One of the great ironies of designing highly participatory, emergent processes is that they require a lot of work. We walk through and practice design scenarios. We scrutinize every last detail, from the wording of each question to the layout of the physical space. It’s exhausting, but it’s also incredibly fun and gratifying, and the results more than make it worth it. We’ve written a rough description of our design process, but the best way to understand it is to experience it […]
design
How Design Can Change the World: New Kind and North Carolina’s Amendment One
Our friends at New Kind do amazing work changing the world through design and story. I spent the weekend reading the Management 2.0 Hackathon report that Chris Grams and Jonathan Opp recently published about the community process they facilitated to reinvent management. There are lots of gems in there, and I originally thought I’d riff on it here. But I found myself far more interested in sharing a more obscure project that New Kind led earlier this year, a shining example of […]
Talk vs Action
Last September, we designed and facilitated a kick-off in Zurich for an organizational change initiative within a global corporate IT division. The meeting was large (200 leaders participating) and complex (both logistically and content-wise), one of the hardest with which I’ve ever been involved. It succeeded because our design was strong, Kristin’s facilitation was skillful, and our client was exceptionally competent. As evolved as I found this particular client, I still noticed some old-guard mindsets. The biggest was around the […]
Practicing for the Emergent
Watch this video of former Dodger shortstop, Rafael Furcal, dive to catch this ball and throw the runner out from his back. Even if you’re not a baseball fan, you can appreciate the amazing athleticism on this play. Here’s the interesting thing about it. It wasn’t luck, and it wasn’t purely talent, either. Furcal practices this play. All professional shortstops do. They know that over the course of a 162-game season, plays like that are likely to happen, and so […]