Where is Matt?

next Where is Matt • prior Where Is Matt? • Index Where Is Matt?

Where Is Matt This Week?

Entry to Timber Cove Inn

June 29 - July 6, 1999

Where: San Francisco Bay Area and the Sonoma Coast

At: Palo Alto KnOwhere Store and the Timber Cove Inn

Mission: KnOwhere Store organization, meetings with technology companies, KnetWeb development, CyberConn design, Foundation II designs, design development of an executive team environment: working the next generation of work environments.

I traded my trusty 3400 PowerBook, which was totally overwhelmed with my demands for a new 400 megahertz G3. Many, many improvements - a nice machine. If it can match the reliability and ruggedness of the 3400, I will be a happy camper.

Armour, Pam, Gail and I took a 3 day trip to Marin County and up the Sonoma Coast. A time to talk, read, think and design while visiting great art stores and an amazing landscape of mountains, ocean and redwoods.

Discovered the work of a fine, little known architect, Richaed Clemmens, whose life is a tragic story and demonstration (again and again and again) of the pearls of creativity. Managing the creative life is as great a challenge as doing the work that makes it up.

Syntopical Reading: Brand, Merriam, Ponter

Images:

A Shona Owl
San Francisco across a misty bay
Timber Cove Inn
Sonoma Coast line
Richard Clemmens Residence at the edge of the sea
Flowers & cottage at Elk, California
the Muir Redwood Forest

This trip is an example of the freedom allowed by the web and computer technology. I have a leather roller-bag and small backpack. These fit in (most) airplanes and easily fit on trains and in cars. They can carry everything I require to do almost all of my work (books, papers, drawing tools, notebooks, camera, computer). I would not be able to afford this short reprieve if it were not for this capability Now, your office is where you are. The work setting can change while work continuity is maintained. This enhances productivity rather than distracting from it. It is no longer variety and ambiance versus access to tooling.

The true virtual office will be a reality in a few years. Affordable wireless, high bandwidth connectivity is the key. I named my new computer “Freedom” in anticipation of the technology. Now, with 8 hours of battery life, Gail and I have promised ourselves a day of quite drawing/writing sitting on a bench among the Redwoods at Muir Woods.

A view from street 2:30 pm June 29 - Minneapolis

June 28 - June 29, 1999

Where: Minneapolis, MN

At: William Stumpf Associates

Mission: Design explorations. A diner conversation about design in all aspects of life and then a day of design looking at future work environments. Seeing Bill Stumpfs Shop and learning how he thinks and works.

Syntopical Reading:

Images:

Chicago Airport - United Airlines

Airport terminals are becoming the new great social spaces. They are a curious mixture of excitement and semi-functionality. It is perhaps here that the modern idiom plays best and also reveals some of its deeper flaws. Are these spaces really designed to serve people or are they designed to meet the airlines perceived financial needs while distracting and selling things to people?

Pavilion at St. Joseph, Michigan
showing a nice blend of traditional and modern idioms

June 19 - June 28, 1999

Where: Kalamazoo, Michigan

At: Borges Navigation Center

Mission: 7 Domains Work Shop for a growing regional ValueWeb.

First time Gail and I have done a 7 Domains this year and it feels good to get back to the “basics.” This one focuses on the Creative Process Model (for individual and group genius) and how proper 7 Domain management can augment it. Creativity emerges - it cannot be caused.

As the organization grows and changes, this kind of work becomes Gail’s and my major focus: transfer knowledge to the ValueWeb of how to use the ValueWeb.

Syntopical Reading: Brower, Pickover, Pye, Gallagher

Images:

A lighthouse and house at St. Joseph
Scenes of downtown Kalamazoo
Entry to Borges Hospital
Work Shop activities

Our Work Shops do not focus on the “thing” of our process but the deeper underlying aspects of it. The essence of it. The objective is transfer of understanding not just skills. Providing the Work Shops is always a renewal for our organization because we learn by doing the work - there is great room for experiment, playing with and applying new tools and processes.

This Work Shop focussed on three primary ideas: individual creativity; the emerging paradigm; the 7 Domains (as an environment for creativity and emergent group genus). What is the nature of human creative response? What is the nature of the world we will be living in? How do you organize your total environment to facilitate your and your team’s creative capability? Answer these there questions well and you can better co-evolve - emerge - with the future.

This was the first multi-day event in the Borges NavCenter and the space worked well. This promises to be one of the most flexible and effective environments that we have done. Bringing an environment on line is always a celebration and a serious responsibility. Memes are planted. How something starts is a big influence on how it evolves.

Front view of Borges Hospital, Kalamazoo, Michigan

The Saturday before and the Sunday after the Work Shop we (Gail Todd and myself) were able to take time to look at Kalamazoo and surrounds. This was a rewarding experience. Saturday we visited St Joseph and the following Sunday a small community of Wrightian Usonian homes.

Kalamazoo Usonian Homes
Can you find the rabbit?

The story on these houses is told on their web site. The sense of simplicity, shelter and use of materials marks them as true “organic” works. Why is this direct and honest approach so rare in domestic architecture?

Rotunda of the Chattanooga Airport
one of the best places to fly into in the world

June 17 - June 18, 1999

Where: Tullahoma, Tenn

At: AEDC

Mission: MIT and USAF Lean Sustainment DesignShop Sponsor day.

A critical issue - one that we have been working, now, for almost a decade. At last a critical mass of very smart people to take the problems on. This is one of the most complex systems challenges in the world.

Syntopical Reading: Wolff and Rutten

Images:

Chattanooga Airport
SMG Plan
Lean Sustainment WorkWall

The AEDC Gossic Leadership Center has been in continuous operation since 1992 and has been the location of over a 150 DesignShops for the Air Force, NASA and the private aerospace community. This coming DesignShop will be supported with KnowledgeWorkers that we have worked with from the beginning of the Center. Going back is always like visiting home after a long trip abroad.

Pavilion at the Herman Miller Marigold Inn
Holland, Michigan

June 12 - June 17, 1999

Where: Holland, Michigan

At: Herman Miller

Mission: Explore the nature of senior executive team environments. Good dialog; what will the 21st Century require of leadership?

Opportunity to meet and work with Bill Stumpf a brillant industrial designer and true (rare) humanist.

Syntopical Reading: Stumpf

Images:

Marigold in the fog
a new space under construction at the Design Yard

The design process was the topic of this visit. How does design apply to all things - processes as well as objects? What happens when this process is truncated? How do, typically, organizations apply design? How can design return, in Bill Stumpf’s terms, return civility to everyday life. See: “The Ice Palace That Melted Away” - 1998 Pantheon. What is the role of design in the executive experience? What is the executive process in the 21st. Century?

What processes, amenities and basic environmental elements must exist for everyone in order to create a truly human workplace? What cannot be traded away - for any reason?

In the middle of this week, June 15th, I completed my 43rd year of work and started a new one. It seems that so many things are starting to come to fruition. We shall see...

Patio of Matt and Gail’s Sea Loft
Saturday morning

June 5 - June 11, 1999

Where: Hilton Head

At: Hilton Head KnOwhere Store

Mission: A DesignShop, in partnership with the Atlantis Group, as a feed into a Scenario Building and Strategic Planning process.

Acquisition meeting. Restructuring strategy meetings.

Russ White is here redoing some technology and preparing the MG Taylor HP server for its relocation to Palo Alto.

Opportunity to meet Danna Zohar an author we have longed admired and whose books we have used for years.

This was one of the most satifsfying DesignShops in a long time; a hard working client with outstanding results. The SCAN was deep and explored time in interesting and important ways. The output of this DesignShop was not forced and was allowed to emerge - a better way to do it.

Syntopical Reading: Brand: “The Clock of the Long Now;” Zohar: “The Quantum Self;” Knox-Johnston: “A World of my Own.”

Images:

Views of the Sea Loft
and the DesignShop @ KnOwhere

While we were doing this DesignShop, I reread “A World of My Own” by Robin Knox-Johnston. He was the first person to sail around the world unassisted and without stopping on land. He did this in the 60’s and it took over 300 days to make the sail.

It is an incredible story of preparation, invention and endurance. A good metaphore of what it takes to succeed when creating an enterprise.

Landing approach to Ft. Meyers
after a red-eye from Palo Alto

May 25 - June 4, 1999

Where: Useppa Island and surrounds

At: CAMELOT - “Refreshment of Body and Soul”

Mission: A time for rest and renewal. MG Taylor Transition Strategy Design. Design meeting with Herman Miller. Phone calls reduced to 30 minutes a day.

Syntopical Reading: Alexander, Minski

Images:

Evening and morning at Picnic Island
Sailing to and arriving at Useppa

I have been on CAMELOT only once this year and twice since last summers sails. I was worn out and sick by the time I reached her - in much need of her restorative powers. We sailed down to Picnic Island and I was in the bunk before dark and did not stir until the sun was high the next morning - the first time I had a daylight-to-daylight sleep for better than a year.

We had just finished our first PatchWorks Design process, 48 hours before, and it was fitting to rest at the place where the process had been conceived in March 1997.

After a slow morning, we sailed a comfortable breeze to Useppa Island getting there about sunset. Diner and another long sleep. By now, fatigue was really setting in and I had the luxury of letting it just express itself and fall away. Our first day at Useppa we spent at anchor - Armour and Pam cleaned CAMELOT’S bottom, repaired the propane sniffer and went dingy exploring while I rested and set up to start writing. There is one week, exactly, until guests will arrive for a working meeting and a team-building sail.

As I am sitting here now, at 3:42 PM, there is a strong North West wind damping the heat, Vangelis’s “El Greco” is on the stereo (ever hear 7 speakers in a 12 foot by 12 foot all wood cabin?) and the tide is starting to change - causing CAMELOT to swing 180 degrees on her anchor. I have pages and pages of notes about the future of MG Taylor and possible joint Ventures and other options - and time - the wonderful gift of time.

In hand, a smooth Boston Ale and the trusty PowerBook 3400. Time to write. To shape words that can shape organizations. To think things through facilitated by the disciple of making a web page. No schedules and demands, no “arbitrary” interruptions. Let the body repair itself while the mind restores and the hand plays with the future.

What are the possibilities?

The other adventurers of CAMELOT, this trip, are chronicled at “A CAMELOT Sail.” On this trip we met Doreen and Frank Schooly of CONCUBINE.

CONCUBINE under sail

next Where is Matt • prior Where Is Matt? • Index Where Is Matt?

posted May 25, 1999

revised November 8, 2000
• 20001108.228612.mt •

DesignShop, PatchWorks are Trademarks of iterations and Licensed to MG Taylor Corporation. KnOwhere and ZoomTrax are Trade Marks of KnOwhere Inc.