“Could you please pick one box, he said. Otherwise we don’t know what to do with you.”

Identity Is Fluid. is a post by Bas de Baar. Read more about Shrinkonia.

“What amazes me about these early globes is that people built a coherent representation of the world as a sphere even though they were missing part of it. They sewed together the edges of what they knew to be so as to make it into the shape they knew it had to take. This is a perfect analogue to sensemaking: we take what we know and form it into something that represents what must be.” – Cynthia Kurz

I am releasing the map as 16 individual cards you can collect over at ProjectManagement.com.

There are already 6 cards posted with a short description of the story behind them.

Rock on.

A Map of the Project World. Ah. Finally It All Makes Sense. To Me. is a post by Bas de Baar. Read more about Shrinkonia.

That’s the intro to our new book “A Travel Guide for Transitions: Because freaking out about this by myself totally sucks“. It’s a book about savoring transitions written by Lori Kane and me.

It will be available in June on a Kindle near you

And we have a book trailer!

(Click here if you don’t see the video above)

If you can’t wait, please check out the book we published last year: “Different Work: Moving from I Should to I Love My Work“. This e-book is a collection of stories from people who deeply love their work (most days). People who are working beyond their own “I Shoulds” and who are changing what work looks and feels like for themselves and their families, organizations, and communities.

Rock on!

We Haz Book Trailer! A Travel Guide for Transitions. is a post by Bas de Baar. Read more about Shrinkonia.

It’s all the same, Darwin.*

[*Yes, I have conversations with my blog. And my blog is called Darwin. Long story.]

“Enlighten me, Wile.”

Remember, the original riddle I tried to solve being, ta ta taaaaa, The Project Shrink?

“Pleaseeeeee, stop the low voice when saying “The Project Shrink”. Stop the superhero stuff, will you!”

I get to the purpose of the superhero stuff later. So. The original riddle..

“If you are a Project Manager that operates for a short period of time in a foreign organization, with a global team you don’t know, in a domain you would not know, using virtual communication, high uncertainty, limited authority and part of what you do out in the open on the Internet, how do you make it all work?”

I ended up looking at group culture and identity.

Culture, in my book, or better, on my blog, is a shared notion of “how we do things around here”, the stories that go around about the “how and why” of (group) life. Why and how we do things.

The moment people form a group, these stories go around and that’ll make up the culture.

“Wow. You hippie! Stories around the campfire! Still don’t see how you get from talking about culture, to being called Wile E Coyote?”

I get to that in a moment.

Projects are temporary. So. You move around a lot. You move from one group to another. From one organization to another. You have many transitions.

You leave one culture and search for another. You leave the answers you know to “how and why”, and have to find new stories.

“Ahhh. And this is where you are going to tell me that life is a project. That everything that applies to projects applies to life itself? You, hippie!”

Well. Not like that. But moving from one culture to another is. Moving from one thing to another is. Being in transition is a life thing. Yeah.

The hard part is the uncertainty in the transition. Not having answers to “how and why”. It can be hard to leave the current set of stories, and it can be hard to find a new set.

And that’s where a transition support system can help you.

“A what?”

Something that works for you to get you through transitions. Without freaking you out. Like being a superhero, talking to your blog, or making doodles that make you look like Wile E Coyote. See? That’s the link with being called Wile E Coyote.

“Again. A what?”

You just have to wait until the book is ready.

“The what?”

The book. About savoring transitions. That I’m writing with Lori.

“Oh man. I hope that book has a better ending then this post.”

Well, actually, it has no real ending. Learning has no ending, you see.

“Oh crap.”

Transition Support Systems. And Wile E Coyote. is a post by Bas de Baar. Read more about Shrinkonia.

I don’t know, Darwin. I am saying that there is never one way to solve or do something. It always depends on the circumstances and you and stuff. So you have to try things out for yourself. What works for you, doesn’t have to work for someone else. Because we are all different. That is what makes transitions hard sometimes.

“Yeah, I know. This move fluid, mental flexibility stuff you keep on yapping about. Can’t you become an expert in explaining the danger of experts?”

That would be kind of ironic, wouldn’t it? And kind of untrustworthy.

“Trust-wurst. It’s the internet!”

Hmmm. Yeah. I wrote a lot about how trust online works, so, that would not work either. Nobody would believe that. And more important, neither would I.

“Dammit. Why do you keep on doing this? Really?”

Not sure. I guess it’s like Brene Brown said in her TED Talk, we have become so uncomfortable with vulnerability that, “we try to make everything uncertain – certain”. And it doesn’t work like that. You can’t. I can’t. You got to move with the changes. And that is kinda scary. The how and why of things change per case. You can never pass the same river twice. Crap like that.

“Oh. Wait, Yoda. I think I get this. Let me drag something from The Hold (my archive)…

Here. This is what Will wrote after following your non-sense for years…

‘I think I’ve figured out what you do now. You refuse to make things generic and inspire us (through your own example) to explore and develop our own workable concepts on how to deal with our own personal project work.’

Oh. And remember the intro to The Fish Pond Metaphor you wrote with Ali Anani…?

‘In essence, we believe the answer to adapt successfully in our new, ever morphing world is to have a flexible mind, a brain filled with many models of the world. We would almost claim that being open minded is the key to survival.’

Oh. I can go on and on. But I will not.”

Exactly! And see. I don’t hold all the answers either. When I write, I’m mostly talking to myself Let me raise you another quote. Lori explained it even better earlier this week:

‘…I think you’re talking about a key for a better, happier humanity as a whole: recognizing that the fluid movement is the structure, not the walls, the monuments, the groups and ideas etched in stone.”

In the end, this would be The Big Why, I think.

“Awesome! We can work with this! The Fluid Movement Movement? Oh. And as catch phrase: Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall! Where we call the guards of All Things Certain, Mr Gorbachevs…”

Oh. Shut up.

The Fluid Movement Movement And The Guards of All Things Certain. is a post by Bas de Baar. Read more about Shrinkonia.

“If you are a Project Manager that operates for a short period of time in a foreign organization, with a global team you don’t know, in a domain you would not know, using virtual communication, high uncertainty, limited authority and part of what you do out in the open on the Internet, how do you make it all work?”

This series is now available in an ebook/PDF format.

Spoiler alert: I didn’t solve it in 2010. But it may provide you with a way to look at “managing a culture of temporariness.”

Click here to download.

Today I try to stay away from a lot of the Big Words I used in 2010, but I think it can be interesting for those who look at the future of work. Oh. And I try to avoid the word “should”. And I wouldn’t call it “machine”. Heck, I could have only written this in 2010.

Free ebook: The Context Machine: Leading CloudWorkers is a post by Bas de Baar. Read more about Shrinkonia.

If you are interested in doodles, I post a lot of them on Google+. Perhaps I see you there.

Inspirational doodle – Kurt Vonnegut is a post by Bas de Baar. Read more about Shrinkonia.

Uhm. It’s about moving from something you know to something unknown. From “old economy” to alternative economic cultures. From doom culture with a scarcity world view towards a bloom culture with an abundance world view. From …”

“… yeah yeah. I get it. Something old, something new, and something about blue. Yadda yadda yadda. I mean what is it doing on my about page?”

Oh. Well, Lori’s new tagline “Savoring Transitions” made me think. About transitions.

Remember I told you that I figured out how my brain is determining the location of my identity? Creating an image of “You are here”?

To determine where we are, we look for cues that are associated with social groups, and we are looking for markers in time that provide us insights on what our story shape looks like. Typical markers are transitions, periods that are good (highs) and periods that are bad (lows).

“Hmmm. I remember that … almost. You post a lot lately. Story shapes?”

Yes. There is a good illustration about the shapes of stories on this site. And here. But basically, the story shape we hold determines if we think we are heading for good times or bad times.

So. In the old situation we have determined our position a long time ago. We know the groups. We know the story shape. We know our place relative to them. In the transition to an unknown structure we don’t have either of them. No sense of groups. No sense of story shape.

So. Panic.

Unless.

And that’s where Lori’s remark comes in. As play and storytelling and mapmaking can get you in a state in which you savor transitions, these activities are more than helpful in transitions.

“Ah. I see. I think.”

Really?

“Nah. You lost me. Again.”

Moving From An Old Structure To An Unknown Structure. is a post by Bas de Baar. Read more about Shrinkonia.

Funny you ask, Darwin. Yes I do. I am creating the most awesome poster that ever existed about projects. I started to make cards about different things you do in projects. There will be a total of 16 that together will make an incredible poster. You know, to put something on your wall. To have something to talk about.

“Ah. Being humble about it, I see.”

Well. I’m pretty exited about it. So. Hell yeah!

“And where can we find this self proclaimed awesomeness? Because I can’t find it in my ships hold.”

I am posting them weekly on my blog at ProjectManagement.com.

The first two cards are already up. One about The A-team, McGyver, The Italian Job and the creation of a rag tag crew. And one about entering a new organization for the first time when you are going to start a project.

I hope people will collect all the cards on the walls of their office. You can print each individual card and make a map.

“And how do these cards fit together?”

I’ll tell you later. But I already have that on my wall.

“Awesome.”

I know!!!

The Most Awesome Poster That Ever Existed About Projects. is a post by Bas de Baar. Read more about Shrinkonia.

** Darwin notices these things. Yes, I have conversations with my blog. And sometimes I wear a tin foil hat.

She’s brilliant. I know. But why is this tagline brilliant?

“Read this from the new about page, which, by the way, is shorter than your own rambling about page, and try to come up with an answer yourself for once.”

“I become interested in, study, create, and write about states of being that help humans savor transitions. To date: self-organizing groups, community, storytelling, coworking, culture, and play.”

Oooooo.

“You see!”

This is brilliant!

“Told you!”

So. All the time we are talking about transitions, in life, in projects, or in imaginary countries, we can have states in which we savor these transitions instead of just enduring them?

“Uhu!”

And play and storytelling and mapmaking can get you in a state in which you savor transitions?

“I knew you were going to make it about you again with this map stuff. But yeah. That’s right.”

Oooooo. That’s bloody brilliant.

Savoring Transitions. It’s Just Brilliant. is a post by Bas de Baar. Read more about Shrinkonia.