Sitting here in the Seattle airport in the midst of a very long travel delay. We are working in Anchorage this week and flights there have been delayed and cancelled all day due to a massive windstorm. Our flight was due to leave an hour ago. We have another six hours to wait. All good. Travelling in northern North America in the winter requires endless patience and the occasional bout of creative travel planning. There is nothing better than threading the needle to get the last seat. It’s a much better way to channel energy than getting angry at the …
Our ferry, Queen of Capilano, sailing in Snug Cove back in 2009 before she had her capacity increased. Got word today that BC Ferries is embarking on an initiative to renew their community engagement practices. This is important to me because I rely on BC Ferries to get to and from my home on Bowen Island to te mainland. They are a critical player in coastal life in British Columbia. in 2003 the government of BC, a liberal party who favoured privatization, turned them from a Crown Corporation (and operating entity owned by government to serve the public good) to …
Here’s where our Working in Complexity course comes from. For more than 30 years, Caitlin Frost and I have been collaborating on raising a family, running a business, and building community. We’ve learned a lot about what it takes to work with ourselves and others in a participatory, relational and resourceful way, especially as we face emergence and uncertainty. A few years ago we sat down and mapped out how we work with complexity. Because my work was mostly with groups, organizations and communities and hers mostly with individuals we looked for characteristics of complexity that crossed that boundary between …
Interesting links that crossed my path this month. You can find these in real time at my Mastodon site, which is also mirrored on Bluesky. Happy New Year to all.
Confirmed yet again that the way to build community, and indeed strengthen participatory and democratic societies is to do work together. Peter Levine, who I feel like everyone should read, has a nice little blog post today that serves as a bit of a gateway to his own research and thoughts on this topic. Here’s his basic thesis: People are more likely to trust institutions if they are involved in diverse, participatory groups, because such participation gives them a feeling of agency, teaches them that compromise is necessary (it’s not a sign that leaders are corrupt), and encourages them to …