We are hereby giving ourselves permission to write some really bad taglines for Creating the Future! So mark your calendars for Tuesday, May 28 at 1pm Pacific time (NA) to help us come up with some zingers!
Why "bad taglines"? To open up our creativity, to allow the GOOD taglines to surface without feeling forced.
For the past several months, Creating the Future's messaging / branding effort has been led by the gracious, smart, insightful and creative team of Dave Svet of Spur Communications and Zach Braiker of Refine and Focus, who have spent many hours helping us to refine and focus (with more than a nod to the name of Zach's firm). You can watch our most recent meeting here.
Which means we are ready to brainstorm a tagline / headline, a brief synopsis, and a call to action, to loudly and clearly tell the world who we are, and to invite them to take part! From there, graphics and web design and elevator pitch will all naturally fall into place.
To prepare for that event, we hope you'll help us with our homework – some question posed by Dave during our last session. As background, this is what people have told us resonates about our work:
- Creating the Future as a Living Laboratory
- Creating exponential change vs incremental change
- Reaching for what is possible / our human potential (vs reacting to what’s wrong)
- The intense practicality of what is normally written off as all that "airy fairy spiritual stuff"
- Creating the Future's network of change agents around the world, with real experience of what works to create change
- Anything else that resonate strongly with YOU?”
To prepare for our Bad Tagline Brainstorming Session, Dave has encouraged us to fill in the following prompts:
- We go to the Living Lab to ______________
- These are the brilliant people you will be with in the lab __________________
- Here are the amazing things you will do in the lab __________________
And I will add an item #4, for those who are already engaged in the work Creating the Future is doing:
4. What I value most about being part of this Living Lab is _________________________
And so, as we prepare for our brainstorming session on May 28, we throw those question out to you – to those who have been involved in Creating the Future’s work, and to those who have been watching from the sidelines.
What does Creating the Future mean to you? And from that, how might you answer these very practical questions?
I go to the Living Lab to:
…Remember my vision as I help others discover theirs.
…Take a psychic shower after feeling slimed by werid ego stuff in the nonprofit sector
…Connect with kind, smart, creative, curious people who geek out about changing the world
…Fill up on encouragement and possibility
…Sort, find language and try out ways of thinking with poeple who are moving beyong doing to being change.
…Make the most audacious possible, practical and sexy.
In the lab you will learn how to get over your need to be the focus and at the same time become clear about what your part is to play in change.
In the lab you will find practical tools that you can put to work at whatever your starting point.
In the lab you can reflect in a safe place with a community of people who share your values or you can get support for wading into the fray and experimenting in the world and learning and reflecting right where you are, doing what you are doing to make change in your community.
The briliant people in the lab are making listening the most useful and practical tools next to the hammer and the glue gun.
Wow wow wow. Wow.
I'm psyched from reading 'The Call to Action' "Bad Tagline Brainstorming Session".
Andrea – to get over my need to be a central focus and to have support when I go wading into the fray sounds daunting & awesome.
And I thought active listening was a dying trend.
We go to the Living Lab ___________________
To explore and experiment in a nurturing environment
To bring out the best in us, so that we can learn to share it with others
To be challenged to think deeper and not settle for the easy answer
To find questions that inspire, empower and even sometimes aggravate
Because there is no other place like it
Because it calls to the seekers
These are the brilliant people you will be with in the lab __________________
People who are experts and consider themselves humble learners
People who aren’t afraid to dream big
People who don’t back away when things get messy, but keep asking questions
People who share their wisdom freely and listen for the wisdom in others
People who make celebrate failure as another step forward
People who can be reflective, practical, brilliant and laugh out loud funny
Here are the amazing things you will do in the lab __________________
You will stretch your brain until it hurts and love every second
You will have more “aha” moments than you’ve had in a lifetime
You will be invited to share your talents (even the ones you don’t see in yourself)
You will be a part of a community that is working toward something bigger than all of us
4. What I value most about being part of this Living Lab is _________________________
Connecting with others on a shared journey and working together to make it a reality.
Nancy — Love everything you said. AND especially loved "not settle for the easy answers." Not to say it has to be hard, but this process makes it fresh and real, instead of stale and canned. This process asks me, asks everyone to SHOW UP.
Thanks Andrea. You were a hard act to follow with such great answers! Loved the idea of listening as the most useful and practical tool since the hammer and glue gun.