Spots still open for our Art of Hosting April 27-29

Back in 1995 I came across Open Space Technology, in a huge conference in Whistler, where 400 people were exploring public participation practice. Witnessing the facilitators hosting this event was game changing for my facilitation practice. After years of being the “sage on the stage” and standing at the front of a room with a flip chart marker in my hand reframing participant’s words, I finally saw what facilitation could be if it was in service of enabling self-organization in groups. It set me on a life-long journey to develop my practice of participatory process.

That journey coincided with my own learning about complexity and self-organization in the natural world, reading Capra and Maturana, and Gleick and later, Snowden, Eoyang, and others. In 2003 I encountered the Art of Hosting community for the first time, where I met other people who were asking the same questions as I was about the role of facilitation, the ways in which it gets in the way of groups doing their own work and what stance we could take that would enable people in groups and organizations to work together on their stickiest challenges. We were disrupting traditional notions of facilitation and organizational development and building a body of work that spanned many disciplines and an eclectic set of approaches.

Every year since 2004, along with some of our dearest colleagues, we have offered at least one, and many years two, Art of Hosting trainings here in the Vancouver region, inviting people from all over the world to join us. Next month we will welcome folks for our 27th local Art of Hosting and we have a few spots left to fill. April 27-29 we will gather at the historic Heritage Hall in Vancouver, a City-owned public space, to talk and learn about how participatory methods, leadership, and design can help unstick groups and organizations who are confronting complex challenges.

We’d love to have you join us. Learn more at the website, where you can also register right away.