Robyn Stratton-Berkessel posts about a great training she was a part of last week, while we were doing our OST practice workshop on Vancouver Island. And what is really cool is that she posted this diagram of the appreciative inquiry process, which is a lovely frame for doing anything really. Naturally, this process maps nicely onto the map we use of the Open Space practices. Discovery requires Opening, Dreaming requires Inviting, Designing requires Holding and Destiny requires Grounding. And even within the positive topic choice, all of these practices come into play, as the design process that leads to an …
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I’ve known about the work of John McKnight for a long time. He is perhaps best known for Asset Based Community Development. When I was studying community development at Trent University, we were treated to his series on CBC Ideas called Community and its Counterfeits, later published as a book. McKnight was a young apprentice to Saul Alinsky, the famous Chicago-based community organizer. Over the years his work has garnered accolades from folks all over the political spectrum and has spawned community mapping, asset inventories and other now standard practices of community and economic development. A few years ago another …
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I was working with a client this weekend, the board of a quasi-professional association, and we were discussing ways to build better support for decisions. I introduced them to the consensus decision making model I use, something which is adopted from the work of Sam Kaner. They liked it and I agreed to write it into the report I was doing for them. Thought I’d share it with you readers as well… Voting certainly has its place, but if you are looking for sustainable decisions, where unity and long term support for a decision are important, a consensus decision making …
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The Open Space Practices An email on the OSLIST today prompted me to find the story of the Open Space event I did in Alaska with Judi Richardson and Michael Herman. The event was a gathering of 200 middle school students, teachers and counsellors and the theme was “Becoming a Peacemaker.” Over the months that followed Julie sent stories about Open Space blossoming all over Alaska and Michael collected and posted them at his site. That was also the first time we offered the Open Space practice workshop together in a two day format. We had 60 people in that …
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Over the past few weeks I have been working hard in Victoria facilitating the Aboriginal engagement strategy for the Victoria Urban Development Agreement.The work unfolded in two stages, with the first stage being three focus groups on economic, physical and social issues. We used the ICA Focused Conversations methodology to deepen and inquire into the participants experience of their community. Objective data was recorded as mind maps which we then overlay with data harvested from the reflective, interpretive and decisional parts of the conversations. Following the focus groups, we conducted a large 1.5 day community meeting to gather issues and …