The bias storm is a method we apply at the start of collaboration, when the people who have to collaborate come from different backgrounds, cultures or organizations. The method aims to get prejudices they might have about the other in the open. Talking about these prejudices helps to understand the other and clears the road for fruitful future collaboration.
How it works
This method should be used during the initial session of people who have to collaborate. Immediately after the initial round of who is who and why are we here together today, form pairs of people from different backgrounds, cultures, organizations or whatever barrier you wish to level. Ask these pairs to write down on sticky notes what prejudices their colleagues might have against people from the other “side”. It is important not to ask what prejudices they have; as that might result in only the politically correct responses. While they are writing these down, walk around and stimulate them with questions such as: “What did your colleages say when they heard you had this session?”.
After a few minutes, when you notice that “the popcorn stops popping” ask the people from one “side” to read out what they have written down. Write key terms on a big piece of paper. Try to defer any defence (“I would like to react on that…”, “Let me put that straight…”) to the next phase. Then ask the people from the other side to read out what they have written down and collect their key terms on a different piece of paper. Then start the next phase by just asking “Who would like to react?”
Our experience is that this method is a powerful starter for cross-organizational collaboration projects.
In a previous post about the Future Workspaces Concept Game we have described how individials can be inspired by the concepts in the game and how it can help them think about how they want to live and work in the future.
When the Concept Game is played by more people in an organization, it can help that organization determine what aspects of future ways of working are important for the people in that organization. The Concept Game can be played in a workshop of 8 to 10 people. In the workshop, people first select their own favourite and not favourite concepts. Secondly, the choices are explained and discussed by the group. Finally, a coherent view is created on what issues and opportunities of future ways of working are most important for the organization. You can download a flyer about the Future Workspaces Concept Game Workshop here.
Based on our experiences with doing workshops to discuss the social media landscape and facilitating experiments to gain hands-on experience with these tools inside organizations, we are now developing three concrete FWS products around social media: (more…)
During the Future Workspaces project day we also introduced a social networking concept called ‘Borrelpraat’. Borrelpraat is a prototype of a social networking tool that can be used at networking events. Participants have a tag on their badge with which they can indicate their position (using RFID technology). Furthermore, they indicated their interests at registration. On a swipe of their badge their location and interests are visualized on a big screen. These interests are matched with other participants at that location to stimulate conversations. Due to the use of standard Web 2.0 and RFID technology, Borrelpraat is easy to extend. Below is a short movie (in dutch) that shows the working of this prototype
We tested this prototype at the future workspaces project day. The participants of this day reacted enthusiastically, which resulted in approximately 100 swipes of badges within the hour. We are going to explore this way of social interaction more and extend this concept. If you are interested please feel free to contact us.
Within Future Workspaces, many concept ideas have been developed. The Concept Pool page on this website shows some of them. To inspire knowledge workers and to gain more insight into what concepts or concept areas appeal to them, we have created the Concept Game.
The physical version of the Concept Game can be played individually or in a workshop. It is also possible to play the Concept Game online.
Click here to start playing the Concept Game online. You will be asked to select your favourite and least favourite concept ideas. Please also tell us why you have selected these concepts and submit your choices. It will help us to focus our future plans and concept development.
The online version of the Concept Game was developed by Steven Haveman.
For the FWS Projectday 2009, we transported our multi-touch wall to Driebergen. There, participants of the Co-create workshop had a chance to hear about and have a look at recent developments in hardware and software (they could even look inside of the big black box!) After that, one half of the group could play around with our sticky notes application while the other set out to discuss how this technology could be of use in their own working practice.
Earlier, we had developed and evaluated scenarios aimed at using multi-touch technology for working and creating together. The results of the workshops also point at other directions for future developments that we hope to explore further.
Some interesting points of discussion:
The fact that multi-touch surfaces allow input from multiple persons at the same time implicates that everyone who is at the surface has control over what is viewed, changed or added. Some people see this as an advantage, others think that one person should always be in control.
Multi-touch surfaces are useful if different kinds of information (for example, tekst, numbers and photos) have to be reviewed with a team. In those cases, the large screen provides an overview and each of the team members has control over the data that is shown.
Multi-touch surfaces could also be used for co-creation and inspiration by letting people work at such surfaces at different moments in time. People could have their own space and shared spaces where they can add to the work of others or find ideas to use in their own work.
It is fun to use the multi-touch surfaces because it involves a natural kind of interaction. This alone could be a reason to use them.
A multi-touch wall could also be used for communication with people at other locations. Reviewing a document and seeing a video of a person on the same large screen could be an efficient way to work together at a distance.
Wouter from Jam visualized outcomes of the discussion. More of the results (also from the other workshops) can be found here.
The Professional Playground of the Future Over 60 people working in industry, knowledge institutes and government organisations, 3 speakers, 3 visualisors, 5 working prototypes, a stimulating environment and lots of sun proofed to be the perfect ingredients for an inspiring projectday.
Through diverse activities such as learning about playfulness at work during Sarah Harveys talk, experiencing new technology (and creating ideas on how to use them) in the workshops and connecting with others through ztamps during ‘Borrelpraat’ we brought our motto for this day ’see, share, do, create’ to life.
For an impression of the day see twitter and Flickr. More details about the outcomes of the workshop will follow soon. Please feel free to share your experiences or links to photos of the event in the comments.
Yesterday we organized a social media workshop for our expertise group – a group of 16 colleagues with similar research interests. Although we frequently co-operate with one another in various ongoing research projects, and although we meet once a month as a group, we felt that knowledge sharing between group members could be improved. The first aim of the workshop was therefore to introduce and discuss various social media and their potential to facilitate knowledge sharing within the group. (more…)
To inspire knowledge workers and to gain more insight into what concepts or concept areas appeal to them, we have created The Concept Game. This game can be played individually or in a workshop with a group of people.
The bias storm is a method we apply at the start of collaboration, when the people who have to collaborate come from different backgrounds, cultures or organizations. The method aims to get prejudices they might have about the other in the open. Talking about these prejudices helps to understand the other and clears the road for fruitful future collaboration.
In a 
Based on our experiences with doing workshops to discuss the social media landscape and facilitating experiments to gain hands-on experience with these tools inside organizations, we are now developing three concrete FWS products around social media:
Over 60 people working in industry, knowledge institutes and government organisations, 3 speakers, 3 visualisors, 5 working prototypes, a stimulating environment and lots of sun proofed to be the perfect ingredients for an inspiring projectday.
The coming weeks our agenda is full of interesting events. I’m sharing my list, although I won’t be able to make it to all of them:
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