July 23, 2025: points of view

We sometimes call it the “best seat in the house” when we get loaded on the Bowen Island ferry on a forward facing ramp. This is my view this morning as I head into Vancouver to co-lead a workshop with my partner Ciaran Camman. We’re helping a service organization surface context specific strategies practices and principles they use to address crises across their operations.

I love a good football match. I love a semi-final in a major tournament. I do not love when an official gets in the way of a result, but that’s part of the game. Italy and England fought an epic battle yesterday in the women’s European Championship semi-final. Italy took the lead in the first half and England fought back and it looked like the underdogs had won it but the referee added seven minutes of time at at the end, and England used all of it to get the equalizer. Seven minutes. “Twas a bit much, I thought.

Extra time ensued and the Italians fought gamely (no, time wasting is not a “continental” specialty; England did it just fine too…) and late in the second period of extra time – like 119′ late – England were awarded a penally. ‘Twas a weak call, I thought. BUT Italian keeper Laura Giuliani made the save on Chloe Kelly’s penalty, BUT the rebound was poached by Kelly and England won. Cruel sport, this one.

I’m not a fan of the blog posts that begin with “I asked AI to…” but I will point to Tom Atlee’s recent conversation with an AI chatbot where he explored how AI can enable deliberative democracy to move at scale and at speed. I think there are some really thoughtful ideas here not just for governments but also for organizations or networks who are including large numbers of humans in ongoing sensemaking and deliberation. Tom’s grounding in this field and thoughtful questions helped the bot to think through some good ideas.