MAG and what’s happening in it at both the felt and intellectual levels.	Enjoyed doing her experiment. Reconcile murmuration and structure. Posted at the last minute, learned how to use soundcloud. Was a constant point of reflection. Feels fine with vulnerability ( Apple, Sauce, Poop and MAG). Failed on sharing. Was aware of the group and process. Engaged with self and the intersections. Alive with learning. Toy with idea of opening to a followership with trust and common purpose as the core rather than belonging and control.
Instagram Group Sharing	March 1, 2016 – April 24, 2016 adrienne adrienne, Alison, Elissa, Eugene, Jodie, Mark	Hypothesis: If I create a group on Instagram for sharing emergence and experiments with each other, we will hone our sense of what we are excited about. This will depend on whether this is the right outlet. Adrienne added E3 members to Octavia Brood’s Emergent Strategy FB group and also sent private pictures on Instagram.	Feels like there isn’t time for unpaid play, when has down time needs to unwind. More nudges for experiments Didn’t see where and when experiments were happening. Felt that people weren’t engaging or paying attention to her experiment. Desires interaction and conversation. Test didn’t work well, didn’t have measures defined in advance. Prompted discovery and design of Cell/y experiment.