Big Five of the Metafari

Lena Holmberg is here in Stockholm. We walk along the quays of Hammarby Sjöstad and we talk about the Metafari. I ask Lena the question:

Imagine we are at the end of the Metafari and you are handing out the Course Diplomas.. What do they say?

Lena thinks for a while and concludes: They say: "In this Metafari you have explored and learned about how to use metaphors in your work and personal life."

More explicitly you have:

• worked with and developed a communicative task from our own workplace or private life
• developed your ability to tell stories using pictures & digital photography
• developed your ability to tell stories through creative writing
• gained cultural insight and learned about the societal development of Tanzania
• achieved abilities in using Appreciative Inquiry
• developed your technical abilities through blogging, digital photography
• understanding of the metaphors underlying Web 2.0

Lena and I look out of the window at the full August moon and think about what the moon will look like in Tanzania in November. We continue to explore the safari metaphor. Safaris often include looking for the Big 5 (Cape buffalo, leopard, elephant, rhino and lion). What will be the really big metaphors to look for during our Metafari? After some tea and beer we come up with the following list together with some examples:

• Yourself – ”I feel like a lion”
• A mission – ”This is an adventure”
• Organisation – ”Our company is like a well-oiled machine”
• Society – ”The modern society is like a living organism”
• Life – “Life is like a box of chocolates”

The scenes of our Metafari differ from day to day. It can be a waterhole, a termite mound, a coral reef. Or maybe a village square.

We learn about what we encounter, we create stories around or experiences and, later at night, we reflect on what we have seen while drinking tea or beer under a starry sky.

Sounds good, doesn’t it!?!