The World Cafe is a lot like the “Blind Men and the Elephant” in that it can be viewed in so many ways (as part of knowledge management, dialogue, deliberation, public engagement, social justice work, organizational development, and so on). Juanita Brown, who developed The World Cafe concept in theory and practice, is like many […]
Archive | Boundaries
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If you are interested in communities of practice and related technologies, there is an exciting new book in print. Recently, I wrote a review of the book through a complexity lens, which you can find . The authors’ blog about the book is and a nifty little online interview about it (Ward Cunningham interviewing John […]
Food for thought: how do we think about ambiguity?
Chris Jones recently posted On Semantics: Ambiguity is the Enemy and Steve Barth responded with insights about the . If I worked as a bench scientist, production line supervisor, warehouse manager or project manager wearing blinders, I would probably be fully supportive of Chris’ perspectives and puzzled by Steve’s. However, in most of my career as […]
Bridging KM and D&D
This morning, Sandy Heierbacher of the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD) asked about my views on the intersections of knowledge management (KM) and dialogue and deliberation (D&D). Briefly: I think the fields have considerable overlap, but have been isolated from one another for several reasons. The networks of practitioners don’t overlap much, knowledge […]
Definitions
A comment in twitter by Luis Suarez got me thinking about the fact that some communities of practice spend a lot of time in dialogue or debate about definitions. Sometimes I value the deep dives in which theoreticians work to solidify a discipline. At other times I am irritated by the balance between these discussions […]
Women in technology
Along with over a thousand other people, I have pledged to celebrate the first ever Ada Byron Lovelace Day by publishing a blog post on Tuesday 24th March about a woman in technology whom I admire. In the mid 1990s I worked with a Ministry of Education, helping to weave themes and philosophies–such as gender […]
X-disciplines or lose relevance?
News and conversations are filled with challenges that cross disciplinary divides: climate change, poverty and effective education to name a few. In my consulting practice, I work with leaders who are struggling with complex, knowledge-related challenges. As a researcher, my scholarship hovers around the intersections of leadership, complexity theory and knowledge management. Increasingly, I appreciate […]
Assumptions about Assumptions
I had an interesting airport experience yesterday. Realizing I was flyng with a U.S. based airline, I planned ahead to take advantage of oversold flight perks. Wouldn’t it be great to have a free flight for a writing session with the co-author of a book we’re hoping to write this year! So my plan was […]
On Synchronicity
We’re trained—as Rupert Sheldrake points out—to treat what we might call synchronicity (or coherence, or connection and alignment, or the power of the mind as something larger than the brain, or the power of attraction) as coincidence. That may be true. Yet I have had that experience that many of us have had, where if […]
Horizontal & Vertical Collide
As I was fine-tuning my dissertation about how respected leaders work in horizontal, boundary spanning environments, I read a story in the Washington Post. In Staff Finds White House in the Technological Dark Ages, Kornblut writes “Two years after launching the most technologically savvy presidential campaign in history, Obama officials ran smack into the constraints […]
