IKantKoan offers play-based coaching, consultation, workshops, and experiential design.
Approach
Our most serious pursuits benefit the most from our playfulness.
Some folks get stuck following the rules of a game, especially when it’s a game they care about. Others recognize that the rules are the game and rewrite them in pursuit of a world worth playing in. Our professional pursuits are no different. We can either accept the constraints that were handed to us by someone at some point in time or we can burn the rules sheet and use the ashes to draw up a better reality.
Our approach to creative collaboration and consultation is to ‘play through’ the process of rewriting reality so teams can thoroughly enjoy and engage in the process of innovation and deep thinking. Together, we’ll explore your most meaningful pursuits radically, as in ‘grasping them at the root’, and use games, narrative exploration, and systems thinking to identify the permissions, constraints, rules, and roles that will allow you to set fire to what’s holding you back, chart a game plan for the future, and feel damn good doing it.
Chaos Coaching
One-on-one coaching for exquisitely inquisitive artists and entrepreneurs seeking to expand their impact in the world and elevate their creative practice. We’ll identify areas of your life that are overdue for a controlled burn and tap into your inner chaos agent to transform your own, personal chaos into a renewable resource for creativity and ingenuity.
Coaching sessions combine games, personal deep dives, system-analysis, strategy sessions, and fearless self-reflection to bring pleasure and purpose to your most meaningful work.
Project Consultation
IKantKoan brings game-systems thinking to individual and team-based projects seeking a generative boost.
Whether you are aiming to get radically unstuck, lay the collaborative foundation to take your work to the next level, begin a brand new project with clarity and purpose, or implement interactivity in your work, we’ll guide you and your team in playing through the process of playing to your strengths.
Workshops & Events
Play-based workshops and events build deep connections between players through surprising stories and delightful co-play. Unless otherwise specified, workshops are suited for teams and organizations of all sizes and are available both digitally and in person.
Play-Based Thinking
Games provide just the right constraints to empower players to explore fictional worlds. The same techniques can be applied to teams looking to explore uncharted territory in the real world.
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Drawing from digital, tabletop, and role-playing game design, this workshop explores how game-systems thinking can bring clarity to your cohort.
Paradigm Shift for Lemons
This single-game, team bonding workshop dives deep into how teams and individuals build and break patterns of thought and communication over time.
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Participants are guided on an introspective journey that fosters surprising paradigm shifts through unique, collaborative gameplay.
Armchair Philosophers
This multi-game workshop creates lasting bonds between team members as they engage in a series of philosophical games ranging from metaphysics (how do we know what’s going on right in front of us?) to Eudaimonia (how do we flourish long-term?). No formal knowledge of philosophy required.
Ritual and Role Playing
The team that plays together, stays together. This workshop guides participants in the creation of their own, personal role playing game that they can continue to play long after the workshop ends.
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Role playing games invite players to deeply consider what kind of world they want to exist in and what roles they want to play in that world.
Custom Workshop
Looking to explore a particular idea or process with your team? We’d love to facilitate a workshop to meet that need! Previous workshops have focused on Futurism, Environmentalism, Bias Training, Creative Writing, Gamification, and Uncovering Core Values and Purpose.
Custom Immersive Experience
Looking to provide a highly memorable game or immersive experience for your team or event? We build custom interactive experiences on both large and intimate scales. Perfect for company events, durational gameplay, and mid-day play breaks.
Play-Based Thinking
Games provide just the right constraints to empower players to explore fictional worlds. The same techniques can be applied to teams looking to explore uncharted territory in the real world.
-
Drawing from digital, tabletop, and role-playing game design, this workshop explores how game-systems thinking can bring clarity to your cohort.
Paradigm Shift for Lemons
This single-game, team bonding workshop dives deep into how teams and individuals build and break patterns of thought and communication over time.
-
Participants are guided on an introspective journey that fosters surprising paradigm shifts through unique, collaborative gameplay.
Armchair Philosophers
This multi-game workshop creates lasting bonds between team members as they engage in a series of philosophical games ranging from metaphysics (how do we know what’s going on right in front of us?) to Eudaimonia (how do we flourish long-term?). No formal knowledge of philosophy required.
Ritual and Role Playing
The team that plays together, stays together. This workshop guides participants in the creation of their own, personal role playing game that they can continue to play long after the workshop ends.
-
Role playing games invite players to deeply consider what kind of world they want to exist in and what roles they want to play in that world.
Custom Workshop
Looking to explore a particular idea or process with your team? We’d love to facilitate a workshop to meet that need! Previous workshops have focused on Futurism, Environmentalism, Bias Training, Creative Writing, Gamification, and Uncovering Core Values and Purpose.
Custom Immersive Experience
Looking to provide a highly memorable game or immersive experience for your team or event? We build custom interactive experiences on both large and intimate scales. Perfect for company events, durational gameplay, and mid-day play breaks.
Play-Based Thinking
Games provide just the right constraints to empower players to explore fictional worlds. The same techniques can be applied to teams looking to explore uncharted territory in the real world. Drawing from digital, tabletop, and role-playing game design, this workshop explores how game-systems thinking can bring clarity to your cohort.
Perfect for teams that are newly formed or embarking on a new project.
Paradigm Shift for Lemons
This single-game, team bonding workshop dives deep into how teams and individuals build and break patterns of thought and communication over time. Participants are guided on an introspective journey that fosters surprising paradigm shifts through unique, collaborative gameplay.
Great for teams at any stage of development, particularly those in or entering the ideation phase.
Armchair Philosophers
This multi-game workshop creates lasting bonds between team members as they engage in a series of philosophical games ranging from metaphysics (how do we know what’s going on right in front of us?) to Eudaimonia (how do we flourish long-term?). No formal knowledge of philosophy required.
Ideal for teams that know a bit about each other.
Ritual and Role Play
The team that plays together, stays together. This workshop guides participants in the creation of their own, personal role playing game that they can continue to play long after the workshop ends. Role playing games invite players to deeply consider what kind of world they want to exist in and what roles they want to play in that world.
Built for teams that intend to work together for a while, though one-off games and short campaigns are also possible.
Custom Workshop
Looking to explore a particular idea or process with your team? We’d love to facilitate a workshop to meet that need! Previous workshops have focused on Futurism, Environmentalism, Bias Training, Creative Writing, Gamification, and Uncovering Core Values and Purpose.
Custom Immersive Experience
Looking to provide a highly memorable game or immersive experience for your team or event? We build custom interactive experiences on both large and intimate scales. Perfect for company events, durational gameplay, and mid-day play breaks.
Keynote Events
Looking for inspiration? IKantKoan’s founder, Jessica Creane, has given keynote talks at TEDx, Tanween Creativity Festival, The Game Educators Conference, UPENN Environmental Storytelling Summit, and Comcast Labs Diversity and Accessibility Conference, as well as appearing on panels at The World Economic Forum, KQED Forum, The Games Based Learning Alliance, and PAX East, among others.
The Electric Unknown
Looking for something outside the bounds of these offerings? Amazing. Let’s explore the electric unknown together.
Testimonials
Mallory Combemale
Jessica's game Paradigm Shift for Lemons was one of the most thought-provoking and fun team activities I've ever participated in. The design of the game was incredibly thoughtful and forced our team to think deeply and find new ways of engaging with each other. The experience helped us break ingrained patterns of communicating, learn to consider diverse perspectives and laugh a lot together. Jessica is a skilled facilitator, adept at holding space for silence as well as intervening in the exact right moments to push the group to breakthroughs.
Bethany Wiggin
Environmentalism suffers from a fun-deficit! We are often perceived, maybe rightfully so, as preachy know-it-alls and insufferable do-gooders. Jessica Creane's brilliantly designed workshops open up environmentalism to play, to experimentation at once playful and rigorous, to inviting in workshop participants who might otherwise be put off. The workshops are full of imagination and brilliantly designed, and they inspire participants to play their hearts out. Amidst ecological crisis, tools like Creane's workshops are invaluable tools for promoting ecological and climate literacy (and action).
Kelly Sczomak
Working with Jessica as an Artist-in-Residence was an absolute dream. She managed to harness the passions and energy embedded in our National Park and turn it into magic. Discussions on climate change so often turn to doom and gloom, but an hour into Jessica’s game I felt more hopeful and energized than I had in years.
Jennifer Atkinson, PhD
Jessica hosted a fascinating conversation for our group (the Existential Toolkit for Climate Educators) about how play can be used to facilitate community and connections to make climate action a more joy-based pursuit. She has a remarkable ability to talk to folks across disciplines -- climate educators and scientists, psychologists, artists, humanists and activists. I was struck to see such a lively conversation emerge among participants who, by and large, had never deliberately used or thought about play/games in their teaching before. We’d scheduled a full hour online but at least a dozen participants stayed for an ADDITIONAL hour excitedly chatting with Jessica about ways to bring her creative ideas in their own work. A rare thing to see in this year of Zoom fatigue!
Martin Waehlisch
“Jessica gave us helpful insights into the mechanics of game design and play. Gamification for decision-making in public affairs is a new innovative approach that we are eager to explore further with professional game experts like Jessica.”
Michael Edmiston
Jessica helped me through a really difficult but crucial period in my creative work. I was working full time in a new place, without many connections to other artists. She gave me excellent advice and accountability but perhaps more importantly, she helped me believe that the work I was doing mattered. Jessica cares immensely about the power of play and creativity, and through both her work and our conversations has helped me learn how to embrace fear, dance with Chaos, and expand the edges of the possible.