Just off a call where we were discussing what it takes to shift paradigms in indigenous social development. We noted that we hear a lot from people that they are busy and challenged and they need clear paths forward otherwise they are wasting their time. I have a response to that. We don’t know what we are doing. Everything we have been doing so far has resulted in what we have now. The work of social change – paradigm shifting social innovation – is not easy, clear or efficient. If you are up for it you will confront some of …
This is state representative Cory Mason in Wisconsin fiercely and gently outlining what has gone wrong in that state and standing up for the rights of citizens, workers and the media against the tyranny of Gov. Walker’s plans. What is going on in Wisconsin is big and important. Have a listen and see what you can learn.
This past week I have been in Minnesota working with colleagues Jerry Nagel, Ginny Belden-Charles and Mandy Ellerton. We were conducting a second residential training in collaborative leadership with a number of planning grantees working in communities to make impacts on the social and economic determinants of health. In this residential we spent a fair bit of time working on tactical community organizing, exploring how to teach this from the perspective of the Art of Hosting. The traditional tactics of Alinsky-style community organizing operate by creating strategic targets for action and mobilizing community power against those targets. It’s a zero-sum …
In this video piano soloist Maria Joao Pires is confronted with a nasty situation. As the conductor begins the piece of music they are to play, she discovers that it is not the piece she prepared. She has left her music at home Imagine that. Undaunted, she engages in a short conversation with the conductor who encourages her to play it any way – she played it last season, she knows the piece well. Pires digs ddep – you can see it in her face – and conjures up Mozart’s D minor concerto form the depths of her mastery. There …
Still playing with the Cynefin framework and thinking about how it helps us to understand the processes for decision making and action in the domains of simple, complicated, complex, chaotic and disordered domains. Today talking with clients and friends we were discussing the “spaces inbetween,” especially with respect to cultures. In British Columbia, services are increasingly being separated between indigenous and non-indigenous service providers which isn’t a bad thing on the face of it, but the enterprise is being undertaken from a scarcity mindset. in other words, resources are being moved from one part of the sector to the other …