Imagination for Pragmatists
“If I can’t dance. I don’t want to be part of your revolution.”
~Emma Goldman
Increasingly there are legal mandates for cities and states to include community voices in planning processes. Unfortunately, planners and city staff can default to traditional modes of “engagement.” We’ve been to these meetings, where Experts share Plans with the community for comment. People leave cranky, unheard, disenchanted with the democratic process, and at its worst - more estranged from their neighbors.
Mark-n-Sparks agrees that it is critical to hear from community voices and stakeholders. What we daydream about is a process that is more democratic, begins earlier on, considers the participant experience, and includes Flair Surprise and Imagination: FSI (pronounced fizzy).
Consider the Participant Experience by adding FSI
Here’s how you do that: Imagine you are planning a dinner party. You think about the menu, find the right playlist, and ask about guests’ dietary restrictions. What becomes possible if you bring that same level of hospitality and design into community planning and public meetings?
FSI is a key component for making civic engagement irresistible and civic imagination possible.
FSI + Popular Education Tools create a set of techniques that transform the tone and energy of your meetings.
Images +
Music
Flair!
Community meetings can be dry. It’s hard to make infrastructure, bureaucracy, and zoning exciting. These topics can be opaque to the general public. Adding a bit of flair can help demystify the planning process.
In this context flair is the use of objects (props), images, and music. Depending on the purpose of the meeting, these elements can change the tone or invite participation of participants.
Examples
Imagine you are focused on rezoning a neighborhood. James Rojas’ PlaceIt process gives stakeholders children’s toys and objects from the Dollar Store to design their neighborhoods. People play with a range of objects and tell stories to inform the design and zoning needs of their community.
Costumes: Give table hosts a costume element beyond the typical name tag. In a housing conversation, offer folks a construction vest.
Props/Objects: Toys, Play-Doh, fidget widgets, stickers, etc. Adults holding a magic wand as a talking stick can bring about both a sense of play and power. Props can shift the power dynamics by inviting everyone to do something that is slightly dorky. This surface dorkiness is actually a moment of collective vulnerability. When we are vulnerable, we are laying the groundwork for trust building.
Images: Memes, GIFs, photos, etc. These can be fun or serious. Images invite us to think about content in new ways. They can also be a powerful tool in shaping narrative or convening complex information.
Music: Sets a tone, creates space, and can dynamically shift the mood.
Surprise
Gatherings can include a range of surprises that bring delight, and joy, disrupt “professional” norms, connect our heads and hearts, and elicit tenderness or awe. Surprise brings us fully into the present. Surprise can be a personal offering to an individual or a collective moment.
Surprises need to be aligned with the POP (Purpose Outcomes Process) of a gathering. Surprise is a way of deepening the participant experience to foster community, friendship, or collegiality.
Neuroscience: The strategic use of surprise can create new pathways in the brain. “Familiarity gives you stability and security, novelty can mean opportunity.” In that spaciousness of opportunity, we can ideate in new ways. Surprise creates a somatic reaction that connects the heart and the head.
Example: For the Most Beautiful Lehigh Valley…Maybe: A Future Forum in Bethlehem, we asked people the following question: Describe the values and assets of the Lehigh Valley like you were talking to an alien.” During lunch, there were cameo appearances by Aliens who chatted with the attendees. The aliens wanted to know about the community.
imagination!
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”
Imagination does not mean “blue sky” visioning. Imagination is the space where our values can mingle with possibility. It’s the space in a gathering where we encourage our hearts and heads to work together. Imagination brings us to the limits of our understanding and creates paths to pursue our curiosities for what lies beyond. We create new worlds of possibilities
As artists, we understand that everything is made up: imagined. Things like policies, architectural drawings, city plans, frameworks, toolkits, blogs, plays, and show tunes. There is a moment when they didn’t exist, but then they were imagined (based on knowledge and experience, yes, but also by asking, “What is possible?”).
To solve the cross-sector challenges that we face, we have to find space to imagine solutions together.
Example: Carehaus in Baltimore is a model that was imagined to address co-existing needs. Care for elders and housing for caregivers.
Multiple sites around the country are pairing healthcare networks with affordable housing development. This required imagination and collaboration to envision supportive housing development that previously didn’t exist.
Neuroscience: Here’s how imagination works in the brain. As we learn, new neural constellations are formed. Through collaboration, relationship development, and dialogue we can generate new ideas.
FSI is a bit like a mullet - business in the front, party in the back.
From one perspective, it may seem unnecessary, but from another, it’s exactly what is called for by crafting flair, surprise, and imagination into our gatherings we create shared experiences that can begin transformational relationships rooted in connection, vulnerability, and a shared sense of possibility.
Mark-n-Sparks challenges you to sprinkle a little bit of FSI on your next meeting.
Then tell us what happened. info@marknsparks.com
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