I have been thinking about this ‘App’ for over a year now and excited to where this has gotten to. This is real open source information for anyone to use and work into their classroom, workplace or home. The opportunity here is to share this with people in your life and then invite them to add their thoughts and experience in a blog post for anyone in the world to read.
Over time this will build into thousands of posts where anyone can go through the experience and then learn from the intellliegnce that has been built from all over the globe. What an exciting time to be alive.
The Embassy – A lighthouse illuminating the patterns of creation.
When the Embassy first arrived at the Factory I remember taking a moment with Ben Knight outside and just looking at it as a blank canvas form, it was all white and ready for another life.
It was an ambulance in its former life and I began reflecting on this and started wondering through the visions of how many lives did it help save? How many conversations of reassurance to worried family members did it witness? How did it store all the life saving tools needed when it didn’t know exactly what situations it would be in from day to day.
Then Ben and I posed a question to each other… how will it fit into our world? After a few moments we concluded that we’d just have to figure out a way to put the whole world on a stretcher and load it into the back so we could figure out how to save it. Challenge accepted! Next question is – how do we do that?
I’ve been considering patterns of thought and what it means to activate intelligence for the better part of a year, some of the questions that keep coming through are.
What effect does that activation have on people?
That intelligence, where does it go?
How does that activation and exchange of intelligence shape Mother Earth, who in turn shapes us on her own journey through constant transformation?
As I try to answer some of these questions I find myself being drawn back to this part of Sand Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta,
Our knowledge endures because everybody carries a part of it, no matter how fragmentary. If you want to see the patterns of creation talk to everybody and listen carefully. Authentic knowledge processes are easy to verify if you are familiar with the pattern – each part reflects the design of the whole system. If the pattern is present the knowledge is true, whether the speaker is wearing a grass skirt, a business suit or a school uniform. – Tyson Yunkaporta, Sand Talk.
If you want to see that pattern of creation, talk to everybody and listen carefully… a good intention to set as relationships build so you can find your way back when challenges and barriers pop up as they always do!
My connections to people and stories have increased since working in the UNI, while it’s certainly not everybody, I get the sense that I can see some of the patterns emerge as we flow with the design processes outlined in this blog across everything we are doing.
One of the constant reminders during the design phase is the need to bring people with us, make space for others to build the process. Don’t get to the destination and ask them if they wanna come for a ride, if the answer is yes they’ve already missed the whole journey and all that’s left to do is stand there awkwardly swinging their arms wondering what to do next.
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How will the Embassy fit into our world?
It’s gearing up to hit the road and will be in schools from April 27th, as I write this it’s being kitted out and transformed into a roving puppetry/ performance/ workshop space for mentors and young people to tell stories and develop connections in relation.
To launch on April 27th we’ll work with the maps YHA crew already have across AUS, train the staff in each destination and deliver mentoring sessions with nearby schools. The 3 hour mentoring workshops the Embassy will deliver are
GAIME of Life
Food break/ Relations building
1M Presidents workshop
DreamSpace – Submissions open May – OCT// AIME produces 5 EPS before end of year on IN{TV}
IMAGI-ZINE delivery and submissions for ongoing storytelling/ publications
Post Embassy visit for schools: Top of my mind right now is another question – How do schools use the workshops and mentoring sessions to become accredited in imagination and join IMAGI-NATION {University} Lab as Fellows? I’m conscious we need to find ways to ensure systems change is ongoing post Embassy visit and think it’s a healthy approach to keep reminding ourselves that we are not a smiley face program that creates one off experiences, this might feel good at the time but it’s not regenerative and it doesn’t allow space for other perspectives to inform and build the processes, if we find the pathway from Embassy visit to School accreditation in imagination then I believe we’ll be on the right track for lasting change
Each Embassy visit supports schools to become at least 40% accredited as an imagination school, full list below.
Centre imagination as a strategic target for the school
Create an Imagination Declaration for the school
Take on a Mentor Mindset
Teach With Imagination
Purple carpet experience
MentorClass
Pop Up Imagination Factory
1M Presidents workshop
Implement Imagination Library
Create your own Imagination TV Show – Dream space
Create making of a Hoodie podcast
Create an IMAGI-ZINE for the school
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How do we get the world into the back of the Embassy and make it healthier?
We fill it with stories, we map the world together from ours and each other’s perspectives to a healthy future built in a relational networks so we can all see and action the solutions that are hidden deep within the layers of relations and the systems we all live in everyday.
Rhian Miller is a proud Wirangu, Narranga, Wongi Woman and Artist. She grew up in Ceduna, South Australia, learning from an early age to share her culture, stories and surroundings through her work. Seven years ago, she graduated as a student in AIME’s program and applied for a job only a few weeks after finishing high school.
As a 17-year-old kid, she was quickly knocked back as too young for the gig, but Rhian challenged this view, drawing on AIME’s ethos ‘you’re never too young to lead’. She was passionate about making a difference to the Aboriginal community in South Australia and knew that if she was given the opportunity she could step up to the role. Jack Manning Bancroft agreed, putting her on a 3-month probation, which ended up seeing Rhian become an integral part of the highs, the lows, the confusion, the excitement, the failure and the learnings of a 7-year journey to try and change the world.
A few weeks after joining the team she flew to Sydney for the staff AIME Institute where she had her first real experience of being a staff member, rather than a kid in the program. It was here that she met people that would shape her and offer mentorship throughout her career. Rhian describes the experience as a completely different world than she was used to as the only Aboriginal kid in her high school. She was surrounded by loud, proud and bold personalities, and knew then that AIME was definitely the place she wanted to be.
In 2017, Jack Manning Bancroft announced that AIME was going global and giving 20 golden tickets to 20 university students across 20 countries. Rhian describes this time as uncertain, with some team members excited and others concerned that expanding would mean funding would be spent overseas, rather than supporting Indigenous students in Australia. Seven months later the golden ticket winners headed to Sydney, and Rhian remembers meeting people from Canada and Africa for the first time. It was an incredible experience to know that these people were joining the AIME team, not just as an extra addition, but to do the same thing; working with kids and supporting them through their schooling.
In 2018 the U.S.A campaign launched, and Jack decided to charter a flight to Australia to bring 200 students to the Festival of Mentoring. Here they would learn the AIME model and bring it back to America to engage with people in power.
The campaign went live and within 24 hours there was only one application. They were forced to consider a new approach and Rhian recalls Jack calling out to staff to see who would like to fly to America to try and recruit people in person. She volunteered and within the next few days was on a flight to LA with 30 other team members. It was an outrageous hustle as they were tasked with visiting as many colleges as possible to get people pumped about applying. Working in teams they would hit 28 universities in 14 days to recruit people who wanted to make a difference.
Together they pulled it off, the plane was chartered and everyone was pumped to attend the festival. At this stage Jack had curated the schedule, and was the only person in the know about the plan for when everyone arrived in Sydney. Adrenaline was high, and during the flight he ended up suffering from exhaustion and was hospitalised. This left Rhian and Ben Abbatangelo to facilitate the sessions. They had to take it back to basics, but in doing so uncovered a lot of truth and difference in who was in the room and what Indigenous backgrounds meant to different people. There was a lot of energy and emotions during the festival, and the conversations helped AIME to dig into the pressure point of imagination, freeing people from literal understandings and unlocking their potential.
This concept birthed IMAGI-NATION{University} and IMAGI-NATION{TV} in 2020. This was the next step for AIME to build unlikely connections and make knowledge accessible and free for people across the globe. So far Rhian has featured in five episodes of IMAGI-NATION{TV} as a guest and co-host to unpack topics like building bridges to educational equity, making space and social good.
During her last seven years at AIME Rhian has seen the organisation grow from a successful national non-profit to a global movement. Her work has been integral to this journey as she helped recruit and support students and mentors from across the United States and Africa. In seven years time Rhian knows she will still be working with kids, still mentoring others and still making an impact across the world, hopefully providing the next generation of leaders to step up and to change the narrative leading to a fairer world.
As I reflected on designing from and in relation to nature, I saw another pattern in the relational economy emerge. Hello Confusion!! I’m seeing this as an indicator for us/all to sit circle, recalibrate the maps, share the notes, and remember we’re here to share the pathway…. Not the produced song.
As we move into Fellowship Week, I want to remind myself about that point… We’re not producing the song, we are showing the pathway to change and finding ways to enjoy the process as we get into relation with each other. The produced song comes after that in the sequence, it’s the big story, the symphony.
AIME IS AN IMAGINATION LAB// KNOWLEDGE TREE
I got a bit confused in the nuance of the Fellowship design trying to work through some of the transition pieces, looking at the maps with the team helped me to see why Confusion walked in and took a seat at the table with me. It’s because we can’t (or shouldn’t) design those transition pieces without being in relation to the Fellows that are coming into the Lab, they need to be at the table too. It’s us/all that will map, design and move together.
THE DIGITAL IMAGINATION LAB// KNOWLEDGE TREE
The webpage now reflects AIME as an Imagination Lab, displaying the mindset areas, projects, tools and blogs. It’s a digital representation of the Knowledge Tree that’s updated by us/all, it’s front-facing and transparent knowledge sharing, open sourced and showing the pathway.
PROCESS: Ceremony for Lab research.
We activate intelligence through…
An imagination mindset.
UNCx5 – knowledge – activation, sharing and publishing.
Mentor mindset to build relations.
Hoodie Economics – exchange flows
System designers/ designing with and in relation to nature
DESIGN: Ceremony for project design, development and implementation.
The projects and tools developed through this design frame stimulates/ activates knowledge. (specifically Indigenous Systems thinking// knowledges) and centres emergence as an impact tool and area of investment. The design frame allows us to map from the Professor’s perspective to the future, they are our totems.
PROJECTS: Fellows/ Embassy/ 1M Pres workshops.
We have key criteria for Schools, Uni’s and Organisations to be accredited by AIME and join us next year at the Humankind festival. As the criteria is met across the year by us/all research is developed in our Lab as a way to pass on the notes
Systems thinking and designing requires perspective shift between the zoom in and out. The Fellows journey, Embassy and 1M presidents workshops are visualised below in 3 different systems views.
The zoom in – Seeing Fellows as one thread/ pathway in the story
The stack view – Visualising all projects as journeys.
The zoom out – All the threads, the long story, the cloud.
Seeing Fellows as one thread/ pathway in the story plus stack view: Here you can see the actions each Fellow will take across the year to achieve accreditation for University, Organisation and Schools. From here we can get grounded and begin to imagine what’s possible at scale as we zoom through the levels.
IMPLEMENTATION: Seeing through a systemic lens
Zooming out can be a weird experience at first after being so close to the single threads but I also see this as another grounding point to recalibrate the maps before flying to the next perspective. It feels like magic when multiple threads start to come together, for a moment I get super clear with the vision. This clarity begins to get fuzzy when I focus on the single thread but that’s ok because the pay off is action, it’s implementing the plans on the maps so finding balance between these views is something to continuously consider.
Once you’ve mapped your journey, you can go there… You suddenly get to see through layers and layers in the system and get an understanding of your place in it as you choose from and bring together infinite threads of connection every day – this is the song, one big symphony.
Until next time… Keep drafting, doing and sharing the notes friends 🙂
It took 13.8 billion years of cosmic history for the first human beings to arise, and we did so relatively recently: just 300,000 years ago. 99.998% of the time that passed since the Big Bang had no human beings at all; our entire species has only existed for the most recent 0.002% of the Universe. 0.002% of cosmic history to spread kindness. By kind humans. And we have only just begun. We truly believe in this idea of kind humans. That’s why we have spent over 6 years covering kindness. ———- Sometimes we need a gentle reminder that we are born kind. With so much distraction it can be easy to lose our way.
There is a good deal of evidence that rather than being selfish, humans are actually born kind.
We have kindness genes. The most prominent of these is the gene for oxytocin.
Oxytocin makes us love more, cuddle more, and it makes us kind. It is one of our oldest genes, at around 500 million years young.
It causes mothers to love and care for their children, thus ensuring that they grow up and are able to reproduce themselves, thus carrying on the human species.
It also causes us to help each other, to work together for a common good.
So rather than being selfish, kindness is genetically ‘wired’ in us.
Our kind nature is deeply entrenched in us.
Soooooo, it’s time to shout out all the kind people around Australia to help us remember why we are born kind.
This Sunday we want to remind you what’s at our core by working with the Human Kind Festival in Sydney to
give away 3 day tickets to the full festival to kind humans
That’s 3 days of 50+ world-class speakers, transformative experiences, keynote addresses, interactive workshops, pitch competitions, art installations, music showcases and so much more.
Let’s all turn this festival into the kindness gathering of people in the world!
—-Now, as a little kindness reminder—-
For so long now, have been working to put kindness at the centre of our daily lives and inspiring others to do the same.
Here is a 5 minutes gift to walk through our AIME’s kindness journey.
As you feel the warmth of kindness, come back to click throughand gift a special person in your life a ticket to Human Kind.
For 6 years AIME has been sharing stories of kindness – you can catch all 100 of them here.
On July 7 2017, from Sunrise to Sunset, we lit up the nation with letters of kindness as AIME Hoodie Day delivered the love to everyday Australians.
In 2021 we sent 20 hoodies around the world to see how much kindness could be shared. Check out 1000’s of miles travelled and the hours and hours kindness achieved here (includes out full archive of Sunday kindness mailouts).
During Hoodie Day 2022 we asked our network for pledges of kindness and were blown away by hundreds of kind responses. See them all here.
Last year we kicked off the VIKP (Very Important Kind Person) concept. Go here to see over 300 kindness pledging people that got in the game to attend Listen Out, Beyond the Valley, Field Day and the RUFUS DU SOL Australian tour. This is also the same page that you can nominate your kind person to attend Human Kind 😉
This is AIME values
