Sit Stand
Sit Stand, a playful and profound exercise to identify the concept of community. The “Sit Stand” exercise is often presented as an icebreaker, meaning an activity that helps a group of people connect better. It certainly serves this purpose, but in my opinion, it contains resources that go far beyond that.
Here’s how it works: facing a group of seated people, you prepare around ten closed-ended questions that can be answered with a simple yes or no. For example:
- Who came by bike?
- Who is wearing second-hand clothing?
- Who has the TikTok app on their phone?
- Who is subscribed to Netflix?
- Etc.
It’s preferable that participants are not seated behind tables but, for example, in a circle, so they can see each other. It’s worth rethinking the room setup, moving tables with the participants, as this already encourages an internal shift—a readiness to receive.
Next, you give the instructions: you will ask questions fairly quickly, and participants are to stand up if their answer is yes and remain seated if it’s no. You invite them to prepare to stand up and sit down quickly. This might seem like a small detail, but it’s very important to take the time to explain the instructions so that people can mentally and physically prepare for this activity. The body is engaged, which requires a brief moment, a transition.
The questions should be carefully chosen. They work best if they are playfully controversial. For example:
- Who is subscribed to Netflix?
- Who has a television at home?
- Who spends more than 5 hours a day in front of screens?
- Etc.
There should be a touch of humor. And these questions should be prepared based on the issues likely shared by the people gathered. For classical musicians, for instance, you could ask questions like:
- Who tunes their instrument to 432 Hz instead of 440 Hz?
- Who plays an instrument that’s over 100 years old?
- Who practices relaxation before playing their instrument?
The exercise lasts no more than 5 minutes, it makes people laugh, and by choosing the right questions, as I mentioned earlier, it goes beyond being a simple icebreaker. It allows the group to discover each other in a lighthearted yet profound way. It helps identify what connects them and what creates dissent, all while laughing. This creates a sense of community through shared activity, within diversity.
The act of standing up is already a form of expression. It takes courage, in front of others, to share something personal that reflects who we are as individuals, not just our social roles. This fosters connections and begins to set in motion the topics that will be worked on together.
It lasts no more than 5 minutes, it’s joyful, and it allows everyone to step into the working space and the subject matter right away. If the questions were well chosen, you’ve already learned something.
This activity was shared with me by Sonia Leplat, who had received it from Christelle Blouët.
In the context of businesses, as well as in associative, social, artistic, cultural mediation, cultural action, initial or professional training, and social action settings, mobilizing the collective intelligence of participants is a very powerful lever. It enables mutual enrichment, improved relationships, stronger cohesion, the emergence of ideas, the invention of projects, greater engagement, and more.
Collective intelligence tools are also powerful democratic tools. They have been largely developed within the field of popular education, where the contribution of each individual is valued far more than in the national education system, which, in France, unfortunately often remains too traditional in its approaches.
I have frequently participated in collective intelligence workshops, and I have facilitated, applied, refined, adapted, and even invented a number of them. Here, you will find a collection of tools that I have personally used, which are integrated into the methods I propose, supported by real-life use cases. I believe these tools are highly worth sharing, as I have seen so many beneficial effects from them! I often find myself thinking, during collective moments such as conferences, for example: it’s a shame to limit ourselves to passive listening—all these minds gathered together could, if mobilized more effectively, produce something greater collectively.
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The Shared Secret
When the intimate becomes collective: a method of collective intelligence through whispering, listening and creation.
Creating a space where the intimacy of a whisper becomes a collective work. Engaging empathic listening, emotional regulation and creative (…) -
The Implementation of Methods
When Words Are No Longer Enough: Toward an Embodied Transformation of Professional Practices
Methods often fail because they remain discursive. Advocating for cooperation while dominating, speaking of ecology while imposing: the (…) -
Cooperative Narratives
Creating polyphonic narrative devices to transform academic knowledge into living and operative knowledge.
How can we overcome the limits of academic narrative to create truly shared knowledge? A concrete experience of collective writing devices that (…) -
For an ecology of dispensability
Rethinking authority and transmission.
Faced with the vertical management that dominates and alienates, another path exists: that of an authority that aims for its own dispensability, (…) -
The Group Flag
Between cohesion and freedom: the fertile paradox of shared culture.
How can a common symbol liberate singularities? I propose here a reflection on the paradoxical role of the “group flag” function as guarantor of (…) -
The State of Openness
For democratic and transformative facilitation.
How can we cultivate a welcoming posture that allows everyone to contribute fully? Openness is not a method but an inner state that transforms our (…) -
Formalizing the informal
Informality, essential to learning, resists structure while calling for it. How to tame it.
The absence of informal aspects in distance learning forces us to rethink its fundamental nature. This constraint becomes a laboratory for (…) -
Framework, purpose and transgression
So as not to get lost along the way.
When the framework of a project becomes inadequate, transgressing it often allows for better achievement of the objectives by prioritizing lived (…) -
Speech takes on PowerPoint
For more useful collective exchanges.
PowerPoint presentations hinder collective intelligence by rigidifying exchanges—this is well-known and documented—yet they remain almost (…) -
Collective surveying of texts
Enrich a text with the intelligence of other readers.
Collective text surveying is a method where a group divides a document into sections, with each subgroup working on one part before sharing their (…) -
Potential development space
Collective innovation method.
The potential development space is a method of collective innovation based on intuitive encounters, without predefined objectives, where mutual (…) -
Mapping the Collective Territory
Geographical Identification of Connections within a Group.
This activity allows visualizing connections and origins within a group by creating a human world map. By positioning themselves according to (…) -
Web platform for professional training
An astonishingly powerful device.
Following the democratization of remote work, it has been necessary to rethink approaches to professional training. This proven method offers a (…) -
Digital traces as a link
The power of digital to bring people together.
The immediate sharing of activity traces (recordings, photos, mind maps) via an accessible digital space strengthens the connection between (…) -
Listener contributions via digital tool
Unleash the power of the brains involved.
In a conference where one or more people address a large audience, it is common, after the presentation, to have a moment of discussion or Q&A (…) -
The sustainable links workshop
Create meaningful connections in collaborative workshops.
This “Workshop of Sustainable Connections” encourages the creation of lasting bonds between participants in collective events. Each person (…) -
Collaborative mind-mapping
An instituting, evolving form of writing.
Collaborative mind mapping is a visual and tree-like note-taking method, projected in real-time during meetings or training sessions. This (…) -
World Café
A tried-and-tested technique that’s always being reinvented.
The World Café is a collective intelligence technique that fosters the collaborative creation of ideas and concrete projects. Through successive (…) -
Thematic groups
Elaborate together.
This method is a simplified and faster variation of the World Café method, which I have successfully implemented and tested. The goal is for each (…) -
A web platform for collective intelligence
Support collective action with a specific digital tool.
Discovering the Power of a Web Platform Specifically Designed for Collective Intelligence Contribution, Through a Concrete Example. A Digital (…) -
Exchanges in pairs
To give everyone a voice.
A collective intelligence exercise that stimulates thinking and listening. Working in pairs, each participant builds his or her own argument on a (…) -
Book synthesis
Boosting professional training in collective intelligence.
How to use collective intelligence in professional training in a way that is not anecdotal but enriches the subject in depth? Bringing a moment of (…) -
The importance of expression
Identifying an essential path to emancipation.
Expression, often overlooked, is a key element for individual and collective emancipation. By providing a legitimate framework, appropriate tools, (…) -
Reception
Interaction practice exercise.
An activity to explore welcoming and interaction: each person alternates between welcoming and being welcomed, experiences strong emotions, and (…) -
Secret tips
In-depth mutual enrichment.
A powerful exercise to nurture creativity and collaboration: each participant presents a project or idea in 3 minutes, then receives intimate, (…) -
Collective bibliography
An encounter with oneself through books.
This activity is very useful at the beginning of meetings, gatherings, or workdays. The idea is to bring a number of books that address the topic (…) -
Sit Stand
Playfully identifying the links between participants.
Sit Stand, a playful and profound exercise to identify the concept of community. The “Sit Stand” exercise is often presented as an icebreaker, (…)
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“Territorial approach, participation, youth and digital technology”: interview of Benoît Labourdette by Serge Saada (52’, 2021) Observatory of cultural mediation in the social field.
As part of the Observatory of cultural mediation in the social field, Serge Saada interviewed Benoît Labourdette on the impact of the (…) -
Presence and Tolerance The art of accompanying without imposing, toward mutual emancipation.
How do we accompany those who seem frozen in their certainties? Authentic tolerance, allied with respectful presence, builds a space of trust (…) -
There are people who think what I do is great. I have to rely on those people. Notes on moving image
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The symbolic third, a tool to connect Psychoanalytical tool to promote the construction of the link.
The symbolic third is a concept that may seem very abstract, but for me it is very effective in creating a constructive link, especially between (…) -
Cultural rights and professional postures Tools for the concrete implementation of cultural rights.
Cultural rights, stemming from the Fribourg Declaration (2007), represent a major advancement for cultural democracy. However, their practical (…)
