Standing Out / Outstanding: The Standards Problem
Human service providers live in paradox by stressing best practices while wishing for some recognition of the unique qualities that they bring. Can being unique be the standard we need?
Read moreMonth: June 2011
Thinking Developmentally About Social Issues
Thinking developmentally means attenuating oneself to nuance, punctuated learning, ongoing feedback, and inconsistent behaviour. I don’t blame people for wanting to impose a simple cause-and-effect narrative on the world, but doing so doesn’t mean its useful. As I’ve argued elsewhere, unless we consider changing our thinking we may continue to spend time devising ways to do what systems thinker and management leader Russell Ackoff called “the wrong things, righter”.
Read moreComplexity and Innovation: Lessons from elBulli
Good chefs know a lot about innovation in complex environments as they prepare meals for their customers. We can learn
Read moreThe Momentum Problem in Developmental Design and Evaluation
The very complexity of many programs require more not less attention when doing evaluation lest we become simple storytellers. We offer more than that. But to do that well requires a sustained level of attention to the dynamics and what we might call paying attention to the silences to glean lessons from non-action that might have significant impact on our programs. This also requires not “filling the time” when things are quiet, but remaining active. Anyone who practices mindfulness meditation knows that non-doing requires a lot of work!
Read moreSpacing: The Final Frontier (A Test)
Sorry to all of those Star Trek fans out there who were expecting something very Spockian here. I am testing
Read moreTrying to Innovate? Try Empathy
Find and build a tribe of people who you trust and like and spend time with them, get to know them, and invite new people in whenever possible to mix things up. If that is the case, then the way we work in the health and wellness sector is surely in trouble where we don’t curate information and customize our knowledge for others, and we don’t support the kind of relationship building that equates to robust knowledge translation.
Read more43 Steps to a Well-Prepared Design Strategist (via the design strategist)
I stumbled upon this list of “to-dos” and related resources aimed at preparing someone to serve as a design strategist.
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