-
Clean Language is like… Origami
Metaphor is to the human mind what folding is to science.
Everything is made of folds - the earth, our DNA, illness and health in the folding and unfolding of protein molecules, the human brain, our clothes, the folding and unfolding of our memories, metaphors and dreams ...
A few weeks ago, as I was watching a documentary about origami (Between the Folds by Vanessa Gould) I found myself thinking about Clean Language, what it means to me, my experiences with it and how I have formed a…
Posted on 22 Nov 2011 by Sharon Small in Clean Language, Creativity, Metaphor
0 Comments | -
A Common Vocabulary?
Last week a friend sent me a link to a discussion on TED - the ‘good ideas’ website - where leading lexicographer Erin McKean posed the question:
How important is a common vocabulary for sharing ideas, and how do we arrive at one?
Do we need to all be "on the same page" to have productive conversations? Do we have to use the same language or talk about ideas in the same way? What are some examples of vocabulary that's divisive, rather than helpful?
Unfortunately by the time I clicked…Posted on 11 Nov 2011 by Marian Way in Clean Language
1 Comments | -
Exploring Nominalisations With Clean Language
This is an account of a session I ran at NLP South in July 2011. Their theme for the year is "The Map is Not the Territory" - and I decided that a nominalisation is a good example of this...
We started with the ‘five senses’ activity devised by Caitlin Walker, exploring differences in people’s perceptions of the following: see an elephant; hear an alarm; smell smoke; taste a lemon; feel velvet
Elephant, alarm, smoke, lemon and velvet are all nouns. They are things we can sense – see, hear, smell, taste, feel. Each of them can be put into a wheelbarrow. And yet our experiences of these things are all different, and so our representations of them are all different. And not only that, the way we make those representations differs too.
Posted on 15 Jul 2011 by Marian Way in Clean Language, NLP
0 Comments | -
Clean Language is like… Permaculture
Permaculture is the practice of working with, rather than against, nature, in order to optimise the output from any piece of land. For example, by observing its natural resources in detail, practitioners are able to design an allotment to minimise weeding and to maximise yield. And although permaculture principles are derived from nature, they can be applied to all kinds of living systems, including business and community design.
Charlotte has been taking a course on permaculture, one weekend a month, for most of this year – and in talking about it, we’ve noticed that there are a number of similarities between permaculture and Clean Language.
Posted on 28 Oct 2010 by Marian Way in Clean Language, David Grove, Emergence, Metaphor
0 Comments | -
Bursts: The Hidden Pattern Behind Everything We Do
Book Review
Predicting human behaviour – is it possible? That’s one of the questions posed by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, in his new book, Bursts.
We are all predictable to a lesser or greater degree. I can tell which topics are going to cause my husband to rant about the government – and I know the rants off by heart. My sister’s husband always does the ironing at 4pm on Sundays.
Posted on 11 Aug 2010 by Marian Way in Book Reviews, Clean Language, Health, Metaphor
0 Comments | -
Clean Gymnastics
I went to Coggeshall in Essex on Thursday to spend a day in a primary school classroom, with Julie McCracken, who has introduced her 5, 6 and 7 year-olds to the joy of Clean Language. Julie and I are writing a book together on Clean in the Classroom, so I’ve heard many tales of clean goings-on, but this was the first chance I got to see for myself how the children responded to clean questions (they call them the ‘Detail Detective’ questions). It was an action-packed day, with children both asking and answering the questions. This post is about what happened in the gym lesson.
Posted on 14 Jun 2010 by Marian Way in Clean Language, Education, Metaphor
0 Comments | -
When 20 and 20 add up to 6:40
When I read an article in my Toastmasters Magazine about a new presentation style called Pecha Kucha (Japanese for ‘chit chat’), which involves making exactly 20 slides, and delivering them in exactly 20 seconds each, I was intrigued and decided to give it a go. The particular appeal of Pecha Kucha for me is the fact that it's based on two simple rules. I love the idea that just by following simple rules we can make something different – and sometimes very creative - happen.
Posted on 18 May 2010 by Marian Way in Clean Language, Emergence, Outcomes
7 Comments | -
‘Tinkering’ With Clean Language
Jewels Carter runs a devised drama group at which meets on a project-by-project basis at The Art House in Southampton. They aim to to perform twice a year, and to give everyone a flavour of the whole creative process, regardless of ability.
They were a month away from performing a production called 'Tinkering' when disaster struck. Four actors pulled out en-mass with less than four weeks to go. Jewels felt she had exhausted all the ideas and so was a little apprehensive about continuing, even though it would be even worse to stop and let everyone down.
So she decided to put her new Clean Language skills to the test, and took a deep breath and asked the remaining three actors,
"What would you like to have happen?"
Posted on 21 Mar 2010 by Marian Way in Clean Language, Creativity
0 Comments | 0 Trackbacks