Lego synchronicity

Maybe you’re like me and loved Lego when you were a kid. Even if it wasn’t your cup of tea you’ll know exactly what I mean by “Lego” – it even won “toy of the century”  for the 2oth century, as I recall (so I wasn’t alone in liking it!)

Well, just four days ago, and for no reason I can really make out, I was browsing the web and thinking about my projects and I decided to go look up Lego. I had it in my mind that there was some kind of “business Lego” and, come to think of it, I must have read that somewhere in the last few months because I don’t think I’d ever seen it nor looked at it on the web myself before.

So there it is and I suggest you go see for yourself, Lego Serious Play. It took me off on an interesting diversion to research and applications that I’ve stored up in my mind to come back to.

But the curious part is what happened next.

Next day I was off to Henley Business School to take part in a project meeting under the excellent Knowledge Management Forum there. One of the other attendees was Chris Collison (KM author and consultant) who just happened to make an analogy in a comment of his to Lego.  Which was odd because it’s not as though people talk about Lego all the time (in my experience). I even mentioned the synchronicity with my Lego browsing from the day before.

The next day it got a bit odder still.  It just so happens it was the final edition of Jonathan Ross’ Friday night TV show on the BBC and his final guest was David Beckham. Well, if you saw the show you may also have been struck but the slight oddness of the revelation that Beckham enjoys playing (no, not football)… Lego!  I don’t know enough about Beckham to know if this was news or whether it was already a well-known factoid, but to me it was completely unexpected.

Are my thoughts bugged and is even David Beckham in on it? 😉 Why is everyone suddenly talking about Lego? (my nine-year-old was playing Lego this w/e but I admit I set that up).

Synchronicity – this experience of events that we can persuade ourselves are more than pure coincidence – is a weird feeling. But rest assured, I don’t really harbour any paranoia about it. The plain simple answer is that, yes, of course such coincidences are going to happen from time to time.

Welcome to “the secret life of knowledge” – which is itself another coincidence I’ll explain one day.

Bet you hear more about Lego real soon…