tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75664269414367362782024-03-23T02:25:59.782-07:00CULTIVATING LEADERSHIPa blog of 207permacultureRachel Lyn Rumsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07551981945439059608noreply@blogger.comBlogger58125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7566426941436736278.post-9158979045237986362023-01-09T17:15:00.008-08:002023-01-09T17:52:07.605-08:00 Two Ways to Prioritize Climate Action at the Scale of Community<div class="separator"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQoMdtTZRn3X7goEJIcxNrA-xQeTQkjRDp5VuVBYfZjxz2TjS_z4Jg6HFaCtOeWdIV7gAKa6OUNE6wio4LGzgfvnvkrCDN5jko8boOY2d21Y9FIXHuYpJn5Ept2F5GkSvOh39AWXQDx0JjJsVQ63HEYA30SW4TQwOq-A64-J8rJdcsZyo2Gb34nsnCTw/s1350/FB_IMG_1671890128657.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQoMdtTZRn3X7goEJIcxNrA-xQeTQkjRDp5VuVBYfZjxz2TjS_z4Jg6HFaCtOeWdIV7gAKa6OUNE6wio4LGzgfvnvkrCDN5jko8boOY2d21Y9FIXHuYpJn5Ept2F5GkSvOh39AWXQDx0JjJsVQ63HEYA30SW4TQwOq-A64-J8rJdcsZyo2Gb34nsnCTw/w256-h320/FB_IMG_1671890128657.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Here are two approaches to consider when using participatory engagement for joint action planning in community development for climate adaptation and coordinated economic development.</i></div><h4 style="text-align: left;">Stack Functions.</h4>Solve three or more problems with one solution. When looking at a list of known issues or problems facing the community, and a list of possible actions, weigh each of the actions by issues they are addressing. If it is not really clear, go get more data. <br /><br />Everything in nature is multifunctional. Stacking functions is a phrase coined by Bill Mollison and repeated for some forty-some years since, with great joy in the now global permaculture community that signifies an ecological design principle:[1] Before you add something to what nature is already doing, make sure it serves three or more functions. It takes humility to not assume we know better than nature but that is the shift from ego-system to ecosystem. Isn’t it? <br /><br />To stack functions means that we have to be aware and understand something of what nature is already doing before we intervene. By stacking functions, we can use our agency to restore natural cycles, enable greater functionality, or distribute as generously as nature. Stacking Functions sort of a meta (or design) principle as it weaves many other ecological principles together. You can use a list of permaculture principles in the assessment phase of the design process to help inform a design, as a prioritization activity.<br /><h4 style="text-align: left;">Obtain a Yield.</h4>Obtaining a yield is about alignment with place. It is really pretty rational. Basically this principle in permaculture design refers to productivity. “Make hay while the sun is high,'' they teach at permacultureprinciples.com. If you push it in the heat of the day to do your chores, the animals (that is you) get dehydrated and the tools get dull. The hips of the day are better times for working! There is more beauty and joy there too and that counts too!<br /><br />You siesta when it is hot, right? Creatures and plants in the ecosystem learn this intrinsically, as does anyone that lives close to the land. In contrast, if your work harnesses a lot of fossil fuels, or refinements of that, this might not be innate at all.<br /><br />Point is: If our intention is to prioritize work or action, we can look immediately to align with the place, an organization or a culture. The manner to do this is to sort out the list of all the possible actions, and weigh them if they are relevant to any of the following, (or all of them):<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Ecological ethics and principles</li><li>Known community needs</li><li>Rules such as articles of organization or bylaws,</li><li>Operating missions and visions</li><li>Goals of legally adopted plans such as a town's comprehensive plan</li><li>Aims of completed community development plans</li><li>Sets of standards like Complete Streets</li><li>Zoning rules </li><li>Shared values</li><li>Funders targets</li></ul>These strategies will keep the process and leaders learning and accountable to the systems they are a part of.<br /><br />by Rachel Lyn Rumson<br /><span><a name='more'></a></span>[1] Mollison, Bill (1988) Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual. Out of print. https://www.tagari-usa.com/permaculture-designers-manual/<br /><br />Photo credit: Sage Hayes 2022Rachel Lyn Rumsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07551981945439059608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7566426941436736278.post-29768967323925451162022-12-16T12:42:00.109-08:002023-10-07T10:06:58.803-07:00Three Perspectives on Resilience Exciting how much is happening in the development and planning world regarding community resilience today. The word is all the buzz at the moment. We think that resilience being fashionable is generally a good thing, but there is a risk too. That is while it is becoming a new buzzword for climate action is it losing its connection with the roots of wellbeing. Here are three ways to understand resilience that leaders can use to keep their work fresh and meaningful.<br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">Radical Uncertainty.</h3>It is unclear who coined the term but Joanna Macy uses it in her work with Despair and Empowerment as part of The Work that Reconnects. It is the generative idea that we don’t know the outcome. The idea underpins her inspiration for the Great Turning, where collectively we shift from the unraveling systems to life-sustaining ones. The natural sense of fear of negative outcomes is natural, when we are facing harsh realities like rising seas, biodiversity loss, floods, the end of oil or depleted soils. These patterns impact the places we live and our very identities.<div> <br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn5Zam9wN8PiOiflKFUOsGkjqPOMXJ9VQl1x0pVIPEEdRpgU1FM7x0snLgJre7Vn47gL0HYDHC-I_3P8_gI30u3yjQ_uCc6mk6fsJt0rp-NQCz2683KU_Zr41n7cJhe52usVexIUPtWGYTUgluq4X5Xa0UA_ngVANP4U__Sn6fWCxCA4twFwJuBgYgSg/s799/12883006984_5c7f86f667_c.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn5Zam9wN8PiOiflKFUOsGkjqPOMXJ9VQl1x0pVIPEEdRpgU1FM7x0snLgJre7Vn47gL0HYDHC-I_3P8_gI30u3yjQ_uCc6mk6fsJt0rp-NQCz2683KU_Zr41n7cJhe52usVexIUPtWGYTUgluq4X5Xa0UA_ngVANP4U__Sn6fWCxCA4twFwJuBgYgSg/w320-h227/12883006984_5c7f86f667_c.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-74b9dfc4-7fff-143a-a925-fcf9b0b7156a"><span style="color: #30272e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"</span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/23874985@N07/12883006984" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Resilience</span></a><span style="color: #30272e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">" by </span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/23874985@N07" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">neil cummings</span></a><span style="color: #30272e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is licensed under </span><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/?ref=openverse" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">CC BY-SA 2.0</span></a><span style="color: #30272e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.
</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table>The idea of embracing uncertainty is radical because of a cultural preference for what is familiar, known, measurable. Embracing uncertainty might be an increasingly urgent social and environmental need, especially as we embark on convening for community resilience. Radical uncertainty is categorically about resilience because it gets our heads out of the sand, and gets us thinking about how we want to leave things for the future generations. The practice is simple: when thinking about the future, we acknowledge the facts and our feelings, then we make space for imagining the future that we want to co-create. This kind of <i>futuring </i>is about emergence. What is emergent, can not be known. If we want to play with emergence, we need to crack the code on certainty and tap in to relationship.</div><div><h2 style="text-align: left;"><a name="_Toc129719244">Bounce.</a></h2><p style="text-align: left;">Resilience is often presented as a bounce-back-ability. This
elastic quality describes a system taking a shock and rebounding back to its
previous state of being. What if the bouncing is bouncing-with, or
bouncing-forward? This is exactly what Dr. Chris Johnstone suggests in Seven
Ways to Build Resilience. There are four ways that we can bounce. We can
bounce-back, -with, -forward and -outwards.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Bouncing-back is a recovery process. Bouncing-with is an
adaptive process, like the roots of a plant growing below ground when the
above-ground is not suitable, or our bodies storing energy, or learning from
our struggles. When we see the transformative capacity in living systems of the
chrysalis, the seed, and the seasons, we are seeing bouncing-forward. The power
a community finds to organize and feed itself, sharing tools and time,
practicing mutual aid and setting up support when faced with challenges.
Bouncing-outward is this radiating ripple in a network system. Think, fungi in
the forest, allowing plants to share biochemical information instantaneously to
make the whole more resilient. In this type of resilience relationships and the
emergent properties of the relational field is important to cultivate. What we
define as our scope of work only be part of the story. As we approach
resilience work as supporting community wellbeing, these types of resilience
are important to consider.</p></div><div><p class="Body" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNjKPW6hzDxnFB7Iy09ETXGCc_di37BvDoM-rKNSjaOJ9pG7vwpXuYYuYbko6WOgePqAQWeF6Ue8zyuO_RA8vqTWEJDh36DN5mlkWFYPQYNZMFO4f8vze8Wkl_5ZXcQ7q6X_TDae-zgUH2KRSw2zA7ykB2z0mZF0nuHHi_WqFG9strkxc1X9OtTDu4xg/s1080/Blue%20Quotes%20Instagram%20Post.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="”Having abandoned the flimsy fantasy of certainty, I decided to wander.” -Kameelah Janan Rasheed" border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNjKPW6hzDxnFB7Iy09ETXGCc_di37BvDoM-rKNSjaOJ9pG7vwpXuYYuYbko6WOgePqAQWeF6Ue8zyuO_RA8vqTWEJDh36DN5mlkWFYPQYNZMFO4f8vze8Wkl_5ZXcQ7q6X_TDae-zgUH2KRSw2zA7ykB2z0mZF0nuHHi_WqFG9strkxc1X9OtTDu4xg/w320-h320/Blue%20Quotes%20Instagram%20Post.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a name="_Toc129719245" style="text-align: left;"><br /></a></div><p></p></div><div><p class="Body" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"></p><h2 style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a name="_Toc129719245" style="text-align: left;">Interdependence.</a></h2><div style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; text-align: left;">Neuroscience has something to offer our mindsight on resilience as well: The self is not a solo being or identity. Self as a private singularity is being expanded by neuroscience to the relational field that is in between like a collective nervous system. Our agency, perspective and sensory experience are wrapped up in our self-identities. This fuels us to make things happen, to try to belong, to control and plan, but also contributes to learned helplessness and trauma.</span></div><div style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 11pt; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 11pt; text-align: left;">Dr. Dan Siegel explains that he thinks that it is a mistake of the grandest proportions to continue to validate that notion that the self is separate. He does not advocate for throwing out the self when he makes the case for liberation from the limitation of it. Instead, he advocates for a systems-thinking view. With advances in systems thinking we can measure the qualities of the whole and we are empowered to measure what is between and inside the whole. This is important to understand to transcend our learned helplessness, whether we are healing from addiction or assisting the planet to heal, or cultivating community.</span></div><div style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; border: none; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; border: none; text-align: left;">Dr Sará King, offers a thought experiment that we might have a collective nervous system that is measurable; that we can intentionally weave the </span><i style="text-align: left;"><span style="background: white; border: none;">me</span></i><span style="background: white; border: none; text-align: left;"> into a </span><i style="text-align: left;"><span style="background: white; border: none;">we</span></i><span style="background: white; border: none; text-align: left;"> for greater resilience. She advocates for art</span><span style="background: white; border: none; text-align: left;">,</span><span style="background: white; border: none; text-align: left;"> dancing, celebration, joy and aliveness as the container to both behold our differences and to heal our collective trauma. This pathway to mutuality, adaptation and learning can help us to transcend our limited individual/private stories of me and </span><span style="background: white; border: none; text-align: left;">allow us to </span><span style="background: white; border: none; text-align: left;">join a more empowered sense of collective self.</span></div></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;">These two neuroscientists say that identity is a lens. What we focus on
and can change the focus of the self. They are expanding the idea of self as a
private singularity to include the relational field that is within and between
us. When we get this, </span><span style="background-color: white;">they say, we can transform our capacity to offer greater resilience
assisting the healing of the planet instead of assisting in its destruction. On
a practical level they describe this as a radical friendship defined by
gratitude, compassion and awe. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="298" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/V4f_1_r80RY" width="359" youtube-src-id="V4f_1_r80RY"></iframe></div><div><br /></div><br /></div><div><h3 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">_______________________________________________________________</span></h3></div><div><div><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">References</span></h4><div><div style="text-align: left;"><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://workthatreconnects.org/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">https://workthatreconnects.org/</span></span></a></li><li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://collegeofwellbeing.com/seven-ways-to-build-resilience-course/" style="font-family: arial; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://collegeofwellbeing.com/seven-ways-to-build-resilience-course/</span></a><span style="font-family: arial;">'</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dr. Sará King & Dr. Dan Siegel found consensus and expanded on this idea with Thomas Hübl in a talk titled the Science and Healing Power of Interdependence at the Healing Collective Trauma Summit 2022. With a paywall, this conversation was recorded and is available befind a paywall at </span><a href="https://www.thomashuebl.net/products/collective-trauma-summit-2022-upgrade-package/categories/2150673206/posts/2160415124" style="font-family: arial; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.thomashuebl.net/products/collective-trauma-summit-2022-upgrade-package/categories/2150673206/posts/2160415124</span></a><span style="font-family: arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></span></li></ol></div></div></div></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Rachel Lyn Rumsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07551981945439059608noreply@blogger.com0Maine, USA45.253783 -69.445468916.943549163821153 -104.6017189 73.564016836178837 -34.289218899999995tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7566426941436736278.post-58022159789285936132015-03-11T08:20:00.001-07:002015-03-11T08:20:40.356-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Rachel Lyn Rumsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07551981945439059608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7566426941436736278.post-15257727114204745622015-02-25T12:04:00.000-08:002015-07-27T06:38:25.870-07:00Vision and Mission Work<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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As part of the <a href="http://www.cooperativefermentation.org/cooperative-design-lab/" target="_blank">Cooperative Design Lab </a>with The Resilience Hub, Cooperative Development Institute and Cooperative Fermentation, I am giving a workshop tonight on <a href="http://prezi.com/nrejvg-qvd3k/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share" target="_blank">Vision and Mission</a> work for cooperative enterprise tonight. This core values stuff is at the heart of my consulting practice. Today I had an opportunity to review some of the organizational development (OD) literature and I noticed an interesting range of styles and assumptions about leadership in the context of visioning. This post will share some of that as well as a prezi for my workshop.<br />
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In Peter Senge's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fifth-Discipline-Fieldbook-Strategies-Organization/dp/0385472560/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1424892837&sr=8-1&keywords=the+fifth+discipline+fieldbook" target="_blank">The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook</a>, Bryan Smith has an chapter titled "<a href="http://www.vistanetwork.org/library/pdf/VISTA%20-%20tell-sell%20vision%20paper.pdf" target="_blank">Building a Shared Vision</a>". In it he explains the developmental stages of an organization facing change and presents the stages in the frame of participation. Within his range of participatory engagement, he suggests that we be objective about where an organization is at, then work up from there. One of the things about vision work with cooperatives is that they are already at the highest developmental stage! According to this model, that stage is labeled co-creating.<br />
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Starhawk as a different style than the Fieldbook in general. In her book <a href="http://occupytampa.org/files/tristan/starhawk/The%20Empowerment%20Manual_nodrm.pdf" target="_blank">Empowerment Manual</a>, she offers more cultural variability than the "business-as-usual" approach of mainstream organizational development. Both works in comparison are holistic, however Starhawk's style invites a broader audience than than multinational corporations. <a href="http://occupytampa.org/files/tristan/starhawk/The%20Empowerment%20Manual_nodrm.pdf" target="_blank">Empowerment Manual</a> reflects on a different range of experiences.<br />
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Personally, I enjoy her permaculture influence on the OD topics. In preparing for this webinar, I liked that she pulled in Alan Savory's idea of "<a href="http://www.ecotrust.org/allan-savory/" target="_blank">Holistigoals</a>"! Savory being a worldclass livestock management expert, regenerative systems of land, has a holistic management model that includes three parts of a goal. These are the following: a.) The quality of life that you want, b.) future resource base, and c.) what you need to produce.<a href="http://www.savoryinstitute.com/media/40654/ISEE_economic_modeling_paper.pdf" target="_blank">You can read about that here</a> and see something about it in <a href="http://prezi.com/nrejvg-qvd3k/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share" target="_blank">my prezi</a> posted below.<br />
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For this Co-op Design Lab Vision and Mission workshop, I also drew from Looby Macnamara's book <a href="http://www.permaculture.co.uk/book-reviews/people-permaculture-caring-designing-ourselves-each-other-and-planet" target="_blank">People and Permaculture </a>and Peter Block's work <a href="http://www.peterblock.com/community/" target="_blank">Community: The Structure of Belonging</a>. Finally, I provided the tremendously accessible <a href="http://topnonprofits.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Mission-Vision-Worksheet.pdf" target="_blank">Vision and Mission Worksheet</a> resource from the creative commons (cc) made available by <a href="http://topnonprofits.com/vision-mission/" target="_blank">Craig Von Korlaar</a>.<br />
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Here is the presentation. Feel free to share with your organization if you are considering the need for a visioning workshop as a way to establish common understanding in your group.<br />
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<a href="http://prezi.com/nrejvg-qvd3k/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbCnwGYoEqgRLW9uv-n3rTtGocd2yCj5SVYJ1p3sITFk4_UEPYkoqcElMT6LK-i2s0QOEYUEzN68rxmF-qxpkBv6b_reveRZj8wdALMLX8R7NeApu1MxrwmYpe4fCjSev7zb__PwNRKo25/s1600/screen+shot.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Rachel Lyn Rumsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07551981945439059608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7566426941436736278.post-32274037473880452312015-01-30T08:13:00.004-08:002015-02-21T13:29:41.858-08:00Social Connections Matter<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Ecological services in a living economy are vital. In a living system, connections are so important that they actually are a leverage point on both fertility and yield. These connections are a network with a weave so subtle and intricate, it is unnoticed. More often, to people anyway, these vital networks are not visible. I awe at them when observing and interacting in living systems. As a leadership and organizational development consultant, this study inspires me to be curious: What are the principals that "weave" or "unweave" our social networks?<br />
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<a href="http://www.drkaren.us/" target="_blank">Karen Stephenson</a> is a brilliant anthropologist in Rotterdam and trust building consultant that helps her clients understand leadership through the "white space" on their organizational chart. She explained to me once, in an interview, that in the white spaces there are a few key connectors in any social structure. They are 1) performance, 2) knowledge and 3) exchange.<br />
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Performance connection is where what you do and what I do are co-dependent and our success depends on our performance together, as with any job we all work for the same company and all our work matters. We are a team. Side by side, forming a story of our work and a narrative of our lives.<br />
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With the knowledge connection the way we work is a connection. How we get things done, our process and our style matters. We tend to trust and attach to people when we understand how they do things. People sharing things about how they get work done, what helps and what doesn't creates more of a learning relationship. It looks either like a mentor-mentee relationship or a collaborative team. These are typically informal connections that have more trust bonds then performance connections have.<br />
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Exchanges, she explains are didactic; informational. They are more like the trainings and the performance evaluations so common in the context of work experience. Patronizing and yet consistently repeated and trust occurs.<br />
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Since the beginning of time we have had "white space" she says. She is curious how the org chart has meaning in organizations...and doesn't. The behaviors of networks (read network management vs. hierarchies) are to both weave and be woven, to get things done, to create and to exchange value.<br />
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When change happens, we weave and unweave these connections. The org chart changes, the enterprise restructures. Connections are happening and connecting us to our stories and to our work in the world all the time. Networks are always there, subtle unnoticed, until you notice, of course.<br />
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There is more I want to say on this....always.<br />
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Rachel Lyn Rumsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07551981945439059608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7566426941436736278.post-11358401131406413492015-01-30T07:35:00.001-08:002015-11-02T12:25:27.634-08:00Network Leadership<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The<a href="http://www.ccl.org/leadership/index.aspx" target="_blank"> Center for Creative Leadership</a> had been collaborating with the University of Cincinnati, to hold forums on leadership networks and network leadership. These seem like really neat jams on the power of learning systems. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You can read about some of their findings in their January newsletter, <a href="http://www.ccl.org/leadership/enewsletter/2015/JANissue.aspx" target="_blank">Leading Effectively E-Newsletter</a>. In a</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">short piece on network building: <a href="http://www.ccl.org/leadership/enewsletter/2015/JANnetworks.aspx?utm_content=&utm_campaign=EC+1-20-15+LE+4&utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Facebook%3A+Center+for+Creative+Leadership" target="_blank">Networks and Leadership: Are you Connected?</a> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">They invite leaders to d</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">evelop a "network perspective". This is an invitation I share widely. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In the article, they concisely </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">present leadership as "a shared process the engages and connects" with many benefits. They are presented as the following:</span></span></div>
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<li><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">An increase in the collective capacity for leadership.</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The enabling of others to step up, adjust and make decisions about the future of a project, team, organization or community.</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The transformation of the leadership culture from reliance on command-and-control hierarchies to adaptation within agile, interdependent networks. (<a href="http://www.ccl.org/leadership/enewsletter/2015/JANnetworks.aspx?utm_content=&utm_campaign=EC+1-20-15+LE+4&utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Facebook%3A+Center+for+Creative+Leadership" style="line-height: normal;" target="_blank">CLL E-Newsletter, January 2015 Issue)</a>,</span></li>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDAR_cK63gdE4jR7s6j-D2y844TMBXuTw4j2yNm42PlO4OYcDfJiZshlfnFoMrkWogspuuSSNMfwYCdWssGob1p8tD8Pnldwvx91_qkyKwB3zZAHzMAo5kqTMlaLZYhhEFxPPJcoUsYjsH/s1600/wheatley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="background-color: black; color: black;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDAR_cK63gdE4jR7s6j-D2y844TMBXuTw4j2yNm42PlO4OYcDfJiZshlfnFoMrkWogspuuSSNMfwYCdWssGob1p8tD8Pnldwvx91_qkyKwB3zZAHzMAo5kqTMlaLZYhhEFxPPJcoUsYjsH/s1600/wheatley.jpg" width="262" /></span></a><span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's a new article but not a new set of leadership ideas. The network perspective is essential for solving the problems we face. It is a very important perspective for leaders to have. I first began to explore it w</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">hen Meg Wheatley came out with <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Leadership-New-Science-Discovering-Chaotic/dp/1576753441" target="_blank">The New Science of Leadership</a> in 1992. I could not put the book it down, and it set me on my path to coaching and consulting leaders and organizations, with a whole systems framework. Wheatley's d</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">eeply scientific understanding of the power of intention, and engagement redefined leadership and lead to very dy</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">namic work around the World. Wheatley founded the <a href="http://berkana.org/" target="_blank">Berkana Institute</a>, </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Which I followed for years, during graduate school and after, w</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">hose motto is "whatever the problem, community is the answer</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">." </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Over the years I have sought collaborators and partners to bring about this new leadership science based on biology, chaos theory and quantum physics. It lead me to an interest in permaculture and the study of ecological design, this blog, and </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">my now practice w</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">ith the Resilience Hub in Portland Maine. At the Hub we call this process work "social permaculture" and teach people to apply it in land systems, food systems and New Economy projects. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Learning to lead with a network perspective, is known in investment and policy circles as social innovation and impact investing. We just call it social permaculture because permaculture is as a whole systems design process, really does precede, and pre-seed, these ideas into learners minds. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Once you've read it, the article above consider that leaders who make the shift from hero to host, are agents of change in systems they have no direct impact on, rather the collective leadership of engaged and committed people make the impact together on the systems they want to change. The host then need only be a designer of conversations that engage people support collaborations. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">We use the following Connectivity and Collaboration model at <a href="https://resiliencehub.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">The Resilience Hub</a>: 1) connection, 2) alignment and then 3) action. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">The pattern both repeats serially as gatherings are assembled, and builds overtime as a strategic pathway forward. Hosts </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">make time, hold space, invite. Over time, as the system learns together, trust grows, relationships grow and those interconnections raise the collective capacity to function well, to be co-designers in the of systems that work together. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">A network learns and acts. A leader hosts.</span></div>
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Rachel Lyn Rumsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07551981945439059608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7566426941436736278.post-28810978246710749332013-11-06T12:42:00.000-08:002013-11-06T13:24:07.593-08:00Decisions, decisions...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
What is the orientation you have toward decisions? Do you make them? Arrive at them?<br />
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There are subtle but important differences between them. In the former, one has to make up our mind. they have an empirical process to look as the situation with objectivity. This implies infallible knowledge, expertise and instinct. It is quite possible make decisions quite on your own. It is a what-are-we-doing-to-do-captain? matter.<br />
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In the latter, the process is democratic, there is a group of people setting out to solve a problem and so doing they are open to the emergence of new information. It provides the room for evaluation and feedback, space to amend operating assumptions. <b>It provides a spirit of exploration and experimentation.</b><br />
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A wise man by the name of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prvPcLLy6SY" target="_blank">John Rooks</a> recently said in a talk in Portland Maine, about culture, sustainability and authenticity, that <b>solving problems well requires that the group solving them be working on the right scale</b>. This sheds a light of appropriateness on the difference between making and arriving at decisions; of groups arriving at decisions versus people making them.<br />
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In a culture of individualism and hero-worship we are wired for making rather than arriving at decisions, and this leads to all manner of wasted time and money in the problem solving world.<br />
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Often there is a tendency for people with resources to take roles in organizations or in coalitions that have a mission to address some social problem, only to find they are geared for making decisions only. They don't have the will to work with others. But because they can not make decisions for social issues, they end up maneuvering politically; focusing on internal power-struggles instead of solving anything. It appears to be more about the "helper" acting out a savior-complex, fulfilling a narrative of helper, at the end of the day. <br />
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Then there is the ones that make decisions independently for a group that is actively engaged in a collaborative process. These decision makers are also wired in the same culture. They are not accustomed to status and resources, nor are they tolerant of "process". They are passionate, intelligent and the sense of urgency that can not wait for the process to figure it out. They know what to do! Everyone should just follow them! They end up tyrannizing the group, hijacking the process, alienating people and trying to pushing a decision through.<br />
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The scale of some problems require wide participation. Engaging discussion and structured processes to arrive at decisions together are essential in adaptive solutions to large scale problems. Take food security, housing, joblessness, or any number of social ills. These can not be solved by making decisions. Expertise in this situations is an absolute liability. Status, a barrier to engagement. An accustomed decision maker, say a top-dog, is completely lost, and would rather hide, deny or bury evidence of the problem, then to engage with a process that navigates ambiguity and hold people in relationship so they may arrive together, at decision.<br />
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We need diversity, unknowns, committed people to engage in problem solving. So, given you have some greater discernment about the appropriate orientation toward decisions, what is can you do? The answer begins with partnership. From there the collective wisdom can begin to emerge.<br />
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Rachel Lyn Rumsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07551981945439059608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7566426941436736278.post-21866031974070822492013-05-21T20:30:00.000-07:002013-05-21T20:30:05.181-07:00Engagement<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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What increases engagement? What would our meetings look like if everyone was engaged? Would those meetings still be meetings at all?<br />
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Tonight at Portland Permaculture and The Resilience Hub, I taught a class on Participatory Event Design to answer some of these questions. We talked about the power of a good question to frame a conversation that matters for people, to focus their inquiry, to energize and capture their imaginations. Here is are some of the materials I used to talk about some of the most engaging methods that I know <a href="http://www.openspaceworld.org/cgi/netwiki.cgi" target="_blank">Open Space Technology</a>, <a href="http://www.theworldcafe.com/index.html" target="_blank">World Cafe</a>, Calling Circles, and <a href="http://www.artofhosting.org/home/" target="_blank">Art of Hosting</a>:<br />
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Rachel Lyn Rumsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07551981945439059608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7566426941436736278.post-18721346149886525332013-04-03T10:06:00.004-07:002016-01-17T12:42:46.316-08:00Trustwork<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
That was the web address sending confirmation of my acceptance into the <a href="http://www.ccpseattle.org/" target="_blank">Community Consulting Project</a> in 2007...Trustwork@aol.com. It struck me then as the most basic level of group process for actual collaboration, creativity and change... Trustwork. 'What would that look like in the <a href="http://www.ccpseattle.org/" target="_blank">CCP </a>program?', I thought. I was excited. I was not disappointed either. <a href="http://www.ccpseattle.org/" target="_blank">CCP </a>gave practice to process work, getting people to engage in systems design work together, from goals, to planning, to implementing and celebrating, always tending to trust.<br />
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Six year later, I am working with a new group of people who are working together to start up a Transition Initiative in Portland Maine. The group are working as facilitators and I find myself reflecting on CCP a bunch. The group settled in three core values this week, Trust, Empowerment and Engagement. In this first post in a series of three, I am exploring Trust and reflecting on the term with dive into my library.<br />
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Trust. The opposite is controlling, and what an interesting value for a group of facilitators to hold. Facilitators who shape an agenda and manage the time that a group has to interact around each item. <br />
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In the book the <a href="http://www.angelesarrien.com/index.php/four-fold-way/" target="_blank">Four Fold Way</a> (Arrien,1993) trust is <br />
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considered in both the Way of the Teacher and the Way of the Warrior chapters. In the way of the Teacher, Trust is explained from the perspective of Native Americans, as the being comfortable states of not knowing. In the time of not knowing it is considered unwise to act. Trying to control the uncontrollable, or being uncomfortable with surprises is a sign of a need for trust. When we trust we go with the flow and we wait.<br />
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Arrien suggests that the trickster in indigenous cultures is the mythic figure who "steps through the cracks and flaws of the ordered world or ordinary reality, bringing good luck and bad, profit and loss." This figure reminds us not to be attached to our expectations, not to become rigid and controlling. In short, the universal trickster teaches us to become more resilient and objective.<br />
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Symbols of the trickster are throughout world mythology; Native American, Germanic, Polynesian, Greek and mythologies of ancient India . Think Coyote, Ictinike and Rabbit , Loki, Maui, Hermes and Krishna. each one a master of boundaries and transitions, and presenter of the miraculous and unexpected.<br />
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In the Way of the Warrior, trust is built using "judicious communication". Trustworthiness is explained in terms of walking our talk. The warrior is an artful communicator, extending honor and respect to others by saying what they mean and doing what we say. Without alignment of words and actions we lose power. If we do what we say we will we become trustworthy. If we don't responsibility with discipline is the appropriate path. This can be practiced, as the book suggests, simply by our use of the words Yes and No. Arrien explains that in Western cultures, we overlay these words with emotional intent. No becomes, "I am rejecting you or I disagree with you." Yes, "I like you and I agree with you."<br />
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If we peel back the layers of meaning, and speak Yes or No in terms of boundaries and limits, "No" becomes ' this is a limit of mine', and "Yes", 'this is something I will do'. The warrior invites us to honor and respect personal limits as well as the limits and boundaries of others.<br />
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What a perfect value to live by and co-create with in a budding Transition Initiative! Greater resilience through trusting the process and trusting the wisdom of the group.....Communicating with respect and honoring personal boundaries...These sentiments, at the heart of a start up have both a powerful resonance with the perennial wisdom of the ancients, and alignment with the idea that Transition suggests, that we can not solve the problems we face alone. We must learn to work together.<br />
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I am excited.<br />
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Rachel Lyn Rumsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07551981945439059608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7566426941436736278.post-84261089838655535802013-01-17T10:25:00.005-08:002013-11-06T13:51:39.324-08:00Social Innovation <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span 16.5px="" arial="" grande="" line-height:="" tahoma="" ucida="">"One never knows the power of an idea/vision until shared with others who have similar passions" <i>- </i></span></span><span 16.5px="" arial="" font-size:="" grande="" line-height:="" small="" tahoma="" ucida=""><i>Harrison Owen</i></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I envisioned a 30 day program to develop community, gather and align resources, and then offer incubation services for start ups. It would bring people together who were connected by either a thread of common experience, a need, or a shared interest into a workshop then launch as a viable business, or NGO. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I called it "Mothership" for the design of it. The design was based on rapid cycle change methodology I was learning about at the time. Think Sequoia covered in fungi, (not aliens and spaceships). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am revisiting this again now with a lot more experience organizing, facilitating and educating people including a program called <a href="http://socialactionmothership.pbworks.com/w/page/17001118/FrontPage" target="_blank">Community Conversation Project</a> in which a group of collaborators <span style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">facilitated groups of people in career/life transition after mass lay offs in a community in the Northeast Seattle area to do the following things together: </span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 19px; text-align: justify;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 19px; text-align: justify;">- Joining others in the grieving process of letting go of the past job and identity</span><br 19px="" justify="" text-align:="" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 19px; text-align: justify;">- explore what to do next for money / job / education</span></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px; text-align: justify;">- create action plans for new work activities including starting one's own business</span>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My collaborators came from the <span style="line-height: 19px; text-align: justify;">rich professional community in the Seattle Metro area where I belonged at the time. The hubs of this community include <a href="http://www.saybrook.edu/lios" target="_blank">LIOS</a>, <a href="http://www.antiochseattle.edu/academics/center-for-creative-change/m-a-whole-systems-design/" target="_blank">Antiock </a>and <a href="http://osr-nw.org/" target="_blank">OSR </a>Alumni, <a href="http://www.washington.edu/admin/hr/pod/leaders/orgdev/index.html" target="_blank">University of Washington</a>, <a href="http://www.astdps.org/" target="_blank">ASTD, </a><a href="http://www.pnodn.org/" target="_blank">PNODN</a> and <a href="http://www.whidbeyinstitute.org/" target="_blank">Wh</a></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 19px;"><a href="http://www.whidbeyinstitute.org/" target="_blank">idbey Institute</a>. </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br style="line-height: 19px; text-align: justify;" /><span style="line-height: 19px; text-align: justify;">the methods we used drew from many practices: </span><br style="line-height: 19px; text-align: justify;" /><br style="line-height: 19px; text-align: justify;" /><a href="http://www.theworldcafe.com/" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.3s; display: inline; line-height: 19px; outline-style: none; text-align: justify; text-decoration: initial;">World Cafe</a><br style="line-height: 19px; text-align: justify;" /><a href="http://www.conversationcafe.org/" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.3s; display: inline; line-height: 19px; outline-style: none; text-align: justify; text-decoration: initial;">Conversation Cafe</a><br style="line-height: 19px; text-align: justify;" /><a href="http://www.publicdialogue.org/" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.3s; display: inline; line-height: 19px; outline-style: none; text-align: justify; text-decoration: initial;">Public Dialogue</a><br style="line-height: 19px; text-align: justify;" /><a href="http://www.peerspirit.com/gifts/Storycatcher-DiscussionGuide.pdf" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.3s; background-color: display: inline; line-height: 19px; outline-style: none; text-align: justify; text-decoration: initial;">Peer Spirit</a><br style="line-height: 19px; text-align: justify;" /><a href="http://www.communityweaving.org/" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.3s; display: inline; line-height: 19px; outline-style: none; text-align: justify; text-decoration: initial;">Community Weaving</a><br style="line-height: 19px; text-align: justify;" /><a href="http://www.joannamacy.net/" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.3s; background-color: white; color: #009eb8; display: inline; line-height: 19px; outline-style: none; text-align: justify; text-decoration: initial;">The Work that Reconnects</a><br style="line-height: 19px; text-align: justify;" /><a href="http://www.angelesarrien.com/" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.3s; display: inline; line-height: 19px; outline-style: none; text-align: justify; text-decoration: initial;">Four Fold Way</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The link to the record for the May 2009 event is here: <a href="http://lfpbridges.pbworks.com/w/page/10378469/FrontPage" target="_blank">Bridges to the Future, Lake Forest Park</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All this great work was sparked after a presentation I gave with <span style="line-height: 19px; text-align: justify;">with</span><span style="line-height: 19px; text-align: justify;"> </span><a href="http://www.systemsthinking.com/" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.3s; color: #009eb8; display: inline; line-height: 19px; outline-style: none; text-align: justify; text-decoration: initial;">Ernie Hughes </a>i<span style="line-height: 19px; text-align: justify;">n the fall of 2008. Washington Mutual had just fallen apart when he and I were collaborating </span><span style="line-height: 19px; text-align: justify;">on a program about Organizations in Turbulent Times</span><span style="line-height: 19px; text-align: justify;">. <a href="http://pnodn.pbworks.com/w/page/8046227/Transformation%20in%20Turbulent%20Times" target="_blank">Transition in Turbulent Times (3T)</a> was built on Open </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px; text-align: justify;">Space principals, a systems view of everyday life/operations and</span><span style="line-height: 19px; text-align: justify;"> </span><a href="http://www.davidkhurst.com/" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.3s; color: #009eb8; display: inline; line-height: 19px; outline-style: none; text-align: justify; text-decoration: initial;">Hurst's</a><span style="line-height: 19px; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="line-height: 19px; text-align: justify;">work on organizational ecocycle.</span></span></div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: #444444; line-height: 19px;">In this project, I was reflecting on especially feed by Owen's idea about organizations consisting of spirit and structure. When spirit is high (entrepreneurial vision, founders essential mission) structure is low. As structure increases (politics, culture, expertise) the organization spirit diminishes </span></span></div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: #444444; line-height: 19px;">"Hmmm," I thought, "When our non-sustainable systems break down then what of the spirit?"</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #444444; line-height: 19px;">At that time synchronicity coalesced into a plan of action. Now it's 2013 and I am actively seeking collaborators to design, convene groups and host conversations with. Lets call it social innovation this time, or social permaculture.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Can you think of a group that has shared a common experience, </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;">(like a profession or a natural disaster), a need (such as for safety, a livelihood, personal mastery, or community solution), or a shared interest (sustainability, alternative economics, architecture for humanity, urban agriculture)</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;"> that would like to learn about what is emerging for them as whey share and create?</span></span></div>
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Rachel Lyn Rumsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07551981945439059608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7566426941436736278.post-80449736952951075212013-01-14T07:12:00.000-08:002013-01-14T07:12:58.799-08:00Water Heater, but its Compost<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Whole Systems Research Farm in Vermont continue to be an inspiration. The latest is their work making soil and hot water at the same time.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="281" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/57148852" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" width="500"></iframe> </div>
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<a href="http://vimeo.com/57148852">Combustion-Free Hot Water at the Whole Systems Research Farm</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/wholesystemsdesign">Ben Falk</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.</div>
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Lots of good things happening here.<br />
<a href="http://www.wholesystemsdesign.com/">http://www.wholesystemsdesign.com/</a></div>
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Rachel Lyn Rumsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07551981945439059608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7566426941436736278.post-83978651400717755502013-01-13T17:28:00.003-08:002013-01-13T20:45:36.475-08:00Seeds for Sowing in the Meeting Bed -- Great Yield!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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There are a lot of ways to use this deck, <a href="http://groupworksdeck.org/" target="_blank">Group Work, A Pattern Language for Bringing Life to Meetings and other Gatherings</a>. The way I used it this week was in thinking about an upcoming meeting that my client had requested I facilitate. I was very pleased with both the depth of conversation we were able to have and the intention that we were able to set for the meeting. <br />
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We were in a car traveling for about 90 minutes at 65 mph. The client and two people from their organization were present. My client had some anxiety about the upcoming meeting stemming from concern for the groups lack of cohesion, and divergent points of view on the right direction moving forward. What they had was an opportunity and deadline.<br />
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There was no time to have a planning meeting outside of this trip, so we had to plan on the road. First I spent time listening to the context of the meeting, and making sure I understood the <i>why, who and what</i> parts of the story. Then, I took out this deck, fanned the cards and asked each person in the car to take one and I took one. While I reviewed the cards the conversation continued and I could already recognize the points where the story about this meeting intersected with the patterns on the cards. With this hand, if you will, we commenced the <i>what if</i> part of the story. I read each card and we had a conversation about them all.<br />
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<b>Good Faith Assumptions.</b> Assuming others’ good intent increases trust and effectiveness. Instead of interpreting “negative” actions as attempts at manipulation, insult, or power-play, we choose to believe people are doing the best they can and look for underlying values or needs in common. Searching for a better story, we find or create one. Related: Appreciation ~ Common Ground ~ Not About You ~ Witness with Compassion ~ Tend Relationships ~ Setting Intention ~ Taking Responsibility<br />
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<b>Power of Constraints.</b> Embrace limitations and boundaries as a source of inspiration. Appreciating the obstacles helps you see more fully how to overcome or adapt to them. Accepting constraints, they can morph into useful forms that open up new possibilities, spurring creativity. Related: All Grist for the Mill ~ Generate Possibilities ~ Improvise ~ Inquiry ~ Letting Go ~ Taking Responsibility ~ Viewpoint Shift<br />
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<b>Ritual. </b>Ceremony is primal; it grounds, connects, and deeply nourishes group spirit. Use it to mark opening, transition, cycles, milestones, or closing. Ritual is also the formal or habitual repetition of intentional practices that have proven their value. Related: Breaking Bread Together ~ Gaia ~ Celebrate ~ Closing ~ Mode Choice ~ Opening and Welcome ~ Spirit<br />
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<a href="http://groupworksdeck.org/sites/default/files/IMGP0032_1_large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://groupworksdeck.org/sites/default/files/IMGP0032_1_large.jpg" width="200" /></a><b>Common Ground. </b>Consciously decide to give more attention to where we agree than where we don’t. By tuning in to what we share, we find the way to make progress together. Related: Breaking Bread Together ~ Commitment ~ Embrace Dissonance and Difference ~ Good Faith Assumptions ~ Moving Toward Alignment ~ Not About You ~ Unity and Diversity<br />
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After we talked about the cards, I proposed the following course of action. In the opening of the meeting, we draw attention to Common Ground and Good Faith Assumptions of the group. Then, in order to focus and energize the group, we highlight Constraints of time and influence on the groups work.<br />
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The Ritual card spoke to the dynamic of in the context of the story that was very useful in articulating a purpose of the groups work. <br />
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All in all, this was very productive time spent preparing. All that was left to do was outline an agenda. The meeting was a great success as well.<br />
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Rachel Lyn Rumsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07551981945439059608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7566426941436736278.post-73676487024543275392012-06-01T20:29:00.001-07:002013-01-12T04:48:25.775-08:00Pondering on Managing a Vermiculture Enterprise<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Worms digest their own weight of food a day. That means a worm farm reaches homeostasis when the rate of digestion matches the flow of food.<br />
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What would it mean to a local economy to have the waste stream channeled into a vermiculture ecosystem?Could it be a stabilizing factor in local economic systems?<br />
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The rate of digestion of the worms determines scale of a vermiculture operation. The systems model of a verimculture operation is simple. Organic biomass, (kitchen waste) is the input, which is converted into castings (fertile soil) to become the worms environmen, and if conditions are right in that environment, the worms multiply gradually. Soil is easily exchanged to another ecosystem as well and as it is removed to use in gardens and potted plants, more organic matter can be introduced. The scale of the operation would do little to complicate the process.<br />
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So what if a neighborhood block were to collectively operate a worm farm? It would be useful to measure the waste stream of biomass to determine the amount of worms need to digest it. With production yields so stable, it seems it would.Would there be gains in addition to the rich soil and worm yields?<br />
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A cost savings in reducing the waste transported out of a community? A cost savings in packaging that waste for transport?<br />
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Vermiculture has exponential value outside the ecosystem loop. Collections would establish community exchange pathways, where communication and surpluses may also travel. A neighborhood vermiculture collective paired with a system of plot gardens, for instance, would channel both the flow of a portion of the household waste stream, and provide a network for crop sharing. A cooperative worm farm would create a social network that maps to the loop of the worms ecosystem, and because the rate of digestion is a biological constant.<br />
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While the size of the worm farm cooperative would map to the ecology of the vermiculture system, the residual (non-market) economic benefits would scale up from the ecological activity.<br />
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Theoretically a soil development project in the form of a vermiculture operation could have real measurable economic impact, including but not limited to an increase in the trade of goods and services outside the vermiculture ecosystem. Scaled up to the civic level the measures could be in waste management savings, in the material surplus generated for input back into local food production, creation of jobs, reduction of the cost of living through shortened supply chains.<br />
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Scaling up to global systems, still more value can be internalized. The social institutions of both State and Economy are failing institutions, yet they control business enterprise through taxation and capitalization. As both the market economy and the rhythm of tax system control small businesses, emerging enterprise is stifled and innovation is suppressed. While conventional finance determines social and economic development though the consistent demanding for profit, the mechanisms of finance seek global-sized supply chains that they can wager their bets on. All ventures must profit, so they push to privatize any and all social activity for profit.<br />
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Governments collude in these schemes by shifting public funds to finance more and more private ventures. They hand over state-owned resources and sometimes funds their feasibility studies. As the supply chains lengthen, resilience of our local economic systems lessen. As the global markets spin with futures trading, the ecosystem are forsaken.<br />
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If collecting a pile of kitchen scraps and feeding it to a worm farm is anything, it is ecosystem design. It is building economic and ecological resilience. It is not profitable like trading futures is for a few, but it might be entrusting a future for the many. <br />
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Here is the an example of a large scale operation.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/vQEQ-gWLHJU" width="560"></iframe>Rachel Lyn Rumsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07551981945439059608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7566426941436736278.post-24717275630595459692012-05-16T09:00:00.001-07:002013-01-13T20:54:12.349-08:00Permaculture Principals<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic';">Well, I have finally done it. I am getting my certification in Permaculture. It was about 20 years ago that I first read the word in print reading an a</span><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic';">rticle on </span><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic';">perennial wisdom in <a href="http://www.theosophical.org/publications/quest-magazine">Quest Magazine</a>, a publication of the Theosophical Society. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.theosophical.org/publications/quest-magazine">http://www.theosophical.org/publications/quest-magazine</a>
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<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic';">It was one of those concepts that resonated so purely that my busy mind was able to focus on it singularly, with a quiet mind. Something that people who meditate practice over and over with a mantra. I knew that this word symbolized something that would be a major part of my life; my mantra. Yet it was something that I knew little about. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic';">This blog was started 5 years ago, with permaculture in mind. I was finishing my masters in organizational development at the Leadership Institute of Seattle, my son was 2 years old and I still struggled to articulate what it was about permaculture that I wanted to say. At the time, I wanted to blog about what I was learning about leadership and share some of that with the world. I sensed that permaculture was the ultimate methaphor for leadership. I hypothesized that permacuture would coorespond to creativity, community and learning seemlessly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic';">As I blogged about neuroscience, cooperation and conversation as practices of leadership, I knew I was exploring some good stuff. I believed the best outcomes for leadership could indeed be cultivated; that leadership was in essence an act cultivation. Since then, I launched the Community Conversations Project, graduated with my masters, entered the world of Tranistion Towns, </span><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic';">moved across the country (again), and </span><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic';">began working full time as an educator in higher education for a for-profit institution. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic';">Now, I am on sabbatical studying permaculture with <a href="http://about.me/lisa.m.fernandes" target="_blank">Lisa Fernandes</a> at The <a href="http://resiliencehub.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Resiliency Hub</a></span><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic';"> and <a href="http://www.mofga.org/" target="_blank">Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association</a>. It is time to renew my blogging activity.</span></div>
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<a href="http://permacultureprinciples.com/images/ethical_principles_image2.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="188" src="http://permacultureprinciples.com/images/ethical_principles_image2.gif" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic';">According to </span><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic';"><em><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; text-decoration: none;"><a href="http://www.permacultureprinciples.com/contact.php#davidholmgren"><span style="color: #674ea7;">David Holmgren</span></a> (</span></em><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><em><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; text-decoration: none;"><a href="http://www.permacultureprinciples.com/resources_principles.php">Permaculture
Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability</a>)</span></em></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"> </span> and <a href="http://www.permacultureprinciples.com/ethics.php">PermiculturePrincipals.com</a>
there are </span></span>the three
permaculture ethics: </span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic';">Care of the Earth</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic';">Care of People </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic';">Fair
Share</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic';">Turns out they correspond well with </span><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic';">creativity, </span><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic';">community and learning. Especially if you feel like I do that we as people on this planet are learning most about how to share. </span></div>
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Rachel Lyn Rumsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07551981945439059608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7566426941436736278.post-24483898547377732602011-10-04T20:40:00.000-07:002011-10-24T01:00:25.451-07:00Structure of Occupy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In addition to <a href="http://nycga.cc/">GA</a>, there are work groups in <a href="https://occupywallst.org/">Occupy Wall Street</a>. The workgroups are many and they are all ad hoc. My favorite type of "get it done" organizing. In the organizational development and facilitation world these are simply affinity groups; people gather around issues that matter to them and they work on stuff for the benefit of all. This is not unlike what corporations do to manage work teams, but there are different core values. This spokes model explains it well.<br />
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Some of the workgroups support the existence of the group itself. I learned that some of the groups that had emerged at Zucotti Park (a.k.a. Liberty Park, which was it's name when it was a public park) were the following: direct action, kitchen, legal facilitator training, non-violence training, kitchen workers, clean up, finance, media, medical and music. All of them serving the occupation. The groups converge on the GA and diverge in to groups. They are learning as they go. </div>
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What are they learning? How to be the type of society they want to be a part of, I think. I recall a moment when the finance work group at Occupy Maine's GA, reported how they would be managing transparency. It was modeling how they want to see business done. Very Nice.</div>
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What is Occupy Wall Street? It is a constant conversation about changes people want to make in the world around them. It is shifting the discourse from talk into walk. It reminds me a lot of designing change strategies of <a href="http://www.theworldcafe.com/">World Cafe</a>, <a href="http://www.openspaceworld.org/cgi/netwiki.cgi">Open Space</a> and <a href="http://www.artofhosting.org/home/">Art of Hosting</a>. All the methodologies that fit so well with the large-scale systems change work that I love and used in the <a href="http://leadershipcultivation.blogspot.com/2009/04/bridge-to-future-communities-in.html">Community Conversations Project</a>; the collaborative <a href="http://leadershipcultivation.blogspot.com/2009/01/social-action-mothership.html">social action group</a> I managed in 2008.<br />
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As I watched the process of a GA, Oct 1, I was impressed with the inclusion, communication, consensus building work that was being done. The is a need for facilitators here in Maine for a local social action to take root.<br />
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</div>Rachel Lyn Rumsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07551981945439059608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7566426941436736278.post-88841772354100930602011-10-02T15:53:00.001-07:002013-01-12T06:15:13.536-08:00Occupy Wall Street comes to Maine<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="text-align: left;">October 1, 2011 I attended</span><a href="http://www.wcsh6.com/news/article/174864/2/Occupy-Maine-hits-the-streets" style="text-align: left;"> Occupy Maine</a><span style="text-align: left;">. I really just wanted to see what it was about. I had been watching on live feeds and in various social media threads that something was carrying on in</span><a href="http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution" style="text-align: left;"> Zucottoi Park in Manhattan</a><span style="text-align: left;">.</span></div>
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The Portland event was part of <a href="http://www.occupytogether.org/">Occupy Together</a> at nationwide emergence of solidarity with the NYC group. What was most intriguing to me about OWS was the process they called General Assembly (GA). So, I went to <a href="http://usmfreepress.org/2011/10/occupy-maine-protest-descends-on-monument-square/">Monument Square in Portland, Maine</a> to learn about their process.<br />
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I met about a hundred people there. One person was a mom like me, Delina. There was an instant affinity between us. She brought her two young children along. She shared with me that she was deeply concerned for the children generally, growing up in the current environment. Stressed out parents, who have no time for their children and no means available to assemble any quality of life for their families. She talked about the young people coming out of college with debt and no hope of a role in society that will sustain them, no livelihoods. She spoke of this compassionately, lamenting that she was one of the lucky ones.<br />
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I met John too, a man is his 50's who stays home to take care of his elderly father. His dad needs nearly constant assistance so he was not able to commit to organizing with the group. Understandable. He seemed to really like the idea of inclusion and diversity of opinions, of lifestyles, of ethnicities that occupy groups were actualizing. I found his sentiment compelling, yet the group was not as diverse as the city population around it. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRCt3M49FmLNTYyM8-94ogBlSzG7KplA8KtEhLNj6nBdFyq4FU4jegfm4jerFhza-rn4ubeyjLkl5_PhzpOQC_O8SyMNCNgUt6DaEST9V2ua48SYmImAerPmuTJgWVW-4ljjJI6G8-W8OC/s1600/273375_702336906_1292299548_n.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRCt3M49FmLNTYyM8-94ogBlSzG7KplA8KtEhLNj6nBdFyq4FU4jegfm4jerFhza-rn4ubeyjLkl5_PhzpOQC_O8SyMNCNgUt6DaEST9V2ua48SYmImAerPmuTJgWVW-4ljjJI6G8-W8OC/s200/273375_702336906_1292299548_n.JPG" height="200" width="153" /></a>There were also these three young men, I met. Ray, Chris and Evan where back packers. They were headed to Olso in a few days but they really wanted to spend every last minute in support of what was dubbed "Occupy Maine". They were philosophers.One had a sign that read "Property is Theft". A pretty radical idea that I had not considered before.<br />
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I met a local Restaurant owner, Tom, who owes Nosh. He carried a sign that listed a history of dates: organization of the Federal Reserve Bank, Glass-Stegall Act, Repeal of Glass-Stegall and another significant dates that I was aware of from my own research after the crash of 2009. I respected that he was bringing historical context to conversation. He was intelligent, cogent and articulate. He was the first person to block some action in the GA. In a consensus building session about demands he blocked a statement about forgiving student debt.<br />
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(Personally, I thought compulsion toward forming demands was instigated from outside the movement through the criticism that <a href="https://occupywallst.org/">OccupyWallStreet </a>should have demands.)<br />
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I met a man named Chris also. He had no home and identified himself as homeless. In a small group conversation about direct action we was overcome with emotion as he listened to what was happening. He had clear eyes. He was willingness to be a part of something that would make his life have purpose. He wanted to spread the word.<br />
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I met a women who had been trained to facilitate <a href="http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution">general assembly at Zucotti Park</a>, Demi. I self identified as an activist. She was totally invested in the civil disobedience. Tents would occupy Monument Square that night. We all learned about the Occupy Wall Street process and structure from her. It was a lot like the self-organizing methodologies that I love. She told me that she was in the medical workgroup at OWS, trained to be a street medic and to despense supplies. She was also in the facilitation work group in NYC.<br />
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There were others represented there too: students, parents, grandparents, activists, veterans, techies (who seemed to form a clique), young people, old people. Not one fit a stereotype that was cast by the mainstream media.<br />
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Links:<br />
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Rachel Lyn Rumsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07551981945439059608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7566426941436736278.post-46675251380442833332011-08-05T10:12:00.000-07:002011-08-05T11:08:05.498-07:00PUSH<div>Recently, I picked up a book by Clay Shirky (here is a link to his blog:<a href="http://www.shirky.com/weblog/">http://www.shirky.com/weblog/</a>) called <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_cognitive_surplus_will_change_the_world.html">Cognitive Surplus</a>, where he highlights some of his favorite examples of crowd sourcing one of which is called <a href="http://www.ushahidi.com/">Ushahidi </a>which takes volunteer information from communities and maps it for the value it provides to local communities. It is called crisis mapping.</div><div><br /></div><div>Another of his example of his is "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3puh5J47TY&feature=related">lol cats</a>" and in comparing these he is able to draw interesting points about the changing media landscape and peoples behavior in it. Shirky says the changing media landscape is allowing people to create and share more while consuming. Creating and sharing is natural for us humans because we have language. Still we are witnessing a very different behavior than the old way of consuming, which was passively. As Shirky asserts, there is a cognitive surplus in the masses of people consuming passivity. He says that is all changing because of social media. So what will this surplus do besides "lol cats" and Ushidishi?</div><div><br /></div><div><i>It is a rich topic and I am not done with his book but I have I can't wait to sit down and read some more as he does talks about the behavioral science of motivation as well.</i></div><div><br /></div><div>This is the thing, I have this idea for a start up; a research institute that gathers community intelligence; comm recon, if you will. It researches consumer markets not as passive data profiles but as engaged citizens having conversations. It then feeds the information to local retailers and producers so that they can join the conversation. </div><div><br /></div><div>This is in away an alternative to advertising because adverts are projections to consumers that can be ignored or consumed passively as a commercial on TV. The research this group does will work like a like a canvasing organization seeks signatures but it will use surveys and mobile connectivity to aggregate the data it gathers and produce mines of market intelligence. </div><div><br /></div><div>See I believe that markets can influence business-as-usual bottom-line-sensitive business decisions democratically. Markets may have even more capacity for democracy then political systems do , but that is another topic. Right now businesses will do anything to protect the bottom line from environmental atrocities (Oil spills, Nuclear core meltdowns) to questionable practices like trying to control their consumer though contracts (mobile communications model); to spend gads of money [blindly and expensively] on PR and brand management strategies that attempt to renew their surface image in the face of a market disgrace (for-profit education model). </div><div><br /></div><div>These are all competitive strategies and often the leaders in these organization think they need to have the answer to secure profits but the social nature of humans actively creating and sharing (the birthright of our language-having species) is generating a different business environment one that requires sophistication, not control.</div><div><br /></div><div>The new research institute will provide data for businesses and non-profits that understand and embrace collaborative strategies and community engagement on a practical and substantive level. It will invite market and executive conversation. Markets will be the change they want to see, they will become more self-organizing and our entrepreneurial culture will have plenty of intelligence to respond, even if the big business isn't willing to engage.</div><div><br /></div><div>It is said that the US is the largest marketplace in the world. That may be true, and it may or may not be faltering now but either way, it is time for the market place of consumers to become a community of citizens again. Organizing for the collective good, and to do so in a more sophisticated way. I think I'd call the research coalition PUSH.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Rachel Lyn Rumsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07551981945439059608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7566426941436736278.post-47435787597283027932011-04-17T08:29:00.000-07:002011-08-05T10:12:54.055-07:00Crowd SourcingEver think about creativity and human interaction? I do and I have been thinking about how crowd sourcing works lately. Specifically, how it created social change.<div><br /></div><div>There are a bunch of inspiring examples currently. Two of my favorites are <a href="http://opensourceecology.org/">open source ecology</a>, and the <a href="http://www.camdenhealth.org/">Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers</a>. Where creative collaborations and data are creating game-changing products and services of value. </div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://opensourceecology.org/">Open source ecology</a> is a growing group of farmers who are collaborating to engineer the tools needed to manage their agricultural operations. Inspired by the ridiculous cost of commercial farm equipment and it's repairs. They are sharing designs of tools that get the job done and at a fraction of the cost of traditional commercial tools and equipment. Here is a Ted Talk about it: </div><div><br /></div><div><object width="526" height="374"><br /><param name="movie" value="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf"><br /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><br /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><br /><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><br /><param name="bgColor" value="#ffffff"><br /><param name="flashvars" value="vu=http://video.ted.com/talk/stream/2011U/Blank/MarcinJakubowski_2011U-320k.mp4&su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/MarcinJakubowski-2011U.embed_thumbnail.jpg&vw=512&vh=288&ap=0&ti=1122&lang=&introDuration=15330&adDuration=4000&postAdDuration=830&adKeys=talk=marcin_jakubowski;year=2011;theme=new_on_ted_com;theme=tales_of_invention;theme=talks_from_ted_fellows;theme=the_rise_of_collaboration;theme=design_like_you_give_a_damn;event=TED2011;tag=Culture;tag=Technology;tag=open-source;tag=ted+fellows;&preAdTag=tconf.ted/embed;tile=1;sz=512x288;"><br /><embed src="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf" pluginspace="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" bgcolor="#ffffff" width="526" height="374" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" flashvars="vu=http://video.ted.com/talk/stream/2011U/Blank/MarcinJakubowski_2011U-320k.mp4&su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/MarcinJakubowski-2011U.embed_thumbnail.jpg&vw=512&vh=288&ap=0&ti=1122&lang=&introDuration=15330&adDuration=4000&postAdDuration=830&adKeys=talk=marcin_jakubowski;year=2011;theme=new_on_ted_com;theme=tales_of_invention;theme=talks_from_ted_fellows;theme=the_rise_of_collaboration;theme=design_like_you_give_a_damn;event=TED2011;tag=Culture;tag=Technology;tag=open-source;tag=ted+fellows;&preAdTag=tconf.ted/embed;tile=1;sz=512x288;"></embed><br /></object><br /></div><div><br /></div><div> <a href="http://www.camdenhealth.org/">Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers</a> is disrupting business as usual in health care by targeting the most expensive patients with an alternative health care delivery system, namely home visits. If you would like to learn more about this see the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/doctor-hotspot/">PBS website story about it</a> or the <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/01/24/110124fa_fact_gawande">New Yorker article Hot Spotters</a>. Now, this example is not web-based as in the internet but it is social network based and that is important because social change is social change online and off.</div><div><br /></div><div>Of course there are aggregate examples of creativity and interaction too like <a href="http://www.youtube.com/">YouTube</a> where you can follow any one of a million or more paths of interest to learn something new or to entertain yourself. You can also respond to what you find and engage in online conversations about it. You can even "broadcast yourself" as it were. </div><div><br /></div><div>What types of engagement are you doing? What are you creating online and off that is changing the world? I am so interesting to know!</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Rachel Lyn Rumsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07551981945439059608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7566426941436736278.post-74654321347612795052010-11-09T18:16:00.000-08:002011-08-05T08:32:53.959-07:00Economic Renewal<span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">There is the idea that has been seeded in me for about 10 years, mostly dormant. At times it surfaces with brilliant clarity. Lately, I think about it a lot. Now-a-days, I am thinking about who I need to talk to and who I will invite to a first gathering of social innovators in my area. </span></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">I had an idea like this before, about 15 years ago; right around the time the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Internet</span> began to unfurl. I was obsessed with a social media site. (That was "web-soap" for those of you that knew me then.) </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">This time the seed idea is about economics. It is hydrological idea. Like a watershed flows with various input and outputs in a both simple and complex, this idea is about producing and delivering what sustains life. It is not apolitical but it is not about routing resources and power to a few. </span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Typically we intervene in watersheds, influencing water flow and accumulation. We trap it, channel it, pollute it, play on it and depend on it. We are not very intentional about it, meaning we don't think about the system so much. In fact aquifers are drying up! (By the way we need to dig holes to replenish them, a lot of holes.) </span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">See, I have an <span class="Apple-style-span">image of the US slipping way back, kinda like Little House On The Prairie meets extreme poverty, fascism and climate change. Americans have so much fa</span></span></span></span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; "><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">rther</span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span"> to backslide than say a "third world" (dieing paradigm) country. </span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">This concerns me, but I am not scared.</span></div><div><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; "><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; "><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">The political climate in the US is gross, most people would agree. It is also symptomatic of a social system that is without boundaries, purpose, feedback or capacity for adaptation. The people (subsystems) in it are looking for a savior instead of being of use themselves, or bullying others out of fear that their needs will not be met. I believe passionately we are resilient adaptive! I am O.K not knowing what the outcome will be. </span></span></span></span></span></div><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span">What is stirring in me could quell the current political rivalry, and stun the special interests frankly, long enough for real (not promised, but practiced) change to happen. Economic renewal has to be highly participatory, regionally contained and aimed at putting footholds and ropes in place, so that the backslide is more like a rigorous climb. (I am an idealist.) </span></span></span></span></span><div><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span">I envision an </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span">e</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">conomic</span></span> renewal and social innovation path centered on food systems. (Control over food is the only way people can have </span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">sovereignty.) Heath care and elder care (insurance), and investment would follow. Also, interfaces for bi regional exchange </span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">(currency)</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">, would emerge, not to replace federal tender but to define regional systems. Ultimately, I see a reorganization of the economic system in entirety, one behavior at a time. </span></div><div><div><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; "><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">People making money on the current systems are not going to like renewal, initially. They'll probably call people terrorist, and charge the media up with lies, but that won't stop it. We can't blame them; change is hard. Harder still, if you have a gold spoon in your mouth and control of the International Monetary Fund and the military-industrial complex. Change is easier when we are not expecting someone (politicians or officials) to do it for us, and not clinging to the status </span><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" style="font-size: medium; "><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">quo</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">. I have not believed in our political system for a long time, but I do believe in people.</span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; "></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span">Just thinking....<br /></span></span></span></span><div><br /></div></div></div>Rachel Lyn Rumsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07551981945439059608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7566426941436736278.post-77631250036896351102010-03-01T17:30:00.000-08:002010-03-01T18:34:14.665-08:00Learning Styles<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000EE;"><u><br /></u></span></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjujyvIn2uXxUR4SkO8ETb34ggJmTRdSvNGgYGDYsJqjRj85JGSmTTN6U7mWoA-1xtnguCv_a8hjBO5nB4KALmALv2ZzmI9w3xEZSk2Vl9K8omM7M1t9_Xj14rBSi1JTc_7DZNWzu66qRAW/s1600-h/kolb's_learning_styles_businessballs.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 314px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjujyvIn2uXxUR4SkO8ETb34ggJmTRdSvNGgYGDYsJqjRj85JGSmTTN6U7mWoA-1xtnguCv_a8hjBO5nB4KALmALv2ZzmI9w3xEZSk2Vl9K8omM7M1t9_Xj14rBSi1JTc_7DZNWzu66qRAW/s400/kolb's_learning_styles_businessballs.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5443846541468506690" /></a><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000EE;"><u><br /></u></span></div>Every once in a while, I get really jazzed about learning. I loved what Rock and Schwartz say about the brain trying to <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">hard wire</span> everything it can; how paying attention changes the brain; and how insight represents a change in circuitry. (See, <a href="http://leadershipcultivation.blogspot.com/2009/03/neurosciences-answer-to-transformative.html">previous post</a>)<br /><br />Currently, I am teaching a class on academic success to a group students who are transitioning into a college program. One of the reasons I wanted to teach this class was to help people learn about learning. I believe this metacognition makes us better leaders; leaders of our own lives and leaders of the groups we serve. It is gift to be able to revisit the topic again.<br /><br />Tomorrow, in class, I am introducing <a href="http://www.businessballs.com/kolblearningstyles.htm"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Kolb's</span> Learning Styles</a>, among other things. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Kolb's</span> Learning Styles Inventory is unique in that it provides a great deal of continuity by putting processing and perceiving on continua that cross. The modes of learning, that are natural, form in the quadrants made by the processing and perceiving preferences. Personal development can proceed from preference to flexibility in all modes of learning leading to increasing adaptability and resilience. <div><br /></div><div>Personally, I find this more conceptually useful then the Visual-Auditory-Kinesthetic (<a href="http://www.businessballs.com/vaklearningstylestest.htm">VAK</a>) model. Ultimately, Kolb's model is scopeable to group and organizational functioning. <div><br /><br /></div></div>Rachel Lyn Rumsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07551981945439059608noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7566426941436736278.post-52868799117870574022010-01-10T19:05:00.001-08:002010-01-11T05:18:19.585-08:00MotivationTomorrow, my psychology class will be going over motivation and emotion. I reviewed Dan Pinks <a href="http://http://www.ted.com">Ted </a>talk on <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/dan_pink_on_motivation.html">The Surprising Science of Motivation</a> in preparation for the class.<br /><br /><!--copy and paste--><object width="446" height="326"><param name="movie" value="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><param name="bgColor" value="#ffffff"></param> <param name="flashvars" value="vu=http://video.ted.com/talks/dynamic/DanielPink_2009G-medium.flv&su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/DanielPink-2009G.embed_thumbnail.jpg&vw=432&vh=240&ap=0&ti=618&introDuration=16500&adDuration=4000&postAdDuration=2000&adKeys=talk=dan_pink_on_motivation;year=2009;theme=new_on_ted_com;theme=speaking_at_tedglobal2009;theme=not_business_as_usual;theme=the_creative_spark;event=TEDGlobal+2009;&preAdTag=tconf.ted/embed;tile=1;sz=512x288;" /><embed src="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf" pluginspace="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" bgColor="#ffffff" width="446" height="326" allowFullScreen="true" flashvars="vu=http://video.ted.com/talks/dynamic/DanielPink_2009G-medium.flv&su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/DanielPink-2009G.embed_thumbnail.jpg&vw=432&vh=240&ap=0&ti=618&introDuration=16500&adDuration=4000&postAdDuration=2000&adKeys=talk=dan_pink_on_motivation;year=2009;theme=new_on_ted_com;theme=speaking_at_tedglobal2009;theme=not_business_as_usual;theme=the_creative_spark;event=TEDGlobal+2009;"></embed></object><br />I am making a personal note to look up ROWE, which stands for: Results Oriented Work Environment. <br /><br />In class, I am going to discuss incentives (extrinsic motivators) like grades and pay (carrots and sticks) verses more intrinsic ones like autonomy, mastery and purpose. I'll be curious what they believe about The Candle Experiment that Pink discusses before I share the research done by the Fed Reserve Bank. Should be an interesting discussion anyway.<br /><br />Next, I am reviewing Daniel Goleman's work on Emotional Intelligence. Wish I had access to <a href="http://www.pbs.org/thisemotionallife/">This Emotional Life</a> which aired on <a href="http://www.pbs.org">PBS</a> last week. If you go there you can see some trailers.Rachel Lyn Rumsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07551981945439059608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7566426941436736278.post-62220511561703678412009-11-06T10:32:00.000-08:002011-03-12T08:54:01.971-08:00The Creativity of Interaction<div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px; ">We exist and develop in a world that is social. Because of this the social process of communication is vital. All life forms have communication as a major structure of their being connecting them with their environment; shaping ecosystems. The process of photosynthesis, and heliotopic nature of plants that turn with the sun through out a day come to mind as examples. </span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px; ">Communication has the power to motivate, and to overwhelm us, to heal us, and to dis-ease us. Through interaction with our environments, and one another, we literally shape our identities, our experiences, and our reality. From an experience of having piece of mind, to spiritual euphoria, to humor, our words, art, virtually all our creative expression shapes us and the world around us. We are formed in a social context, nourished in one, and through communication we are able to regenerate. How aware are we of this amazingly e</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial; line-height: 18px; font-size: medium; ">legant process of emergence? </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px; "><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">Interaction is creativity. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px; ">It is a marriage between intention and interaction (Individual and group; I and thou) that allows reality to snap into place, just in time for us not to notice that we are creating it. </span></span></div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;" ><br /></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;" ><br /></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;" ><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px; "><br /></span></span></div></div>Rachel Lyn Rumsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07551981945439059608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7566426941436736278.post-87460752700898892122009-10-14T08:30:00.000-07:002009-10-19T14:22:24.260-07:00Value CreationWhen we consultants have conversations about organizational development, our services and the like, are we shaping material value or symbolic value? or both? What nudges people to want it? <br /><br />If social media can create value for mundane human activities, what then is the medium for OD that will create value? What is the interface for how OD is done. <br /><br />There are a few useful distinctions to make in regard to value. These are perception and reality. Given there are a multiplicity of subjective realities in every situation, what is the topography of value? <br /><br />Advertising man, Rory Sutherland spoke on <a href="http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/rory_sutherland_life_lessons_from_an_ad_man.html">TED talks</a> recently about value. With the <a href="http://odnetwork.org/events/conferences/conf2009/index.php">OD Network Conference in Seattle (Oct. 18-21)</a> this week I am in "mashup" mode. Sutherland's ideas of perceived value and interface design have me thinking about organizational development and value creation.<br /><object width="446" height="326"><param name="movie" value="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><param name="bgColor" value="#ffffff"></param> <param name="flashvars" value="vu=http://video.ted.com/talks/dynamic/RorySutherland_2009G-medium.flv&su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/RorySutherland-2009G.embed_thumbnail.jpg&vw=432&vh=240&ap=0&ti=658&introDuration=16500&adDuration=4000&postAdDuration=2000&adKeys=talk=rory_sutherland_life_lessons_from_an_ad_man;year=2009;theme=new_on_ted_com;theme=speaking_at_tedglobal2009;theme=media_that_matters;theme=what_makes_us_happy;theme=the_creative_spark;theme=unconventional_explanations;event=TEDGlobal+2009;&preAdTag=tconf.ted/embed;tile=1;sz=512x288;" /><embed src="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf" pluginspace="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" bgColor="#ffffff" width="446" height="326" allowFullScreen="true" flashvars="vu=http://video.ted.com/talks/dynamic/RorySutherland_2009G-medium.flv&su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/RorySutherland-2009G.embed_thumbnail.jpg&vw=432&vh=240&ap=0&ti=658&introDuration=16500&adDuration=4000&postAdDuration=2000&adKeys=talk=rory_sutherland_life_lessons_from_an_ad_man;year=2009;theme=new_on_ted_com;theme=speaking_at_tedglobal2009;theme=media_that_matters;theme=what_makes_us_happy;theme=the_creative_spark;theme=unconventional_explanations;event=TEDGlobal+2009;"></embed></object><br /><br />I am going to rest for the night thinking about behavioral economics and intangible value creation.Rachel Lyn Rumsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07551981945439059608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7566426941436736278.post-66469452233849901742009-09-10T05:25:00.000-07:002009-09-10T12:38:22.789-07:00Chambers using Asset Mapping Tools to bring Value to their NetworksThat is the vision that is alive in me now. Chambers of Commerce using Asset Mapping Tools to bring Value to their Networks, and contracting me to deliver that value.<br /><br />Last night, I attended a <a href="http://www.portlandregion.com/index.php?sec=1">Chamber of Commerce</a> meeting in Falmouth, ME hosted by the <a href="http://www.mainestateballet.org/">Maine State Ballet</a>. The event had me thinking about <a href="http://www.synergos.org/knowledge/02/abcdoverview.htm">asset based community development</a> which is an approach to community-based development, based on the principles of:<br /><br />(1) Appreciating and mobilizing individual and community talents, skills and assets (rather than focusing on problems and needs) and<br />(2) Community-driven development rather than development driven by external agencies <p>It builds on:</p> <ul><li><a href="http://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu/intro/whatisai.cfm"><em>Appreciative inquiry</em></a> which identifies and analyzes the community's past successes. This strengthens people's confidence in their own capacities and inspires them to take action</li><li>The recognition of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_capital"><em>social capital</em></a> and its importance as an asset. This is why <a href="http://www.synergos.org/knowledge/02/abcdoverview.htm">ABCD</a> focuses on the power of associations and informal linkages within the community, and the relationships built over time between community associations and external institutions</li><li><em style="font-weight: bold;">Participatory approaches to development</em>, which are based on principles of empowerment and ownership of the development process</li><li><em style="font-weight: bold;">Community economic development</em> models that place priority on collaborative efforts for economic development that makes best use of its own resource base</li><li>Efforts to strengthen <em>civil society</em>. These efforts have focused on how to engage people as citizens (rather than clients) in development, and how to make local governance more effective and responsive.</li></ul>Of all the virtues of of <a href="http://www.synergos.org/knowledge/02/abcdoverview.htm">ABCD</a>, it is the community economic development model and participatory approach that I am jazzed about. I am interested in tools that will help enable adaptive change and a capacity for innovation that our social structures (businesses, non-profits and governments) need right now.<br /><br />So, this is a shout out to all membership driven organizations, like the Falmouth Chamber, that want to serve up a new, highly focused and interactive program for it's members in the form of an asset map and great community wide conversation. I also see a graphic facilitator playing in this space.Rachel Lyn Rumsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07551981945439059608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7566426941436736278.post-11625171759228728462009-08-13T21:35:00.001-07:002009-08-13T21:37:55.961-07:00Tweets begin<span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Today, I was excited today to see a member of the OD Network community providing leadership from the margins by </span><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >inviting a </span><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Twitter </span><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >conversation about </span><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >the conference, </span><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >on both Twitter and <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers=&gid=103837&discussionID=6040588&sik=1250186430957&trk=ug_qa_q&goback=.anh_103837.ana_103837_1250186430957_3_1">Linked In</a> . Perfect timing <a href="http://www.digittante.com/wp/">Digittante</a>!<br /><br />See the conversation unfolding at <a href="http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23odconf2009">http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23odconf2009</a><br /><br /></span>Rachel Lyn Rumsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07551981945439059608noreply@blogger.com0