Big thanks to Marcell Bendik, who asked me excellent questions on our project with Dax and Alice in Spring 2008 to publish something in Lindy Shock camp. Those discussions made me think more on the issues related to organising events, and I’m trying to condense some lessons learned in this and some future posts. But worry not, I’ll come back to party things later, and continue the list I started.
Lesson number 1: think big
Just the fact that something seems impossible is not a reason not to carry it out. Sounds counterintuitive and risky, but that’s the attitude with which most of the big successes are formed. For example I remember clearly, when Tatu Valavuo told me in Autumn 1997, that a new dance club is found in Tampere, and it will be great. I must admit I thought something like, well it’ll be just another 20-50 people club training once or twice a week. But due to a group of enthusiastic individuals, it soon became a non-profit club with 1000+ members, 50+ teachers teaching weekly and organising the biggest events in Finland. I really value that work, and have been happy to be part of it later myself. And as I see it, that was based on the enthusiasm of the active people combined with some unwillingness to see any limitations for opportunities.
Similar logics worked with the Dax and Alice project that we carried out years later – the key is to think big and not concentrate on the constraints, but the ideas and the ways to make them come true. The project included 10 weekend workshops some with also other teachers, and plenty of weekly classes. Check the facts about the project in here http://www.swingteam.fi/dax_alice/index.html it really changed the lindy scene in Finland.
I think some of the most interesting details were:
- DA’ track, personal learning track for the most eager learners, combined with the normal lessons – including a web-based learning environment and pre-reading material etc.
- co-operation with three cities: Tampere as the main base, weekly classes and a weekend workshop in Helsinki, one weekend workshop in Oulu
- a new way to divide groups in lindy hop: group called challenge and group called social fun (not the usual skill levels, but groups based on type of motivation)
- teacher training
- DJ training
Having mentioned these, I must give credit of ideas to Dax, Alice and also our team in Finland – these are not my ideas, but our ideas.
We started drafting the Spring almost a year earlier, and in the previous summer we had pretty good plans already. I still remember working on those with Dax in Herräng, while others were training and dancing... It was always clear Dax was very interested, but often he didn’t have very much time to spend – so we discussed, and often I drafted the plans further based on the discussions. (I must say, later in Autumn and especially during Spring Dax and Alice put huge effort and time also outside classroom into the project.) As I understand it, it was the new challenge for Dax and Alice that made the project interesting and worth doing: having toured around the globe teaching the dances with new group of people every weekend – how about having the same people for 4 months? What can you achieve with them? How does the lesson number 213 for a student look like? How will our curriculum look like for a semester, not just a workshop? (yes, really, several people took more than 200 hours of lessons from Dax&Alice, some about 300)
One of the key issues in making the project come true was, that we were thinking big. A typical weekend workshop has around 10-13 lessons, a 6-day camp may have 20-30. What if we don’t just double it (like two weekends) or make it a month, but go for something real? Then it can be something REALLY big. Then working on these ideas started to produce even more ideas, and there we were… However, big doesn’t have to mean a big number of hours, money or anything - it can mean something special in some other way equally well.
An upside with big things is also, that a big project makes a big story, and people want to be parts of big stories. If a scene is running low on voluntary people for whatever they are doing normally, that doesn’t mean they would be short of voluntary people for something bigger.
The same logic of thinking big works in other walks of life too: many successful start-up companies run on exactly the same fuel, as do many other cool projects, be it at work or at a hobby. Think big - and you have a chance of doing something to remember!
Lesson number 1: think big
Just the fact that something seems impossible is not a reason not to carry it out. Sounds counterintuitive and risky, but that’s the attitude with which most of the big successes are formed. For example I remember clearly, when Tatu Valavuo told me in Autumn 1997, that a new dance club is found in Tampere, and it will be great. I must admit I thought something like, well it’ll be just another 20-50 people club training once or twice a week. But due to a group of enthusiastic individuals, it soon became a non-profit club with 1000+ members, 50+ teachers teaching weekly and organising the biggest events in Finland. I really value that work, and have been happy to be part of it later myself. And as I see it, that was based on the enthusiasm of the active people combined with some unwillingness to see any limitations for opportunities.
Similar logics worked with the Dax and Alice project that we carried out years later – the key is to think big and not concentrate on the constraints, but the ideas and the ways to make them come true. The project included 10 weekend workshops some with also other teachers, and plenty of weekly classes. Check the facts about the project in here http://www.swingteam.fi/dax_alice/index.html it really changed the lindy scene in Finland.
I think some of the most interesting details were:
- DA’ track, personal learning track for the most eager learners, combined with the normal lessons – including a web-based learning environment and pre-reading material etc.
- co-operation with three cities: Tampere as the main base, weekly classes and a weekend workshop in Helsinki, one weekend workshop in Oulu
- a new way to divide groups in lindy hop: group called challenge and group called social fun (not the usual skill levels, but groups based on type of motivation)
- teacher training
- DJ training
Having mentioned these, I must give credit of ideas to Dax, Alice and also our team in Finland – these are not my ideas, but our ideas.
We started drafting the Spring almost a year earlier, and in the previous summer we had pretty good plans already. I still remember working on those with Dax in Herräng, while others were training and dancing... It was always clear Dax was very interested, but often he didn’t have very much time to spend – so we discussed, and often I drafted the plans further based on the discussions. (I must say, later in Autumn and especially during Spring Dax and Alice put huge effort and time also outside classroom into the project.) As I understand it, it was the new challenge for Dax and Alice that made the project interesting and worth doing: having toured around the globe teaching the dances with new group of people every weekend – how about having the same people for 4 months? What can you achieve with them? How does the lesson number 213 for a student look like? How will our curriculum look like for a semester, not just a workshop? (yes, really, several people took more than 200 hours of lessons from Dax&Alice, some about 300)
One of the key issues in making the project come true was, that we were thinking big. A typical weekend workshop has around 10-13 lessons, a 6-day camp may have 20-30. What if we don’t just double it (like two weekends) or make it a month, but go for something real? Then it can be something REALLY big. Then working on these ideas started to produce even more ideas, and there we were… However, big doesn’t have to mean a big number of hours, money or anything - it can mean something special in some other way equally well.
An upside with big things is also, that a big project makes a big story, and people want to be parts of big stories. If a scene is running low on voluntary people for whatever they are doing normally, that doesn’t mean they would be short of voluntary people for something bigger.
The same logic of thinking big works in other walks of life too: many successful start-up companies run on exactly the same fuel, as do many other cool projects, be it at work or at a hobby. Think big - and you have a chance of doing something to remember!
No comments:
Post a Comment