Category: events

BIG CHANGE Webinar Series Starts Today

For the last two years I have been part of Nexus for Change. This year we decided to take a break from the work of putting on a F2F gathering and a subgroup has been preparing for some online work, this time in the form of the BIG CHANGE Webinar Series. The series focuses on concrete approaches for “thriving in tough times – the key is to create inspired organizations and communities through meaningful collaboration.”

Today is the kick-off for this free webinar series sponsored by The NEXUS for Change and Bowling Green State University. If you read this soon enough, you can register for today’s session. Go to www.nexusforchange.org and click on Big Change to register.

WEBINAR Session #1 – 90 Minutes
Feb 17th – 2:30pm EST
The Change Handbook: Uncovering the principles for whole system transformation withPeggy Holman &  Tom Devane
>a live fishbowl with executive graduate students using mind mapping and affinity diagramming to make sense of the methods for large-scale transformation.  There are more than 60 methods to consider and even more emerging every year…Learn more and register

Future sessions include:

Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There: Leading Meetings that Matter
with Sandra Janoff & Marv Weisbord
90 Minutes
Mar 5th – 2:00pm EST
Cost: Free
For leaders and consultants who run task-focused meetings. Find out about the ten principles derived from 20 years of leading meetings in many of the world’s cultures…

Terms of Engagement: Designing RoadMaps for Positive Transformation
with Dick & Emily Axelrod
90 Minutes
Mar 18 – 2:00pm EST
Cost: Free
This session brings together the practical view of the realist and the people-oriented view of the humanist into one role: the “Pragmatic Involver.” Explore the six major questions addressing how success can be attained in a project on any scale…

The Philosophic Consultant: Revolutionizing Organizations with Ideas
with Peter Koestenbaum& Dick Axelrod
90 Minutes
Apr 2nd – 2:00pm EST
Cost: Free

Large-Scale Change On-Line: Living & Learning Together
with Denise Easton, Jake Jacobs, Jon Kennedy, Gabriel Shirley, Nancy White, & Christine Whitney-Sanchez
90 Minutes
Apr 29th – 2:00pm EST
Cost: Free

Fabulous CogDog and 5 Card Stories

5 card storyA while ago I blogged about Scott McCloud’s 5 Card Nancy

I loved the visual and the “game!” 

Now the amazing Alan Levine (aka Cogdog) has created a 5 card flickr story generator – plus a special version for Northern Voice. I don’t know if I am supposed to spill the beans or not, but I had so much fun making 2 quick stories that I have to share…

Visual Thinking

By the way, I’ll be co-presenting/facilitating/playing at NorthernVoice with Barbara Ganley and Laura Blankenship, plus I’ll be doing some graphic recordings of at least one of the keynotes/plenaries.

Interested in Informal Learning? Join us at LearnTec 2009

Tomorrow I’ll be the guest of Heike Philip (in Germany) along with Jay Cross and Ken Thompson for an online roundtable on virtual learning, informal learning and virtual teams. We’ll mix it up, I’m sure. It is part of a larger day of activities that are F2F and online in GERMAN in the morning, German time, and in English in the afternoon, German time (early morning for us on the US West coast). Join us!

 

DateFebruary 4, 2009
Time1:30pm – 6pm Middle European Time
Duration4,5 h
BusyPeople
World Timewww_timeanddate_com
PlaceElluminate
TagsLearnTec 2009 , Simulcast, European Telecoaches Institute
Max. no of participantsNo limit live online, entrance fee at the LearnTec conference 49 €
ProgramProgram in pdf-format in ENGLISH, GERMAN, SPANISH
Registrationhttp://www.lancelotschool.com/index.php/services/events/registration
RecordingThis event will be recorded

Meeting Point @ LearnTec 2009
4:30pm  Virtual Collaboration Moderation Heike Philp
Introduction with Lutz Berger, free journalist 2.0, Science&Faction
Virtual Round Table – Panel Discussion

4:30pm  (GMT +!)   Virtual Collaboration Moderation Heike Philp
Introduction with Lutz Berger, free journalist 2.0, Science&Faction
Virtual Round Table – Panel Discussion
Jay Cross, author of the book ‘Informal Learning’, Nancy White, consultant for communities of practise and Ken Thompson, virtual team expert and author of the ‘Bioteaming Manifesto’, meet live online to discuss strengths and opportunities as well as weaknesses and threats for virtual teams.
This is an unusual and an explosive mixture of experts and trendsetters who have been doing the ground work of connecting people. We are looking forward to hearing their views on the ‘next 5000 days’ of the Internet, an Internet that appa rently took 5000 days to reach the same amount of connections than our brain has todate. Heike Philp will be moderating the discussion and invites all present, namely all ‘virtual’ and all ‘local’ participants to testdrive virtual collaboration and to freely share ideas.

How Could I have missed the annual Soup Swap?

Nerd's Eye Soup Swap Picture on FlickrI live in a place that is cold, dark and wet in the winter, something that can only be assuaged by good friends, more chocolate and soup. I am thinking about making split pea soup this very minute but instead, I was doing some blog reading catch up on Nerd’s Eye View – a Seattle blogger – and saw her post on a Seattle Soup Swap.

Waaah. I missed it. No matter that day I had just returned from 20 hours of international travel and was asleep by the time they started, but just the idea is delicious. It is such a community indicator. When people ask about the most important part of facilitating a F2F event, i say “the communal meals.” Even better if they are home made, pot luck, or if in a restaurant, family style. Where the sound level is quiet enough to hear each other converse, but not so quite you feel embarassed to guffaw out loud. Or worse, laugh with your mouth full of food.

While there is SO much we can do together online, I have yet to find the thing that creates the experience of a shared meal. I have been in online chats where each of us, at our distributed location, eats and writes about what we are eating. But it is a different experience. The hosting act of providing a tenderly cooked meal, or even sharing your store bought cookie, is a uniquely human, embodied experience. It ain’t the same online.

There is one ritual of the soup swaps that I find entrancing. Knox Gardner writes about it from the recent Seattle Swap:

It takes quite a while for the “Telling of the Soup” to get around the room when there are twenty-two soups, but it’s worth it. Without the Telling, it’s an empty power grab. With the telling, the humaneness of sharing food together shines right through. It’s essential.

Here is another soup swap post worth reading.

Want to set up your own Soup Swap? You can find all the how-to’s at Soup Swap

Photo from Nerds Eye View on Flickr

Watching the Inaguration from Overseas

Watching the Inaguration from AfarLast Tuesday I was in Rome at the FAO Headquarters for a three day “Share Fair” event. I was able to have the last session free so I could keep an eye on the inaguration, 6 time zones behind me, via the Internet. I frankly was a bit sad that I would be watching alone and sent a few tweets to that affect, only to be beautifully reminded by many of my Twitter friends that I was not alone.

But soon as the last session ended, a few of my fellow Americans (there weren’t too many here!) collected in the KM4Dev corner of chairs at the fair and we began to huddle around a couple of laptops. Soon other friends from other countries joined us. The ultimate experience was wonderful for me, to be able to experience this event with my global colleagues. As an American who works mostly with people from around the world, the last 8 years have been difficult. I have had the privilege of regularly experiencing American from outside our borders and learning others’ feelings and experiences. But it has been difficult for me, with my own political beliefs.

It was beautiful to agree with the incoming beliefs and agendas of my new president. It was one of the FEW moments in the last 8 years where I wanted to make my own political joy visible, and not try and diminish my political sorrow.  So thank you to all my global friends, online and in Rome that day, for sharing the moment.  I’m glad my community was with me. And the photo above is a great community indicator!

Photoo: Facebook | Photos of You