Improv is not "stand-up comedy." It is often presented series of games with rules that offer huge degrees of freedom within a set of constraints. In these games we bring out quickly-understood-and-communicated rules of culture that are implicit, not explicit. The activities of design (collaboration, creativity, and design research, for starters) have interesting similarities with improv: All have in-the-moment aspects; we learn upon reflection; there’s enormous unspoken interaction and there is often an "aha" moment. Design and improv also have important similarities: the need to collaborate and brainstorm, the importance of breakthrough thinking, the balance between process, structure, and unfettered creativity. Playing with improv can make us more mindful of the power of listening, and can be harnessed to create a more collaborative work culture, as a way to develop one’s own creativity, or to help warm up teammates and clients in workshops and design sessions. In this interactive presentation you will learn more about improv, listening, creativity, and how they all connect together to support one another. No iguanas will be harmed.
Steve Portigal: Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha: Improv, Creativity and Design
1. Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha
Improv, Creativity and Collaboration
Steve Portigal
1 @steveportigal
2. Click to edit Master title style
Introduction
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha ‹#› Portigal
3. Today (and Master title style
Click to edit what‟s this about iguanas?)
Define and experience improv
Look at user research,
creativity, design
You will start to see overlaps,
similarities and parallels
Some implicit; some explicit
Your thoughts welcome
No iguanas will be harmed.
http://iroisaac.deviantart.com/art/Iguana-65814718
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha ‹#› Portigal
4. Click to edit Master title style
Portigal
We help companies discover and
act on new insights about their
customers and themselves
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha ‹#› Portigal
5. Founded edit Master title style
Click to
by Steve in
2001
Small
footprint
Global
influence
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha ‹#›
Portigal
Portigal
6. Click to edit Master title style
Improv: The funny will come
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha ‹#› Portigal
7. Improv edit Master title style
Click to is not stand-up comedy
In contrast to improv, stand-up is
Highly scripted
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha
Rehearsed, with nano-second timing
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8. Improv edit
Click to is... Master title style
A highly-constrained performance with several
open parameters
Elements of problem solving
Unscripted
Specifics assigned right before performance starts
“Your first idea is often your best idea”
Emphasis on playfulness over being funny
“I could never do that, because I‟m not funny”
It can be (at times) funny to watch, but not about trying to be funny
“The funny will come”
“Don‟t let logic impede your fancy”
Cheaper than therapy
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha ‹#› Portigal
9. Improv edit it way title style
Click to findsMaster into many areas
Corporate training on
collaboration and creativity
Compare with popularity of
Drawing on the Right Side of the
Brain
Meeting facilitation/ideation
warm-up
At Pixar, when someone suggests an idea, others should
respond with “Yes, and ...” They‟ve used improv to create
the most trusting environment possible where people can
Informance (from Interval screw up.
Pixar tells story behind 'Toy Story„, SF Chronicle, 8/23/05
Research)
User research methods
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha ‹#› Portigal
10. Improv edit Master title style
Click to and collaboration
Throwing an idea
Accepting offers/saying yes
Trust
Listening
Chris Miller emphasizes that your task in improv is to
make your partner look good.
Setting up the spike
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha ‹#› Portigal
11. Improv edit Master
Click to can bring title style
Insights about humor
Confidence in public
speaking
Timing
Did I mention therapy?
Building skills in listening
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha ‹#› Portigal
14. Click to edit Master title style
Designing for users: needs and culture
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha ‹#› Portigal
15. User to edit Master title of user-centered design)
Click Research (as part style
Ethnographic interviews
Video ethnography
Depth-interviews
Contextual research
Home visits
Experience modeling
Design research
User-centered design
Observational research
Camera studies
User safaris
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha ‹#› Portigal
16. User to edit Master title of user-centered design)
Click Research (as part style
Ethnographic interviews
Video ethnography
Depth-interviews
Contextual research
Home visits
Experience modeling
Design research
User-centered design
Observational research
Camera studies
User safaris
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha ‹#› Portigal
17. Instead, let‟s try this non-definition
Click to edit Master title style
Examine users (consumers or other) in their own context
What are they doing?
What does it mean?
Infer (interpret/synthesize/etc.)
Find the connections
The researcher is the “apparatus”
Apply to business or design problems
Use products, services, packaging, design to tell the right story
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha ‹#› Portigal
18. Interviewing users title style
Click to edit Masterrequires expert listening
At this level, most people can’t do this without
extensive training and practice
Listening is more than not talking when the other
person talks
How is what you do or say next, after they finish talking, influenced
by what they just said, or have said previously?
Interviewing looks and feels like ordinary conversation – but it isn‟t!
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha ‹#› Portigal
19. Listening is Master title style
Click to edit in the body as well as the ears/eyes
Yes! Not so much.
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha ‹#› Portigal
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Game: Telephone 2.0
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha ‹#› Portigal
21. Change and Conformity in Balance
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“Folks pick up on the
surrounding cultures in at
least somewhat idiosyncratic
ways…Even with a world of
conformers, each conformer
thus acts differently. With
each striving to emulate the
other, there will be a never-
ending chain of adoptions
and adaptations that, as they
move throughout the
network, change the
substance.”
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha ‹#› Portigal
22. Consider Cultural Rules
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New technologies (especially those that enable
new, visible behaviors) are often met with distrust
Society sanctions people who violate these norms
People assert their own normalcy by verbally
distancing themselves from the end-points of the
normal curve
We hear these stories over and over
Me
Thinking someone is
weird or a jerk is a
manifestation of the
norms of one‟s society.
Weird in one age may
eventually become
People who are People who are
normal over time.
too… too…
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha ‹#› Portigal
23. Consider Cultural Rules
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Normal isn‟t “right or wrong” – it‟s the
set of background rules that define
much of what people choose or ignore
To innovate, we must understand a
world view (including norms) from our
customer‟s perspective (which is often
different than ours).
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha ‹#› Portigal
24. User to edit Master title style
Click research exposes us to culture
Learning about yourself and
your own culture by having an
opportunity to reflect it against
things you didn't know
Understand “social norms” – i.e., how
messy your house is
Your own reaction is data
Human beings are judging
beings
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha ‹#› Portigal
25. Brainstorming/ideation style
Click to edit Master titleas collaborative generation
Works best as a collective,
out-loud activity! Talk, listen,
build on each other‟s ideas
Don‟t worry about a “bad” idea… it may
lead to a “good” idea
Don‟t correct; generate
alternatives
“Yes, and…” works very well here
Individual ideas matter less
than what the collective How can a sour lemon help keep things working
smoothly?
produces overall
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha ‹#› Portigal
26. Bad to edit Master title style
Clickideas get you unstuck
Immoral
Dangerous
Bad for business
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha ‹#› Portigal
27. Bad to edit Master title style
Clickideas get you unstuck
Immoral
Dangerous
Bad for business
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha ‹#› Portigal
28. Click to edit Master title style
So where does this leave us?
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha ‹#› Portigal
29. Emerging principle: giving space to others
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Multiple interviewers
Build on the ideas of others
Let there be silence
technique The Kids In The Hall are each hilariously talented, but
know how to keep quiet to make the scene work.
Make your best contribution
by not talking
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha ‹#› Portigal
30. Balance: Structure title style
Click to edit Masterfor Freedom
Have a “plan” but be in the moment
In user research interviewing, a guide is used to anticipate
the flow of the discussion, but it can go in new directions –
that‟s the a-ha moment you are looking for
In improv, the basics of the game give structure, we have a
beginning, and then we “look for the ending”
In ideation, we have a process to focus our work, but we
use that process to think divergently
Fuel creativity: extinguish I can’t do that by breaking
problems into smaller solvable ones and reframing success
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha ‹#› Portigal
31. Takeaway: Master title style
Click to editTry a little more “yes”
When someone teases you
(just listen to how comics go
back and forth), try
responding with yes.
Even if you don‟t add the
“and…” the act of yes can
change the dynamic.
If I ever become a New Age guru offering a spiritual path
to a happier life, this will be the way I‟ll present myself.
Gain control by giving up
control.
Try it in a situation you
wouldn‟t expect to.
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha ‹#› Portigal
32. Hungry edit Master
Click to for more? title style
This deck will be on slideshare
Attend an improv class
Attend an improv show
Start your own improv class
Watch improv or improv-based stuff
?
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha ‹#› Portigal
33. Coming in September 2012
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A book by Steve Portigal
The Art and Craft of User Research Interviewing
http://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/user-interviews/
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha ‹#› Portigal
34. Click to edit Master title style games?
Time for more
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha ‹#› Portigal
35. Click to edit Master title style
I find it works
for me like Yeah, I’ve
this… got a
question
for ya…
One new
thing I
learned
today is…
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha ‹#› Portigal
36. Click to edit Master title style
Thank you!
Portigal Consulting @steveportigal
www.portigal.com steve@portigal.com
Yes, My Iguana Loves to Cha-Cha ‹#› 415-894-2001
Portigal