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
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
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.
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.
Melissa Harris-Perry talks about restorative justice, difference between justice and revenge (Michael Eric Dyson) from this past weekend’s program. Check out her full clip on her website!
The following post has been reblogged from our colleagues at Nonprofit Tech 2.0. We hope you find it as useful as we did. Check out the complete blog post here!
Hopefully your nonprofit has grown accustomed to the fact that Facebook is a constant work in progress. That said, some recent upgrades to Facebook Pages have a big impact upon your nonprofit’s presence on Facebook and with the site-wide launch of the new News Feed and Social Graph Search coming soon, many more changes are likely to come.
Before you fall behind, make sure that your nonprofit is current with these four recent Facebook upgrades:
Being part of the design and facilitation team for the Barr Fellows Network has been some of the most rewarding work I get to do. It is rewarding because it is beautiful and because it works. I have witnessed lives change, approaches to leadership transformed. And I am getting to witness the effect of this work upon the city that I love. I hope you have the 90 seconds it will take for you to enjoy this video. You can read the original post here.
When we talk about networks we tend to think scale, we think viral. But networks are also about community. Networks can thrive in that mysterious place where the most local intersects with the global.
The following post was rebloged from our friend Adrienne Maree. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did!
If you are a frequent reader you know of my love and admiration for Adrienne Maree Brown. She is the one who introduced me to the work of Octavia Butler. Art, science fiction, futurism – these are powerful exploratory fields. Here Adrienne begins to capture what Octavia teaches us about emergence, and since we have been on the topic lately, I thought it important to share her post.
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.
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.
“Change is hard because people don’t only think on the surface level. Deep down people have mental maps of reality — embedded sets of assumptions, narratives and terms that organize thinking… People almost never change their underlying narratives or unconscious frameworks…”
This is David Brooks, focusing on the woes of a Republican Party that is struggling to reinvent itself. But the fact applies to all sorts of change.