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30 day learning journey

April 3, 2008 By Flow 14 Comments

Hey reader(s). Wondering if you would join me in a little exercise…

A few months ago I was sitting with Christina Baldwin in a World Cafe on the question of “What question, if asked, would change everything?” and we realized that the answer for us was something like “What would it take for you to be curious?”

That question is powerful because a curious person is a non-judgemental person. A curious person is a learner, not a passive participant in the cultural stream. If people practiced not only asking questions, but being curious about the answers I think that would change everything.

Last month, I was in Ontario with a friend of mine and he asked “what are your goals? What would I see if I talked to you in six months?” I told him that I don’t have any goals, but instead I run these little research projects. I get curious about things and start noticing them in my life and work and I usually use a combination of this blog and a moleskine journal to record my results. It keeps me moving forward.

So, I’d like to invite you to try this approach out and see if there is something that gathers your attention and piques your curiosity enough that you’d be willing to engage in a a somewhat public 30 day research project. For myself, I am looking at the question of how to be of service in large scale change work from the perspective of someone who has limited contact and influence. As a facilitator, I come into processes, but often I am not involved in a day to day role. So how do I help encourage shift where I can?

I’m going to be thinking and reflecting over the next 30 days on this question and I invite you to choose a question and engage in a research project as well. See what we can learn. Everything I post here will be tagged “Shift”.

You in?

(PS…two sources to get me started…Debra Meyerson on Tempered Radicals from last year’s Pegasus Conference   and a site on patterns for introducing new ideas into organizations)

Google’s April Fool’s Jokes

April 1, 2008 By Notes

Happy April Fool’s.   Have a look at what everyone’s favourite prankster is doing to celebrate: Google April Fool’s Jokes Galore

Travel by the numbers

March 28, 2008 By Travel

Traffic at YVR

Today I was scheduled to make a short flight from Vancouver to Nanaimo. It is early spring here on the southwest Pacific coast of Canada, which means blossoming trees, fresh spring flowers and, to everyone’s surprise, a blizzard in Nanaimo, which meant my flight was cancelled. So I high tailed it out to Horseshoe Bay and jumped n the new Coastal Rennaissance ferry and headed to Vancouver Island by slow boat. Revelling in my new found free time, and fresh from adding up the contents of my suitcase, I decided to crunch the numbers and see what my travel schedule has really been like. Here it is:

  • Number of days from January 1 to March 31: 91
  • Number of those nights I spent in my own bed: 28
  • Days in which I did nothing at all related to work: 25
  • Number of those days that were in Maui starting New Year’s Day:10
  • Number of flight segments: 25
  • Number of airlines travelled: 4
  • Number of train rides from Vancouver to Seattle: 3
  • Number of cars rented: 0
  • Number of flights cancelled for snow: 3
  • Days of work missed as a result: 1
  • Temperature with windchill in Celsius that Regina experienced on that day: -56
  • Number of flights taken from Vancouver to Toronto: 2
  • Percentage of those flights on which the on board computer needed rebooting before we could leave: 100%
  • Number of US Border crossings: 6
  • Number of US Customs and Border Protection officers encountered: 10
  • Number who wished me well, thanked me, welcomed me or said nice things: 2
  • Number who admitted me to the United States without a single word exchanged between us: 1
  • Number of clients: 14
  • Trips in which I worked with three or more clients in person without going home: 3
  • Trips during which my family came with me: 3
  • Meals which I have cooked for my family: 3
  • Weeks in a row I am taking off from work between June and September: 10
  • Consecutive days I get to spend in my own bed starting Sunday: 15

That last stat: luxury.
The funnest moment, by a long way, was surprising my father on his 70th birthday. We flew to Ontario, drove with my mother through a raging blizzard for three hours, arrived at my parent’s house as my dad was going to sleep, and crept up the stairs singing “Happy Birthday.” The look on his face was beautiful, have asleep and full of love and delight. Nothing compares.

Why wikis work

March 28, 2008 By Collaboration One Comment

wiki_collaboration2.jpg

For years I have been using and extollng the virtue of wikis (and their cousin GoogleDocs) as collaborative tools.   For some reason it seems hard for most people to take them up.   Thanks to Euan I found this graphic at wikinomics, and it says it all to me.   For best results, take it with this video.   Now can we use wikis?   Please?

The contents of my suitcase

March 27, 2008 By Travel 3 Comments

Just a post for posterity’s sake, blogged from Vancouver.   I haven’t quite made it home yet.

This has been the busiest two months in the history of my consultancy practice, travel wise.   For the last month, I have been living out of a suitcase, with my schedule consisting of a week on the road and one or two days at home for four weeks in a row.   My home has been an Eagle Creek Switchback Max 25 (which is an incredibly excellent bag, if I do say so myself), and it’s full of everything I need for my travelling facilitation and harvesting roadshow, including:

  • Two pairs of “good” pants and a pair of jeans.
  • Two “good” shirts and two t-shirts.
  • Swim trunks/shorts, taekwondo pants and taekwondo shoes.
  • Five pairs of socks
  • Four 75g Higgins Brothers juggling balls
  • A modified Generation tin whistle in D
  • A box of Charters markers and some assorted Mr. Sketch pens
  • 3 sets of Staetdler pens: 8 triplus fineliners, 20 triplus fineliners and 20 triplus colour
  • Two Moleskines – a new one and an old one
  • A copy of Stephen Karcher’s I Ching and my current read, Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief (which I bought…)
  • A deck of playing cards
  • My laptop, cellphone, Canon Powershot A720, Olympus DS-2 voice recorder, Sansa 2GB mp3 player and an assortment of cables, connectors and a webcam.
  • A plastic Nalgene water bottle (soon to be replaced by metal)
  • A steel travel mug from Bad Ass Coffee in Maui.
  • A tiny single steel travel espresso cup that always elicits “ahhhhhh…cuuuuute” comments from Asian baristas at airport espresso bars (it’s a phenomenon…)
  • Glasses, toiletries, tea bags, wallet, passport, a file folder with border documentation and some ball point pens.

The whole thing is pretty manageable, and contains everything I need to work, exercise, play and amuse myself on long flights.   It all goes on my back when I am walking between the ferry and my home, which is a mile through forest and along rural roads, and it all rolls nicely along airport and hotel floors.   I have literally been living out of this bag for a month, at home and on the road, (with the exception of the three days the bag was in Korea) only changing around the clothes when I get home, switching dirty for clean.   All told, a tidy little set up, and a nice reminder of how little I actually need to work and live with.