Back in the fall I got to finally do some work with my friends Peggy Holman and Stephen Sliha (and Carol Daniel Kasbari too!) with the fabulous organization Journalism That Matters. I was able to do a little process hosting and participating in the developmental evaluation that was going on during the two day conference in Portland. Last month Peggy published an overview of what we learned in that conference. Embedded in that report is this video made by some of the students on the evaluation team. It contains interviews with many of the participants who had epiphanies about what …
Depending on who you ask, the Art of Hosting as a community of practice has been around since about 1999. Since that time, it has evolved and morphed and changed and developed. It does so based on the inquiries that come from practice and that are captured in the workshops that are delivered by various people all over the world. It is a community and a movement of learning that I have never quite seen the likes of, although I am sure that there are others. It focuses on dialogue, participatory leadership and making tools for these things accessible to everyone, …
Over many years I have been using the chaordic stepping stones as the basis for all work I do with clients. This is a tool that I first heard of in the Art of Hosting community in about 2004. It was originally based on the chaordic lenses that Dee Hock developed to design organizations that took advantage of both order and chaos. It has been useful and rich and created all kinds of outcomes that would not have been possible other wise.
This morning we began our Harvesting and Collective Sensemaking online course. Rowan Simonsen, Amy Lenzo and I were really excited to be able to share our first little insights with people, and especially this new mnemonic that we created to capture five key principles of harvesting practice: PLUME. We are excited to introduce this into the world.
Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech is best known for his statements of possibility and the energy with which he concluded his remarks. It is a compelling call to purpose, to a world in which the future is only currently imagined. It provided a generative image of what is possible, if not what is attainable, and it did what a good purpose does: it helped take the place of a charismatic leader. Internalized, that purpose drives the movement.