The website of the National Centre for First Nations Governance is finally online.
This is a huge addition to First Nations communities, and dare I say, many other places as well. The Centre is a kind of open source research and dialogue hub for leading edge thinking and conversation on First Nations governance along the lines of the Delgamuukw site we prepared for the Assembly of First Nations. As I have said all along, the lessons that are being learned as First Nations experiment and implement new forms of governance based on traditional processes that are valid for the 21st century are lessons that can benefit all communities struggling with defining themselves, using their assets and resources and institutionalizing new ways of becoming more free in a global context.
Spend some time watching the video (especially Patrica Montour’s presentation on revolution and empowerment) and browsing some of the research papers and thinking about how they might apply to your own community, state, province or country. This is a big “good news” story for First Nations and it shows that we are leading the way in opening up and testing new ideas about what governance means.
Technorati Tags: firstnations, governance, goodnews
I’m interested in how blogging, email and Skype connect us and more importantly, what we do with those connections. This has been the subject of conversations I’ve recently had with Rob Paterson and George Nemeth among others. Now I’d like to put this to the test, but reaching out across the blogosphere using these tools to gather ideas on a project I’m working on.
I’m beginning a new process with a client to design an appreciative summit for a group of First Nations. I’d like to use this opportunity to practice connecting with people over Skype to bounce ideas around.
The project involves a number of communities, community organizations, youth, service providers and government looking at youth suicide prevention. What I am interested in is simply connecting with others and talking about design issues. All I can offer in return is a series of decent conversations at this point and some assessment of how a collaborative conversation can unfold using some of these tools. You’ll also have the satisfaction of contributing thinking to a serious issue facing First Nations youth in this country and I’ll willingly offer what I can to any of your projects in return.
For us consultants labouring alone, working on local issues in a global community, the world is our water cooler and the internet is what makes it work. If you want to play drop me an email (chris@chriscorrigan.com) or Skype me at chriscorrigan.
Technorati Tags: appreciativeinquiry, aboriginal, firstnations, youth, suicide, skype
Found, on a sign on our main road here on Bowen Island.
Technorati Tags: God
The 2005 iteration of a 14 year tradition, the annual Open Space on Open Space will take place this year in Halifax,. Nove Scotia. And despite it being on the other side of our continent, it’s still closer to me this year than it has been since I co-hosted the gathering in 2001. So I’m going.
And if you are interested in Open Space Technology, and free August 4-6, you might consider joining us in Halifax.
Technorati Tags: openspace, conferences, halifax
While I was in Prince George, David Stevenson and I rejigged the OST practice workshop that Michael Herman and I have been delivering around the world over the last two years. We changed it from two days of mostly open space, to four half days of focus on the practices of opening, inviting, holding and practicing. I sent the design to Michael and he pushed the parts around a little and came up with this riff:
“1. practice of opening. it’s about willingness. willingness to see, to know, to open. it’s personal and reflective, but can be felt physically in body and charted in organizations.
2. practice of inviting. it’s about goodness. finding benefits TO others, as in what’s in it for them, and also benefits IN others, as in recognizing what they can add to the process of achieving what is desired personally in the first practice. it makes that first practice social, collective, organizational, and cultural, but also documented in invitation emails, letters, posters.
3. practice of holding. it’s about supporting movement and change. providing space and time, structures that support without making decisions for people, giving attention, carrying in awareness or carrying forward, holding in one’s heart or home or conference room. it creates room for others to expand, explore, experiment… to bring new things out in the world. it is simultaneously logistical, mental, and emotional.
4. practice of practicing. it’s about sustaining, returning, realizing, and making real. this is action, taking a stand, making progress, going somewhere, documenting results. this implies the continuation and diffusion of the above. standing ground, staying the course, seeing things through. it is the personal and individual (I, me, my) pursuit of the good that WE invite, in the space that WE provide. It can look simply mechanical and become deeply meditative, as we go round again, starting with Opening. (note… this might also be called the practice of ‘participating,’ perhaps ‘making,’ or simply ‘doing’ or ‘changing.’ stay tuned”
The first time we offered this workshop was with our friend Judi Richardson in Alaska with a bunch of middle school peer mediators in 2002. This iteration was offered to street involved youth in Prince George. There is something about working with youth in the north that brings out good training designs!
Not only can we offer it in two days, or in a couple of hours, but it lends itself to a four day iteration with a number of somatic exercises built in to anchor these practices in the body. It could be an organizational development workshop, a personal development workshop, Open Space Technology training or a short cut to a deeper practice of facilitation.
We offered the workshop Monday and Tuesday this week. In London, Johnnie Moore has already picked up on it. In four scant days, it has travelled half way around the world. Amazing.
Technorati Tags: openspace, facilitation, leadership