Exercise: Cherry Split

“Who can determine where one ends and the other begins.” – Sun Tzu

The goal of this exercise is to break a challenge into separate pieces.  When this is done you can see new material that had before been part of something else.  Reassembling the pieces is slow and awkward, but when they do start to click back together entirely new concepts emerge.

To cherry split:

1. State the essence of your challenge in two words.

“Improving the Local Creative/Technical Community.

IMPROVE COMMUNITY

2. Split the challenge into two separate units.

IMPROVE

COMMUNITY

3. Split each attribute into two more attributes. Do not worry about the correctness of the split.

The book had talked about doing as a group exercise.  I was sitting home alone, but figured I could get group input using twitter.  I put a call out twitter asking for help… “help me with a creative problem solving exercise.. problem… “improve creative/tech community”.. split into IMPROVE and COMMUNITY…” I got responses from @consumer, @chriscardinal, @brandonfranklin, @africankelli and @alandd.

4. Continue splitting the attributes until you fell that you have enough to work with.

I got full responses from @consumer, @chriscardinal and @brandonfranklin.

5. Examine each attribute for ideas. The wonder of this method is that big ideas can dwell in the most insignifcant attribute just as the flavor of an entire ocean is contained in one drop.

grow – we should be doing things to identify and include new people

strengthen – we need to do things that makes our community stronger, technically/creatively/emotionally

produce – our community should be producing things

thrive – there should be a noticeable energy among our community

reinforce – principles and desired behaviors should be reinforced to see them continued

fortified - the community needs to look out for one another

organization – the community needs to have some sense of structure

execution – we need to do what we say we are going to do

centralization – there needs to be a center point for our community

convenience – participation needs to be low in barrier to entry

leadership – we need strong leaders to guide the community

engagement – we need to dialog internally and externally and participate on all levels

research – we need to continually look for how to get better/advance

effort – we need to always be working our hardest

investigation – we need to see how others are doing it and apply “why”

recordkeeping – we need to document what we do

energy – see thrive/energy

knowledge – we need to constantly be cataloging information and using it

relationship – we need to trust and appreciate each other

inclusive – we need to be tolerant at our very core

traditions – we need an identity that is our own

accepting – we need to embrace even what we dont agree with

tolerant – embrace even that which we dont understand

ritual – we need practiced patterns of doing things

celebration – we need to have fun doing what we do

support – we need to be there for one another in times of need

involvement – we need to participate even when we dont want to

financial – we need to help make sure things have the resources they need

institutional – we need entities/organizations to help us out

awareness – we need to know what challenges we face and where to find help

reciprocity – we need to learn to help one another and return the favor

sharing – we need to multi-use resources

commonality – we need to find our common ground instead of our differences

openness – we need to be open about what we are doing and why

trust – we need to believe that we are all in this together

similarity – we are more alike that we think

ehance – we need to make one another better

magnify - we need to highlight what is important

grow - see grow under improve

invest – see financial, sharing, effort

detail – we need to pay attention to the little things

depth – we need to be looking beyond the surface and the quick fix

6. Try reassembling the attributes. New combinations can induce new perspectives and new ideas.  Splitting a challenge into several attributes i like rmoving a dividing panel form between chanbers of very hot and very cold air:  New forces rush together, creating new ideas.

This post is already getting really lengthy, so I am going to leave number 6 up to you.  Please leave a comment on how we can do some of the above in reassembling for our future.  I noticed that growing, thriving/producing high energy and investing in our community are common themes.

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