Kevin Harris, at Neighbourhoods has a nice rant about capacity building today: As far as I can recall, capacity building the community sector has not been the problem anywhere I’ve worked. The problem is relationships. Too many people in positions of power are behaving in disempowering ways towards residents and towards those who experience exclusion, and then using the notion of capacity-building as a smokescreen. If there’s any capacity building to be done, it’s in terms of getting these people to behave in a civilised and grown-up manner towards those they are supposed to be supporting, or just get out …
For the past two years, I have been active in the Art of Hosting fellowship. This is a global community of practitioners dedicated to uncovering the new and emerging forms of meaningful conversation and organizational shape. Together we have been conducting trainings, working together on projects and deeply learning our patterns. Several of our mates in this fellowship have been working hard to bring about an online presence for our work, and today it went live. So I introduce to you the brand new Art of Hosting site, a place that describes what we are doing, how we are doing …
10 cool reads that crossed my path recently: 1. The Plastic Sea: “The simple fact is that when you drop a Styrofoam cup onto the street, you’re causing more damage than you would by dropping a stick of dynamite into the ocean. You set in motion an invasion of thousands of killer plastibots that will cause death and destruction for centuries to come.” See also A Primeval Tide of Toxins. 2. How Bush Makes Enemies: “Today, more from the muddled strategic thinking of the Bush administration than the actual threat from Al Qaeda, the “war on terror” has become an …
One of the decision making tools we teach in the Art of Hosting is called “Council.” In it’s essence it is a way of making a decision collectively which uses dialogue and conversation to get to a point where the decision is fully supported and meets the needs of the group. This kind of process can take a lot of time, but the quality of the decision is incredible. It leads to sustainable action, solid relationships and wisdom. There are a couple of other things required for making council a good process. First you need mates, people with whom you …
I was reading the striking conversation between Jimmy Wales and Dale Hoiberg, from Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica respectively, and I suddenly had the strangest thought. These two publications represent completely different creations stories. Britannica is the Garden of Eden, a perfectly designed place that can only get worse as people tamper with it. It is the “order to chaos” model and so it is surrounded with protection to keep it in it’s pristine form. (I was also surprised to read Mr. Hoiberg’s comment that the Britannica endeavours to represent all of human knowledge. That seems absurd to me.) Wikipedia is …