Day 2 in Nexus - Working with Systems

After a short warming up, we are listening to a panel discussion of four folks talking about sustaining change.

Pamela Thialt talks about a story from Frazer Health Authority in British Columbia, Canada, servicing 1.4 million people. They used large scale methodolgies to engage stakeholders across different levels. Among other interventions, they designed a 2 days visioning conference abotu day, evening and night care, and another 2 days visionig conference to create a strategic design for the deliverey of services to patients with Acquired Brain Injury. The latest intervention is the collaborative design of a new hospital, through series of conferences including design, transition and implementation. What is important for Pamela is they have succeeded to engage people in multi-stakeholder dialogues. Read more...

Day 1 in Nexus II

Day 1 in Bowling Green started with an evening facilitation of Sandra Janoff, the co-developer of Future Search conferences. Sandra ket the group of 80 people into a timeline on development of the OD and Change Management field. Within 2 hours, the group developed a - maybe not complete - but comprehensive summary of the major events and developments of our 40 years history.

I've got everything on video tape. Bear with with me, I am processing the material...

Nexus for Change II in Bowling Green Has Started!

While I wasn't able to attend the first Nexus for Change conference in 2007, I am now in Bowling Green, Ohio at Nexus II and will report live from this exceptional event.

From the invitation:

People around the world are making a difference where they live and work through change methods that tap into everyone’s intelligence. The purpose of NEXUS is to share what we know about whole systems and participative change and what were are learning so that each of us and all of us are more competent to
act in these times.

My Story into a Conference (5): Charles Leadbeater's We Think

On my treasure hunt I came across the work of Charles Leadbeater, a leading management thinker. He is has just published a book with the title "We Think". Read more...

My Story into a Conference (4): Revisting 2007

Today, I am research trends that emerged in 2007 with regards to Web 2.0 . While the term itself was coined in 2004 by Tim O'Reilly and O'Reilly Media, the concept took off in 2006 and 2007, thanks to the publication of books like Wikinomics, The Long Tail, The Google Story, etc, and thanks to a global marketing campaign by O'Reilly Media. While the early adopters, and those on which the Web 2.0 already emerged in the late ninties, the real story began with the explosion of the new market of collaborative platforms such as MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, Xing, LinkedIn, etc.. This was further fueled by the availability of software that allowed mashups such as Google Maps and other social collaboration tools such as tags, wikis, blogs. Read more...

My Story Into A Conference (3): What Did You Think About the Internet in 1995?

Searching for material, I found a historic article on how perceptions about technological change can be invalidated in a short while. On Feb. 27, Clifford Stoll, a known astro-physicist and computer network administrator, wrote in NEWSWEEK ("The Internet? Bah! HYPE ALERT: WHY CYBERSPACE ISN'T, AND WILL NEVER BE, NIRVANA"):

After two decades online, I'm perplexed. It's not that I haven't had a gas of a good time on the Internet. I've met great people and even caught a hacker or two. But today, I'm uneasy about this most trendy and oversold community. Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will make government more democratic.

Read more...

My Story Into A Conference (2): A Short Introduction Into Web 2.0

I am really excited about the MindMeister. What I like in particular is that an embedded widget of a mind map (like in my blog post of yesterday) automatically shows the latest version of the mind map - so you can go back to that widget and follow up what how the concept of my conference input is developing.

Next step: think about what actually is Web 2.0? What is the main idea of Web 2.0? How does it differ from Web 1.0 (which was never called that way)? Read more...

My Story Into A Conference (1): Mindmapping Online

On April 12, 2008, I will be presenting at the International Association of Facilitators (North America Regions) in Atlanta:

Communities, Not Clients. How Web2.0 Changes Everything - Including Your Business.

In the next weeks, you can follow my preparations for this event. The first thing I was looking for was a site that allows me to create mindmaps online. What I found was more than I expected: MindMeister (an English/German word - "Meister" meaning "master"). I am more than impressed. Rarely has a software convinced from the first second of use. Mindmeister allows you to produce and share mindmaps. Look at my first mindmap, created in 15 minutes after registration. Read more...

Is There Anything Like Bad Attitudes of Employees?

Currently, I am delivering training programmes for a global company on better performane conversations. Quite an interesting topic, if you reflect on that organizations are mental constructs and basically made out of conversations. The way people describe themselves and the organization determines the shape of this organization. Read more...

Is Change Management About Happiness?

John posted an interesting question on LinkedIn:

CHANGE MANAGEMENT: Is happiness our ultimate goal?

When we participate in change management, I would assume that we want the outcome to be happy. But what do we mean. Please comment on whether one or more of the possible meanings of happiness listed below is the ultimate goal you seek when managing change.
A. Wealth
B. Honors
C. Fame
D. Power
E. Health
F. Pleasure
G. Goodness
H. A living being
I. Other (please explain)

Thanks in advance for participating. John Darrouzet

Many of the respondents said that Change Management is NOT ABOUT HAPINESS. I object. Read more...