Tag Archive: movement

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 3, 2013

What is Strategy

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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April 25, 2013

Immigration Reform and Movement

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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April 15, 2013

Four Essential Facebook Updates for Nonprofits

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:

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April 1, 2013

Great Leaders Great Network

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.

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March 5, 2013

Octavia and Emergence

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.

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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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February 5, 2013

Change is Hard

“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.

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