Groupaya recently wrapped up a two-year project facilitating a series of dialogues around contentious water issues in California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. As we reflected on the process of facilitating the Delta Dialogues, we found ourselves reflecting on the process of dialogue itself – how do we design for success, and how do we measure successful dialogue? With a bit of introduction to the context of our work in the Delta, we want to share our learnings, recently published in our […]
In many circles, “consultant” seems to be a dirty word. Perhaps only lawyers have a worse reputation as cash cows. I’m guessing House of Lies hasn’t helped that reputation, but at the heart of the stigma, as I see it, is a frustration at how much money consultants cost versus the impact they deliver. We can’t seem to live without them (it’s nearly impossible for any organization to sustain every capacity it could possibly need internally), but this doesn’t warm […]
My friend, SJ Klein, recently wrote a provocative essay where he made the case for knowledge as a social infrastructure rather than a commodity. He starts by noting: For ages, learning was assumed to be social, interactive, oral. Written knowledge, where available and somewhat portable, was a specialized complement that few scholars, recordkeepers, explorers and other specialists used or needed. He goes on to explain that while the cost of creating texts dropped, knowledge about the world remained scarce. As a […]
We spent a good part of last year discussing our goals and aspirations — who we wanted to be, what we wanted to accomplish, and how we wanted to do those things. As we started aligning around a big picture, Rebecca led us through a more formal planning process to think through our goals and strategy for 2012. We’d like to share what we came up with, and we’d love to hear your thoughts. Vision and Mission All of our […]