On my way to Hawai’i, the big island to co-host a gathering called Beyond Sustainability: Creating a Community of Leadership based on a Platform of Reverance. This gathering has been several years in the making, and over the last two years I have been deeply involved in the design of the work, finding myself stopping and starting as we find the best way to bring high powered people together to connect existing work, explore indigenous worldviews and creating some coherent results that may positively affect the values that underlie consumer society. It is a hugely audacious reach that we are …
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I’m a sucker for principles, because principles help us to design and do what is needed and help us to avoid bringing pre-packaged ideas and one-size-fits-all solutions to every problem. And of course, I’m a sucker for my friend Meg Wheatley. Today, in our Art of Hosting workshop in central Illinois, Tenneson Woolf and Teresa Posakony brought some of Meg’s recent thinking on these principles to a group of 60 community developers working in education, child and family services, and restorative justice. We’re excited to be working nwith these principles in the work we’re doing with Berkana Institute. Here’s what …
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A beautiful extended reflection on the methodology of study in a coast Salish context from author Lee Maracle: The object of ‘study” from a Salish perspective is to discover another being in itself and for itself with the purpose of engaging it in future relationship that is mutually beneficial and based on principles of fair exchange. We study from the point of view, that there is something unknown to be discovered, that all life contains something cherished, but hidden from us and that if we observe from as many angles of perception that we can rally, engage one another in …
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Jessica Nagy captures why it is I can work with skeptics but not cynics. Much of my work has to do with at least having a sense of possibility. You can doubt the outcomes or the effectiveness of something, but if you are turned to possibility and hope then you can at least make a contribution. Cynics have both doubt and hopelessness and unless they offer some alternative, then they become corrosive to processes that are just beginning. I find in general many people who declare themselves cynical are actually skeptical. They want some thing to work out, they hold …
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Here are three resources which have recently crossed my path that involve using fun and games for social change. Some of these work with groups and some work across social spaces – demographics, communities or organizations. What I like about these games is that they provide a built in set of measureables that can be used to gauge progress and evaluate behaviour change. Sesms like combining fun, visible change and simple yet powerful standards for noticing shift is the holy grail in this kind of work. Games for Change: Games for Change (G4C) is a non-profit which seeks to harness …