Monday Video: From the draft archives.
In our divided, socially distanced times, it is both refreshing and poignant seeing this video from 2010. We are in a different world. So I’m here, singing to you, even though you can’t hear me.
via YouTube – Opera Company of Philadelphia “Hallelujah!” Random Act of Culture.
Note: My threat/promise to blog weekly has suffered a bit. I’ll try harder! What do you want me to blog about? Tell me in the comments.
A few weeks ago I wrote a provocation on Peer Assistance and Mutual Support in preparation for a KM4Dev Knowledge Cafe. I really enjoyed thinking more deeply about the power dynamics of peer assistance. Thanks to the great KM4Dev team here are the artifacts from the event. ‘
There is so much to learn from the THE THREE “RULES” OF ETEGAMI, a Japanese style of painting. I could write so much more, but it could not add to these three amazing rules.
1 The motto of Etegami is “It’s fine to be clumsy. It’s good to be clumsy.” What matters is whether or not you have put your heart into your painting, not whether the painting is a fine work of art. Your earnestness communicates to the person who receives the card, and touches his heart. Each etegami should express something of the character of the person who painted it.
2 Etegami is a one-shot deal; there is no underdrawing or practicing on another piece of paper before doing the actual painting. Every time you paint an etegami, you are, so to speak, “broadcasting live.” There is no concept of a “failed” or “ruined” etegami. Every etegami you paint should be placed in the mail box and sent on its way to someone else.
3 Unlike many other forms of traditional Japanese art, there is no “model” etegami painted by a master for you to imitate. The flowers and vegetables created by the hand of God are your best “models.” Observe these models closely before you begin to paint them.
via dosankodebbie’s etegami notebook: a review of the “rules” of etegami.
And because it is Monday and it has been so long since I posted a Monday video, here is Etegami in practice:
This past weekend I’ve been hanging out at the National Coalition for Dialog and Deliberation‘s national confab, NCDD2012. Synopsis? Amazing people. Also it was great to connect with folks I’ve met/known online and demoralizing to NOT connect with others who were there in the flesh. Not enough time or energy. 🙁
Thursday I took part in pre-conference workshop using the fabulous Group Works Deck to map out the elements of a variety of group methods and processes. (I wrote about the deck a while back here. )
As we did the exercise, I realized that I needed the narrative with the map, so took these off the cuff videos, now debuting as this week’s Monday Video.
via GroupWorks Deck Method Mapping at NCDD2012 – YouTube.
What I noticed about the mapping was the more we did it, the more discerning we became at identifying the essential “spine” of a method AND,through reflecting on the other possibilities offered by the patterns in the cards, observed new ways of “fleshing out” the method depending on context. In other words, the cards enabled us to have great learning conversations about the methods. Very cool. I plan to use the cards a lot in the coming weeks of crazy work and travel! I also deeply appreciated all the knowledge in the room. As I learned about Participatory Budgeting from John Kelly, I was getting all kinds of ideas about how to reapply the basic idea to Knowledge Sharing/Budgeting (in terms of time and attention — which seems to be a big problem in my world these days!)
At the meeting, I also was part of a fabulous team of visual practitioners who volunteered to do a visual capture of the plenaries of all three days as a unified product. Tim Corey helped us envision a 24 x 8 foot image and then we all figured out a) how to work together to b) make a coherent capture. I’ll write more about this later after our debrief, including links to all the fab people I got to work with. But it was great fun and a lovely learning laboratory.
Other NCDD Materials:
Oh how happy I was to come upon this on Sandy Schuman’s blog. I have long struggled with the perspective that facilitation must/should be neutral. I struggle with the fact that it is HARD as a human being to be neutral. In fact, I can’t pin down the range of practices required to be and stay neutral, especially when facilitating. Neutrality has long been preached by the International Association of Facilitators.
I came to the conclusion then, that I was either a bad or a renegade facilitator. For me, it was about being AWARE of my influence, power, position and opinions and not letting them distract me from serving the group. And at times, yes, using my opinion, with clarity and transparency (I call it “taking off my facilitator hat and putting on my citizen/subject matter expert/Nancy hat!) Take a look…
And thanks, Sandy. I knew I have been right to admire and learn from you all these years!
via IAFNA2012 Fast Talk Sandy Schuman Facilitators should not be Neutral.mov – YouTube.