On the plane to Minneapolis for 12 days of teaching, learning and co-creating with the Art of Hosting. While I’m there, I’ll be working with the Bush Foundation, the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Foundation of Minnesota, and 100 people who will be coming to an Art of Hosting from all around the state. I’ll be deep in practice with my close friends and colleagues Jerry Nagel, Tuesday Ryan-Hart, Toke Moeller and Ginny Belden-Charles among others. It’s a busy 12 days, with only 1 day off, and so I’m thinking a lot about what I’m doing. And as I was wandering …
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First of all there is no such thing. Second, a friend asked me the question “What is the idea group size for collaborative process?” and in trying to answert the question I emailed him the following (please note that this is all off the top of my head, and in practice I usually go with intuition, relying more on patterns than rules): Innovation generally starts with individuals, so I like to build time into to processes for people to just be quiet and think for a bit. Small groups can help refine and test good ideas, and large groups can …
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Last night in Vancouver listening to Le Vent du Nord, a terrific traditional band from Quebec. They put on one of the best live shows I have seen in a long time with outstanding musicianship combined with incredible energy. Listening to them and watching people dancing I had a deep experience of why we humans need art. It brings us into a joyful relationship which each other that we seem built to need – a kind of belonging that transcends each of our individual reservations, a sort of shared ecstasy. The cynic might say that such an attitude is decadent …
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A lovely day of design with friends in Lindon Utah. In most Art of Hosting type events, the substantive design work happens in the days just before the event, when the hosting team can finally be physically together, when we can read over the “getting to know you” answers from participants and when we can sink into a deeper space of good working relationship and creative planning. We work until we get to a design that is good enough to hold the bones of what we are trying to do, and then we rest and let it sink in so …
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Off to Salt Lake City Utah to work with Tenneson Woolf and Teresa Posakony on another Art of Hosting. Taking an inquiry into this one about the dynamics and the work of co-hosting. I take for a given the relationships I have with my closest colleagues, and the ease with which we are able to work together. There is a magic to it born out of deep friendship for one another (we have a saying that friendship is the new organizational form). There is also something about sharing an inquiry together and living deeply in a community of practice where …