I recently facilitated two meetings that took me slightly outside of my normal setting, which was teaching working professionals in a graduate degree program. Both recent experiences yielded interesting insights in my journey to apply my know-how in different settings. One of the things I realized is that these three things - have direction, let … Continue reading Have direction, let the dialogue go where it wants to go, and engage everyone.

I had another opportunity this past week to attend a community listening event. This one was successful in a number of ways, but I am now beginning to form a short list of principles I think may lead to improving the design of these events. Design to the type of thinking task(s) you require of … Continue reading Designing community listening events

Earlier this week I attended a meeting billed as a community listening event. It drew 100-plus folks. And it has me thinking about missed opportunities to engage every participant who attends such events. The event I attended was styled as a town hall with a very specific topic focus: Options to address serious financial challenges … Continue reading Thinking about: Town halls and missed opportunities to engage the engaged

Fair warning: This post gets into the weeds and is long-ish. Jump to the What now? section to get a tl;dr version. My head is swirling in reaction to all the actions that are focused on resisting what is going on around us. Protests, advocacy campaigns, boycotts, political organizing, providing aid and support for organizations … Continue reading Unpacking a (mostly) positive community listening experience