The global watercooler springs into action

I recently posted an invitation to help me design an appreciative summit and bits and pieces of a project designed to address Aboriginal youth suicide in north western BC. A small group of people have responded to that invitation from Ireland, India, the UK and right here in BC. Last night I had an amazing Skype conversation with Wendy Farmer-O’Neill from Gabriola Island, across the Strait of Georgia from Bowen Island, where I live.

We spoke about ways to represent the voice of the community and the loss from suicide in policy discussions. We also spoke about ways to connect the community’s heart to the heart of individuals who care to make a difference. It was an amazing conversation with a new friend who appeared out of the woodwork, just like in Open Space.

I’ll be using some of this thinking in my design conversations with my client in the next week or so. In exchange I filled Wendy in on some workshop development I have been doing and how it might be beneficial to some of her clients. I promised a future conversation with her to noodle around some ideas for her projects.

This is an exciting new way of working, posting an invitation on my blog and freely exchanging ideas with whoever shows up. And we’re working on real business here, in a gift economy, trading our intellectual capital with each other using relatively free technology. Skype is certainly a huge enabler of this for me, as a voice conversation over Skype is time saving and has the intimacy of a face to face conversation that email can’t capture.

When I’m done the project, I’ll post a bunch of the ideas that we have kicked around so others may harvest from our conversations as well. As long as we are talking openly with one another, I’m committed to sharing what I’ve learned with whoever else might find benefit.

If you’re interested in this invitation, just email me or Skype or leave a comment below.

Technorati Tags: Skype, facilitation