From the Applied Improv Network ning, here is a great set of Improv Games for Larger Groups. For use in conferences, large groups settings, school assemblies, church services, riots and demos, sporting events, concerts, Apple store lineups, picket lines and anywhere else a few dozen people or more are gathered. I especially like this line from Paul Levy in the discussion “There are no large groups, just tiny facilitators!”
Flipcharts. Let me count the ways that we are tyrannized by them: 1. Power accretes around a flipchart. The next time you are in a meeting, see if you can tell where the front of the room is. It’s likely that, even if you are in a circle, the “front” will be where the flipchart is. As I wrote this I am in an Open Space meeting where people are gathered around flipcharts, and rather than organize in tight circles, several groups are arranged in semi circles facing one person holding a marker and writing on the flipchart. This defeats …
Running an Art of Hosting workshop this week for employees of the City of Edmonton. We are about 30 people all together looking at the art of hosting participatory process, convening and leading in complex environments where certainty is an artifact of the past. Naturally because these people work for a municipal government, the conversations we are having tend to be about systems. We are working at the level of what it takes a system to shift itself as well as what it takes of an individual to lead when the answers are unclear. For me, lots of good insights …
I recently wrote a white paper for a First Nations organization on participatory community engagement. The paper outlines several models, principles and processes that I am mcurrently working with as I help groups design and implement longer term community engagement processes. Here is the most recent version of the paper for your reading, in .pdf format. The paper talks about mental models and comes from a perspective of decolonization. I’d love to have your thoughts in the comments so I can refine it further.
This week I am in Kuujjuaq, Quebec, a settlement which lies about 20 miles upriver from Ungava Bay. I am working with government agencies, Inuit claims organizations and Inuit polar bear hunters on a user-to-user meeting between hunters from Nunavut, Nunavik and Nunatsiavut. Nunavut is a Canadian territory, Nunavik and Nunatsiavut are sort of semi-autnomous Inuit regions of Quebce and labrador respectively. All three areas arose from the settlement of land claims with Inuit organizations. It’s an interesting meeting. All of the hunters are Inuit and they all hunt polar bears in the Davis Strait area, but they have different …