Day 49: Monday 20 March
Urgh!
The question has been going around my head for days.
I’m in a funk again.
Not feeling good at all about the work right now.
I’m wading through porridge.
The thing is, the work I thought I needed to do is based on other people’s thinking. The work around shifting the culture of the architecture profession through developing human skills and leadership in the profession. It’s interesting to me and I think it’s important and that I have something to contribute. Yet the bit that starts to light me up, the bits I’ve got excited about in conversations over the last couple of weeks, is the bit’s beyond the bubble, rethinking the profession. Pulling from any disciplines as well as the provocative thinking of people like Jeremy Till, Indy Johar and Reinier de Graaf. It’s the work on the edge.
But
Two things
- it’s hard to identify how this work might be monetised in the profession. At least in a way that can sustain my business. And on that basis…
- a number of people have suggested that maybe I shouldn’t be doing this work for architects.
So we arrive at the question de jour.
I’ll repeat for emphasis
Is this what I really want?
‘this’ being the current work I’m doing towards reshaping unmeasured’s work as previously posted.
To change the culture of the profession for the better. So that architects might be better supported within and thereby better able to contribute to leadership in the community and the built environment.
A different creative practice
What if I could sit with people (businesses, organisations, leaders, etc) to brainstorm. Producing ideas, brainstorming, rethinking their world, challenging status quo thinking. Making their work better. Once having identified problems and solutions, looking at how to implement and realise this thinking.
Thinking about connecting those things that haven’t been connected or identified before. Those bits outside of the bubble. The bits that draw from multiple disciplines are where the interesting things happen. It’s skill stacking and it’s also using unconventional thinking as well as using the prism of different disciples to see things anew and differently.
[I emphasise ‘draw’ here, because there’s a wonderful connection back to creativity, the use of drawing to generate multiple ideas as an architect might.]
This is the heady work, as in the work that involves me getting all up in my head (in a good way), and also that I’m good at. The work that’s embraces who I am, more so than what i think it is I should do. Both involve purpose. Only one involves my intrinsic skills.
