Archive for October, 2010

Oct/08/10//Curtis Ogden//Learning Edge

Patterns for Change, Part 2

Picking up from yesterday’s post, the question I left off with was how do change agents identify and work with patterns in complex human systems where control and predictability are elusive.  This is where Holladay and Quade offer up Glenda Eoyang’s CDE Model.  This model names three different conditions that change agents can analyze and work with to shift constraints within a system so that it can achieve more optimal fit with (and thrive in) its environment.  Below are an explanation of these conditions and examples of what can be done to either tighten or decrease constraints in the direction of more organized or unorganized surrounds. Read the rest of this entry »

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Oct/07/10//Curtis Ogden//Learning Edge

Patterns for Change Part 1

What do you do when you cannot control or predict?  For many people I’m sure this question raises just a little bit of anxiety.  After all, having some sense of autonomy and mastery is reported as being key to our mental well-being.  And yet increasingly we find ourselves in complex and changing situations that are beyond our grasp and where the outcome is very much uncertain.  Of course this is not the case with everything.  Some of our work falls within the ordered realm.  But how do we work outside of this tidy zone? Read the rest of this entry »

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Oct/06/10//Curtis Ogden//Sustainability

Going Wide and Upstream

I’m writing this post from St. Louis where I’ve been working with a team from Conservation International to facilitate a meeting of their Business and Sustainability Council.  This three day convening is focused on sustainable agriculture and has featured presentations from content experts including Dr. Jon Foley from the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment, who offered the short video above to summarize “the other inconvenient truth” we face around feeding a growing population against a backdrop of stressed water and land resources.  As the clip indicates, the challenge of sustainably feeding a global population of 9 billion (projected by 2050), if doable, will only be accomplished through extensive collaboration.  Furthermore, it is going to take going beyond many of the either/or debates (local vs. global, GMOs vs. organic) to embrace a full spectrum of strategies.  In other words, it’s not about finding a silver bullet, but rather the “silver buckshot.” Read the rest of this entry »

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Oct/01/10//Curtis Ogden//Networks

Malcolm’s Missive

Malcolm Gladwell has certainly whipped up something of a firestorm, at least among social media and network enthusiasts.  In a sense, his timing couldn’t be better as this very morning IISC staff gathers with some very bright and committed network building thinkers and consultants to take our ongoing conversation about networks for social change the next step, with some practical application in our collective sights.  I expect, and hope, that some of the energetic on-line conversation Gladwell has inspired in our community will continue during this in-person gathering.

In case you missed it, the author of The Tipping Point published a piece in the recent New Yorker entitled, “Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted.” Read the rest of this entry »

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