Why "The Woodshed?"



It's been over four years since I started blogging. Can you believe it.

I chose to call my blog 'The Woodshed' for a very simple reason: everyone deserves one.

The reason I gave over four years ago still stands today. And that's what I love about intuition. If you listen to it you wont have to change your mind down the line.

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Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Why "The Woodshed"?
Because everybody deserves one.

Let me explain. The notion of The Woodshed was first introduced to me in John Kao's 1997 book Jamming where he discusses the art and discipline of business creativity. Something that's very close to my heart. In Chapter 5 he discusses the need for clearing a space for creativity and introduces the reader to Charlie Parker's woodshed. Or, more specifically, whenever the great sax player needed to work out new musical concepts, he would withdraw from the usual people, places and things and "go to the woodshed".

This may seem an odd phrase, but if considered for a short while you will find that you've probably been to your woodshed without even knowing it. When I was 7 yrs old there was a river a block away from our house in East London. I would run to it every other afternoon and spend the day either trying to catch crabs, doing homework, building bridges or playing in the mud with my Star Wars collection. The spot at the river was my woodshed.

Later on, when I was in Pretoria, there was an old industrial pipe that ran across a large trench. Under this pipe (it was huge) was a small grassy embankment. I would sit there and write songs (or poems) listening to my Walkman. The grassy knoll under the pipe was my woodshed.

Of course the challenge now is to turn your whole company into Charlie Parker's woodshed.

Briefly let's look at a wish list of characteristics that I might ask for in such a place. Safe, casual, liberating. Not too large as to kill intimacy. But not too small so as to stifle ideas. Stimulating. Although free from distractions and intrusions. Not too open ... but then again not too closed. Sometimes bound by schedules and appointments (meet me at the woodshed in half and hour ...), sometimes not.

It's a troublesome list, isn't it? Full of ambiguities and innuendoes. Let's just say that in turning your company into Charlie Parker's woodshed you may run into some paradoxes. But that's exactly where the fun lies.

Enjoy the jamming. :-)

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