Greetings colleagues and social media enthusiasts,

The theme for my winter edition of my newsletter is community engagement, working within complexity and moving outside your boundaries as a practitioner.

What an exciting time for social services in York Region. Our service community is still reeling from the economic downturn however I feel there is definitely is a wind of change blowing through our York Region community. I’m very pleased to be part of a number of social change groups that I think are fanning these winds of change. I hope you enjoy the posts in my newsletter. They are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what’s happening here in York Region and across the social media spectrum.

My goal for MacKinnon’s Cloud is to foster learning, cooperation and collaboration, both online and off.

Featured Posts

• Peter Block’s book, Community – the structure of belonging has turned my world upside down. Learn how he is helping citizens change the nature of the conversation for civic engagement.

• We have complexity in York Region. The Cynefin framework can help us see and act within this complexity.

• Cooperation is different from collaboration. The soft skills of cooperation are best for dealing with complexity. In this post featuring Canadian Harold Jarache we understand why this path works best.

• Nina Simon from Museum 2.0 shows us how social media is changing how we can participate in art & culture. Our own Multimedia Film Festival of York Region is learning how to apply social media to engage communities.

• Margaret Wheatley is a world renowned thought leader on community change. 10 Keys to Healthy Community Change, all on YouTube videos featuring her insights and wisdom.

• Working with the planning group for a first ever Community – School Roundtable, an Open Space workshop has helped me learn more about civic engagement and community building.

• Britain is far ahead of Canada in terms of understanding the inter-dependence of digital literacy, social inclusion and social capital. You can learn more about Britain’s work in this short interview.

• Can we dream big, think and act in non traditional ways? Linchpin, a book by Seth Godin explains why linchpins are so necessary and desired by organizations. Here is a short video that describes what a linchpin is.

• The Community – School Roundtable started a conversation. Will it continue? Time will tell.