Posts Tagged ‘Guidelines’

Heather Champ, Improviser

Wednesday, October 15th, 2008

HeatherChamp2BHeather Champ, the Director of Community for Flickr, was the subject of Chris Colin’s Sept 29 On the Job blog on SFGate. Ethan Bauley, social networking entrepreneur for the online marketing company, M80, sent me the link, as he often does when business improvisation makes news.

Heather Champ and her team at Flickr improvise for a living. A big part of their job, according to the article is deciding whether certain photos belong in Flickr or not. The guidelines are not etched in stone. In fact, aside from a few Flickresque sayings like ‘Don’t forget the children,’ guidelines hardly exist at all. Rulings by Champ and her team arise more from the dialogue they have about an issue than from strict black-and-white policies. Policies are riffs on a theme; the rules of the game can change from scene to scene. (more…)

How to Kick Ass

Tuesday, February 19th, 2008

One of the beautiful things about improv is its abundance of folk wisdom — sayings and stories handed down over the years from group to group, teacher to teacher, polished and honed in the telling and retelling until they shine with the luster of truth. Periodically I’ll post a few of these priceless gems, and why I think anybody interested in getting deeper into the improvisation of business should take note.

The following list appears in my book, GameChangers. It was handed out at the beginning of a class I took at I. O. West in Los Angeles, by our teacher, Jason Pardo. The list came to Jason by way of improv legend Mick Napier, under whom Jason had studied in Chicago. (Napier is Artistic Director of the Annoyance Theater in Chicago and author of Improvise: Scene from the Inside Out. ) The GameChangers translation of each tip appears in italics .

TIPS FOR BEING A KICKASS STUDENT AND POWERFUL PERFORMER

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