I was in a meeting yesterday, a policy consultation actually, which went quite well. As expectations are sometimes low for these types of meetings, and ours came off as a pretty good time, I spent some time thinking about how we made it work. This was a very typical kind of policy consultation. Government creates a policy, in concert many others, and checks back with the “stakeholderss” (a term I loathe) as to where we should go from here. In this particular consultation, history has made relations between the government and the participants particularly rocky. Consultations are often characterized by …
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Today a post by Peter Buys on the OSLIST caught my eye… I am fully convinced that Open Space is a marvelous tool to stimulate individual creativity; spontaneous collaboration (for the duration of the Open Space event); and an expression of trust in people by the client (in other words the ones who bought / decided for the Open Space event)…Many if not most Open Spaces are only very short blips (events) in typically much longer processes of change. But the Open Space does not really address that issue nor does it really offer (as far as I know) options …
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Here’s a report on an OST meeting that I did on the weekend for a really interesting project which got youth to monitor violations of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in the city of Vancouver. The project was the brainchild of a number of organizations in the Vancouver, who came together to ask about how the UN convention could be used to draw attention to some of the pressing issues faced by children and youth in Vancouver. These issues included experiences in the child welfare system, poverty, lack of equitably funded education opportunities in poor neighbourhoods, …
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Drop dead gorgeous Norwegian song, for a day in which the snow is blowing and the fireplace is the most inviting place to be. mp3: Ale Moeller and Kristen Braten Berg – Heiemo Og Nykkjen
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From Doug at FootprintsintheWind.com: “Conversation changes the world. To suggest to someone that their ideas will be heard and acted upon is the most radical thing we can do. Any time we listen to someone that is what we are conveying” One of the most fundamental teachings for me from the Art of Hosting is about attention to design. When we sit down to consciously create conversational spaces in which people are invited to show up whole, we can have a significant impact on the work at hand. Meetings are popularly knocked for being all talk and no action. Business …