The work continues apace on the design of the community summit on youth suicide. I have completed a sketch of the summit agenda which will bear much more fleshing out, but it has been a terrific challenge trying to work with all the ideas of all my conversational partners at the global water cooler and fit these into a short day. At any rate, here’s what I’ve got so far (.doc). If you’re still interested in contributing thinking to this, I’m looking for some really good questions (I have a few in mind which I’ll post soon) and also how …
Prompted by posts by Johnnie Moore Ton Zylstra and David Wilcox, I’ve been thinking about how we might improve conferences. As a facilitator of Open Space Technology and other large group processes, I offer clients ways of radically transforming conferences to make them highly productive. But these meetings require changes in expectations and frames of reference that are sometimes too much for a client to go on. When you are convening an international conference on business and the environment, putting everyone in a circle and placing paper and markers at the centre of the room can sometimes seem too much …
Good reads from good feeds: Speciulation that Einstein was a space alien Wealth Bondage on a spirited defense of liberalism and the public square. “�True education flowers at the point when delight falls in love with responsibility. If you love something, you want to look after it. Common sense has much to learn from moonshine.� from Phillip Pullman in the Guardian, found at sift everything Simple rules for the self-organization of communities of practice. Shawn wants you to help make them even simpler. The big problem with strategic planning in non-profits: “…most plans are filled with horrible mistakes, unrealistic expectations …
The group of Aboriginal youth I have been working with, Building Our Legacy Together, have had a busy winter, and their activities were recently summarized in this report from coordinator Crystal Sutherland: “Youth � Building Our Legacy TogetherPawatskwachilth Haiyupis, Crystal Sutherland (Ahousaht) and the 15 member provincial BOLT Executive have successfully hosted the first forum in Fort Rupert Big House located on the Kwakiutl reserve just outside Port Hardy. The purpose of the forum was for Aboriginal youth to identify issues and have the opportunity to make recommendations to federal departments as well as introduce and engage Aboriginal youth with …