Design
I was reminded of this lesson about how organizations often overlook their most powerful lever - building relationships - in the span of a few hours this past week. The power comes when folks get to know other folks, and importantly know what those folks know and care about. Those relationships and
Environmental equity
I took a step back during the past month to reflect on what I am learning about environmental equity and community listening, and what each means to me. All of this is a learning work-in-progress. I am starting to frame environmental equity as a challenge consisting of two
Community listening
Early on in my community-listening learning journey this year, I wrote that I was interested in working with groups in three related areas: * How a group listens to the community members it serves. * How a group makes sense of what it is hearing from community members. * How community members
Environmental equity
A opportunity may open up, to work on how how a collection of environmental groups consider environmental equity as integral to their practice. This post is some early thinking about how to address this opportunity. The context. The groups are part of a not-for-profit collective organized to advance
Community listening
Sometimes you just need to listen to what the universe is telling you. Stay with me on a short side trip before I get to the main point of this post. I recently was recommended a book by author Peter Block that opens by honoring the influence of John McKnight
Design
Earlier this week I attended another open session of Evanston's Environmental Equity Investigation (EEI) project. It was unfortunately sparsely attended (my perception) by community members. Maybe 10-15 community folks, about 1/3rd the participation of a previous session. Unfortunate in part because the session was well designed
Thinking out loud
I've been (slowly) hacking away at a longer essay to summarize how I came to think about learning and communities. It's challenging. Like herding concept cats. When I write things like this, I start by trying to find key ideas or concepts that come to represent
Design
I recently facilitated two meetings that took me slightly outside of my normal setting, which was teaching working professionals in a graduate degree program. Both recent experiences yielded interesting insights in my journey to apply my know-how in different settings. One of the things I realized is that these
Community listening
I originally wrote about this question in At what point does your spidey-sense tell you that you have the right amount of community input? The question is coming back again in a slightly different context. But it is the same fundamental challenge. How do you assess progress toward a
Community listening
I had another opportunity this past week to attend a community listening event. This one was successful in a number of ways, but I am now beginning to form a short list of principles I think may lead to improving the design of these events. * Design to the type of
Community listening
Earlier this week I attended a meeting billed as a community listening event. It drew 100-plus folks. And it has me thinking about missed opportunities to engage every participant who attends such events. The event I attended was styled as a town hall with a very specific topic focus:
Community listening
In the next two weeks I have the opportunity to participate in a few community listening events. I've been thinking about what I want to pay attention to. Three things jump out: * How are the sessions designed to actively listen? And did the design reasonably facilitate that desired