Cobra Manifesto – Image from Beinecke Digital Collections
As many of you know, I am a big fan of Cobra, the avant-garde art movement established in 1948. The movement only existed for three years, but forever changed the landscape of postwar European art.
What would an avant-garde business movement look like?
How could we scaffold that?
In my Sep 2022 update, I briefly introduced The Scaffold.
Today, I would like to share some more details about The Scaffold
The Scaffold is a brand-new transdisciplinary learning studio for the never-normal.
A Scaffold: a temporary structure to let emerge something new
Transdisciplinary: for each client project, we curate a transdisciplinary tribe of entrepreneurs, engineers, scientists, artists, and philosophers to reflect and speculate about your better futures
Learning: this is not learning by teaching, but learning through conversations, acting, and doing
Studio: the keyword here is critique: individual, group, and formal critique
The Never Normal: the ever faster changing environment we operate in. The best metaphor is that of the kayaker in wild water.
Older metaphors like the speedboat (brute force), tacking the sails to the wind (adapting with the destination in focus), and surfing the waves of change (staying before the tsunami of disruption) don’t serve us anymore.
Today you are in the water.
You have to sense faster and better what is, sense faster and better what can become, and take action – right there – in the middle of a system in full motion.
I often hear that we need more data, data is the new oil, and we need powerful AI and Machine Learning to discover patterns in the data, so we can make better and faster decisions.
But data will bring us only so far.
Data tell us something about correlation.
Correlation is not the same as causation.
And also rational cause-and-effect thinking and planning are only part of the story.
The Scaffold is imagination in full play: not knowing all the dots, and having to keep multiple lines of inquiry open at the same time, without coming to a conclusion, ànd feeling comfortable with that.
Orchestrating and activating collective intelligence (both human and non-human intelligence)
WHAT DO WE HAVE?
WHERE ARE WE GOING?
WHY ARE WE GOING THERE?
HOW DO WE GET THERE?
WHAT RULES DO WE FOLLOW?
WHAT IS FORBIDDEN?
HOW DO WE SPEAK TO EACH OTHER?
WHAT WORLD ARE WE PLAYING IN?
WHAT DO WE REALLY WANT?
The Scaffold asks questions related to the narratives that motivate individuals and organizations from the inside. These motivations have nothing to do with marketing from the outside. These motivations share the desire for societal, moral, and aesthetic advancement.
The experiences that we design can be in-person, and others are 100% online or virtual, or a combination thereof. Our experiences are high-touch and highly facilitated. We use world-class facilitators. We apply live scribing, live video editing, and live note-taking. We use technology in support of the content, not to impress nor to create a spectacle. We challenge each other through individual and group critique. We experiment, explore, tinker, and dare to change in flight. We use physical and virtual channels/containers of experimentation & distribution
We believe in the long format. Transdisciplinary impact groups learn by working, doing, and acting together during an extended period of time. This approach increases trust, bonding, candor, the release of real or perceived vulnerabilities, and the discovery of unintended opportunities.
The Scaffold is your PEPA
Play – Experimentation – Participation – Activation
The Scaffold is about dreaming & imagining big with your eyes wide open for reality.
More inspiring quotes are here.
More details at https://petervanstudios.com/the-scaffold/
The Scaffold is made possible through strategic partnerships with https://www.nexxworks.com/ and https://collectivenext.com/
Powered by a coalition of exceptional individuals as advisors for The Scaffold. A unique mix of strategists, futurists, engineers, entrepreneurs, experts in classic and contemporary arts, masters in narrative environments, philosophers, and a licensed architect and VR developer.
We are very curious about how this resonates with you.
Who could be interested in such an offering?
What is great, mediocre, or missing?
Let’s chat
Hope to welcome you soon!
Warmest,
Petervan Studios 
I’d like to unfold the metaphor of the kayaker in the rapids, territory I know through direct and very exciting experience. My sense is this metaphor is much deeper – it’s not so much about being in something fluid and on the move. It’s about a state of being where we are directly informed by larger wild powers every moment – powers that are constantly forming the world we’re part of, constantly informing our connections to the world, showing us momentums and possibilities, and growing our skills through direct experience every second. This is the polar opposite of gathering data or measuring the world and analyzing it later … direct experience, the power of human consciousness and sensing intelligence, our ability to respond in the moment and create on the fly – this is our consciousness at work with incredible precision … we are made for this, and the Scaffold is made for you to deliver the vision you already have into full direct experience so it can come to life in the river of your professional expertise.
Wonderful! Thank you Marti!