Some of the results from yesterday’s collaborative art project, adapted from an exercise developed by Juliana Coles and published in Kaleidoscope: Ideas & Projects to Spark Your Creativity. The six of us all worked simultaneously on sixty surfaces, with no individual person having ownership of any one board. The exercise uses a timed script with a […]
Tag Archives: Community Building
A quick visual exercise can utterly transform how a group understands itself. I recently worked with a Board that perceived themselves as very divided. One camp was supposedly dedicated solely to the organization’s Program H and placed an extremely low value on Program C; the other camp reversed these values. They told this story over […]
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This weekend, in honor of Martin Luther King Day, I attended the incredibly moving film Selma. What most stood out for me, watching that line of people marching toward a line of angry, heavily armed policemen, was their courage. To march forward, knowing you are likely to be physically attacked. To do so with a […]
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During one of my weekend runs, I passed under a bridge where a homeless man was sleeping. I’d been out for an hour or so, and the tea I’d drunk earlier was calling for an exit. As I scouted for a suitable location, it occurred to me that I had a few things in common […]
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I love this blog post on creating trust within your workplace; the author’s key point is that if you act as though your workers are trustworthy – assuming positive intent, not micromanaging them, allowing them to make decisions – they are more likely to BE trustworthy than if you are continually vigilant for signs of […]
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My CalSAE colleague Shelly Alcorn writes a great blog called Association Subculture. She recently posted a great “back of the napkin” story sketch about association membership. So I decided I needed to draw mine! (Click on the thumbnail to see a bigger image.) When I went to library school in the 90s I joined a […]
As a facilitator, I have often worked with groups in the process of clarifying their common values. Inevitably, there is someone in the group who questions the value of this exercise. It is true that there are a lot of generic, meaningless values statements gathering dust in drawers across the nation. So how do we […]
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Since I began my journey into self-employment, I have been working out of our spare bedroom. While the ten-foot commute has certainly been convenient, it also has come with some unanticipated challenges. Time management and motivation has been one of the biggest issues for me. It is oh-so-easy to wander out of the office and […]
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I am a big believer in the power of play. Children aren’t the only ones who benefit – we all are able to learn and create more effectively when we approach our tasks in a spirit of playful inquiry. I frequently use graphic and manipulative tools with my clients – one group in particular has […]