Open Space Technology works on passion bounded by responsibility. It’s about people finding what they want to do and assembling the resources around them to make that happen. It’s about support those people and their ideas with resources and openness. It really works, not just for meetings, but for organizational structures as well. It’s about redefining measurements of success and letting go of control. Now a new book has come out about the practice of very Open Space-like principles at the Brazillian holding company Semco: It’s our lack of formal structure, our willingness to let workers follow their interests and …
Following up on my rant/question of yesterday. Today I met two doctors who I like alot, one of whom I count as a friend and one who is new to me and I was reminded again that what matters is creating conversations where parts of a system talk to one another. We can’t simply write off the whole system because there is wisdom within it that we need to draw us forward. There is also wisdom outside of it too, wisdom that really maters. In the bigger system, convening conversations, like what we did in Chicago matters a lot. In …
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Through Euan, I found out that Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, the author of On Death and Dying, herself died on Wednesday. Her work on the grief cycle especially has been very influential in my own life in dealing with people, organizations and communities undergoing deep change. But her legacy, as David Weinberger points out, may be that she gave North American culture a language for talk about death and being with dying people.
Canada’s new twenty dollar bill from the Bank of Canada Lately we have had a lot of nice art on our money. With the recent new designs for our bills, we now have a gorgeous five dollar bill featuring kids tobaganning and playing hockey with a quote from Roch Carrier’s “The Hockey Sweater,” as iconic a book about Canadian winters as there is. But today comes an exciting development. At the end of next month the Bank of Canada will release the new series of twenty dollar bills and this time they feature a selection of work from Haida artist …
The 2004 Guide to Aboriginal organizations and services in British Columbia is now available for download from the provincial government. In addition to being a great resource, every year I get more and more amazed with the amount of activity that is happening around the province. Self-government happens right here at the coal face, as people and communities organize to make things better. If you want amazing stories of people working for change, phone any one of these organizations and start asking!