Thoughts of changing our world won’t yield much without examining our mental models. That means designing for how we think, not just what we think. When looking to generate some kind of major systems change — whether that’s your own life, that of your organizations’ , or social change — understanding the layers of activity …
Change-making requires accepting some degree of failure. How we deal with our stumbles determines how or whether we succeed. If you’re reading this in early January (or maybe the weeks after your birthday or some other significant anniversary) you might find yourself head-long into a struggle to implement some change-making plan. This might be a …
Transformations are easier to understand retrospectively, not in real time. New technologies are about to upend that, forever. It is often difficult to fully appreciate transformation in the middle of it. Most of us might have been ‘wowed’ by the Internet when it came out, but it’s only looking back that we realized how much …
Our consumption habits will kill our planet if we let it. Small actions, done often, can change our future course. Shopping is big business. It’s also helping our planet. Today is Black Friday, which is shaping up to be the largest shopping day of the year in the United States and Canada. In Canada, this …
Evaluation is the longest four-letter word in the English language. Kidding aside, what is evaluation? Why should we all care? Evaluators are an existential bunch, which might surprise you. Evaluation is not a popular word with people. Too often it’s associated with things that are done to us not with us or for us or …
Developmental Evaluation is all about using data to support innovation. How does this look in practice (and how’s it done?) Developmental Evaluation (DE) is all about supporting and developing innovation. It provides some of the raw feedback materials and a process to help innovators make decisions about what they are creating, adapting to changing conditions, …
Innovation requires the right organizing, not just skill and vision. This article explores what that means in practice.
Big shakeups happen in work, life, and the economy regularly. Navigating these waves of change well requires forethought and foresight. How do we prepare ourselves to meet the future in a way that accounts for all the changes that are underway without us giving up our agency and purpose? Strategic foresight is an approach that …
Innovation can involve small adjustments or great transformations. Social media provides a case study for understanding why ongoing monitoring and evaluation can tell many different stories about whether change is big or small, for good or for not — or something altogether different. Online social networks like Twitter and Facebook often notify their users of …
Innovation is a misunderstood and often misrepresented concept that can provoke fear, indifference, resentment, confusion, or irrational exuberance. To understand the reasons why we can’t ignore innovation we need to look no further than the sage advice in The Leopard, a story of change. It’s been said that the only true constant is change. Funny …
