A busy first day in the Twin Cities. We met today with friends and partners in the InCommons network, an initiative supported by the Bush Foundation. InCommons is the primary sponsor of much of the flourishing of the Art of Hosting here in the Minnesota and Dakotas region. In a very short time, we estimate that there will be upwards of 1000 people in this state alone who have come through an Art of Hosting training, in cohorts and individually, as a result of InCommons’ intention to support new forms of leadership. This week we will turn our attention to …
On the plane to Minneapolis for 12 days of teaching, learning and co-creating with the Art of Hosting. While I’m there, I’ll be working with the Bush Foundation, the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Foundation of Minnesota, and 100 people who will be coming to an Art of Hosting from all around the state. I’ll be deep in practice with my close friends and colleagues Jerry Nagel, Tuesday Ryan-Hart, Toke Moeller and Ginny Belden-Charles among others. It’s a busy 12 days, with only 1 day off, and so I’m thinking a lot about what I’m doing. And as I was wandering …
First of all there is no such thing. Second, a friend asked me the question “What is the idea group size for collaborative process?” and in trying to answert the question I emailed him the following (please note that this is all off the top of my head, and in practice I usually go with intuition, relying more on patterns than rules): Innovation generally starts with individuals, so I like to build time into to processes for people to just be quiet and think for a bit. Small groups can help refine and test good ideas, and large groups can …
Last night in Vancouver listening to Le Vent du Nord, a terrific traditional band from Quebec. They put on one of the best live shows I have seen in a long time with outstanding musicianship combined with incredible energy. Listening to them and watching people dancing I had a deep experience of why we humans need art. It brings us into a joyful relationship which each other that we seem built to need – a kind of belonging that transcends each of our individual reservations, a sort of shared ecstasy. The cynic might say that such an attitude is decadent …
A lovely day of design with friends in Lindon Utah. In most Art of Hosting type events, the substantive design work happens in the days just before the event, when the hosting team can finally be physically together, when we can read over the “getting to know you” answers from participants and when we can sink into a deeper space of good working relationship and creative planning. We work until we get to a design that is good enough to hold the bones of what we are trying to do, and then we rest and let it sink in so …