Q&A with Len Ferman
Editor’s note: Nancy Cox is the founder of Research Story Consulting and former CPG corporate researcher. Her work and play include words, sketchpads, cooking (not baking) and the occasional sock puppet.
Passions, hobbies, healthy distractions and even guilty pleasures – discover how the research community plays and how that plays out in their work life. In the Venn diagram of work and play, what happens when work and play overlap? Research colleagues share their work and play stories in this interview series by Nancy Cox.
Hello to Len Ferman, managing director, Ferman Innovation; adjunct professor, University of North Florida
What is the “play” in your life?
Juggling was always on my bucket list. Like so many, I was introduced to juggling as a child going to the circus. I wanted to do that! But it was hard to learn to juggle before YouTube. Who knew someone who could juggle and teach you? There were very few books and it’s very hard to learn from a book. Then when I had kids of my own, I decided to fulfill my decades-long ambition.
I thought, I’m going to tackle this from a researcher’s perspective. I’ll reverse engineer this problem. Where do I want to get to – simple, three-ball juggling. How can I get there? What’s my customer journey? The first step of the journey is one ball. If I can make one little scoop throw up and land in the other hand without having to move my hand, I’m on my way. Then I’ll add a second ball.
My kids started juggling as well, good enough that I thought, “I need to cultivate this.” I found a local guy who used to run a juggling club. No longer doing the club, but he told me to go to the Groundhog Day Juggling Festival in Atlanta. Who knew there were juggling festivals? The festival happened to be the weekend of my son’s 12th birthday, so OK, we’re going to do this father-son trip for his birthday. We walked into this gym, and it was like Harry Potter going into Hogwarts. One guy was juggling six paddle ball racquets, another was juggling while on a 4-foot medicine ball. That festival changed both our lives. For my son, he juggled his way into the Guinness Worlds Records at age 17. Then when he was 19, he was on “America’s Got Talent.”
For me, I learned about the World Joggling Championship track meet at the International Jugglers’ Association Festival. The 100-meter dash, the 400-meter run, the mile, the 5000 meters, the 4 by 100-meter relay – all while juggling. You can drop and retrieve a ball but no forward progress unless you’re juggling. I was already a runner, which I found out gave me advantage in the events juggling three balls. In those events, the skill level is around 90% running, 10% juggling. For five balls, it becomes 50/50. Ultimately, I won seven gold medals. I held the record in the half-mile with three balls in 2 minutes, 23 seconds (since broken). I became the Director of Joggling for five years. I got Albert Lucas, recognized as the one of the best jugglers in the world, to come out for the joggling championships. I watched him running at top speed in the 100-meter dash while he has this perfect 5-ball pattern. I’ve been to the World Series and the Olympics, but his was the most breath-taking athletic performance I have ever seen.
Today, I juggle an hour early every morning. I’m like a little kid on a Saturday morning, “Yeah! Time to go!” That time gives me a very active yet light workout. Active because I’m now working on juggling seven balls. Why seven? Because I’m now consistent with six. But doing seven, I’m dropping a lot of balls. I’m doing 500 squats in that hour of working out. Light because I’m throwing underhand not overhand like a baseball. Humans are designed to throw underhand.
That hour a day is also an active meditation. There’s something that bothers me about traditional meditation – I feel like I’m doing nothing. When I’m juggling, I feel like I’m in a focused meditative state, in the flow. I feel like I’m becoming the master of my brain.
How has your play influenced your research work?
From a researcher perspective, juggling is all about patterns. Mathematicians formally diagrammed it in the 1980s; it’s called siteswap. One of the most beautiful patterns is the 5, 3, 1. The numbers are how high the ball is thrown: 3 = a 3-ball height, 1 is a hand-off to the other hand. If you’re the observer, it looks like the balls are frozen in the air because of how the apex of the 5 and the 3 are different. My son is proficient at 9, 7, 5, 3, 1 – four hitting their apex at the exact same time.
As researchers, our jobs are all about spotting patterns in the data. Finding the elegant patterns. Juggling keeps the concept of patterns top of mind. I like to think that juggling makes me more mentally sharp and thus able to do things like find patterns in the data. There’s been some academic studies that show that people who juggle grow more grey matter in the brain.
Juggling is also overtly part of my professional life. I have a corporate speaking program where I link the basic steps in innovation to the steps in learning how to juggle. The same innovation process that I teach at the University of North Florida from over 25 years in my corporate life managing the combination of innovation and research. For example, the explore phase of the innovation process is when you’re trying to get a deep understanding of the customer’s needs. In the explore phase of the juggling, each member of the audience tosses one juggling scarf to really understand how a scarf reacts when you throw it up in the air.
I’m a very quantitative, goal-oriented person even though I do mostly qualitative research. I can totally measure my workout. Jugglers count the throws. I try to do at least 100 catches before I drop one. Every day I need to have at least one run of 100 catches. It’s like completes on research studies. I keep track of my personal records on 4 balls, 5 balls, 6 balls. When I break a personal record that’s a big deal. This appeals to my researcher – I can measure that I’ve had a good day. I have a lot of data!
Here's what surprises a lot of people about juggling, I say there’s no such thing as multitasking. When you think you’re multitasking, you’re just quickly switching your attention back and forth. And it’s not efficient. Juggling is not multitasking. I’m not keeping track of five balls individually, I’m finding one thing – finding and feeling one pattern, one system. Again, it’s teaching how to find and optimize patterns.
What would you tell readers who want to know more about your area of play?
Start with YouTube. It’s just as simple as learning to tie your shoes – you learned that, and it became automatic. With juggling, you never had to learn it. Or you gave up too soon. But it doesn’t take long. I’ve taught thousands of people, and it took me longer to juggle than anyone I’ve ever taught.
One common error – starting with the pattern of three balls going in a circle, one after another in the same direction. That’s the “shower pattern” – one of the most difficult three ball patterns. The simplest three-ball pattern is the cascade where each ball crosses, left, right, left. Mathematically, it’s the easiest pattern as the balls are in the air for the longest. There’s even a fun rhyme to help you learn to juggle two balls when you start out: criss, cross (ball go up and cross in air), apple sauce (balls land). The balls also cross at the same apex, the same height so it’s easy to see the pattern. I recommend this three-ball tutorial video.
You can juggle anywhere. You don’t have to go the gym. You don’t need a whole lot of expensive equipment like golf. Every couple of years, I buy a new set of weighted juggling balls and it costs me like 20 bucks for three. Good, weighted juggling balls, when you drop them, they stop. Tennis balls are nice, but they bounce. When you drop them, they go all over the place. Oranges are great except after you drop them a couple of times, they start to break, and you have a real sticky mess. Plus, you never get two oranges that weigh the same. Accept that a staple of juggling is dropping and then picking up lots of balls. I’ve learned the proper technique is keeping the heels of both feet on the ground, then squat. And the squats are great light exercise.
Juggling is endlessly fascinating. After you master a certain number of balls, you can go one higher. I’m what’s called a “numbers juggler” – increasing my number. Or you can be an “artistic juggler” who only juggles three balls. There are around 100 known common patterns for three balls, but the total patterns are infinite.
One last bonus – you’ll increase your eye-hand coordination. My proof of concept? Putting away a glass on a high shelf then accidentally dropping the glass. Used to be shattered glass. Now, in slow motion, I see my hand dart out and catch the glass. Some part of my brain said, “You got this!” I caught the glass!