Professional Identities Workshop #legoseriousplay

Reflections on the First Workshop on Professional Identites. Read more on the DIAL blog by Freddy Meller.

You cannot present to others what you have not presented to yourself: Papert

The purpose of these early workshops in the On-Line Professional Identities Project was to enable the participants to think about their outward facing identity, specifically in terms of their professional profiles. To consider what that identity might be before engaging with the how of putting an identity into an online platforms or engaging with technology.

Lego Serious Play #legoseriousplay is a powerful methodology for reflecting on and evaluating Individual identity, and extracting core values or simple guiding principles. The workshop followed a clearly defined structure, beginning with skills building and introduction of metaphor. At the core of the process is a simple strategy whereby everybody builds, everybody makes meaning and everybody shares. This activity is repeated three times. Firstly the participants build, from a rich pre-selected inventory of Lego bricks, their identity as they perceive it today.

By handling the material and configuring it they make meaning that is individually shared as a story behind the model they have built. Secondly they are asked to build a new model which is how other see them and to consider how it attaches to the first model and what impact it has on the first Core Model. Finally they are asked to build a new third model that expresses, for them, their identity on the future. Lastly they are asked to place the two models in relation to each other and to extract from the last model what is the essential core identity of the future. They are asked to consider the distance between the two identities and what might be need to close that gap. These are written down and the participants take this way. Read more on the DIAL blog...