Here’s a great story from MashUp Camp on how an Open Space Technology unconference worked. The article concludes with this quote: ‘The amazing thing about these camps, using open space methodology, is they shouldn’t work,’ said Ross Mayfield, CEO of Socialtext, which makes social software for collaboration. ‘Like a wiki, it turns out that some very simple and open rules have shockingly positive results–because people, on the whole, are good. Open events like these have become almost commonplace in the Valley. In fact, I’d say they are a key driver for the current wave of innovation. One part wiki, one …
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I’m reposting this list holus bolus from Peter Levine’s blog. It’s an excellent summary of what we can expect from volunteer networks, and very top of mind for me at the moment: 1) Volunteers will plan and run meetings and conferences, even doing hard, detailed work on invitation lists, agendas, and menus. But they will not reliably write up the results of meetings for public distribution. After a meeting, writing feels like a chore, and there’s usually no specific deadline. Therefore, many meetings leave no tangible public record.2) Volunteers will write grant proposals, because proposals are plans that determine the …
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Jockey Shabalala of Ladysmith Black Mambazo has died at age 62. Even people who are not fans of world music know the legacy of this man’s work. Jockey was the founder of LBM, although he took a backseat to his brother who sings the lead for the group. According to a report on CBC today, he chose the name because “Ladysmith” was his home township, “Black” was for the colour of the strongest oxen, and “Mambazo” means to cut down with an axe, a reference to the fact that the group started out singing in contests and that it would …
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Submitted for your consideration, as they used to say on The Twilight Zone… I am a newcomer to the notion of “morphogenetic fields” – basically fields that contain information whereby social or biological structures take shape (see more at Wikipedia)- but whether they exist or not I’m keenly aware of something like that happening in working with groups. Yesterday I was working with a small group and we saw something happen that surprised me. The field within which we are working is philanthropy and we are designing a program that will help Aboriginal non-profits develop capacity. This work is supported …
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From Jack Ricchiuto’s blog: I want to riff off the comment on the ‘Free Speech’ post by zenmaenad: In my experience, when the issue seems to be free speech, the deeper issue usually has to do with responsible *listening*.It surfaces a significant distinction between free speech disconnected from listening and free speech that flows from listening. I’ve been thinking about this in a variety of contexts, but the one that comes to mind is the kind of listening we do when we are receiving a teaching. Traditionally, in First Nations communities and in other traditional settings, when Elders are teaching, …