Serious Play Forum

[Marko Rillo]

I welcome all new members introduce your “personal self” to the rest of the community – in addition to your business profile that we can see on your profile page. It would be also nice if you could comment – how did you come across LSP and what caugth your attention to become LSP fan? :-)

Let me start: besides active strategy consulting work I am interested in research and teaching – I am teaching a couple of courses on strategy, business diagnostics and design at our faculty.

In terms of LSP. As a strategy consultant I tried looking for possibilities to turn strategizing activities more creative. When a friend of mine introduced me to LSP method I realized its vast potential. I read a bunch of research papers on LSP, play theory etc and decided to give it a try. I experimented and ran numerous LEGO SERIOUS PLAY seminars since 2005 and ultimately decided to get fully trained in 2009 in Billund.

[Eli De Friend]

If you want a full description of my professional experience, like Frode, I would direct people to my professional profile, which is most up to date at http://www.caprese.org/EN/WhoAreWe_EN.html#EliDeFriend & http://www.caprese.org/eli/Eli%20De%20Friend%20-%20Caprese%20Format.htm

You can also find me on linkedin.

As for my private life, I live and work with Joyce Miller in a charming little town surrounded by the vineyards on the shores of Lake Geneva. We can do our shopping in France, get a pizza for lunch in Italy and drive to EuropaPark in Germany for the day. We have the luxury of not deciding to not go skiing, if the weather isn’t perfect, which meant no skiing at all this season! Usually I start in December and do my last slopes in March.

As for hobbies, I still let my right hand finger nails grow long, while keeping the left hand nails shorter, although my flamenco guitar was broken last year by one of my 5-year old daughter Julia’s friends, which I didn’t notice for months – to give you some idea of how frequently I play. The last time I was on stage was on Christmas Eve in Firenze in my friend’s music club. When I was living in Belgium, I created a theatre company with some friends and had fun directing and acting – every night was sold out!

To finish off the rounds of my immediate family, my second son, Lionel, is still waiting for me to teach him to play his Stratocaster. My oldest son, Jeremy, also likes the stage and is currently Swiss Junior Hip-Hop Champion and came 12th in the World Championships in Poland in 2009. He still lives with his Mum, who is Belgian.
As I write this, I have just started implementation of a New Year’s resolution for 2009 – I don’t really dig diets, because I really appreciate good food and wine, but I’m not investing in any larger clothes, so, I have the choice of dieting or going naked and starting up a new market in consulting for overweight naturists. The latter could be very lucrative, and although I like thinking and living out of the box, there are some limits.

To summarize then, I feel my life is a sunny one, with a decent dose of beauty, creativity and intellectual stimulation

[Per Kristiansen]

hi,
As Frode, I am part of Trivium. My LSP history starts with joining Executive Discovery back in 2001. We managed and developed the method, and build the initial partner network. Lots for fun and hard work back then. When I left LEGO I was the global director for LSP. I kept in contact with LEGO, and supported them in training facilitators.
I live in Copenhagen, but have lived in Germany, Italy and England. I have two boys, aged three and six. In my “dark past” I worked with wine, for wineries in Italy and Germany, and for retailers/importers in DK and Germany.
I have a soft spot for football
For more: http://dk.linkedin.com/in/perkristiansen

[Karen Cohen]

Hi All,

My name is Karen Cohen. I am a Program Manager with the University of Houston in Texas, U.S.A. My website is http://www.core.tech.uh.edu. I am fortunate to wear many hats in this education and outreach program. The variety keeps me hopping. My program uses LEGO based robotics to excite kids about science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Besides hosting robotics tournaments and camps, I train teachers and adults how to use LEGO robotics in their classrooms, their community groups, or their mentoring programs. Many of these adults have been working many years and find unleashing their creativity a challenge. But beyond learning the programming and construction, they frequently ask me how to teach the bigger life issues, like problem solving, critical thinking, project management, and leadership. In the other part of my job, I build relationships in the community. These include helping companies begin outreach, community and mentoring programs. I also bring together partners of mine such as NASA, industry and education for collaborations in education. Surprisingly, these partners have also inquired about teaching these same topics to their management and staff.

I was a corporate trainer and quality manager in the aerospace industry for 15 years, prior to joining the University. Before that I worked in the non-profit sector developing programs, writing grants, and facilitating boards.

As for hobbies, I have a teenage son who doesn’t drive yet. Chauffeuring pretty much takes up any spare time. He’s a good kid, an Eagle Scout (Boy Scouts of America) so no complaints there. I do like to kayak and fish along the gulf coast. Although its very pretty here, its also very muggy. But all that humidity keeps us Southern women looking young, so I will not complain! My first book, the Marvelous Mid Life Adventures of Gemini Tucker, a collection of humorous and poignant short stories was published recently and I really enjoyed the experience of book signings, talks, etc.

I have no LSP history…… yet. Looking forward to learning more.

Karen

[Jody Lentz]

Hello:
I have participated in and facilitated LSP sessions with over 4,000 people since 2000, when I was introduced to it by its co-creator, Bart Victor. An internet-company incubator I co-founded was a beta-test for Real-Time Strategy, as it was moving from research project to product. When the incubator burst with the rest of the internet bubble, I got a fantastic opportunity to work for Executive Discovery, the company that tried to turn LSP into a business.
I was the first business-development guy for LSP (based in Nashville, TN, USA), and had the great pleasure of representing LSP in North America, South Africa and Europe. In my role, I recruited partners, helped run the first several LSP training sessions, and worked on product development/testing for “smaller” products than Real Time Strategy – e.g., Real Time Identity, the dearly departed Window Workshop kit, and the Fiddle Pack. During this time, I worked closely with Robert Rasmussen and Per Kristiansen until LEGO decided to re-think the business model (the first time ;-) and moved LSP back home to DK.
While working for LSP, I got to know some really great consultants (some of whom I am pleased to find in this community), who inspired me to establish a free-agent consultancy with the focus on culture change and team development. LSP was my key tool, but along the way, I put many other facilitation tools in the kit — graphic recording, Open Space, World Cafe, Technology of Participation, VisualsSpeak, theatre games, and more.
As the dollar sank against the euro and LSP support from LEGO seemed to disappear, the value of being an LSP partner came into question, and I did not renew my LSP partner agreement in 2006 or 7. I still had a garage full of LSP materials, so I used those sporadically to facilitate the occasional LSP session (mostly for non-profits). But those materials are now gone, so I am thrilled to find that LEGO has “open-sourced” LSP – still not clear what the extent and boundaries of that open source are, but I hope this renews the energy around LSP and opens its vast capabilities to a new and expanded group of serious players.
cheers,
Jody

[Eli De Friend]

Hi Jody,
I’m really happy to answer you because I’m in an experiment. Can I run a consultancy business in Switzerland from a holiday home in Southern Spain? Until an hour ago, I was thinking that the answer was a definitive “NO” and that I would have to pack my bags and head back to the shores of Lake Geneva, but finally the dude with sweaty armpits showed up and I’m online. Yay!
On the subject of boundaries for the business, LEGO has been fairly clear: no use of the LEGO or SERIOUS PLAY logo in our marketing material. When referred to, the official term is “LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®”. Some suggestions have been submitted to LEGO as to how people who have successfully completed a full LEGO-organised LSP training programme should be referred. I’m sure you’ll find the info on this web site as soon as LEGO has made its decision.

You are more than welcome to attend our community of practise workshop on 27-28 September which is being held in Lausanne, a stone’s throw from IMD, where a lot of it all started.
Have an excellent weekend,
Eli

[Jody Lentz]

Hello Eli: Sounds like a tremendous experiment — I’m happy to be a guinea-pig if you need a control group :-) . In the small world of LSP, your partner Joyce picked me up at the Lausanne train station on my first LSP trip to Europe way back in January 2001, so I am well acquainted with the shores of Lake Geneva.

The boundaries I mention are about the process and documentation and how LSP grows and evolves. LEGO has been through this with Mindstorms, and the result was that it became a much bigger phenomenon than was possible with a proprietary, protectionist approach. I believe the same thing will happen with LSP, in that LEGO will sell a lot more LSP sets, but where do (can?) facilitators tap the open-source process?

cheers to you and Joyce!
Jody

[Eli De Friend]

Hi Jody, could you please be more explicit on what you mean by tapping in to the open-source process.
Cheers,
Eli

[Alex Trumbull]

Hi,

I’m looking for information on how to become certified in LSP in North America. When are training sessions? How do I sign up?

Thanks,
Alex

[Per Kristiansen]

hi Alexandra

I believe that Robert Rasmussen (& Associates) will be doing one on the east coast end of November this year. Check his website for more info
(if you want to try the method, then I will be doing a pre-conf workshop leading up the this years Pegaus system thinking conference in Boston. We will be combining LSP with scenario development. However, it will not be a training session, rather a workshop,http://www.pegasuscom.com/levpoints/lp.html)

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