I am grateful to have worked last week with 43 beautiful people in Nova Scotia, Canada. Our focus was the Art of Social Innovation. It was a very skilled and experienced set of practitioners.
Most had a basic understanding of hosting and participatory leadership. Most had a next level understanding of the methodologies, mental models and practices and how they connect to large scale social innovation and change across regions, communities, nations, trans-locally. Most had understanding of the models we were using in social innovation, like 5th Paradigm of Organizing, U Theory, Two Loops (taking Social Innovation to Scale), 5 Breaths of Design. Most were peers cracking new levels of work in their spheres of influence.
A summary for me of what was unique about this is that we were a group of practitioners learning next levels to work deliberately with everyone: across teams, networks, professions, geographic boundaries. Learning in the spirit of Clay Shirky’s work, with “here comes everyone.”
There was much that happened that was rich. A few of those are below, offerings of harvest. Gratitude to all. An extra thanks to cohosts, Tim Merry, Kathy Jourdain, Sera Thompson, and Greg Judelman.
Held By Windhorse — Poem / Rap after being hosted on the land.
Inspirations After Day 2 — A few sparse thoughts from midway through the event.
Social Media Harvest — Real time blogging and posting from participants, hosted well by Greg Judelman and Thomas Ufer.
Who’s That Man in the Hockey Mask — Spontaneous Video Humor Haiku Harvest / Susan Szpakowski Poetry
Check-out Circle — Reflections from closing in our last circle.
Everything is Energy — Blog post of inspiration through Stephen Duns.
Photos — A few that worked out well. People. Flipcharts. Scenery.
Collective Learnings Harvest — From a final World Cafe on what we now know of the landscape of social innovation, as well as the dragons / questions that are good to be aware of.
Invitation — As posted on ALIA’s site.