Tokenomics: How to put improv at the heart of business skills training using cognitive modeling

[Alexander Lamb]

We know that improv rocks but sometimes that message is hard to share. Clients in business who’ve never seen improv before sometimes assume that the workshops are unpredictable, lacking depth, and mostly for entertainment purposes. How do we bring our message to clients in a way that creates the rapid, positive engagement it deserves?

I believe the answer lies in understanding how improv works in the brain, and why. Equipped with that knowledge, we’re ideally positioned not only to share the value of what we have, but also to shape that material to meet the needs of others.

Pooling knowledge from such research fields as business psychology, behavioral economics, influence theory, coaching, and artificial intelligence, I’m going to outline a model that helps explain what’s really going on when people play improv games.

It’s my goal to help attendees walk away with not only a better understanding of what we do, but also hands-on experience of new games that stretch the limits of what they can teach. It’s my hope that this workshop will help people shape their message, adapt their content, and effect lasting, positive change in the people we train.

[Nathalie Van Renterghem]

Look at this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

[Alexander Lamb]

Splendid, and very true! Thanks for the link!

[Alan Montague, CPLP]

Alex
thanks for the session.
I think your work is fascinating and I'm looking forward to hearing more about it over the years.
Thanks for a great session
Alan

[Alexander Lamb]

Hey everyone,
Here are the slides I used at the conference, for people to look over at their leisure. If anyone has any thoughts or questions, I'm very keen to hear them.

[Alexander Lamb]

Here are the games I covered after the slides:

Warmup: Zip Zap Boing
Warmup: One Word Story

Status/self esteem circle
(Learning points:
Status and self esteem are not the same. Complex middle-status positions are hard to read unless we make a distinction)

Status Topping
(Included to make sure everyone has seen the topping format.)

Control/Confidence Topping
(Learning points:
What we think of as status is a grouping of more than one behavior. Status behaviors appear when someone feels they have control over their environment coupled with confidence about that control. However, you can have one without the other. Exercising control looks very different from exercising confidence, though both look high status.
Control behaviors correspond to a hunger for personal reinforcement. Confidence corresponds to the opposite. The level of reinforcement hunger that a person exhibits will affect the way they seek out value in social groups. Broadly speaking, confident behavior is perceived as high self-esteem. Controlling behavior is perceived as low self-esteem.)

Cafe intellectuals
(Learning points: Each community collects different kinds of validation token, which means that the status behaviors they exhibit will vary. Also, depending on whether people feel a scarcity of personal value due to the social pressures they perceive, they will either choose to give tokens to each other, steal tokens from each other, or do a combination of both. When both behaviors are in play, alliances appear within that community which enforce blockades on value transfer.)

Morality Topping
(Learning points: Some forms of validation conflict are subtle. People can steal value from each other while appearing to support their community. In order to create cultures where people truly support each other, its important to be able to identify transactions that are secretly toxic.)

[Alexander Lamb]

Here's some bio information:

I wear multiple hats. I work as an applied improv trainer, as a performance improv instructor, a writer, a software engineer, and a freelance digital physics researcher.
As a trainer, I've worked with CEOs, schoolchildren, world-class athletes, programmers, and astrophysicists. As a performer, I've founded and led four improv troupes, and pioneered the Archetypal Improv approach for full length play improvisation.
I'm passionate about improv's ability to change lives, as I feel it's had a huge force on my own. This will be my first AIN conference, and I'm hugely excited to be able to contribute.