It’s year end, and I’d like to publicly thank the many clients who I have had the privilege of working with this year. It has been a great year full of learning, collaboration and interesting work, and it is largely due to people from these organizations: Urban Multipurpose Aboriginal Youth Centres Committee of Winnipeg Odawa Native Friendship Centre, Ottawa British Columbia Treaty Commission CitiesPLUS Natural Resources Canada City of Vancouver Storyscapes Project BC Assembly of First Nations Union of BC municipalities, Aboriginal Affairs Office Health Canada, First Nations and Inuit Health Branch First Nations Employment Society, Vancouver University of British …
George Nemeth got riffing on my post about project management as jazz and a really cool conversation evolved in his comments (scroll down). One of the comments from John Galt challenged the idea that strategy can be created in an emergent and improvisiational framework: The jazz metaphor is apt for improvisation. Not for strategy as we are speaking about it. One nice definition of improvisation in strategy is the act of �creating strategy as it is being implemented� or making it up as you go along. Now, classic strategy is a process for thoughtful managers in mindful organizations. Mindful � …
More about moving dreams to action. This is from skydiver Cheryl Stearns who is set to make a jump from the edge of space to see what is would be like to bail out of the space shuttle at 100,000 feet. Here she describes how she got started in skydiving: “I used to have this recurring dream, which started when I was 8 years old. I would remember it vividly when I woke up. In the dream, I would step out onto the window sill of my house, and it would be pitch black outside, no moon nor stars nor …
Why local matters: When a train car overturned in Minot, North Dakota last year, a large quantity of ammonia spilled out, sending up a cloud of poison gas. Local officials quickly tried to contact the town’s seven radio stations to send out the alarm — only to find that there was no one actually working in six of them. They were simply relaying a satellite feed from Clear Channel headquarters in Texas — there was plenty of country music and golden oldies and Top 40 and right-wing chat, but no one to warn about the toxic cloud drifting overhead. It’s …
Notes on Dreaming, inspired by the Sunday Open Space at gassho… In the Ojibway teachings I have received, all the animals at creation were given a gift. For humans, our gift was to dream. According to Elder Basil Johnston, although we can all dream, dreaming – more properly, visioning – is said to be most important for men. Women are said to have been given the gift of self-fulfillment through creating life but for men, we need to find self-fulfillment through a vision quest. And so, as has been the case from time immemorial, young men under the tutelage of …