Heavy, right?

If, in that moment, someone asked us for our deepest wish, what do you think we might say?

In his book “Fear”, Thich Naht Hanh reasons our deepest wish might be, “To be back home walking on our beautiful planet Earth.”

In that moment, the greatest gift we could receive would be the feeling of solid ground against our feet.

Here’s the great thing – we’re not lost in space.
Not really.
We’re all presently on Earth.
Just as we’ve been since the election.
Just as we’ve been since we were born.

A Zen Master named Linji once said, “The miracle is not to walk on water or fire. The miracle is to walk on the earth.”

Walking the earth requires staying present with ourselves. We can use affirmations to welcome each moment – here’s one from Thich that inspires me:

Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech and failure to listen, I am committed to cultivating loving speech and compassionate listening to relieve suffering and promote reconciliation and peace in myself and among other people, ethnic and religious groups, and nations.

I am committed to speaking truthfully, using words that inspire confidence, joy, and hope.

I will speak and listen in such a way as to help myself and the other person to transform suffering and see the way out of difficult situations.

I will nourish my capacity for understanding, love, and inclusiveness.

Whether you’re at your desk, roaming the earth, or floating through space – let’s find time this week to reaffirm the ground beneath our feet.

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“I’m going to find ways to be a better, more empathetic listener.”
Kyle

“I’m going to be as accessible as possible and open to the ideas of others.”
Eugene

“I’m going to reach out to people and make sure they’re doing ok.”
Annie

“I want to consider the perspectives of others.”
Jared

“I’m going to reach out to people important in my life and let them know why they’re important to me.”
Liz

“I want to practice patience with people and take a few moments to build things for others.”
Kevin

“As young parents, we are more aware of how much waste we accumulate. So, we collected clothes and donated them to a women’s shelter.”
Eddie

“I’m working on disagreeing without fighting.”
Eric

“I too want to practice patience, especially with my children.”
Casey

“I want to work toward reducing my impact on the world.”
Evan

“I want to be kind to myself by practicing self-care.”
Ryan

“I want to extend more grace to myself and others by making room for recognizing them as humans.”
Abby

“I need to think about it more.”
Brad

“Woof woof woof.”
Lando

Obviously, we try our best to be kind every day, but World Kindness Day provides a good excuse for us to get together and try to put words to our intentions. What are some ways that you can exercise kindness this week and every week? Let us know!

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About MiX

MiX—the Minneapolis Idea eXchange—is part of the Minneapolis Downtown Council’s Intersections: Downtown 2025 plan. In partnership with the Brave New Workshop, they brought together five contributors to the non-profit and for-profit sectors with a mutual interest in community improvement.

My Intro to Improv

Elena Imaretska, Chief Innovation Officer for Brave New Workshop, began the evening’s program with an intro to improv. She had three assumptions for us to keep in mind during the exercise:

You will be successful.
Your job is to support and celebrate.
You will have fun.

As entrepreneurs, agents of change, and creatives, it is assumed that we’re used to improvising. We pitch new ideas and work with new people all the time. This should be easy, right?

The exercise was simple: each person at the table would list five things from memory in different topic areas. The first person at our table was asked to list U.S. states. The next person, five cars. I participated in the third round, where I named five books I’d read. The titles flowed with little shame or difficulty (I picked Where the Sidewalk Ends, The Da Vinci Code, Harry Potter, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and If You Give a Mouse a Cookie—the combination of which might reveal disturbing insights about my subconscious).

As expected, listing things we already knew or had experienced was easy. But when it came to making up answers on the spot—like naming new lakes or coming up with the big bands of 2018—well, that was much harder.

It doesn’t have to be that way, though. Here are my big takeaways from MiX, and four tips for incorporating improv into the creative process.

Flex Your Creative Muscle

When it came to listing things we already knew, most of us played it safe. “Our brains love patterns,” Elena told us. People asked to name states listed places they lived or visited, and the states surrounding them. Those asked to name cars either named five makes or five models—not a mix of the two. “You never hear words like sparkling, or flying” as types of cars, Elena said, even though those would be acceptable answers.

Improv—in this case, coming up with a list of unknowns—requires creativity. In life, you can’t always rely on your knowns, like the state where you live or the car that you drive, as a starting point. This exercise simply reinforced the idea that creativity is a muscle, and that it grows stronger with more use. If we don’t practice creativity, it can take longer to generate ideas. But when we’re constantly ideating (or at least open to the idea of it), the ideas will flow more freely.

Don’t Let Fear Win

Near the end of the night, each table was given an objective, a sharpie, 20 minutes, and a piece of paper. Our task? Increase access to jobs and education with 2,000 dollars. I froze. What if I say the wrong thing? What if I can’t come up with a compelling idea? Luckily, I was seated next to Ashleyn from Impact Hub MSP, who broke the ice by listing ideas of all sizes.

Instead of focusing on coming up with my own brilliant idea, I started to build off the ideas of others. In 20 short minutes, our table want from a blank sheet of paper to a concept brimming with all kinds of moonshot impossibilities. We called it “Pop Up Mentor Match,” and it brought together smart kiosk technology with event-based outreach a’la Rock The Vote.

When I felt paralyzed by fear, I just started talking. I knew that my teammates would back me up and build on my ideas—and they did. In the end, our concept was given to Minneapolis City Hall. Had we let fear get in the way of improvisation, we would have missed an opportunity to share a potentially big idea.

Try Saying “Yes, and…”

Design, at its core, is visual communication. Improv is ad-libbed communication. If you’re an introverted designer (you’re in good company), try meeting your next challenge head-on with a classic improv response: “Yes, and…”.

By saying “yes, and…” you accept the situation given to you (the yes) and build on that situation (the and). This allows the situation/scene/concept to continue and evolve, rather than boxing yourself into one line of thinking by saying no. “Yes, and…” is an open invitation to creative exploration.

Scary? Yes. Exciting? Yes!

Just Get Started

In improv, perfection isn’t the expectation. Instead, the focus is on exercising the muscles of creativity to improve everyone’s chances at delivering a great performance. Want to boost your own creativity? Don’t worry about getting it right, just get it started! And create a safe place for others on your team to do the same—more voices means more ideas. More ideas mean more opportunities to create world-changing software and design.

We Can Help, Too

Have a great idea in your head? We’re happy to offer up a “yes, and…” to help bring your biggest ideas to life. Contact us at hello@softwareforgood.com

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Between relationships.
Between homes.
Between depression and happiness.
Between life and death.

Some time in late July, maybe a week after my 25th birthday, I once again made the three hour drive from my parents’ house in rural Wisconsin to the hand surgery center in St. Paul for a visit with my occupational therapist. Having previously shed my bulky, plaster cast in favor of a sleek, Darth Vader looking plasticine splint, I was excited to finally move my fingers again. The healing protocol for my bike accident dictated that I refrained from moving my fingers in any way until told otherwise. When you’re a designer and a musician and someone who generally enjoys buttoning their own pants, keeping your fingers still for a month is a non-trivial task.

My occupational therapist unhooked the velcro straps from my splint and asked me to rest my elbow on the sterilized foam mat that sat atop the exam table. Then, she easily made a fist with her own hand and asked me to do the same with mine.

Nothing happened.

Instantly, I was reminded of the grimace of my surgeon when he informed me that I might not ever play guitar again. I was taken back to the moment when I started to lose consciousness on the sidewalk of University Avenue. The therapist’s voice brought me back to the clinic.

“I didn’t expect you to make a fist on your first try – these things take time.”

Last week, I balanced working on an app to crowd source police accountability with working on my band’s second album in California. Mere months ago, the thought of me writing again with my left hand, much less fretting a guitar, seemed like a pipe dream.

In the in-between days, I found the strength to embrace the volatility of life.

Recognize that emotions pass.
Recognize that humans can adapt.
Recognize that you can adapt.

The only thing we can can control is the way we react to any given situation. When my occupational therapist instructed me to do 6 hours of stretches a day, I complied. I gave myself a goal. I said, “No day is a given, but I know what I want.” Each night before I slept, I imagined how it would feel to hold a marker, to lift a guitar, to use chopsticks. Whenever my hand would stop just short of a fist, I would embrace the impermanence of my injury and remind myself that at one point I couldn’t move my hand at all.

If life can be revoked in an instant, it can improve in an instant, too.

Moment by moment.

Maybe you’ve never experienced a life-changing accident like this. Maybe your year wasn’t filled with one destabilizing event after another. Nevertheless, your experience is just as valid as mine. You harbor the ability to embrace the in-between, just as I did.

Maybe you’re between projects.
Between Asana tickets.
Between days.

Whatever you’re in the middle of, embrace the uncertainty of it.

The post In Between appeared first on Software for Good.

What are you for?
What do you believe in?
How can you help others?
How can you help yourself?
How can we unite to dismantle the structures that keep us divided and marginalized?

Refuting the wrongs of the world is the first step. This week, reflect on what you believe in. If you find yourself existing solely to resist then perhaps it’s time to adjust to an anti-anti paradigm. To quote Bill Burke, an activist injured by White Extremists in Charlottesville, VA over the weekend: “If we really want to stop them, we have to be better organized and fight in solidarity against all oppression. Ultimately, we need to fight for a new world that is run for people, not for profit.”

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When Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh led a day-long meditation seminar on the Google campus in 2014, he was surprised by the change in attitude that came from putting some of the most cutthroat workers in the world in the same room, to just ‘be’. He remarked,

“There’s a silence, there’s a peace that comes from doing nothing. And in that space, they can realise the preciousness of time.”

In the tech industry, we have the ability to disrupt, to change the landscape of the world, for better or worse. Thich Nhat Hanh writes,

“When they create electronic devices, they can reflect on whether that new product will take people away from themselves, their family and nature. Instead, they can create the kind of devices and software that can help them to go back to themselves, to take care of their feelings. By doing that, they will feel good because they’re doing something good for society.”

So, how can we return to ourselves? Especially in an open office, where music is always playing, where people are always chatting and where our time can be infinitely available to others? In the absence of daily mindfulness, we can easily find ourselves out of touch with ourselves.

Thich Nhat Hanh recommends the practice of returning to one’s self throughout the day. We can eat mindfully, by contemplating the food we eat, away from our desks, while giving thanks for the nourishment it provides. We can count our breaths as we walk to the water cooler, or remind ourselves of our posture at our desks. Another way to achieve this while working is through the mindfulness bell. In Zen Buddhist temples, guided meditation is often accompanied by a singing bowl that is rung to remind the student to return to the present moment. The Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation has a variety of resources for programmable mindfulness bells to bring us back to ourselves throughout the workday.

This week, the challenge is to return to yourself. To prioritize your well-being and take care of your own energy.

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Assists in soccer are one of the things that make me love the sport the most. Sometimes they’re necessary, like a well-timed cross into the penalty box, but sometimes the assisting player sacrifices their own chance for a shot on goal for the certainty of a teammate completing the play with their help.

Setting teammates up for goals in association soccer hasn’t always guaranteed credit for the assister—most leagues didn’t even keep records for assists until the 1990s—but good players know the importance of helping their teammates get more shots on goal. More wins benefit the whole team. And even if you lose, you still put your best foot forward to carry the team home.

How can we sidestep our pride to benefit our team?
What can we do to make sure those around us know they’re cared for?

This week, assist your teammates and the goals will follow.

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The great thing about making a resolution is that if you fail to keep it, there’s always next January to talk about trying it again. I say that as someone who has never been good at keeping resolutions. And how can I be? I’ve realized my goals for self-improvement, in work and life, can’t be confined to a resolution. At this point, I’m less interested in the resolution itself than I am the process of maintaining my creativity, my health and my well-being.

In art school, more than anything, I was taught the importance of process. Everything is process and process is everything. Very few of us are gifted with the ability to create the best user experiences instantaneously. Rarely are our first sketches the best ones. I find the same to be true in life – either in the office, where I’m always trying to be better at annotating my time sheets, or at the gym, where, last week, I ran a 10-minute mile for the first time in my life. Neither of those things happened over night. None of my work happens overnight. None of your work should happen overnight, either.

I didn’t start going to the gym to run a 10-minute mile. I started going to the gym to keep myself sane and healthy. I want to grow stronger every day and I’m committed to that process. In my work, I’m committed to the process of sketching my ideas, talking them out and remaining flexible to create the best work I can. And if I fail, I know I have a process to return to as I iterate further. This week, toss out your resolutions and break them into a process. What’s something you can achieve this week? What’s something you can achieve next week? What are small, actionable goals you can set for yourself every day to get yourself to where you need to be?

Commit to the process.

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It’s meant to show that the individual wearing the pin is friendly and that others are safe with the wearer. As a way for individuals to self-designate themselves as allies to others, it works well. But it’s not enough. As allies, we need to do more than serve as the equivalent of a magnetic cause ribbon on the back of a car. 

Peggy McIntosh wrote an essay in 1988 called “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” In it, she identified a number of factors that contribute to the daily effects of her own privilege, including “I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider,” and “I can worry about racism without being seen as self-interested or self-seeking.” We’ve written about privilege on our blog before, and now, more than ever, it’s important to practice what we preach. It’s one thing to self-identify as an ally. It’s another step entirely to put that self-designation to the test in our everyday lives.

So how can we do it? 

Donate your time and money to organizations fighting for social justice.

We’ve compiled a non-comprehensive list of causes, locally and nationally, below:

• Planned Parenthood: Give women the opportunities for proper healthcare, education, and activism.
• The Future Project: Help the young people of America fulfill their potential.
• RAINN: Assist the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network in combatting sexual violence, aiding victims, and ensuring that perpetrators are caught.
• ACLU: Uphold the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all by the Constitution and the laws of the United States.
• International Institute of MN: You have the power to change someone’s life. Every financial donation supports programs and services that provide a new home, education, workforce readiness, and long-term self-sufficiency for New Americans.
• Established in 1979, the National Immigration Law Center (NILC) is one of the leading organizations in the U.S. exclusively dedicated to defending and advancing the rights of low-income immigrants.
• The Center for Victims of Torture works toward a future in which torture ceases to exist and its victims have hope for a new life. They are an international nonprofit dedicated to healing survivors of torture and violent conflict, and they provide direct care for those who have been tortured, train partners around the world who can prevent and treat torture, and advocate for human rights and an end to torture.
• Green Card Voices aspires to build a bridge between immigrants, non-immigrants, and advocates from across the country by sharing the first-hand immigration stories of foreign-born Americans, by helping us see the ‘wave of immigrants’ as individuals, with interesting stories of family, hard work, and cultural diversity.
• The Southern Poverty Law Center is dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of our society. Using litigation, education, and other forms of advocacy, the SPLC works toward the day when the ideals of equal justice and equal opportunity will be a reality.
• ARC works with its partners and constituencies to provide opportunities and expertise to refugees, displaced people and host communities. They help people survive conflict and crisis and rebuild lives of dignity, health, security and self-sufficiency. ARC is committed to the delivery of programs that ensure measurable quality and lasting impact for the people we serve.

Consider organizations fighting for diversity in tech.

As a tech company, we’re always working to improve our efforts to cultivate a more inclusive tech community. Locally and nationally, there are organizations working toward similar goals. Consider sponsoring events, donating time or money, or purchasing advertisements from organizations like:

• MAES – Latinos in Science and Engineering is the foremost Latino organization for the development of STEM leaders in the academic, executive, and technical communities.
• BDPA is an international organization with a diverse membership of professionals and students at all levels in the fields of information technology, computer science and related S.T.E.M fields. Members are actively engaged in serving the community through outreach and charting the future of the IT industry.
• The American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) is a national, nonprofit organization focused on substantially increasing the representation of American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders, First Nations and other indigenous peoples of North America in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) studies and careers.
• SACNAS is an inclusive organization dedicated to fostering the success of Chicano/Hispanic and Native American scientists, from college students to professionals, in attaining advanced degrees, careers, and positions of leadership in STEM.
• Blacks In Technology is a professional platform for PoC in technology. BIT serves to increase the visibility and participation of PoC in tech through community, media, mentorship, and stewardship.
• Trans*H4ck shifts the ways trans*, gender non conforming, agender and non binary people live by creating technology that economically empowers, improves access to social services, promotes gender safety and community sustainability, while bringing visibility to trans* tech innovators and entrepreneurs.
• Black Girls Code hopes to provide  young and pre-teen girls of color opportunities to learn in-demand skills in technology and computer programming at a time when they are naturally thinking about what they want to be when they grow up.
• Code 2040 is a nonprofit organization that creates pathways to educational, professional, and entrepreneurial success in technology for underrepresented minorities with a specific focus on Blacks and Latino/as.
• Hidden Genius Project trains and mentors black male youth in technology creation, entrepreneurship, and leadership skills to transform their lives and communities.

Actively intervene every time you see racism, sexism and misogyny.

Don’t just be a bystander! Don’t make a victim seek you out for support—actively engage in providing a safe space for those at risk! Paris-based illustrator Maeril recently created a comic outlining strategies allies can take to help bystanders witnessing Islamophobic harassment, for example:

Seek out voices from marginalized communities.

Make a conscious decision to integrate a wider variety of voices in your media consumption. Do you follow many LGBTQ individuals on Twitter? Are you actively seeking out voices different than yours to augment what you already know with something that might challenge you? I regularly read content by voices like Roxane Gay, Bell Hooks, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Shaun King, Raquel Cepeda, Rebecca Cohen, Xeni Jardin and am always looking for ways to diversify my media diet further. Reach out to me with your suggestions, I’d love to hear them!

Sign the MN Tech Diversity Pledge

Our friends over at Clockwork created a pledge for other tech organizations to sign, with the goals of committing resources, energy and time toward increasing the representation of LGBTQ, POC and women in the tech community. Take a minute and sign for your organization.

It’s a lot more than a safety pin, I know. 

It may seem overwhelming, but as a person of privilege, I know it’s the bare minimum I can do to elevate those who need it most. How about you? If you want to talk about any of this, shoot me an email. Let’s dialogue together. Let’s work together. This week, and every week.

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