Mindfulness e flow (IT – EN)

Una fase importante in un percorso di mindfulness è fare l’esperienza di uno stato simile al flow. Lo stato di flow è un costrutto psicologo proposto dallo psicologo ungherese Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, principalmente utilizzato nella psicologia positiva.

Scrivo “simile” perché ho l’impressione che ci sia una certa differenza.

Il flow non è uno stato 0 o 1 ma un continuum all’interno del quale cambia la centralità o meno dell’Io.

E’ una ipotesi, cerco di spiegarmi.

Vi possono essere stati di particolare piacere e completo coinvolgimento sensoriale, emotivo e cognitivo in quello che sta avvenendo assolutamente ascrivibile all’interno del flow, ma in cui l’Io del soggetto è ancora l’attore principale sullo sfondo dell’esperienza. L’Io in buona parte ancora “possiede” l’esperienza, capita a lui e lui la gioca.

Se quello che scrivo ha senso, questo stato lo potremmo chiamare flow superficiale.

Negli stati di flow più “profondo” invece avviene un’esperienza quasi impersonale. Non nel senso negativo di una dissociazione, ma è una esperienza positiva molto arricchente. Le sensazioni, le percezioni, le emozioni, i pensieri che ordinariamente costellano il mondo interno (Io), rispetto all’esterno (Mondo), sono anch’esse esperite in modo impersonale sullo sfondo di una consapevolezza equanime.

In poche parole non c’è un Io molto felice e coinvolto in quell’attività, ma c’è una azione (o non-azione) senza Io che comporta un senso di unione del Tutto. A volte un effetto collaterale di questo stato è una elevata prestazione in quel gesto.

In parte richiama l’esperienze di picco di cui parlò lo psicologo Abraham Maslow.

A mio parere un ottimo esempio lo possiamo ritrovare nello Zen e le arti marziali giapponesi. In particolare il tiro con l’arco, il Kyudo.

L’arciere per anni ripete, come in una meditazione, sempre gli stessi gesti, con una totale presenza nel qui ed ora, una profonda mindfulness. Non mira con gli occhi ed un mirino ma il corpo, le emozioni, la mente, l’arco, la freccia, l’aria, il bersaglio si allineano diventano una cosa sola. In quel momento, che non è solo un gesto fisico, ma un profondo stato mentale, non c’è più l’Io che decide quando è il momento di scoccare la freccia. Quando subentra quello stato di centratura, di allineamento in modo impersonale le dita si aprono ed il centrare il bersaglio non è l’obiettivo ma solo un feedback sullo stato di Satori.

Con la pratica meditativa ci sono stati diversi, più sottili e profondi del flow ma che è comunque utile utilizzare a volte come costrutto per orientarsi nella pratica.

I tempi di raggiungimento dei primi stati di flow nella mindfulness cambiano da persona a persona. Non ci si deve attaccare a questi traguardi. Un pò come in analogia con un contadino che coltiva il terreno, quando i tempi saranno maturi la pianta crescerà. Non si può tirare a forza la pianta fuori dal terreno. Come vorrebbe il nostro ipertrofico, quotidiano Io del problem solving.

Aggiungo un punto importante, la difficoltà all’emergere di stati più o meno profondi di riduzione dell’Io sono indicatori che la persona psicologicamente non è in quel momento in grado di fare quelle esperienze e forse deve approfondire un lavoro psicoterapeutico che rafforzi un Io più resiliente e stabile. Usando una analogia medica la mindfulness non è un ortopedico che ti cura il menisco per tornare a camminare ma il coach che ti mette sulla pista di atletica. Qui si apre tutto il complesso tema del rapporto tra mindfulness e psicoterapia che non approfondirò qui.

Concludo dicendo quello che mi disse una volta un caro amico psicoterapeuta e profondo esperto di meditazione: per andare oltre l’Io prima devi svilupparne per bene uno, altrimenti oltre cosa vai? Il rischio di spiritual bypass è sempre dietro l’angolo, ma ci tornerò su un’altra volta.

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Mindfulness and flow (EN)

An important step in a mindfulness journey is to experience a flow-like state. The flow-like state is a psychological construct proposed by Hungarian psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, mainly used in positive psychology.

I write “similar” because I have the impression that there is some difference.

Flow is not a 0 or 1 state but a continuum within which the centrality or otherwise of the self changes.

It is an hypothesis, I try to explain.

There may be states of particular pleasure and complete sensory, emotional and cognitive involvement in what is happening absolutely ascribable within flow, but in which the subject’s ego is still the main actor in the background of the experience. The ego to a large extent still “owns” the experience, it happens to him and he plays it.

If what I write makes sense, this state could be called superficial flow.

In “deeper” flow states, on the other hand, an almost impersonal experience takes place. Not in the negative sense of a dissociation, but it is a very enriching positive experience. The sensations, perceptions, emotions, and thoughts that routinely dot the inner world (Ego), as opposed to the outer world (World), are also experienced impersonally against the backdrop of equanimous awareness.

Simply put, there is not a very happy and involved “I” in that activity, but there is an action (or non-action) without an I that involves a sense of union of the Whole. Sometimes a side effect of this state is a high performance in that action.

In part it recalls the peak experience that psychologist Abraham Maslow talked about.

In my opinion a very good example can be found in Zen and Japanese martial arts. In particular archery, Kyudo.

The archer for years repeats, as in a meditation, always the same gestures, with a total presence in the here and now, a deep mindfulness. He does not aim with his eyes and a crosshair but the body, emotions, mind, bow, arrow, air, and target align become one. In that moment, which is not just a physical gesture but a profound state of mind, there is no longer the self deciding when it is time to shoot the arrow. When that state of centering, of aligning in an impersonal way takes over, the fingers open and hitting the target is not the goal but only feedback on the state of Satori.

With meditative practice there are different states, more subtle and deeper than flow but still useful to use sometimes as a construct to guide one’s practice.

The timing of reaching the first flow states in mindfulness changes from person to person. One should not get hung up on these milestones. Sort of like in the analogy of a farmer tilling the soil, when the time is ripe the plant will grow. One cannot force the plant out of the ground. As our hypertrophic, everyday problem solving Ego would have it.

I would add an important point, the difficulty in the emergence of more or less deep states of ego reduction are indicators that the person psychologically is not at that moment able to have those experiences and perhaps needs to deepen psychotherapeutic work that strengthens a more resilient and stable ego. Using a medical analogy, mindfulness is not an orthopedist fixing your meniscus so you can walk again but the coach putting you on the athletic track. This is where the whole complex issue of the relationship between mindfulness and psychotherapy opens up, which I will not go into here.

I will conclude by saying what a dear friend who is a psychotherapist and deep meditation expert once told me: to go beyond the Ego first you have to develop one properly, otherwise what do you go beyond? The risk of spiritual bypass is always around the corner, but I will come back to that another time.

Metacognitive Revolution (EN -IT)

(EN)

This is just a quick thought and I don’t want to make it more acceptable by taking it broadly. So I will be direct. Not out of any lack of rigor or respect but not to waste your time too much.

Today there is an urgent need to increase some fundamental capabilities for an increasing number of people. We can compare it to a revolutionary threshold similar to the mass literacy that occurred in Europe in the late 1800s and the first half of the 1900s.

What is it all about?

Today, in developed countries, the real revolution needed is metacognitive.

Metacognition is the ability to be aware not only of the contents of one’s own mind, but also of the belief patterns, mental processes and behaviors that we generally act automatically, unconsciously and completely identified with.

For what purpose to increase metacognition?

To have a greater ability to question our patterns, habits, narratives, beliefs, behavioral styles and evolve them with experience. We usually tend unconsciously to justify our patterns, seek confirmation, becoming rigid. Increasing metacognitive skills allow us to develop more creativity, reality examination, completeness and correctness of interpretations, resilience, the functionality of beliefs, wisdom and compassion. It reduces the conditioning of inherited or learned automatisms in order to be freer and more aware of choice. Obviously within the limits of human capacity, we are not omniscient, but the average margin for metacognitive improvement is very large and impactful.

With each passing year we struggle more and more to live up to the complexity of the world we have built around us. We are in an accelerating way increasingly technologically powerful and increasingly unable to flow with the complexity outside and inside us. The impact of low metacognition is significant on both individual and collective quality of life.

Let me ask you a question.

Approximately what percentage of the people you know do you think would need to give themselves the opportunity to spend time in paths that seriously and scientifically increase metacognition?

Why don’t many people do this and spend time and money chasing happiness in the same ways over and over again, even though those strategies have long since been shown to be insufficient, partial, if not downright dysfunctional and distorted?

Do you have any guesses?

Well, keep these assumptions in mind for a moment.

Do you feel completely out of this mechanism of unawareness and automatism?
How much time, effort, money, discernment have you devoted to increasing metacognition as it significantly grounds our potential freedom and happiness?

I warned you I would be direct 🙂

To varying degrees we are all in it, it is inevitable given the radical nature of change.
I am a mess in so many things, I am constantly working on myself, with my limitations, I have made so many mistakes, it is a lifelong, life-honoring quest in an attempt to live it more and more fully and in awareness.

I’ll tell you mine, then you evaluate.

DIY, self-help books, new-age experiences only go so far and often waste time. You have to be rigorous and there is no shortage of knowledge today. The “I want it all and now” doesn’t work here.
Even delving into how your mind and brain works in the third person by reading scientific texts serves up to a certain point. You need to cultivate firsthand knowledge of yourself with the support of some valuable experts.

It is a challenge, an adventure that involves us all, whether we like it or not, whether we are inclined or not. We should ask ourselves (better sooner than later) whether we just want to position ourselves well in the “race” of life, to be “winning”, according to the rules we have unconsciously given ourselves (we all have an implicit philosophy to unveil) or stop for a moment and ask ourselves: but what game am I playing?

I don’t know if you understand what I mean. It’s not about being better or worse than others. Taking up the analogy of the literacy revolution, it is not about competing with the literary skills of a great writer, but about asking ourselves: do we know how to read and write sufficiently to live our lives fully?
This is coming from someone who was a disaster in school 🙂 Other than innate talents, what counts here is the commitment, no matter where you start from.

At one time in psychoanalysis we used to talk about unconscious resistances defending the relative autonomy of the neurotic complexes that inhabit us. But I don’t think it’s just about that, as big and very powerful as this part is. I think it is literally a species problem. Our species has a great ability toward problem solving of external practical, technical challenges but a structural metacognitive difficulty in knowing and modifying ourselves. We are most often invisible to ourselves, delegating everything to the favor or disfavor of the external situation; moreover, the situation is interpreted in part by unconscious schemas. It is not easy but much can be done. It is good to cultivate metacognitive skills from childhood and for most of life, but you can start at any time.

For example, in my opinion, mindfulness works on what I have long called Homo Sapiens “species biases,” which significantly impact individual and collective awareness and wisdom.
These are practices that do not replace the work on the major metacognitive blocks that psychotherapy is well suited to address, but in some cases they can also be propaedeutic for that side of individual-specific psychic distress. Species biases deserve a dedicated post, I just mention that they are the result of evolution and we all have them.

If you experience metacognitive self-work as a stigma of weakness you are wrong, in fact it is quite the opposite, I invite you to explore further.

I hope I have given you a useful cue and nudge to ask yourself who you are and what you really… but really want.

(IT)

Questo è solo una veloce riflessione e non voglio imbonirti prendendola alla larga. Quindi sarò diretto. Non per mancanza di rigore o rispetto ma per non farti perdere troppo tempo.

Oggi c’è l’urgente bisogno di incrementare alcune fondamentali capacità per un numero crescente di persone. Possiamo paragonarla ad una soglia rivoluzionaria simile all’alfabetizzazione di massa avvenuta in Europa tra fine ‘800 e la prima metà del ‘900.

Di che si tratta?

Oggi, nei paesi sviluppati, la vera rivoluzione necessaria è metacognitiva.

La metacognizione è la capacità di essere consapevoli non solo dei contenuti della propria mente, ma anche degli schemi di credenze, dei processi mentali e comportamenti che generalmente agiamo in modo automatico, inconsapevole e completamente identificati con essi.

A quale fine incrementare la metacognizione?

Per avere una maggiore capacità di mettere in discussione i nostri schemi, abitudini, narrazioni, credenze, stili comportamentali e farli evolvere con l’esperienza. Di solito tendiamo inconsciamente a giustificare i nostri schemi, cercare conferme, diventando rigidi. L’incremento delle capacità metacognitive permettono di sviluppare maggiore creatività, esame di realtà, completezza e correttezza delle interpretazioni, resilienza, la funzionalità delle credenze, la saggezza e la compassione. Porta quindi a subire meno gli automatismi ereditati o appresi, al fine di essere più liberi e consapevoli di scegliere. Ovviamente nei limiti della capacità umane, non siamo onniscienti, ma il margine medio di miglioramento metacognitivo è molto ampio e impattante.

Ogni anno che passa fatichiamo sempre più nell’essere all’altezza della complessità di mondo che ci siamo costruiti intorno. Siamo in modo accelerato sempre più potenti tecnologicamente e sempre più incapaci di fluire con la complessità fuori e dentro di noi. L’impatto della bassa metacognizione è significativo tanto sulla qualità della vita individuale che collettiva.

Ti faccio una domanda.

Approssimativamente, quale percentuale delle persone che conosci credi avrebbero bisogno di darsi la possibilità di dedicare del tempo in percorsi che incrementino in modo serio e scientifico la metacognizione?

Perché molti non lo fanno e spendono tempo e denaro per inseguire la felicità sempre negli stessi modi, anche se ormai da tempo quelle strategie si mostrano insufficienti, parziali, se non proprio disfunzionali e distorte?

Hai qualche ipotesi?

Bene, tieni un attimo a mente queste ipotesi.

Tu ti senti completamente fuori da questo meccanismo di inconsapevolezza e automatismo?
Quanto tempo, impegno, denaro, discernimento hai dedicato all’incremento della metacognizione, visto che fonda in modo significativo la nostra libertà e felicita potenziale?

Ti avevo avvertito che sarei stato diretto 🙂

In misura diversa ci siamo dentro tutti, è inevitabile vista la radicalità del cambiamento.
Io per tante cose sono un disastro, sono in continuo lavoro su di me, con i miei limiti, ho fatto tanti errori, è una continua ricerca che dura una vita, che onora la vita, nel tentativo di viverla sempre più pienamente ed in consapevolezza.

Ti dico la mia, poi valuta tu.

Il fai da te, i libri di auto-aiuto, le esperienze new-age arrivano sino ad un certo punto e spesso fanno perdere tempo. Bisogna essere rigorosi e le conoscenze oggi non mancano. Il tutto e subito qui non funziona.
Serve sino ad un certo punto anche l’approfondire in terza persona come funziona la tua mente e cervello leggendo testi scientifici. Devi coltivare la conoscenza in prima persona di te stesso con il supporto di qualche valido esperto.

E’ una sfida, un’avventura che ci coinvolge tutti, che piaccia o meno, che si sia portati o meno. Dovremmo chiederci (meglio prima che poi) se vogliamo solo posizionarci bene nella “gara” della vita, essere “vincenti” secondo le regole che inconsciamente ci siamo dati (tutti abbiamo una filosofia implicita da svelare) o fermarci un attimo e chiederci: ma a che gioco sto giocando?

Non so se si capisce cosa intendo. Non si tratta di essere migliori o peggiori di altri. Riprendendo l’analogia della rivoluzione dell’alfabetismo, non si tratta di competere con le capacità letterarie di un grande scrittore, ma di chiedersi: sappiamo leggere e scrivere sufficientemente per vivere pienamente la nostra vita?
Ve lo dice uno che era un disastro a scuola 🙂 Altro che talenti innati, qui conta il mettersi in gioco, l’impegno, indipendentemente dal punto da cui si parte.

Un tempo in psicoanalisi si parlava di resistenze inconsce che difendono la relativa autonomia dei complessi nevrotici che ci abitano. Credo che sia letteralmente un problema di specie. La nostra specie ha una grande abilità verso il problem solving di sfide pratiche esterne, tecniche ma una difficoltà strutturale metacognitiva nel conoscere e modificare noi stessi. Siamo il più delle volte invisibili a noi stessi, delegando tutto al favore o sfavore della situazione esterna; per di più la situazione è interpretata in parte da schemi inconsci. Non è facile ma si può fare molto. E’ bene coltivare le capacità metacognitive sin dall’infanzia e per gran parte della vita, ma si può partire in qualsiasi momento.

Per esempio, mio parere, la mindfulness lavora su quelle che da tempo chiamo “biases di specie” Homo Sapiens, che impattano significativamente sulla consapevolezza e saggezza individuale e collettiva.
Sono prassi che non sostituiscono il lavoro sui grandi blocchi metacognitivi di cui è bene che si occupi la psicoterapia, ma in certi casi possono essere propedeutiche anche per quel versante di disagio psichico specifico individuale. Le biases di specie meritano un post dedicato, accenno solo al fatto che sono il frutto della evoluzione e le abbiamo tutti.

Se vivi il lavoro su di te metacognitivo come uno stigma di debolezza sbagli, in realtà è proprio il contrario, ti invito ad approfondire.

Spero di averti dato uno spunto e sprono utile a richiederti chi sei e cosa vuoi veramente… ma veramente…

Hunter-gatherers with smartphones

The marshmallow experiment is a classic psychological research.

It shows how the ability (after a certain age) to tolerate frustration for a better purpose is one of the main variables to understand who will be a more resilient, happy, aware, fulfilled adult.

In your opinion, what is the current average level in your community about: to tolerate frustration for a better purpose, to discipline ourselves, to know ourselves and improve?

I don’t have precise statis data, so I could be wrong (I hope) but the impression is that there are a few that shine like never before and a large mass that is even regressing under the pressure of an increasingly complex society. In an increasingly complex and technologically powerful world, we should aim to educate new generations more on soft skills (not only in technical skills). There are different approaches to learning soft skills. To educate derives etymologically from “educere”: to help bring out the best in oneself.

There is an enormous hunger for individuation, for mental self-knowledge, for what we really aspire to. The collective risk is that too many regress to unaware “hunter-gatherers with smartphones”.

In the young generations of developed countries born after 2000, metacognition, meta-awareness is no longer a luxury for the few, but an essential necessity, which if it is not cultivated in a broad way will lead us to a collective cultural and political regression.

Excuse me for the direct style of communication, but today all the people who have the economic and cultural possibilities but waste their lives chasing superficial self and life models do a lot more damage than we think. For themself and the community.

We need investments in education and ecology, not only for the environment but also for the media. Let’s start with us.

Biases of the Homo Sapiens species

I have been proposing a three-level model of mental distress for several years. The first is the psychopathological that psychotherapies deal with. From the most common neuroses, which we all have in different ways, to the most disabling psychiatric disorders. At the other extreme we have existential discomfort. It usually becomes more evident in the second half of life. It concerns our condition as living, needy: mortality, uncertainty, pain and the question of meaning. Halfway between these two levels of mental distress are what I have long called Biases of the Homo Sapiens species. They are not reducible to the cognitive biases studied extensively in behavioral economics. They are more pervasive, structural, linked to motivational systems. One of these is the difficulty of staying in the present moment, the pervasive self-talk that sometimes becomes brooding. The field of research and application of mindfulness is one of the most targeted approaches to this type of biases that influence the quality of our individual and collective life.

Is anyone there?

I’m back!

Is anyone there still following this frozen old blog? 🙂

I’m back because I would like to try to share some thoughts, ideas, points of view with you and see if some interesting patterns emerge “connecting the dots”.

I have always had a polymath nature, a hybrid mindset as a professional and researcher, in skills and interests. Maybe some of you will remember my old “Manifesto Ibridi“, now retired but today super alive as a topic.

There may be a great diversity of topics I will write about, but there will be some recurring interests. For example, the positive individuation and evolution of ourselves and also the analysis of the “anthropological leap” that we are facing as a species.

Stay tuned.

Let’s try again a little bit to flow with the complexity. 😉

Interview with Donald Norman: Design Skills in a Complex World

(Originally posted here, the blog of Manifesto Ibridi)

Donald Norman is an Electrical Engineering and Cognitive Psychologist. He’s co-founder and principal of the User Experience/Usability consulting firm, the Nielsen Norman group.

He’s an Hybrid Guru in the transdisciplinary fields of Usability, Interaction Design and User Experience Design with an amazing career.

We think that in the design of the last 20 years, as a profession, there are interesting emerging balances and combinations of competencies to front a more complex world. So we proposed to Norman for questions about the main skills of the future designers.

We asked him a few questions:

  1. What are the necessary skills for a designer to face the future challenges of a more complex world?
  2. Could the transdisciplinary attitude and skills of brilliant designers be a model useful to be adopted in other fields?
  3. Do you think that the future of user experience design will need a different level of competence on the several psychological and social layers of the users?
  4. Reading the Manifesto Ibridi, what is the most important concept that captured your attention since you are working in the same direction?

To which he answered:

“The skills of the traditional designer are not adequate to cope with the requirements of today’s world, especially not adequate for the new areas in which design is asked to play a role.

Traditional design education is still, well, tradition: craft based. The undergraduate education is all about craft skills and the professional graduate degree is simply more refinement of those skills.

Today the designer must know more about the world, about art and science, technology and engineering, social and behavioral sciences, political science and economics. Business. But very few designers receive the broad kind of education necessary to work on the problems that are so desperate in need of good design skills.

The problem is made worse by the fact that most academic disciplines are very narrow and abstract. Academics focus upon academic, deep knowledge. Designers work in the real world: they need to knowhow to apply the knowledge of the other disciplines, but the university is perhaps the worst place to learn the practical implication of the necessary other disciplines.

Although I think it is time for design education to change, I believe that the larger and more important problem is that it is necessary for all education to change. Instead of narrow, theoretical disciplines, we should have problem-based areas of focus, where theory and practice share the issues, where people with different backgrounds add their knowledge and experience. We need to reward practical applications, not just theoretical ones. we need to reward people with wide, generalist knowledge at the same level we know reward people with deep, narrow knowledge. Designers need the knowledge within the other disciplines: the other disciplines can use the unifying vision of great designers. But today, neither knows quite how to work with the other – the broad, generalist knowledge of the designer who wishes to build and accomplish things versus the deep, narrow knowledge of the academic scholar who wishes to understand things. Both are needed. We need a way to make them work well together, for each to respect the skills of the other.

Design has to move away from its base as a skill-based discipline. People who design services and communities need not have craft skills. But they are still designers. Different kinds of designers need very different skills.

Why do I support the Manifesto Ibridi: because it is making an argument quite compatible with the one I just wrote, to live and understand complexity, to deal with the rapid acceleration of knowledge and technology, to understand the interaction of humans and technology (cognition and artifacts) – except cognition must include emotion and action – the body as well as the mind.”

— Don Norman

(Image courtesy of John Knox)

Davide Casali – Social Experience Design – Interaction 13

Davide Casali: Social Experience Design – Shifting The Focus Where Really Matters from Interaction Design Association on Vimeo.

Another great speach of Davide about our Motivational Design at the Interaction 13, with a little mention of the Manifesto Ibridi.

User Centered Design vs Genius Design

Starting from the post of Cennydd Bowles “Looking Beyond User-Centered Design” I wrote some questions to italian friends interaction designers.

I want to thank them for the interesting discussion. These are two post emerged from these emails “A Better Look at User-Centered Design“, “Oltre il singolo designer“.

The challenge is to avoid as much as possible (we are always limited) exogenous and endogenous errors. Simultaneous create the environment that best expresses the explicit and implicit qualities in the “system design process” (from the team, the relationship with the customer , the market, etc..).

It ‘s like the metaphor of the blanket too short: pull on the one hand it turns out the other and vice versa.
This is the condition that you find in any situation where you want to increase the limit of its capacity (as an individual, group, and system).

The solution is a dynamic adaptive balance in the searching for the greatest possible harmony.

The concept seems too broad and not enough pragmatic? The operationalization is necessary, but it’s always a partial choice, starting broader visions that guide us. It ‘s so within the limits of Knowledge (see for example Popper) or any human challenge.

 

So, what now?
The challenge is to get out of the dichotomy in a third solution that integrates and solve the two options (I’m not so fan of Hegel…).

The center is the man with the method (UCD) that supports him and the man with the talent that allows him to make good intuitions.

In this period I’m working on this topic developing an approach on the edge of chaos between the risk of an “Egoic approach” and the risk of “the refuge of the sheep in the flock”. I’m “trying”, as always 🙂

Social Usability Workshop – Lift13 Geneve

On February, 8th I’ve been at the Lift 13 Conference with Davide to present our workshop about Social Usability.

Social Usability is a quality attribute that assesses how easy social interactions are to make. We proposed the Social Usability Checklist as a tool of analysis and design for social network dynamics and apps.

It was a great experience with several interesting questions, solutions and feedback. I want to thank all the participants that made it possible.