I don’t know why I have never done this, but a recent misunderstanding with a client has prompted me to get more accurate about the room requirements we need for good participatory meetings. Many of my meetings involve being in both a circle configuration and gathered around small tables. It is possible to move table in and out, but for most meetings (and full day or more workshops) these room requirements will be ideal: Typical materials we use in workshops and participatory events include these: For local events, I usually bring the markers and post it notes, letter sized paper, …
Smelhmelhélch (Passage Island) at the mouth of Átl’ka7tsem (Howe Sound) before the snows came earlier this week. Some notes on 2023 while I have a moment to review them. The year began with the death of my father and is ending with worries about the serious and lingering health issues of other senior family members and so in a lot of ways this year has been split between personal grief during the first part of the year, and the waiting, supporting and attending in the second part of the year. Several times during the year, I haven’t found myself at …
Courtesy of my friend and colleague Bhav Patel, here is a link to some great facilitation resources collected and curated by the ICA:UK crew. ICA is the global network of practice that has brought the Technology of Participation approach into the world, and this is the first time I have come across a comprehensive collection of tools that supports that approach. I have added that link to my own eclectic collection of quality facilitation resources. That has long been the most popular page on this site!
It’s been a fair few interesting weeks. A heavy work schedule with some important in person facilitations, combined with steady online work and teaching and an extended family health emergency is stretching our resources around here. So here’s a little news. Social media rethink On the social media front I’m still active on Twitter, and just waiting to see what happens there. But I have also opened a Mastodon account and I like it better. Twitter was created in an era where the speed and interaction and brevity of text messaging met blogging. Mastodon feels much more like blogging in …
One of the earliest maps I ever discovered in my facilitation career was Sam Kaner et. al.’s Diamond of Participation. It has been a stalwart companion for more than 20 years in my work and forms a key part of the way the Art of Hosting community talks about process architecture, usually referred to as “the breath of design” owing to its pulsation between divergence and convergence. I realize that I don’t really have much on the blog about this map and so I thought I’d share my summary of Kaner et. al.’s seminal work, The Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory …