This morning we came into the IISC Boston office ready for a two-hour staff meeting and a four-hour training. We sat down, looked around the table, and began with a question not about what was on the agenda, and instead about what was present in the room. The question was: How does the Zimmerman verdict affect us and our work at IISC?
5 CommentsRegular readers know that facilitating for the Barr Fellows Network has been among the most rewarding work I have ever gotten to do – here is why, part 1
Leave a commentBeauty matters, nature nurtures us, this year’s “Social Change Institute” was a remarkable experience and a real privilege to facilitate. Get people with passion together, in the perfect setting, careful design and good facilitation, and good work is bound to happen.
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Andrea Nagel and I have been facilitating retreats for the Social Justice Funders Network (SJFN) of Massachusetts for the last year and a half or so. What an honor! Network members include individuals who work at foundations both small and large across the state and who have intentionally created a space for learning and relationship-building across roles, institutions, and issues. Read More
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This deceptively simple diagram delineates the first step in any collaborative process. Unless you are defining a strategic plan for your personal development, you can safely assume that successful strategic planning is collaborative by definition.
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How often do you hear people saying they wish they were better at multitasking? And what percentage of the people surrounding you on the subway or on the sidewalk or waiting in line for something are peering into their smartphones? Read More
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In January of this year I was privileged to design and facilitate the first ever International OPEN Summit. Today I’m on my way to facilitate the first ever OPEN Summit US. The leadership of our nation’s “Online Progressive Engagement Networks” are coming together to support the development of an informal network by strengthening relationships among the people doing this work. Read More
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Photo provided by Alex Pelayo. Check out the rest of his amazing portfolio here!
This post is Part III in a series on Strategic Planning and Emergence.
Your vision is not your strategy. Neither is your plan. Your benchmarks are not your strategy, nor your complicated grids. Your hedgehog or your very audacious goals are not your strategy either. Your predictions of what the future will look like, no matter how organized and well researched, are definitely not your strategy.
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Photo provided by Alex Pelayo. Check out the rest of his amazing portfolio here!
This post is Part II in a series on Strategic Planning and Emergence.
It doesn’t make much sense to look at strategic planning without taking a look at what we mean by strategy. There doesn’t seem to be a clear consensus on what people mean when they use the word strategy. I like the way Thomas Rice, IISC’s founding board chair, talks about it here. Thomas stresses that strategy is about how you choose to deploy scarce resources in order to achieve your goals.
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Hope you enjoy this article as much as we did! It’s a great illustration of the kinds of connections we need to make between movements–in this case immigrant rights and environmental sustainability–to stand a chance of seeing the kinds of transformation we’re seeking.
Philip Radford of Greenpeace and Bill McKibben of 350.org recently joined the growing crowd of people calling for comprehensive immigration reform and a pathway to citizenship.
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The following post has been reblogged from Linkedin CEO Jeff Weiner. We hope you enjoy this post along with some of his other blog posts!
If you were to see my calendar, you’d probably notice a host of time slots greyed out but with no indication of what’s going on. There is no problem with my Outlook or printer. The grey sections reflect “buffers,” or time periods I’ve purposely kept clear of meetings.
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|Photo by TREEAID|http://www.flickr.com/photos/53871588@N05/5726759624|
This post is not exactly about an insurance policy, at least not in the traditional sense. Picking up on the metaphor of last week’s piece on “Network Gardening,” today we bring focus to how we can protect the early growth of networks for social change. Protect them from what? The temptation to jump to action too quickly, leapfrogging the “problem conversation,” the tendency to want to institutionalize everything (what a friend calls “incorporation fever”), naysayers, exclusionist practices, and the heavy hitters who are used to getting their way. Read More
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