In this issue...
Fun in Functional
Nonverbal Retreat
Creative Facilitation
Creativity-in-Work Part 2
Impossible to Elegant
Article Headline
Reflections
Services
About Us
Capitol Creativity Network Events
8/8: Creative Intelligence for Work and Life Solutions with Dava Money

9/12: Somatic Intelligence for Entrepreneurs with Michelle James

Details

Precipice Improv Performances

Precipice Improv begins our fall season at the Bethesda Writer's Center on September 8th.

Details


Creative Emergence Newsletter
Articles, Workshops, Events
August 2007
Greetings! Things have been busy here since the last newsletter came out. The 2007 Creativity-in-Work class of pioneering entrepreneurs are all forming exciting new business structures int he world. We welcomed NIH, SFCG and APAP as new clients and have been continuing to serve our existing corporate clients (with a focus on improv-centered creative thinking programs) and emergence coaching clients. We're thrilled to have new project partners, Paul Scheele of Learning Strategies, and Lisa Berg of Global Bridge Productions for some exciting offerings and events we will be unfolding over the next few months. And we have some new products in the works...stay tuned for their debut!

I had the great pleasure to be interviewed by
da Innovise guys, Gregg Fraley author of the business creativity fable, Jack's Notebook, and his partner in "Innovisation," Doug Stevenson on improvisation in business. We had a good time waxing philosophic on improv and our passion to bring improv-based principles and practices into the work place...and ultimately the world! Click here to hear the podcast.

We're also introducing the Nonverbal Creativity Retreat this month - a unique integration of the "silent retreat" with active creative process. See details for this and other upcoming events below.

Have a generative and fun-filled month!

Warmly,
Michelle
 
Put the Fun back in Functional
Fun is getting it's due as the new core business value         
 
Fun has made it to the mainstream as something more than what you do "after the real work is done" or "on your free time." The latest issue of Inc.com magazine touts the productive value of fun, happiness, laugher on the job - and how they are what is driving business success.

Click here to read more                                    
Nonverbal Creativity Retreat
A day of creatively emerging from the inside out ~ where the "silent retreat" meets interactive creativity in the collective group field. Sunday August 19, 10:00am-5:00pm

This program is about creating new patterns that allow real movement change to occur. It is about actively engaging whole-brain/whole-body creative process in real time, going beyond what you know, and stepping into your bigness. It is about expanding the playing field beyond habitual ways of thinking and being into energized presence and deepened embodiment. It is for those who genuinely are ready to emerge new aspects of Self; new work or life directions; and/or inspired solutions. And it is about having a FUN, engaging and creatively good time doing it! :-) Early bird discount through August 12.

Details and Registration
Creative Facilitation: Principles and Pratices of Improv for Thriving Learning Environments
Metro DC ASTD Presentation: Thursday 8/24, 6:00-8:30pm

Presented by Michelle James.
In this high energy workshop, participants will experience improv activities for icebreakers, creativity/idea generation, and team building to effectively apply in business environments. Included will be handouts with basic principles of improvisation and training design guidelines for facilitating these activities and creating receptive, safe, learning environments. This session will focus on two levels at the same time-you as a professional facilitator and you as a improvisational individual.

Details and Registration
Creativity-in-Work Part 2
Friday 9/14, 10:00-4:00pm. 
 
This workshop is offered as a follow-up to Part 1, which is a prerequisite. We will build on what emerged during the 7-week course. For details, please call 703-760-9009.
Creativity ~ Making the Impossible Elegant

A few years ago I completed an intensive 5-year movement & bodywork program in a psycho-physical healing modality called coreSomatics (at the Somatic Institute, Pittsburgh, developed and led by Kay Miller). coreSomatics is informed by depth psychology, Gestalt Psychology, the Feldenkrais Method, the Alexander Technique, other body-mind practices, and the expressive arts. During the program and since, I felt especially drawn to the philosophy and practices of Moshe Feldenkrais, the creator of The Feldenkrais Method. In describing movement  - through awareness - in the body, the goal, he said, was to:

Make the impossible possible
The possible easy
And the easy elegant

I love that! And it works. People practicing his Awareness Through Movement system can achieve miracles at making the" impossible" elegant. I have since come to believe this to be a universal evolutionary principle, true for all creative endeavors. We often do not get to see the elegance emerge because too often we just stop at the impossible.

When we get a vision or an impulse to innovate (which we actually do all the time if we pause to be in awareness), if we change the question of from "Is this possible?" (which often results in a no if there is no previous evidence to back up the vision) to "How might we make this possible?" (which assumes that is already possible, despite the lack of historical evidence, and we just need to discover the ways to create it forth) we are on the evolving path to elegance.

Improv Resources
Websites, books and local classes

Participants in my improvisation-based workshops frequently ask where they can take local improv theater classes, read more about improv theory, or learn more games (once we get a taste of our own spontaneous creative flow, we want more of where that came from!) I have compiled a list of resources that were helpful to me, along with websites of some of the DC-area groups teaching improv classes.

Click here for the list
My Closing Reflections on Creativity

~ It is key to consider all things as connected as we generate, refine, and implement new ideas. It reminds us to consider the larger interdependent system in which we live when enacting these ideas. When our creativity seeks the good of the whole it has the opportunity to be exponentially generative.
 
~ The most liberating truth about creativity is that we can never get it completely. It is surrounded by a mysterious quality that lures us in to continually discover more.
Services

We offer a variety of services which include emergent strategy consulting, corporate and public workshops, creativity training, Creative Emergence Coaching, ideation facilitation, professional development and wellness programs, conference presentations and Quantum Leap Business Improv. Our blog is The Fertile Unknown.

  About Us

The Center for Creative Emergence is a creativity consulting and Creative Emergence coaching company dedicated to integrating inspired creativity, meaning, organizational culture and business for a happier and more productive work life and a richer bottom line. We cultivate breakthroughs and emergence with entrepreneurs, teams and organizations. CEO Michelle James has a mission to "mainstream" creativity and engage people into their full humanness for generative work, positive social change and consciously creating a life-giving future.

Web:  
www.creativeemergence.com
Email:  [email protected]
Phone: 703-760-9009