Blog
Perspectives from the field: A conversation about collective impact and collaboration from Australia and Canada Over the last month, Liz Weaver, Vice President, Tamarack Institute and I have been engaged in an email exchange puzzling out the answers to many wicked questions about collective impact and community change. Below is part V of V, where…
A blog about Citizens’ Juries, Co-design and Collective Impact With the more frequent use of citizens’ juries, and deliberation in general, it can be tempting to think such processes as the pinnacle of community engagement. I really, really enjoy designing and facilitating citizens’ juries, and have been promoting them since 1998. They not only demonstrate…
A blog by written by Jacinta Cubis from Qbis, with Max Hardy Carol* weighed up the pros and cons carefully before signing up for the citizens’ jury in her regional town. The appeal was dubious. Five Saturdays with 30 people she didn’t know. Giving up her gardening to learn about, discuss and debate unfamiliar issues.…
Habits are not easy to change. Most New Year’s Resolutions fail. However, I have made a practice of giving myself a new year’s ‘focus’ over the past few years. Two years ago it was ‘Aiming for Average’, and last year it was about ‘Opportunities for Maximising Impact’. They have proven to be useful, and more…
Thanks to Max for having me as a guest on his blog. It’s been a pleasure to know and work with Max overthe years, as I know it has been for a large number of people. I want to talk today about innovation. Innovation is one of the over-arching themes of Open State, this exciting…
It’s been so long since I blogged. I can’t recall a busier time as a consultant. Mostly, this has to do with the surge of interest in deliberative engagement processes, such as citizens’ juries. I’ve blogged about this before, but now I’m going to attempt to write to organisations, executives and politicians about what they…
There is growing debate in the Australian parliament and media circles about the planned plebiscite concerning the potential legalisation of same sex marriage. Opinion is divided as to whether the plebiscite is necessary, whether it is worth the money, and whether it is likely to do more harm than good. There is growing debate in…
A lot has been written about new forms of leadership. There’s a mounting pile of evidence pointing towards the merit of an adaptive, collaborative approach to leadership. But shifting into this kind of behaviour and approach invariably proves to be more than difficult. Many leaders I’ve worked with have gone so far as to say…
It’s another year. Last year I blogged about ‘Aiming at average’. It worked so well I think I should do the same this year. Maybe that’s too boring, or I’m being lazy. To remind me, and perhaps you if you read it last year, it was basically about not aiming at perfection all the time.…
You may recall from the British series ‘Yes, Minister’, Sir Humphrey would use the term ‘courageous’ as code for ‘politically stupid’ – usually having the effect of dissuading the Minister to follow his stated intentions. It provided great comedy as well as demonstrating a powerful technique of influencing someone who is risk averse. However, I…