There is a famous quote attributed to Albert Einstein that goes something like this: If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I knew the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.� AS a facilitator it�s sometimes hard to be in that place � what Sam Kaner calls �the groan zone� � where confusion, frustration and divergence live. The process of assembling patterns of meaning in a group is labourious but it …
Recently, my facilitation practice has increasingly involved helping people to set a simple vision for their work and then to invite them to find a place for themselves in that vision. In Open Space we call that �passion and responsibility� but the truth is those two dynamics are the yin and yang of getting anything done well. Focussing groups on passion involves facilitating seeing. I find especially that �what if�� questions help a lot in this respect. Asking �what if� proposes a future, but doesn�t worry itself with the details. And it also allows each person to immediately see themselves …
My good friend Jon Husband, of Wirearchy fame, has been touting the benefits of Qumana for a while now. I have been playing with various builds since last spring, and it seemed like too much work to figure out everything I needed to know. So I set it aside. But now the basic versio works so well that I don’t know that I’ll ever go back to using the Blogger dashboard. Qumana is a great tool. A million uses abound… Thanks Jon.
Thanks to Bob at the Turtle Island Native Network I have learned of a number of the indigenous peoples in the Andaman Sea who have been decimated by the tsunamis. Here are some links to some articles on them. While it seems true that groups like the Sentinelese have eschewed contact with outsiders up to the present day, still some of these articles treat these peoples as endangered species, so if you can get past the unsophisticated cafe anthropology(prmitive, negrito, etc.), there is some news in there. For more details about the tribal peoples in question, here are some better …
In the last couple of days I have learned a couple of secrets about breathing and smiling. I was listening to a recording of a teaching by Thich Nhat Hahn from the 1980s and he said this: At the end of a retreat in California, a friend wrote this poem: I have lost my smile, but don?t worry, The dandelion has it. If you have lost your smile and yet are still capable of seeing that a dandelion is keeping it for you, the situation is not too bad. You still have enough mindfulness to see that the smile is …