Life Discovery: Significant Insights Analysis

#2 —The “Mandala” and "Pair of Themes"

#3 —The Notion of "Life Strategy"

#4 —The Notion of "Service Thinking"

#5 —The Project-centered Approach

#6 —The Notion of "Being by Doing"

#7 —The Curated Mind Framework

#8 —The “Thematic Spirit” Activity

#9 —The AAS4LT Framework

#10 —The Landscape of Project Network

#11 —The “Domains — Works” Mapping and “Domains (Works)”

#12 —The Notion of "Activity as Project Engagement”

Explore

#9 —The AAS4LT Framework

Oliver Ding

One major milestone of my creative life in the first season of 2022 is the AAS4LT Framework (AAS4LT stands for “Anticipatory Activity System for Life Transitions”).

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Significant Insight

The AAS4LT framework is born from curating insights from both theoretical development and empirical research.

Though most of the ideas are adopted from the Anticipatory Activity System framework and other knowledge frameworks, the whole structure is inspired by an empirical research project about a person’s one-year life transitions.

If you read my articles about the iART Framework, you probably know that The Anticipatory Activity System is an expanded version of the iART Framework which was born from an empirical research project about an adult development program.

I’d like to call the program SSL which stands for Shaper & Supporter Lab. Anyway, it is just a codename. SSL was founded by a friend of mine in April 2021.

My friend started the journey in Feb 2021. Last month, we worked on reflecting on her life transition in the past 12 months. In the process of reflection, I realized that she did two activities during the one-year journey.

Second-order Activity: She spent several months on Life Discovery.

First-order Activity: She started the Shaper & Supporter Lab program as a Developmental Project.

I also observed that she also worked hard on modeling her project and storytelling about her life discovery.

This insight inspired me to create the AAS4LT framework on March 22, 2022. This is an awesome discovery!

⁠

On March 27, 2022, I and my friend had a 90-minute video conversation about her project and the AAS project. It was a wonderful movement for both of us. We were super excited to SEE a real connection between Theory and Practice.

The conversation also inspired me to create a sub-framework for the AAS4LT framework on March 28, 2022.

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The AAS4LT is an 8-step practical framework. I also design a cyber coaching room for the program on

Milanote⁠

with one master board and eight sub-boards. Each sub-board focuses on one step.

Step 7 is about Modeling A Developmental Project. To showcase the framework of Step 7, I decided to use the Activity U project as an example.

I spent three days making a board with 315 cards for a three-year reflection. The board collects 74 diagrams, 10 book covers, and 38 links. It’s a biography of the Activity U project (2020–2022).

I shared the board on Linkedin on

March 31, 2022⁠

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Method

The method for this task was developed with the following heuristic tool on

April 25, 2022⁠

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The above model is called the Relevance of Zone which considers Other as an important social context for the long-term development of thoughts. You can find more details

here⁠

Based on the model, we can generate the following questions:

Other: Who is the Significant Other for this insight?

Thing: What’s the insight about? Why do I pay attention to it?

Think: How did I get this insight? Is there a technique behind the process?

Self: Where did I capture this insight?

Self: When did I capture this insight?

Activity: Is this insight part of an activity? What’s the activity?

Activity: Has this insight led to a new action or a new activity?

The following section will use these questions to guide our reflection.

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Analysis

Other: Who is the Significant Other for this insight?

The Anticipatory Activity System is an expanded version of the iART Framework which was born from an empirical research project about an adult development program.

I’d like to call the program SSL which stands for Shaper & Supporter Lab. Anyway, it is just a codename. SSL was founded by a friend of mine in April 2021.

My friend started the journey in Feb 2021. In Feb 2022, we worked on reflecting on her life transition in the past 12 months.

Thing: What’s the insight about? Why do I pay attention to it?

The AAS4LT framework is an application of the AAS framework which is an abstract theoretical framework.

⁠

The AAS framework is inspired by Anticipatory System theory and Activity Theory. It was developed by the following creative blending:

Transactional Anticipatory System + Second-order Activity = Anticipatory Activity System

The new framework is perfect for thinking about the complex of “Self, Other, Present and Future”. For example:

Sustainable Business Development

Organizational Strategy

⁠

Startup Studio⁠

or Venture Studio

Technology Choices

Educational Strategy

Family Development

Intimate Relationship

The AAS4LT framework applies the AAS framework to discuss Life Transitions. It considers Life Discovery as a type of Second-order Activity and Developmental Project as a type of First-order Activity.

Think: How did I get this insight? Is there a technique behind the process?

The AAS4LT framework is born from curating insights from both theoretical development and empirical research.

⁠

The program was designed with three components: 1) Life Purpose Awareness, 2) Personal OKR Practice, 3) Peer Review and Feedback. My friend also adopted the Building In Public approach to share her goals, challenges, progress, and discussions with others on social media platforms.

I use the Project Engagement approach to guide my research about the program. The approach uses a method called “Multiple-level Project Engagement”. I reflect on the following levels:

The “My friend — Members” Engagement

The “Member — Member” Engagement

The “I — My friend” Engagement

This method is what I called “Cultural Projection Analysis” of Project-oriented Activity Theory. You can find more details here:

Activity U (X): Projecting, Projectivity, and Cultural Projection⁠

My friend started the journey in Feb 2021. On Feb 2022, we worked on reflecting on her life transition in the past 12 months. In the process of reflection, I realized that she did two activities during the one-year journey.

Second-order Activity: She spent several months on Life Discovery.

First-order Activity: She started the Shaper & Supporter Lab program as a Developmental Project.

I also observed that she also worked hard on modeling her project and storytelling about her life discovery. This insight inspired me to create the AAS4LT framework on March 22, 2022. This is an awesome discovery!

Self: Where did I capture this insight?

I captured this insight in my house.

Self: When did I capture this insight?

I made the AAS4LT framework and wrote

an article about it⁠

on March 22, 2022.

Activity: Is this insight part of an activity? What’s the activity?

The AAS4LT framework is part of two projects: the AAS project and the Life Strategy project.

For the AAS project, the AAS4LT framework is a applied framework that connects a theoretical approach and a practical field.

For the Life Strategy project, the AAS4LT framework can be considered as an archetype of the whole project. The 8-step framework also offers practical solution for designing a 1:1 life coaching program.

Activity: Has this insight led to a new action or a new activity?

The insight led to a 1:1 life coaching program which is hosting on a digital whiteboard platform:

Milanote.com⁠

⁠

Step 7 is about Modeling A Developmental Project. To showcase the framework of Step 7, I used the Activity U project as an example.

I spent three days making a board with 315 cards for a three-year reflection. The board collects 74 diagrams, 10 book covers, and 38 links. It’s a biography of the Activity U project (2020–2022). I shared the board on Linkedin on

March 31, 2022⁠

I also started using the hashtag

#AAS4LT⁠

on Linkedin.

Later, I started building more boards on

Milanote.com⁠

for other projects.

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