Tag Archive: Innovation

July 3, 2013

The Network Story of Change

A couple of weeks ago there was an intriguing article in Next City entitled “The Post-Hero Economy: Learning to Lead Through Networks.”  In it, Jennifer Bradley and Bruce Katz tell the story of some extraordinary attempts to boost a region in the midwestern United States.  The focus is not on a leader or leaders, but on a network.  As the authors state, “When telling stories of transformation and turnaround, it is tempting to shape them into personal stories about heroes. One charismatic visionary — a mayor, school superintendent, entrepreneur, outraged citizen — steps up and, with unrelenting vigor and inspirational leadership, starts an irreversible cascade of change. But there is a growing body of research suggesting that, as a system or problem becomes more complex, arriving at a solution requires multiple minds from multiple sectors or perspectives.” Read More

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June 25, 2013

Emergence

I’m sharing another great piece from my dear friend Adrienne Maree Brown.  I am absolutely moved by the way she speaks of emergence.  She is spot on.  As you read, I encourage you to remember that evolution “transcends and includes.”  There are aspects of our industrial paradigm that can and should be included as we move towards working with emergence.  How can you apply what Adrienne is talking about?

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June 21, 2013

A Journey with the Social Change Institute

The following post was written by our good friend David Roberts and can be found at Grist.com.  We hope you enjoy it as much as we did! Thanks for all your work David! 

Trying to change the world for the better — being an activist, social change agent, do-gooder, whatever you want to call it — can be exhausting and dispiriting, especially for young people launching into it full of energy and hope. What activists need most is … well, money. They’re all stressed about funding.

But what activists need next most is, for lack of a better term, recharging. They need to get together and relax, share stories, celebrate each other’s victories, commiserate over defeats, and get back in touch with deeper convictions and purposes. That’s what gives them the energy they need to keep going in the face of setbacks.

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June 3, 2013

The Big Picture

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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May 21, 2013

OPEN Summit US

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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May 7, 2013

What Strategy Is NOT

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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April 30, 2013

Strategy, Planning, Emergence

Photo provided by Alex Pelayo. Check out the rest of his amazing portfolio here!

I spend a lot of time figuring out how to work with emergence.  You don’t plan emergence, you create the conditions for emergence.  But how does that fit with strategy?  How do you do strategic planning in a world that is too complex for straight lines and long timelines?

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April 24, 2013

Networks Building: No Small Change


No Small Change

|Photo by Paul Downey|http://www.flickr.com/photos/psd/3003392453|

In the past few weeks, I have heard some interesting and divergent comments about networks as they relate to social change.  In one case, someone in philanthropy declared that the “network experiment” was over and it was “back to funding individual organizations.”  In another case, I heard tremendous enthusiasm expressed relating to the “paramount importance of building trust and relationships” for change to happen.  To the first –  “No!”  To the second – “Yes, and . . .”.  We are still in the midst to waking up to the reality and potential of networks in our lives, present company very much included.  Here is some of what we are seeing and hearing with respect to where network approaches and tools, at their best and very much with our intention, can take us.  Read More

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February 12, 2013

Conditions for Emergence

The following comments was posted by Gibran as a response to Curtis Ogden‘s Collective Impact and Emergence blog post.  In it we are challenged to think beyond our institutions and think about how to truly impact the communities we work with. 

This is excellent Curtis. It brings me back to one of our most important inquiries – how do you nurture the conditions for emergence? With this inquiry, we are not just saying that emergence happens; we are saying that our best approach is to nurture it. It is a significant shift from a more top-down technical approach.

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February 11, 2013

What adults can learn from kids

Twelve year old Adora Svitak called for mutual respect and reciprocal learning between adults and kids. Her TED bio calls her a “child prodigy” but I think that exceptionalizes her talents and perspective and implies that she is very unlike her peers. I think she models a poise and wisdom that is all around us if we just look for it.

Here’s a little taste of her talk.

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January 14, 2013

OPEN Summit

I’ve been on a whirlwind.  And it began with my facilitation of OPEN Summit.  The first ever leadership gathering of the world’s leading Online Progressive Engagement Networks.  Think MoveOn.org as replicated in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, Germany and Papua New Guinea.  The great (and unbelievably sweet) Ben Brandzel had been dreaming this up for years!

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