I recently attended a seminar on the coaching competency Presence: the uniqueness of this event was that none of the speakers were coaches !
We heard from professionals from various walks of life what presence means to them: an actor, a photographer, an acrobat, a musician, a painter, a writer.
The red thread I recognised in all the speeches was that presence is about being open to and enjoying contamination: the ability to contaminate the environment and being contaminated by the environment.
Actors are present when they welcome in their characters and they give them a new personality. Photographers transform an image with their sight into a picture with a meaning and a feeling.
The acrobat and the soloists creates a bubble with their rope or instruments, their true environment, managing with great attention the relationship with the audience.
On the other hand the environment for a musician in an orchestra or a jazz band is made of their fellow musicians: a continuous stream of stimuli go back and forth between all the components of the group during the performance.
So presence promotes contamination and by doing so creates a new environment and a new self: in other words presence increases variety and diversity and therefore chaos within a system.
Now I am going to be a little bit of an acrobat ! Try to follow me !
Increasing chaos in a system is what Nature wants, to increase entropy in its systems.
Contamination is also a key characteristic of Collective Intelligence.
Could this mechanism be the reason why Collective Intelligence is so powerful ? Because it is fueled by Presence, the ability to be open to and enjoy contamination ?