Categories: Summit

Boxing is not for sissies.

When you move, things go into boxes.  It’s sort of fun to figure out groupings of things that will make sense at unpack.  You ask yourself “…better to make a box called kitchen or pots? lamps or bedroom?”

And, then there’s the almighty Bento Box – a Japanese creation that delineates a meal into little boxes inside of a big box (rice, meat, vegetables) – it’s just more fun to eat that way, right?  Boxes help our brains know how to think about things that are otherwise abstract and hard so it’s curious how they got such a bad rap (better to think “outside the box”, don’t “box me in”, etc.)

Planning the Summit, at least the logistics part, fits nicely into boxes – hotel box, travel box, budget box, etc.  Boxes, I might argue, are critical to all projects because they move human brains from concept (thinking) to concrete (doing).  Without them we can’t ship (literally and figuratively).

This year’s Summit will be unlike any other, no one will argue that.  We’re doing things that we’ve never done before.   And I’m not talking about logistics.  We are doing some unique things there too but those boxes exist (we’re just pushing them a bit) so that stuff feels relatively simple.  I’m talking about content.

The Summit Planning Team has spent a few weeks since the Paris Assembly wrestling with the question of content (all the stuff we’ll do at the Summit).  We have all sorts of amazing pieces and ideas and passions and an amazing group of Delegates ready to help, AND, what we realized was, we have no boxes for this.

What I learned this week planning the Summit:  If your project has no boxes, make them up, urgently.  They may not be right but without them stuff is all over the place and nothing moves forward.  Push the people who argue structure feels “corporate”.  Boxes are not limiting but rather offer a way forward (in essence, they allow the brain the freedom to do meaningful work and stop the useless stuff).

This week we asked Dia Bondi to help us design the Summit program (content).  Within two days of her agreeing to help, we have boxes.  Big, fat, glorious boxes and a clear path to magic.  We’re ready to move.  I promise to keep you all posted as the journey pushes on.

 

 

One comment on “Boxing is not for sissies.”

  1. Dino wrote on

    Wonder twins super power: activate!