Communities are formed by persons – even if they represent organisations. So if you want to support a community in its development, you have to focus on the needs of the actual people involved. This is for me one of the eye openers of the webinar Digital Habitats of Communities with Nancy White, organised by En nu online on 21 February 2012. So what are those communities that we spoke [full post]
If you need to collaborate in a closed group with members that are not sharing an office, you might like to try out Yammer. I started experimenting with Yammer recently in the frame of a curriculum on Social Media for Learning & Change in Organisations. In the short time I have been using it I have found it a very useful and easy-to-use tool. In Yammer you can set up [full post]
It looks like just a nice blue-coloured piece of cloth that is sticky on one side. You tape it to a wall with the sticky side on the front, and there you are. Well, not quite. It’s a tool that has never let me down so far. So what’s so special about it? First of all, the sticky wall is a tool used in the Technology of Participation (ToP), as [full post]
What is a shadow report? Who takes the trouble to make one and why would they do that? To start with the most important question according to Simon Sinek, why; NGOs and networks do this because they want to make this world a better place. They want to help improve laws, policies and their implementation and enforcement. The form they use in this case, the how, is that of a [full post]
At the IAF Benelux Conference Facilitation as (2nd) Profession I introduced a group to the Green Agenda method for developing and implementing local sustainable development plans. Participants had different backgrounds, but all of them had experience in multi-stakeholder processes. They reflected on common challenges like differences in knowledge between stakeholder groups, conflicting interests, lack of understanding and trust, and hierarchy which can influence a group discussion or process. Lessons learned [full post]
Is it possible to organise a transparent, truly participatory meeting with, say, 500 individuals and to come to real consensus based on literally everyone’s input? With an Internet connection for all participants, one or two good facilitators and a budget it is. At the IAF Benelux Conference Facilitation as (2nd) Profession I participated in a workshop on Synthetron, led by Paula van der Knaap and Jeanette Kalthof. Synthetron is a [full post]
