If you are a part of an #Occupy group and are focusing on the facilitation teams, I’d like to offer you some resources from the Art of Hosting community. On my site are scads of Facilitation Resources for use. All of these are offered free of charge of course. In terms of some of the challenges that #Occupy camps are facing, consensus decision making is one of the big ones. I am amazed at the capacity people are showing in undertaking consensus at the General Assemblies. But there will always be frustrations with these processes. My friend Tree Bressen offers …
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Douglas Rushkoff has a useful article on the Occupy movement. I am actually loath indulge in much analysis over what is happening in New York and now elsewhere, because the events defy analysis, especially from a traditional lens. But in this article, Rushkoff points to some of the things that are happening and why they matter for organizing large social conversations on the pressing issues of our day. To be fair, the reason why some mainstream news journalists and many of the audiences they serve see the Occupy Wall Street protests as incoherent is because the press and the public …
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It’s been a week since I was in New York City visiting the camp in Zuccotti Park (renamed Liberty Park) where the Occupy Wall Street movement was in full swing. I was struck mostly by their process, but also by the earnest and deliberate attention that these people, young and old are giving to the chance they have to open discourse on the big issues of wealth disparity and social equity in America. When I was there earlier in the week they were engaging in a participatory process to create their demands. It was as much about defining why they …
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Leaving New York today. It has been an incredible four days here working with my good friends Kelly McGowan and Tuesday Ryan-Hart and Lex Schroeder, Aniestla Rugama, Alissa Schwartz, and Aswad Foster. We were running a workshop called the Art of Social Justice in which we were investigating the intersection of participatory process and social justice work. Over three days we explored a framework that Tuesday has developed and investigated with Kelly for the past year. The framework includes and transcends the gifts and drawbacks of traditional social justice frameworks and of what we know about participatory process. Tuesday is …
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A basic diagram for hosting questions that create extraordinary conversations. In the life of organizations and communities there are times when questions arise that just can’t be dealt with in the regular course of events. This is often when those of us who are consulting facilitators are brought into an organization. We are often told that “we have reached a place where we need a facilitator to help.” Usually there is an obvious need or purpose stated right in the first few sentences of the phone call or the email. This is something that consultants like us have to bear …