Happy 23rd blog-iversary to Ton Zjjlstra’s blog. He is one of the originals, and a person I still read daily:
My blog has always been a way of sharing things that stood out for me, responding to what others shared, and especially enjoy the type of conversation that creates (thanks to all of you who engage).
Mine too, although in the dark social media years, it became a bit dormant as I posted on Facebook and twitter, where the engagement was much higher and often more interesting. But not any more. The cost of those platforms was too high, because the speed of interaction eroded my attention too badly. I’m in recovery from those platforms, and part of that means taking back this space. The empty carbs of social media engagement have been replaced by the delicious savouring of much more infrequent but much more thoughtful connection.
Speaking of which, it seem that since June I’ve been in a pattern that has established itself as a practice. My posts generally fall into two types of categories now. There are the longer essays that relate in some way to my professional life. If you’ve subscribed by email to this blog, or follow me on LinkedIn those are the ones you will see. You might get a few a month.
The other kind of post is the old school blog post, like this one, very much in the vein of Ton’s quote above. These are things I have noticed that I think you might enjoy too (or not), and these notes become my little memory palace. They are literally about anything. In a way my blog has become my searchable “morning pages” for writing and getting things out of my head before my day starts. I’ m not sure every reader of this blog has an early-21st century idea of what these meandering thoughts are, but essentially they are annotated links. A “web log” if you will. If you subscribe to my blog through RSS, or stumble upon it through a search or a link posted to Mastodon or Bluesky, you get these ones as well. Enjoy the typos, poor grammar, half-thoughts, broken links and strange questions!
We can engage on those platforms, but I’m happy if you have something to contribute to the conversation here, where the whole world will see it and can engage instead of just those who are members of the various walled gardens and exclusive clubs that are the social media apps.
PS. I had my own 23rd blog-iversary of Parking Lot (the actual name of this blog) on September 6.
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Some politicians in BC are stirring up some pretty alarming notions about a false threat to private property stemming from a recent Court decision affirming the Cowichan Tribes’ Aboriginal title. As a person involved in the field for decades, it’s terrible to watch the lies and racism spread fear to people that are under no threat at all. Horribly irresponsible politicians who know better are smirking through their faux serious stances as they watch the chaos they are sowing spread across the land. If doing your job is predicated on messing stuff up so much that you benefit from the destruction leaving everyone else to clean it up, then I might say your social worth is near zero. Stand down. For more, read this thread on Bluesky which includes a link to Khelsilem’s excellent post on the situation.
Joy! A new song from Jane Siberry. And double joy for me as we are going to see her in Ottawa in a couple of weeks. This song, like much of her music, is an antidote to the above foolishness.
Not so joy. Tottenham’s performance in the Champions League last night against Monaco. If it hadn’t been for Vicario’s stunning performance in net, with a handful of point blank reaction stops, we would have lost 4-0 instead of limping out of there with a 0-0 draw. Spurs’ finishing was woeful, and despite the best efforts of Kudus and Odobert to take on defenders and create some space, shots were ballooned wide, crosses were hopeful reminders of a bygone era (I’m looking at you Pedro Porro) and Monaco’s press forced several turnovers. Although Spurs is still undefeated in the competition, 5 points from three games is only good enough for 15th, towards the bottom of the seeded playoff places. We have a few big chances to make up for lost wins, but in reality, Monaco, with a slew of injuries and poor form, should have been a better performance. Football doesn’t always cure the world’s ills.
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My work with organizations these days seems to start from Open Space, scenario planning or polarities. Open Space allows us to source the most pressing issues of the moment and do something about them. Scenario planning invites us to think about the future in a bunch of different plausible ways, examining who we might be as the macro context evolves around us. And polarities invite us to engage with the paradoxes that often underscore conflict and render us disempowered. Peter Levine – to whom I often link these days – has a great post on the polarities part of this. He is using polarities to create constrained design processes for educators who are teaching civics. Worth a read
Adrian Segar is always an enthusiastic light and advocate for participatory gatherings. He’s been at an industry conference this week and blogging about some really great people and thoughtful ideas about the future pf participation in conferencing. This post and its rabbit hole of links, fills me up.
Such as this one, a summary of the Freeman Report that measures conference experiences. It talks about how the conference industry’s assumption that performance is the peak has died on the floor. Participants want meaningful connections, either facilitated or by chance. They want to share what they have experienced in short bursts of content. It’s a hyper-individualized approach to gathering, but it does meant that arguing for participation in gathering design has a leg to stand on.
Experience is everything I think. Simon Goland has a marvellous post up that charts his own long journey of building more deeply experiential containers for his coaching practice. Our lives are lived in bodies that live in the world. Good to remember that.
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For such an important measurement, not a single person I have ever met can explain how the GDP is calculated, and more importantly, why.
I don’t know Anne Enright, but I am mighty glad to have met her writing this morning via a link in Metafilter that pointed to this essay on, ostensibly, travelling in Venice.
The place I go to many mornings is a little cove with a rocky beach looking up the fjord in which I live. The tide rises and falls and some days there is a large rock exposed and other days it’s nearly submerged. The view across to the west wall of the inlet changes with the light and cloud. Sometimes I meditate there, sometimes I count birds. I often greet dogs who come to visit the beach with their humans. Pádraig Ó Tuama wants to know: What is your place?
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Today Dave Snowden has published a significant post outlining his team’s work and thinking about safety: “we must stop trying to write better rules and start building better processes for rapid decision-making in each unique context.” Taking a complexity view on safety is essential. Organizational life, when it separates accountability from decision making by downloading simplistic accountabilities to front line workers while constricting their ability to respond appropriately, is full of structurally dangerous situations. Dave’s encouragement to look at the substrate for action is exactly right.
Last month Ted Gioia published a post wondering if we hadn’t reached the top of a stock bubble. Just leaving this here in case I want to come back to it.
At Game of the People, one of my favourite football blogs, guest writer Laura Joseph gives us a run down of the current bubble in football and why football economics is a little different from the bubble Gioia writes about.
A couple of films to look out for from Dana Solomon. The first Blood Lines deals with themes of belonging and family in a Metis setting and stars Solomon in the lead role. I love that the film includes Michif dialogue. The second is Solomon’s full directorial debut, Niimi (She Dances) is about an Indigenous ballerina who recovers her sense of self and love of her art after a traumatic episode. Both seem resonant with the themes Michelle Porter explores in the book I’m currently reading, A Grandmother Begins the Story.