I found these videos in my research on A Small Group and the work of Peter Block. I haven’t watched all of them yet however Margaret Wheatley is a world renowned thought leader on community change so I don’t expect to be disappointed. There are 10 videos in all with each one covering a unique aspects of healthy community change.

Lately I’ve being immersed in a variety of community restoration and change groups. The focus for many of these efforts seem to default to righting inequities and fixing long standing communication and power issues. People like Margaret Wheatley and Peter Block offer alternative strategies for community change. I am suggesting that we use or integrate elements of these community engagement strategies however the shift to that thinking is pretty hard to make.

Despicte these challenges, I’m enjoying the planning sessions and I especially like contributing my experience in online communication strategies and tools to support these change processes. I hope you find some great questions in watching these videos. As Peter Block says, the right questions can be more transformative than answers.

Brent Learning Community, Research, networks community change peterblock restorative

York Region community organizations and those with a keen interest in solving long standing systemic issues are beginning a process of discussion on “engagement”. The York Region District School Board, concerned about school – community engagement, is a key public organization in the planning for a roundtable discussion event to held in February 2010. The roundtable planning group is comprised of members from a diverse collection of social benefit organizations and local planning networks.

In an environment where cynicism prevails, the challenge of tapping into new and creative actions seems daunting at best. To me, the driving questions at this point revolves around “how do we create a stronger sense of belonging, marked by authentic engagement (in its many forms), in our community”.

When we talk about community, belonging, engagement, systemic barriers, authentic dialogue, inclusive processes etc.. we are talking complexity. How do we have a meaningful and sense making discussion when we are constantly wearing our silo centred, agency representative hat? It’s a bit like seeing the fairy dancing on the head of the pin. You know that fairy is there but you just have to hold the pin in the right way to see him/her.

I think that one of the ways to see that fairy is to somehow suspend or put on the shelf for the moment our agency representation hat and just wear our community citizen hat. When we do that, we can engage with each other and talk about what community means, where does belonging fit into community and what might our community look like if we waved our magic wand and on and on. I think there would be wonderful lessons in that discussion that we can build on and potentially influence policy makers in our organizations. Even more importantly, those lessons can impact us on individual (personal) levels as community citizens, potentially creating a ripple effect in our relationships within our spheres of belonging.

This video by Mark Schenk from Anecdote expands the explanation of the Cynefin model. I like this model as a tool that can help us understand what we are getting into with our community roundtable planning discussions. I think there are some great tips in the Cynefin framework that we can incorporate in our planning for of the roundtable. I especially like the simplicity of the Cynefin framework and how it points to the importance of looking at patterns and building on patterns that show promise.

Brent Learning Community, Research, purpose community, cynefin, yorkregion

“A vicious cycle is leaving nonprofits so hungry for decent infrastructure that they can barely function as organizations—let alone serve their beneficiaries. The cycle starts with funders’ unrealistic expectations about how much running a nonprofit costs, and results in nonprofits’ misrepresenting their costs while skimping on vital systems—acts that feed funders’ skewed beliefs”.

I found this article, titled “The Non Profit Starvation Cycle” – Sanford Social Innovation Review on the Ontario Non Profit Network Site.

What an eye opening and revealing paper. The research report is called, Nonprofit Overhead Cost Study, a five year research project conducted by the Urban Institute’s National Center for Charitable Statistics and the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University.

The article provoked quite a reaction in me. I’ve worked as a senior manager in the non profit sector for quite a few years and felt those starvation pangs on a regular basis.

Read more…

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I’m involved with the Harm Reduction Coalition of York Region. I became involved when I was a Program Manager with Street Kids International and managed the Streetjibe – addressing youth poverty in York Region program. I’m staying involved as an independent business representative that cares deeply about the kind of community I live in.

Harm reduction is a big word covering a lot of ground. For me it’s about seeing and being with the person, not the harm. It’s also about fostering a compassionate, caring, inclusive community were we don’t lock up people or stigmatize people for their struggles as a human being. Read more…

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If your organization is interested in learning how best to harness the power and reach of web 2.0 engagement tools, you have a conference to attend.It’s the Social Tech Training 2009 conference hosted at the MaRS Centre in downtown Toronto. The conference is the second one hosted by Web of Change organization and a group of partner organizations including Communicipia and Social Innovation Generation @MaRS.

You can learn more about this major event by visiting the registration page. Please note that this conference is a feature event during Net Change, a week long event embracing social tech training and social change makers. Dates for this event are: June 10 – 12, 2009. Read more…

Brent Business, Learning Community, Presentation, Research, Uncategorized, networks, purpose

I love this book “The Groundswell” , winning in a world transformed by social technologies written by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff.  Here is how they introduce their approach to writing the book. We have taken “a broader view of this phenomenon(social networks, media, tools, web 2.0 etc), one that encompasses not just today’s technologies but the fundamental change in behaviour now happening online. The groundswell is: A social trend in which people use technologies to get things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations. (non profits corporations as well).

This book has rounded out my thinking and made clear why it’s so important for non profit organizations and businesses to learn how to survive and thrive in the groundswell.  The next excerpt from the Groundswell book is a bit long, but for me it so accurately captures the the depth, breadth and permanence of the seachange in how we relate and do business with each other in our neighbourhoods, countries and world. Read more…

Brent Learning Community, Research, purpose groundswell, online, seachange, strategy

The world of marketing is changing click by click. Organizations and businesses that continue with slick (and often not so slick) ad campaigns to convince consumers that their product is the best are finding out their customers are looking elsewhere. A video that illustrates how consumers are “not buying the slick add messages has received a lot of attention.

Read more…

Brent Business, Research, networks marketing, sales, socialmedia

Barack Obama is a powerful speaker. He has captivated a nation and the world with his passion and oratory. I’ve been following his path to the White House for some time and am thrilled as is millions of others around the world with his message of hope and inspiration.

Social media tools when combined with transformative stories can be a potent force for bringing about change. Story telling is a tool that can be used to bring about significant changes in organizations and in the behaviors of individuals. Barack has a knack for telling stories that are simple, yet highly charged with meaning and purpose. This is one of many video’s of Barack’s speeches however his story telling at the end of the speech is what captivated me and obviously many others as well.

My favourite resource for learning about story telling for organizational change is Anecdote. They do workshops with groups around the world and story telling is one of their main themes. This story, originating from Anecdote’s web site exemplifies the power of story telling to motivate and inspire people. Have a look at Barack’s story of “Fired Up – Ready to Go”.

Brent Presentation, Research, Services, politics obama, speech, storytelling

CCK08 – Connectivism and Connective Knowledge Course. This post comes from Teach Web 2.0 blog and its really the “homework” completed by one of the online participants. I joined this course a few months back but with my work load and other priorities I just couldn’t give it the energy and attention to get much out of the course. I did follow the newsletter and the writings however and they helped my understand connectivism and connective knowledge. I like this video a lot as it gives like so many of the Common Craft videos a clear understanding of new tools and in this case new understanding of network learning.

As a grand finale for the Connectivism course, George asked participants to respond to the following questions:

Questions 2 and 4 are addressed in the video below. The presented scenario is definitely not a complete picture of connectivism. I think it’s a good start for a k12 classroom. I view the work with my students as networked learning incubation.

Brent Education, Learning Community, Research, purpose connectivism network cck08

I am very interested in learning more about the impact of digital inclusion on young people, adults, seniors, the community and the economy. I found this report via UK Online Centres Website. I can see how this report and the other resources at this site can go a long way towards explaining why it’s so important for youth serving organizations and any non profit group to increase its use of Internet communication technologies for clients and for community development. I believe Canada is still many years behind the UK in making digital learning accessible and supportive.

The two slideshares I’ve posted give a very clear picture of the cost of social exclusion and the work of the Oline Learning Centres operating in the UK. You can access and Digital Inclusion – a Discussion of the Evidence Base

Benefits to individuals

The accelerating adoption of information and communications technologies (ICT) in the workplace and in everyday life is having important impacts on the lives of the majority of people in the UK. Those who are able to communicate, interact and transact through ICT can benefit in many ways, including:1

• Facilitating communication – allowing people to stay in touch more easily, more cheaply, and in new ways.

• Consumer empowerment – more convenient, cheaper retail opportunities have become available, with a greater range of products available, and more information and price transparency.

• Easier access to information of all types – from public-sector service providers, private-sector companies, voluntary bodies, or social or community groups.

• Reducing the burden and costs of transacting with service providers.

• Improved productivity at work: the majority of jobs now require some use of ICT. Technology is also helping to make the workplace more inclusive, with better opportunities for flexible working, homeworking, and improved access for disabled people.

• Making and maintaining contact with interest groups.

• Improved access to learning opportunities.

Rapid growth in the use of digital technologies in recent years indicates that large numbers of people are convinced of these benefits, and take advantage of them in their day-to-day lives. For example, nearly nine out of ten adults in the UK own a mobile phone, and six out of ten use the internet (Ofcom 2006; ONS 2006a). The UK e-commerce market grew to over £100 billion in 2005, accounting for 5.5% of the total sales of non-financial sector businesses (ONS 2006b).

It is perhaps surprising, then, that there are still large numbers of people who do not make full use of ICT. The observation that non-users tend to be also among socially excluded groups has concern for the digitally excluded in society, and is why HM Government has adopted a Digital Strategy (PMSU/DTI 2005).

In principle, socially excluded people have as much or more to gain from effective application of digital technologies as anyone else: Inclusion Through Innovation (Social Exclusion Unit 2005) highlights that ICT can help individuals to ‘address some of the key drivers of social exclusion’, including:

This list draws largely on Enabling a Digitally United Kingdom (Cabinet Office 2004) and Inclusion Through Innovation (Social Exclusion Unit 2005).

• Early years disadvantage

• Educational underachievement

• Worklessness: with easier access to information on employment opportunities

• Homelessness

• Health and health inequalities: improved access to advice and treatment information (Cabinet Office 2004, p. 21)

• Crime and being a victim of crime

• Reducing isolation, especially for those with mobility problems, or people who feel confined by geographic communities (Loader & Keeble 2004)

Brent Business, Education, Research, Uncategorized, purpose Business, digitalinclusion, Education