|Photo by woodleywonderworks|http://www.flickr.com/photos/wwworks/2223340202|
Last Thursday my IA colleagues Ashley Welch and Andy Atkins and I teamed up with David McConville of The Elumenati and Ned Gardiner of NOAA to take a group of cross-sectoral leaders and thinkers on a unique journey. This trip included a visit to the outer edges of our universe, passing through our solar system, galaxy, and neighboring galactic bodies. Then, out of breath, we zoomed back in to take a new look at our planet Earth through the lens and visualized overlay of data about our terrestrial home – warming trends, population density, biodiversity and traffic patterns. Welcome to the GeoDome!
|Photo by Kevin Dooley|http://www.flickr.com/photos/pagedooley/4046734044/|
If you have been paying any attention to the national political scene, you know that in these days of no compromise everything seems to balance on the mathematics of the US Senate. Given the latest equation, it was no small deal to learn that Senator Evan Bayh will not be running for re-election. About a month ago he wrote a New York Times opinion piece that has been on my mind since then – Why I’m Leaving the Senate.
The piece is worth reading in full, but here is the part that inspired this post:
Any improvement must begin by changing the personal chemistry among senators. More interaction in a non-adversarial atmosphere would help… It shouldn’t take a constitutional crisis or an attack on the nation to create honest dialogue in the Senate. Let’s start with a simple proposal: why not have a monthly lunch of all 100 senators?
In a recent conversation with professors and students at Savannah College of Art and Design’s Design Management program, I was asked to share what we at IISC mean when we use the phrase “design thinking” in social change initiatives. Talking with vocational designers about designing for social change was a very different conversation from conversations with change agents and activists on the same topic. I subsequently came across this insightful blog entry by interaction designer Dan Saffer, “Thinking about Design Thinking”, and although he does not apply a social change agenda to his thinking here, he helps lay out distinctive features of what designers mean by the term “design thinking” as follows (we can apply the social change lens on our own): Read More
|Photo by Reenie-Just Reenie|www.flickr.com/photos/flickrchickr/2589059730|
In a previous post I referenced the work of Marcial Losada, which indicates that elevated group performance is associated in part with a high degree of “positivity.” Specifically, groups that excel in terms of innovation and productivity tend to be those where there is at least a 5:1 ratio of positive to negative interactions. The importance of this ratio has been further highlighted by some other findings and experiences I have had working with community-based activists.
|Photo by Portable Church|http://www.flickr.com/photos/portablechurch/3789838110/|
It sounds simple, but I increasingly find the idea that “happiness matters” an important principle to remember. Understanding that happiness matters gives us a great lens with which to evaluate our efforts. As I go about the work of social transformation – am I happy? Are the people I work with happy? I hope it’s obvious that I’m not equating happiness with the cheap thrills that are abundantly available to us in this age of hyper-capitalism. I’m talking about the happiness that is defined by a sustainable sense of contentment.
I am talking about being happy even as we engage the often challenging work of social transformation in a world that desperately needs it. I often say to activists that miserable faces of martyred frustration often are, in and of themselves, the best argument against being in movement with those that want a better world. I contrast this experience to the abundance of song and dance that defined the struggle to put an end to South African Apartheid.
If you don’t have four minutes, make them! Here is one of the simplest explanations of the Cynefin framework and it is one of the most useful ways to understand the shift that we must make in the social sector. I start most of my client work by arguing that the problem we are facing in the sector is that our system has been developed to address complex problems as if they were complicated. For example, our urban public schools are trying to teach many kids who might be facing hunger, trauma, violence, lack of documentation and a myriad other social ills, but we are spending our time arguing about curricula and standardized tests.
|Photo by katerha|http://www.flickr.com/photos/katerha/4233144961/|
Legion are not just the excuses but the explanations behind the excuses for not living up to our annual New Year’s resolutions. I know these excuses and theorizing about the real reasons for my failings quite well. And yet this year I remain hopeful that I will have more success in honoring my commitments, thanks in part to the work of Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey. In their book Immunity to Change, the authors lay out a handy set of questions that I believe shed valuable insight on how individuals and groups might hold themselves more accountable to genuine and realistic change aspirations.
In analyzing the pattern of a failed change effort, Kegan and Lahey suggest that we answer the following:
Every year at this time, like most of you, I make several commitments which are generally to increase my health and well-being, deepen my spiritual life and learn myself a few inches back from the learning edge. This years’ learning commitment is to learn all things technological i.e. everything from powerpoints to Twitter and everything in between. As it stands now I know just enough to get by, develop bad habits and to be dangerous across multiple platforms.
And, like the book falling off the shelf as if guided by some cosmic know-it-all, I picked up the latest Orion Magazine the other morning to find an interview with Kevin Kelly, founder of Wired Magazine where he puts forth the idea that technology is holy. Read More
I’m reflecting on World AIDS Day.? The World Health Organization established World AIDS Day in 1988, and it’s been observed on December 1st ever since to raise awareness and focus attention on the global AIDS epidemic. In the early years, some museums would have “A Day Without Art,” shrouding artwork to demonstrate the impact of the epidemic.? And there were many other ways of observing – e.g., candlelight marches, displays of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, local awareness-raising or fundraising events around the globe. Read More
If you have not yet read the LaPiana Associates report Convergence: How Five Trends Will Reshape the Social Sector, I highly recommend that you do. If you are interested in the future of social change, it’s for you. Skim through it over Thanksgiving break. Share tidbits with friends and family at the dinner table. It’s a relatively concise piece that puts into clear language what many of us are experiencing and intuiting, and it just might give you something to get through those awkward holiday moments.
The report basically makes the case that post our current economic crisis, the nonprofit sector, along with the public and private sectors, will not be going back to their pre-crisis standing. Rather, there is a convergence of forces fundamentally reshaping the way we think and work that will make any kind of return impossible (and undesirable). These trends include:
Demographic shifts that redefine participation
Abundant technological advances
Networks that enable work to be organized in new ways
Rising interest in civic engagement and volunteerism
If you have not yet read the LaPiana Associates report Convergence: How Five Trends Will Reshape the Social Sector, I highly recommend that you do. If you are interested in the future of social change, it’s for you. Skim through it over Thanksgiving break. Share tidbits with friends and family at the dinner table. It’s a relatively concise piece that puts into clear language what many of us are experiencing and intuiting, and it just might give you something to get through those awkward holiday moments.
The report basically makes the case that post our current economic crisis, the nonprofit sector, along with the public and private sectors, will not be going back to their pre-crisis standing. Rather, there is a convergence of forces fundamentally reshaping the way we think and work that will make any kind of return impossible (and undesirable). These trends include:
Demographic shifts that redefine participation
Abundant technological advances
Networks that enable work to be organized in new ways
Rising interest in civic engagement and volunteerism
