| 4/06/09 | | Newsletter Addenda |
Newsletter subscriber, Ross Nicholson, rightly points out that Tom Peter's said "Ready, fire, aim" not "Ready, aim, fire," which I incorrectly wrote in the last newsletter. It seems automatic pilot kicked in as I was writing that sentence.
By the way, did you know you can see all our newsletters online? Just go to http://www.anecdote.com.au/newsletters.php We typically published the newsletter online a week after we email it to our subscribers.
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
| 22/05/09 | | London public workshops in June |
Just a quick note to say it is just over 4 weeks before we get together in London for our two workshops (24 & 25 June). Looks like we have a good turn out but if you are thinking of coming along I need to get all the registrations complete in the next two weeks.
Send me an email if you want a registration form and here is the description of the two narrative based workshops.
And just to get a bit of a flavour for my approach you might like to check out this presentation I did this week.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 13/05/09 | | How to be memorable and inspire action at work by telling stories |
Thanks to all my Twitter friends who helped me refine this article. It was a fun process that reinforces for me the strength of social computing approaches for collaboration.
The main purpose of this whitepaper is to introduce senior leaders to the idea of business storytelling and demonstrate its importance, especially in the increasingly complex and unpredictable world we live in. It also provides some approaches to how you find and recount your experiences in a business context.
I encourage you to send a copy to your CEO, or better still your CFO and CIO, and help them realise that people only remember what they feel and despite the painful sounding name, people don't feel bullet points.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 29/04/09 | | Story week starts on Monday |
As flagged previously, Anecdote, Innotecture and Sparknow are running Story Week commencing on Monday 4th May. Story week aims to explore how to identify stories that have impact and the consistency (if any) with which people rate the impact of stories.
This is of interest for a range of reasons. Firstly, our Narrative Insight process involves collection of large numbers of stories - too many to be used in workshop settings - and we often need to identify the ones that have most impact. Story week will help us understand more about the selection criteria we use and the extent to which they are useful.
Of more relevance to our readers is the second reason. Anyone who gives presentations and talks, writes articles, reports, blog posts etc, can use stories to help communicate more clearly, persuasively and memorably. The stories can come from your own experience, from history, movies or the experience of others. A key challenge is choosing the right stories; the ones that have most impact and are most relevant. We are hoping that Story Week will inform our work to make the selection of the right stories more robust.
Starting Monday, we will post one story per day, seeking as many people as possible to assess the story against the criteria. It will only take a few moments each day.
Get ready!
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 18/04/09 | | Ginninderra High School Reunion—Class of 1980 |
I went to school in Canberra at Ginninderra High School. Amazingly I still keep in contact with so many of my classmates from back then and this year I'm part of the organising committee for our 30 year reunion to be held on the 6th March 2010.
One of the incredible things that have happened in preparation for this shindig has been the creation of a Ning website where we now have over 70 classmates swapping stories, pictures, and making or renewing connections.
If you are one of my classmates from year 10, 1980, Ginninderra High School, please send me an email (shawn@anecdote.com.au) and I can invite you to join us at the reunion website.
And if you know anyone who graduated from Ginninderra in 1980, please pass on this note so we can reconnect.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 17/04/09 | | Story week is coming |
Anecdote, Sparknow and Innotecture have been working together for a little while now to find out a bit more about what stories have influence and impact. We've found quite a difference in views, even among ourselves. So we're inviting our combined readership and their networks (and their networks) to participate in Story Week (starting May 4th) Over 5 days we're going to show you 5 stories from different people in different formats, intended for very different audiences and settings. You're going to tell us how you respond to them. We'll tell you what you collectively told us. We'll all learn something in the process. Oh, and it will be fun, too.
Watch this space...
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 24/02/09 | | Collaboration presentation in Canberra |
I am giving a presentation at the actKM monthly meeting on Tuesday 3rd March. The location is the National Archives of Australia in Barton. Arrive for drinks from about 5.15 pm with the presentation going from about 5.45 pm till 6.45 pm. Details are on the actKM website.
The title of the presentation is 'Collaboration....takes more than wishful thinking'. It will focus on the practicalities of developing effective collaboration cultures and skills with plenty of illustrations from our work with public and private sector organisations, both large and small, local and international.
I will describe the urgent need to build collaborative cultures and skills. Not just for our success internally, but also to ensure success with stakeholders, clients, suppliers and partners. This is particularly true when times are tough and our focus needs to be on making the most of available resources. 2009 will mark the tipping point where organisations will move from emphasising collaboration tools to placing the effort on people, on their behaviours and capabilities. We mustn’t forget: it’s people who collaborate.
If you are in Canberra next Tuesday then you are welcome to come along. No RSVP required.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 16/02/09 | | Communities and networks connection |
Tomorrow is the big launch. Nancy White has been toiling away with Tony Karrer to develop a dynamic website that aggregates community and network blogs. Tony is the technical wiz behind the site and there are plenty of ways to discover new and interesting information about one of the topics I love: communities of practice. Nancy is the ultimate connector and this effort is a natural extension to all the great work she does with online facilitation and communities. So here is the URL. Have fun.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 13/02/09 | | Storytelling in Canberra |
Jack Dalton (Raven Feathers) is a professional storyteller from Alaska. I was fortunate to see him perform a traditional Yup'ik story on Wednesday as part of the National Multicultural Festival here in Canberra. The 'Creation Story' was about how Raven (a magical and mischievous character in Yup'ik folklore) created man and tried to show him 'the way': essentially using no more from the environment that he needed, and how man repeatedly failed to heed this message. Very relevant to the sustainability challenges we are currently facing.
Chandni and I had a great conversation with Jack over coffee about the differences and similarities between using story to keep folkloric knowledge alive (Jack) and using storytelling in the world of business (Anecdote).
If you are in Canberra, the festival is hosting the 'Canberra Cares' concert on Saturday to raise funds for the families affected by the devastating bushfires in Victoria. It will be a great afternoon of Latin music and dance, so get on down and enjoy the cool weather and hot acts!
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 10/02/09 | | Leveraging and Valuing Expertise Workshop in Canberra |
Canberra has an interesting event this month! actKM has invited Patrick Lambe to conduct a workshop on Leveraging and Valuing Expertise. This workshop is part of the open research project "Leveraging and Valuing Expertise" (http://usingexpertise.com). Log in to share your stories!
When: 9:00 am to 3:30 pm on Friday, 13 February
Where: University House Common Room, ANU
Costs: $50, includes morning tea
Registration forms
Workshop outline:
* Introduction: the nature of expertise and experience
* Grounding: Anecdote circles with participants exchanging their stories of how expertise is leveraged and used (or misused) in their organisations
* Sensemaking: we work with the stories to identify patterns and key issues in the participants' situations
* Planning: we work with an expertise transfer framework and the Straits Knowledge KM Method Cards to build outline plans for some of the participants' situations
* Close: closing discussion looking at general patterns and sharing any relevant case examples
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
| 7/02/09 | | Community of practice paper featured in Insightory |
Just to let you know that my paper on tacit knowledge and communities of practice has been featured on insightory.com.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 23/01/09 | | I'm giving a talk on collaboration and your invited |
For years software vendors and consulting firms have been developing SAP software components for NSW government agencies and on-selling the same software to numerous other NSW government agencies. These practices are only possible in an environment where the government agencies do not collaborate. In 2008 these agencies got together to share how they were using SAP and worked on ways to collaborate on new government-wide developments. In the first few days of collaborating a tiny piece of code to change how invoices were handled was shared across multiple agencies—each of the receiving agencies saved $5,000 by sharing rather than reinventing. And some of the developments cost millions to develop. The potential benefits are staggering.
When times are tough it’s important to make the most of available resources. Organisations of all shapes and sizes have spent millions of dollars on ‘collaboration’ software yet the level of sophistication in the way we collaborate hasn’t improved dramatically. It’s time to be more systematic and effective collaborators and this starts with understanding what it really means and not fretting over the functionality of communication software, regardless of how alluring the latest web 2.x version looks. We need to build collaborative cultures and skills.
This presentation describes why collaboration matters now more than ever. It paints the picture of what we are up against but shines a light on what’s possible. And by understanding the different ways of working together and the different types of collaboration we can create a new mental model as our collaboration foundation.
Most of the presentation, however, will focus on the practicalities of developing effective collaboration cultures and skills with plenty of illustrations from our work with organisations like NSW Government, Rio Tinto, BAE Systems, and a sprinkling of examples from around the world.
The foundations are there. The software is available. The need is clearly here. 2009 will mark the tipping point where organisations will move from emphasising collaboration tools to placing the effort on people, on their behaviours and capabilities. We mustn’t forget: it’s people who collaborate.
When: Monday March 2, 12:00 - 2:00pm
Where: Treasury Theatre, Lower Plaza, 1 Macarthur St. East Melbourne
Light Refreshments provided
To RSVP click here
You might like to read our paper on collaboration as pre-reading.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 21/01/09 | | Profiting from Collaboration |
Google and P&G are both known for their innovation capabilities and strict internal policy. Driven by market forces, they made an exception. They swapped about two-dozen staffers who spent weeks dipping into each other's staff training programs and sitting in on meetings where business plans get hammered out. This is terrific example of purposeful collaboration delivering results.
The Wall Street Journal reported that about a year ago, P&G's then global marketing officer, Jim Stengel, was concerned that one of the biggest initiatives in the company's laundry-soap history -- a switch to smaller bottles with a more concentrated formula -- didn't include enough of an online search-term marketing campaign. Google, on the other hand, was interested because they were keen to get a slice of P&G's $8.7 billion annual ad pie. (Read full article here.)
The opportunity to collaborate generated many tangible benefits for both companies. And that's not surprising because a collaboration experience can improve the level of conversation, energise teams and have a positive impact on the bottomline. This example illustrates three ways that companies can profit from a simple collaboration program.
1. Identify missed opportunities
In April, when actress Salma Hayek unveiled an ambitious promotion for P&G's Pampers brand, the Google team was stunned to learn that Pampers hadn't invited any "motherhood" bloggers -- women who run popular Web sites about child-rearing -- to attend the press conference. "Where are the bloggers?" asked a Google staffer in disbelief, according one person present. ...With mommy-bloggers, Pampers was quick to follow Google's advice. After failing to invite any to its April Pampers press conference, in July it invited a dozen or so to visit P&G's baby division in Cincinnati. The bloggers claim to have drawn anywhere from one-hundred thousand to six million visitors to their Web sites.
2. Learn how to embrace change
The big question that P&G grappled with was "How does a brand morph from one-way to two-way communication with the consumer?"One of the first results of the collaboration was an online campaign inviting people to make spoof videos of P&G's "Talking Stain" TV ad and post them to YouTube... In the end, of the 227 spoofs submitted, a handful were deemed good enough by P&G to air on TV. The campaign was successful enough that Tide plans to use more consumer-generated content in the future, P&G says.
3. Understand each others' language
Google job-swappers have started adopting P&G's lingo. During a session on evaluating in-store displays, a P&G marketer described the company's standard method, known as "stop, hold, close": Product packaging first needs to "stop" a shopper, Mr. Lichtig said. "Hold" is a pause to read the label, and "close" is when a shopper puts the product in the cart. Google's Ms. Chudy gasped. "This is just like our text ads," she said. The headline is the "stop," its description is the "hold" and the "close" is clicking through to the Web site. "This is going to get so much easier, now that I'm learning their language," she said.
External collaboration can have many advantages. The biggest being that it allows new ideas and disciplines to enter the organization, some (or most) of which challenge the status quo of practices, processes and the way the industry works.
Something to think about:
- How can you profit from collaboration?
- Who are the people you can invite to collaborate with?
- What will be your first step to getting started?
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
| 15/01/09 | | London workshop update |
Dates and costs for the London workshops this June have been announced.
Check out the workshop details here.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 24/12/08 | | Merry Christmas |
Well 
2008 has been a hectic year for most of us. So now is the time to take some well-deserved time off and spend some time with family and friends. We have worked with some great people during the year and to all of our friends, colleagues and clients, we say thank you.
Best wishes for the festive season from all of us at Anecdote. We look forward to connecting with you in the New Year.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 18/12/08 | | ...all you need is love |
Driving to Sydney yesterday I heard t
he ABC news describe how Justice Michael Kirby had delivered a speech on the topic of love to a bunch of law and commerce graduates. It was one of his last speeches before stepping down from his role as one of our High Court judges.
I guess I was a little surprised to hear him encourage the graduates to think about more than just money, and to highlight to them the importance of empathy and respect for our fellow human beings. He informed them he would share "a precious jewel"
I refer to love. Love for one another. Love for our community. Love for others everywhere in the world," he said. "Love transcends even scholarship, cleverness and university degrees. It is greater than pride and wealth. It endures when worldly vanities fade."
I am pretty sure Justice Kirby would include the workplace as one of the places where love is important. Hmmm, that reminds me I have an unread book titled 'Love @ Work' published by the Australian Institute of Management. Looks like I have found some reading material for the holidays.
Here is a link to the audio of Justice Kirby's speech.
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
| 12/12/08 | | Building a collaborative workplace |
Today we've started to convert our whitepapers from pdf to their plain text equivalent so you can see the whole paper without downloaded the pdf version. The first one is Building a Collaborative Workplace .
You can now bookmark it with Delicious, annotate it with Diigo and we have also added the ability for any Anecdote post to be added to your Facebook, just click on the Facebook icon at the bottom of this post.
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
| 10/12/08 | | Business story-listening and storytelling in London |
We are running two workshops in London this June:
- Narrative techniques for business (story-listening)--24th June 09
RSA House
8 John Adam Street
London - Storytelling for business leaders (storytelling)--25th June 09
School of Oriental and African Studies
University of London
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square
London
The cost for each workshop is £350
Email us for a registration form.
These two methods are inextricably linked, which we've attempted to illustrate in this diagram.
If you want to learn about these methods and you live near London, here's your chance. Just email me and I will send out a registration form.
Below is a full description of each workshop.
Narrative Techniques for Business
- What's really going on in your organisation?
- What are the touch points where small changes can transform behaviour and morale?
- How can you develop a common understanding of what needs to be done and generate the resolve to do it?
Surveys and metrics can uncover trouble in an organisation, but they usually don't help you identify the reasons for dysfunctions, let alone generate the resolve to springboard people into action. Instead, learn to use stories as listening posts and tap into the emotion to spark action. From time immemorial, stories have contained collective lessons in condensed form. When gathered and examined, stories that are told in your organisation reveal important themes and patterns that in turn indicate effective solutions.
This one-day workshop, led by Australia's leading experts in story listening, teaches you to gather and make sense of stories so as to see revealing patterns and use them to gain traction on solving messy organisational problems or reaching complex goals.
After a full day of instruction, practice and feedback, you will have the confidence and knowledge to apply these powerful techniques within your organisation.
Who should attend?
Anyone struggling with thorny human problems or complex goals such as the following will gain value from this workshop:
- creating culture change
- building trust
- making mergers and acquisitions successful
- capturing the knowledge of retiring employees
- extracting lessons from projects
- improving occupational health and safety
- managing risk
The instruction is grounded in insights from organisational development and the science of complexity as well as in years of hands-on work with a wide range of organisations.
Practical, hands-on training
Story listening is not something you can learn from a manual. This workshop teaches how to find and collect stories, how to make sense of the stories and then how to design interventions that improve how things work. Participants practice each step in the process with one another and receive feedback that improves their understanding and ability to work with organisational stories.
Workshop topics covered include:
- when narrative approaches make sense and when to use other techniques
- how many participants to involve in story gathering and the characteristics you should look for in selecting them
- two techniques that effectively elicit stories from just about anyone
- which media to use for preserving and analyzing stories
- ways to extract meaning from a large volume of stories
- how to formulate ways of tackling truly complex problems based on lessons from the stories
By the end of the day, you will be prepared to run a story listening project using the narrative techniques you have learned and practised. This might aim at collecting lessons learned from a large project, improving employee satisfaction, smoothing the way for massive organisational change or enhancing occupational health and safety.
Here's what previous participants have said
"Anecdote is a great concept, and delivered with very high quality. Honest, thoughtful, valuable. The staff are very generous with their expertise and resources. They are open and approachable, acknowledging both their achievements and how they learned from their mistakes. These people are the real thing. You get a strong sense of how these processes can be applied in business settings. A really great workshop." Ian Colley, MakeStuffHappen
"We were looking for a fresh approach to get the business involved in cultural development. So instead of telling employees the results of our cultural survey and getting them to fix it, we wanted it to be owned by the business and have them discover for themselves the underlying reason why things are the way they are, in a new, explorative and interesting way. So we used Anecdote. It's the narrative discovery approach that provided such rich information about our culture. We would have never been able to get these insights without it. Plus the subsequent cultural initiatives would have missed the mark completely." Andrew Petersen, Challenger Financial Services
Storytelling for Business Leaders
We all need better ways to persuade, share what we know and help those around us make sense of the complex world we live in. Developing our innate storytelling skills helps build confidence, convey ideas clearly and effectively, and probably most importantly, present to our colleagues our humanity.
We all want to convey our ideas with impact, yet eyes instantly glaze the moment you beam your PowerPoint presentation laden with slide after slide of dot points. We know informally that stories are engaging; we tell them at dinner parties and people listen and they 'get it'. Yet few leaders systematically harness storytelling to communicate ideas, convey the organisation`s values or inspire and motivate people.
What the one day workshop is all about
Telling business stories is not about concocting events and delivering your tale to an enraptured audience. Rather, it relies on people retelling their own experiences in an authentic and empathetic way. Anecdote has developed a three-step process to guide you.
Prospecting
Everyone has stories to tell, but in many cases we are unaware of them. Prospecting involves creating a conducive environment for people to remember their stories. This might involve one-on-one interview techniques or group processes.
Patterns
We can improve the way we tell our stories by understanding the story structures and patterns appropriate for the task. During the workshop, we will explore a few key patterns and help participants re-craft their stories based on these story patterns.
Performance
Effective storytelling comes from a belief that the story is authentic. People judge authenticity on how the storyteller delivers their story. Participants will learn ways to develop a comfortable delivery style and feel at ease at telling stories regardless of the setting. This workshop is for anyone wanting to improve their ability to find and tell their own stories within a business context.
Who should attend
This workshop is for anyone wanting to improve their ability to find and tell their own stories within a business context. It is also for people wishing to improve their leaders’ ability to communicate ideas and engage staff in developing new behaviours.
You should attend this course if you are interested in:
- communicating your organisation`s mission, vision and values
- helping leaders motivate and inspire
- conveying desirable behaviours
- sharing knowledge
- becoming a more effective leader
- sparking action
- having people really listening to your ideas.
What you will learn and leave with
- a better understanding of what makes an effective story in a business context
- a newly discovered story- re-crafted story from your own experience
- understanding of how to best craft questions to discover stories
- ways to interview people for stories and facilitate anecdote circles
- when to use what story pattern - build confidence in telling your story.
What attendees have said
'Shawn has a most honest, open and engaging approach which is what is shown to work best with this technique and creates an enjoyable workshop.'
'The workshop covered a lot of territory in a way that combined analytical rigour with a clear and informal delivery. I recommend it without reservation.'
'There's loads of value in the Storytelling for Business Leaders workshop, and it's been a useful part of my leadership development activities.
In my role as Chief Sustainability Officer I'm often using stories about how our clients thinking has shifted around sustainability... they're often very powerful. The workshop has given me ideas and tools on how to actively include stories into presentations to give a better sense to people of who I am and what I stand for, as well as to illustrate key messages. I know they're having effect because of the feedback I receive - that they reflect an authenticity that is engaging - and because I hear people sharing these same stories.'
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 21/11/08 | | Knowledge management for the experienced practitioner |
Next year I will be giving a couple of presentations at the Ark Group's conference, KM for the Experienced Practitioner. It will be in my home town of Melbourne and I'm looking forward to catching up with everyone.
On the first day of the conference, at 2pm, I'll describe one of our business narrative projects from this year that was all about engaging staff in a change process to improve client service and strategic alignment. Then at 4pm I will be running a skills development session on three story-based skills for visioning, instilling values and establishing rapport.
The folks at Ark have offered Anecdote blog readers a 20% discount on the conference. Just quote "AG-SC" when registering.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 20/11/08 | | In-house workshops instead of a public program |
For four years Anecdote has delivered a range of innovative public workshops on topics including storytelling for business leaders, building a collaborative workplace and business narrative techniques. For a range of reasons, we've decided to stop running public workshops and instead we will focus on delivering these workshops in-house. We believe this move will result in even better workshops that can be customised for an organisation's specific needs.
We will still be running our workshops in London in June next year.
Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack
| 14/11/08 | | A little productivity tip for Firefox users—smart keywords |
Just noticed this feature in Firefox this morning which is a real time saver. I'm often looking around for books and I have a couple of favourite websites (Amazon, Readings). In Firefox you can assign a search box on say your Amazon website to a keyword. Then whenever you want to make a search you just type that keyword followed by your search string into the place where you would normally type a web address and hit return. And viola, the search results appear.
Here is the link to the Firefox help page that describes how to do it.
Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
| 11/11/08 | | Workshops in 2009 |
If creating a great place to work is on your agenda or you need to get people on board, here's what might help you put a plan in place or get your team ready:
- Find and tell great stories
- Create opportunities for people to collaborate
- Use stories to deliver meaningful change and engagement
Check out our 2009 workshops schedule.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 29/10/08 | | Building a Collaborative Workplace workshops in November |
We're running our last workshops for 2008 this month.
If you're interested in coming along to our Building a Collaborative Workplace workshop, the dates are:
Perth: November 5
Sydney: November 26
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 23/10/08 | | Storytelling for Business Leaders - London |
Today we've set the date for our Storytelling for Business Leaders workshop to be held in London. I'm looking forward to this trip and catching up with all the good folk in that part of the world who have kept up an interest in our work here in Australia. Please drop me a note if you would like to meet up while I'm there. And we would greatly appreciate your help passing on this message about my visit.
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
| 9/09/08 | | Narrative-based Change Management |
Our new workshop now has a new name. We're calling it
Putting Stories to Work: Delivering meaningful Change and Engagement
What managers need today is a tool that empowers them to inspire people into action. Narrative techniques can deliver a range of benefits to an organization. It's just a matter of learning the techniques and then putting them to practice.
We've redesigned our narrative techniques workshop with a focus on engagement. Over two days we aim to teach managers how to create a resolve among their staff so that they see the value of the change efforts being undertaken in the organization and participate enthusiastically.
There will be lots of opportunities to practice the techniques and learn from each other's feedback during the sessions. Join us on November 11 and 12 in Melbourne. And if you're keen for us to come to your city, we'd love to hear from you.
A big thanks to Dave Pollard, Nerida Hart, Chris Colton, Luke Naismith, Jeff de Cagna , and Bret Treasure for their suggestions on the workshop name. The conversations triggered some good ideas.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 3/09/08 | | Storytelling for business leaders workshop in Melbourne—23 September |
This workshop has turned out to be one of our most popular offerings. In the last few months we have delivered it to sales people in IBM, engineers in Allinta and have just received word we have been selected to deliver it to NAB leaders throughout the bank.
The great news is that you can attend this workshop in Melbourne in a few weeks time. It's all about using storytelling techniques in a business context to improve communication and staff engagement.
We focus on three areas in the one day workshop:
- helping people find stories to retell. We call this prospecting for stories
- learning about different story patterns and when to use them. What is a vision story? What is a sparking action story? How to use a values in action story?
- practising retelling your experiences in an engaging and memorable way that suits the context
If you're interested, just email us and we will send you a registration form.
The cost is $495.
It will be held in Brunswick
Starts at 8.30 and finishes at 5.00pm
If you want to learn more check out the workshop blurb.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 31/08/08 | | A new workshop, but what should we call it? |
Many of you will be familiar with our business narrative workshop. It's a one day event where we cover how to find anecdotes in an organisation and then help your people make sense of the patterns they contain so new initiatives can be designed and implemented.
Every time we run this workshop the participants say it should be two days not one. So we are expanding this workshop and focussing it on how it helps people foster change in a productive way.
The problem is we are not entirely sure what to call it. Can you give us a hand please? I've created this poll to get your thoughts and would really appreciate any ideas.
Thanks for your help.
Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack
| 12/08/08 | | Three new storytelling workshops for this year: Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney |
By popular demand, we've just added three more Storytelling for Leaders workshops. They'll be held in these Australian cities:
Melbourne, 23 September 2008
Sydney, 2 October 2008
Canberra, 20 October 2008
And we haven't forgotten Brisbane because our next Storytelling for Leaders workshop in that fine city is on the 27th August.
Here is the link to the full blurb and instructions on how to enrol.
One of the things I've learnt running this workshop is that many people think they know what a story is up till the point where they have to identify one. We use of a range of videos of people telling stories and use them to hone your skills in knowing what a story really is and what it is not. It's a kind of a curse really because after this workshop you can't help but notice the stories all around you. But without this knowledge it's impossible to find and tell effective stories.
Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
| 11/08/08 | | Anecdote turns four |
Today is Anecdote's fourth birthday. Hip hip hooray! Wow, where did those years go? I still clearly remember going to the ASIC office four years ago to register our business name, a name we really couldn't believe was still available. I guess we started just before business narrative became popular.
Thanks to everyone we've worked with, our clients, partners, blog readers and friends of Anecdote. You are helping us achieve our two most important objectives: meeting the most interesting people and having the best possible conversations.
Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack
| 15/07/08 | | Cool blog posts that I don't mention |
I'm sure you have plenty of things to read and another stream of information is the last thing you are interested in. But for those who just want more I discovered Google Reader enables me to share posts which I might not ever make a comment about. Here is the link.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 14/07/08 | | Someone has hacked my Skype account |
I have had two people now report bizarre messages that appear to be from me but I certainly didn't send. So please let me know if I have skyped you with a comment which seems out of character and I will report it to Skype.
Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack
| 30/06/08 | | Employee engagement interest in storytelling |
A few weeks back, Alex Manchester from Melcrum interviewed me on various issues around storytelling. He approached me following the large amount of interest in storytelling shown at the Employee Engagement conference in late May. The interview is available as a podcast if you are interested.
The use of narrative for exploring issues around employee engagement has been expanding of late, with several organisations approaching us to help get a deeper understanding of what the results of their employee engagement surveys really mean and what they can do to positively influence engagement. I will post a longer piece on this in the coming days.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 16/06/08 | | Anecdote receive award for best learning website in Asia Pacific |
We were the very last award to be handed out at last week's LearnX conference and Robyn and I walked up to the podium to receive the crystal pyramid from Jay Cross. Thanks again to all our blog readers and the readers of Training Magazine.
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
| 13/06/08 | | Collaboration paper generating interest |
Our recent whitepaper ' Building a Collaborative Workplace' is generating some interest. An edited version was published in BRW last week and last night I had a new experience when interviewed live on Sky Business Channel 'Money Makers' program. I haven't seen the interview yet (other than experiencing it live) and am looking forward to finding someone who taped it.
.
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
| 1/06/08 | | Looking for Melbourne KM news |
We are getting the KMLF active again. KMLF is the Melbourne knowledge management community of practice. Check out the KMLF website for details.
I would like to publish Melbourne KM news on the KMLF website so if you have any news you would like to share please send me an email.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 8/05/08 | | Best website for learning |
We were advised this morning that LearnX Asia Pacific 2008 has announced that the winner in the category of 'Best Website for Learning' is ........Anecdote! We are really pleased that our efforts to make the website an interesting and valuable place have been recognised in this way.
Shawn and Robyn are presenting at the LearnX conference on 12-13 June on our work in using narrative-based approaches to improve induction and retention for indigenous staff. Should be fun.
Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
| 7/05/08 | | Global Storytelling - Pangea Day |
May 10 is Pangea Day. A great opportunity to get inspired!
Storytellers from all over the world will tell their stories about humanity to humanity. 24 short films have been selected (from the thousands submitted) based on their ability to inspire, transform, and help us see the world through another person's eyes. Check out this video about the event.
Tune in...
Date: May 10, 2008
Time: 18:00 to 22:00 GMT
Language: Full program subtitled in Arabic, English, French,
German, Hindi, Portuguese, and Spanish.
How to watch: In person, online, on TV, on your mobile phone
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 3/05/08 | | Storytelling event in Washington |
My friend Madelyn Blair is busily preparing for two great storytelling events in Washington that start on the 9 May. I believe there are 30 seats left now so you still register to attend
For Goldenfleece Day08 go to http://www.goldenfleececon.orgFor Smithsonian Event, May 9 go to http://residentassociates.org/ticketing/tickets/reserve.aspx?performanceNumber=87387
I wish I could make it because I know there will be terrific conversations about storytelling in business context and I would get to meet many of the people I Skype such as Victoria Ward, Madelyn, and Steve Denning.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 28/04/08 | | Managing knowledge in not-for-profit organisations |
actKM is again participating in the annual Information Awareness Month. This year, actKM is hosting a world cafe-style event on the topic of: 'How can KM practices contribute to volunteer/community organisations?' The event is in Canberra next Tuesday (6th May) and all the details are on the actKM blog. Nerida Hart and I will be running the session and we look forward to seeing you there.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 28/04/08 | | Net Neutrality |
Some worrying developments which might limit the use of the Internet for the little guy.
via Dave Snowden
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 22/04/08 | | Building a collaboration workplace |
Our white paper on collaboration is now available. It was a pleasure working with Mark and Nancy White on this one. We're hoping this document creates a new conversation within organisations where people responsible for fostering collaboration (line managers, business units leaders, CIOs, HR directors) not only realise that they must look beyond the technology implementation but consider ways to introduce and support collaborative practices. The need to effectively collaborate is only going increase because the world is becoming even more complex and we will need more people banding together to create solutions by bringing their different perspectives to bare. We also look at a new type of collaboration, which we've called network collaboration, where the rules of how we work together are being re-written.
Nancy, Mark and I would dearly love to hear your thoughts on what we've written and in particular what additional advice would you give to supplement our ideas?
Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack
| 15/04/08 | | Conversations That Create—An International Thought Leadership Programme |
Here's an event you might like to attend. It's been organisation by Ralph Kerle from The Creative Leadership Forum.
Conversations That Create—An International Thought Leadership Programme
May 7 - 9, 2008
Venue: Centre for Leadership, Building 18, Chowder Bay Road, Mosman, Sydney NSW, Australia 2088
The Forum Challenge: "How can leaders in organisations lead generative conversations"
With International Thought Leaders
Shawn Callahan, Founder, Anecdote, Melbourne. Australia
Pavan Choudary, CEO, Vygon India, author and executive coach, Madras, India
Ralph Kerle, Chief Executive Officer, The Creative Leadership Forum, Sydney, Australia
Professor Kirpal Singh Ph.D, Singapore Management University, Dean of Economics, Arts, and Humanities, novelist, poet, Singapore.
and Session Leaders
Sandra Kay Lauffenburger (Laban), Dr Louise Mahler (Vocal and Choral)
A 2 1/2 day leadership programme designed to explore, develop and produce new thinking and learning around the way conversations occur to produce creative outcomes..
"Any human anywhere will blossom in a hundred unexpected talents and capacities simply by being given the opportunity to do so." Doris Lessing
The Forum Preamble
The hard assets of all organizations tend to constitute the primary value of the organization but they are useless if not for the human asset and specifically the resourcefulness of that human asset to organize and utilize the hard assets. And one of the essential elements of this human resourcefulness is that of imagination and creativity. But these two elements remain dormant without the generative contexts to draw them out and generative contexts are established and maintained only by the right kinds of conversations. If the output of a musician is music, the output of a playwright a script, the output of a sculptor a piece of visual art, then the output of a leader is creative conversation because it is the leader's job to organize and focus the energy of human resourcefulness. It is the job of the leader to create and maintain the conversational 'spaces' that trigger the imagination and apply that imagination to creative work. The majority of conversations that people have at work do not readily lend themselves to creative action. What is the case in your organization?
Conversations that Create will explore and develop how to create and maintain the necessary generative spaces and have the kinds of conversations needed to move individuals and teams into creative output. Participants will learn and practice practical ways of having conversations for possibility and opportunity, for engagement, commitment and creative action and for creating the necessary relationships for sustaining a generative space.
Click on www.thecreativeleadershipforum.com
Event Fees and Conditions
The cost to participate is $880 incl GST. All meals are included in the cost. Accommodation is excluded. Click here for full details of the venue situated on Sydney Harbour. The Forum is limited to 30 people. All presenters will be participants as well. This is not an academic conference, rather a peer to peer practice led information exchange with participants drawn from business, government, academia, the arts. Particular regard will be paid to the balance and mix of participants.
If you are interested please email Ralph Kerle on rk@thecreativeleadershipforum.com or call direct on 0412 559 603 in the first instance.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 8/04/08 | | Footprints in time |
Chandni and I have just returned from the official launch of Footprints in Time, a
longitudinal study of indigenous children designed to identify the things that contribute to indigenous children growing up to be strong and resilient. The project has been four years in the gestation, and it was launched by Jenny Macklin, Minister for FaHCSIA and Professor Mick Dodson who is the chair of the project steering committee. This project is an enormous undertaking and high hopes are held for its ability to make a difference to the future policy responses to issues around indigenous children.
The project has two main streams; a quantitative survey and a narrative-based qualitative component. Anecdote has been working with the project for the past year supporting the narrative component and implementing the SenseMaker software developed by Cognitive Edge. It was exciting to be part of the official launch and it is great to be a part of such an initiative.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 7/04/08 | | Storytelling for Business Leaders Workshop in Sydney |
We can all tell stories about our childhood quite easily.
What about our work, our workplace, our business? That seems far from easy. People tend to use PowerPoint over PowerPoint to convey their ideas.
At Anecdote, we're always finding ways to help people bring back stories to the workplace. Here's some areas of storytelling that we'll be discussing on April 16.
▪ How does one tell a story?
▪ How can you find stories to tell at work?
▪ What stories should one tell when one wants to communicate values?
▪ What stories can help you introduce yourself to an audience?
▪ How can you build trust by telling stories?
▪ How can you help people see 'the big picture' through stories?
▪ How can you use stories to make a difference?
Join us in Sydney for a workshop on Storytelling for Business Leaders. Download registration form
It'll be fun and you'll discover stories you can share about yourself and your work!
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
| 6/04/08 | | Connected futures: New social strategies and tools for communities of practice |
If you are interested in establishing and fostering communities of practice, and in particular are keen to understand the role social technologies such as blogs, wikis and social booking might play in their development, then you'll want to check out this new learning event from CPSquare:
Connected futures: New social strategies and tools for communities of practice
We have been designing this event (runs over 5 weeks) as a virtual field trip and experimental lab where you will engage your heads and your hands (and hopefully your hearts) and get a good feeling for these technologies and how they might support communities of practice.
You will be guided on this journey by the following practitioners:
Beth Kanter, Beverly Trayner, Bronwyn Stuckey, Etienne Wenger, John Smith, Nancy White, Nick Noakes, Shawn Callahan, Shirley Williams, and Susanne Nyrop.
I hope to see you there.
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
| 21/03/08 | | Shawn has opened up his Twitter |
I've decided to open up my Twitter so anyone can follow my tiny tweets. Before I only let the Anecdote team follow alog but I started to realise that there was a much wider network that could help each other out. So feel free to check out my Twitter page and if you think I should follow you let me know why. I love following people who point me to eclectic bits of information and ideas.
Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
| 12/03/08 | | Being healthy in Canberra |
One of our dear friends, Amanda Horne, is on a mission to improve the well being of Canberra residents. As a Canberran now living in Melbourne I can appreciate what Amanda is endeavouring to do. There is much stress among federal public servants because Kevin 07 has morphed into Kevin 24/7 (translation for our OS readers: our new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd aka Kevin 07, is working the public service to the bone at the moment).
So here is the program Amanda has organised.
Bright-eyed and Bushy Tailed
(....in five easy steps)
You are invited to attend a half-day workshop that will help you to thrive and flourish. Facilitated by well-known naturopath Mim Beim, this workshop will provide you with information and tips on how you can boost your wellbeing. In her friendly, down-to-earth and approachable style, Mim will cover:
- building energy, wellbeing and resilience
- enhancing your immune system
- helping the body to minimise the effects of stress
- practical nutrition tips to boost energy and concentration
- rituals for relaxation and renewal
- attaining a healthy body weight
- tools to help you feel ‘full of beans’- Q&A (bring your questions)
Mim Beim has been a practising naturopath for over 20 years. She has written 7 books, hosted 2 TV series, features regularly on national radio and writes for ABC’s ‘Life’ magazine. Mim has a special interest in the way stress affects our health, and specialises in helping people to improve their wellbeing.
Website: www.beamingwithhealth.com.au
“One of the questions I ask my patients is: “On a scale of 1-10, where would you place your energy levels, if 10/10 is ‘jumping full of beans’?”. Quite often patients will respond with a 4 or 5, even when they appear to have plenty of energy, able to accomplish full-time work, family life and study. Many people push themselves to get through each day, sometimes for years on end. This can lead to illness, and it means it’s more difficult to enjoy life and to feel bright-eyed and bushy tailed.” (Mim Beim)
Workshop details Date: Either: Tuesday 1st April, 2008 or Tuesday 15th April, 2008 (*)
Time: 9am-12.30pm
Location: Forrest Inn, Forrest, Canberra
Cost: $121 per person (includes GST) (*)
The workshop can also be run as a half-day, in-house corporate sessionon the afternoon of 1 April or 15th April.
Contact If you would like to attend, or you are interested in an in-house workshop, please contact Amanda Horne for payment and booking details.
Phone: 02-6239 4566 or 0402 892 698
Email: amanda@amandahorne.com.au
This workshop is sponsored by Canberra-based executive coach, Amanda Horne, in the interests of helping the people of Canberra to flourish and thrive.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 12/03/08 | | KM Australia is coming |
This year I will be speaking at KM Australia in two capacities: running a workshop on knowledge strategy, and speaking with Greg Marsh from BAE Systems about the community of practice work we are doing together.
The conference is held in sunny Melbourne (well, it was sunny yesterday), 21-23 July.
The workshop is called Involving your Organisation in Strategising Knowledge. Here is the description:
You can request a brochure for KM Australia here. It will be great to see you there.Most times we know what to do. We know about the lack of communication across our organisational silos, we know we are constantly reinventing the wheel, we know that it’s hard to find expertise when we need it, and it’s even harder to find relevant information that’s buried in the labyrinth of file system hierarchies. What’s surprising is that we even know how to improve these issues, yet nothing changes. Consequently, we view the development of a knowledge strategy as a change project to help the organisation set a clear direction for change and develop a resolve among employees to take action.
This workshop will teach you how to tap into emotions and demonstrate why you need to broaden involvement when strategising how knowledge will be created, shared and used. This is not about creating a pristine document, but rather marshalling the energy in people to make a difference. You will learn about the Three Journeys process, how to use stories to communicate with impact, and find out what’s really happening in your organisation.
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
| 7/03/08 | | Anecdotally is here |
Over the years we have built a good following for our monthly newsletter (over 2,000 readers and growing) and today we are re-launching it with the name, Anecdotally. Perhaps the biggest change is that we have decided not to publish Anecdotally on our site. It's only available to subscribers.
You can check out an example of Anecdotally here.
Visit here to sign up to receive monthly updates on techniques, book reviews, news, comments and advice for HR, KM, change management, business and communications people interested in the practical application of business narrative.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 6/03/08 | | Moving on |
Anecdote has been fortunate to have had Krista Schmeling as part of our team since mid-October last year. She has done lots of work supporting our communities of practice projects and has kept our workshop program running smoothly and added significantly to our cumulative artistic capabilities. Unfortunately, others have noticed her talents and she leaves Anecdote to take up a fantastic role managing humanitarian services for a large community services organisation. Her last day is 7 March and she has a whole weekend off before starting her new role.
Krista has been a great asset for Anecdote and we will miss her. We all join in wishing her every success in her new role.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 28/02/08 | | Meeting to talk about storytelling, narrative and complexity |
I run a meetup group in Melbourne call Emergence and we get together for drinks and dinner each month. Our next meeting is on the 13th March at 6pm. For full details and to RSVP go to here. It very informal and just a good way to catch up with new people and talk about things that interest us. Everyone is welcome.
| 18/02/08 | | Last days to register for our narrative courses in Canberra and Melbourne |
Join organisations like IBM, AstraZeneca, National Australia Bank, BHP Billiton, The Treasury and Thiess and register for our Narrative Techniques for Business workshop in Melbourne next Wednesday 27th. To find out more and register click here.
And next week (26th) in Canberra we will be running a workshop on how to tell better stories in a business context to improve communication. Check out Storytelling for Leaders to register.
Both workshops cost $495.
| 6/02/08 | | Business storytelling training in Australia |
Regular readers of our blog are well aware of the many storytelling, business narrative and community of practice workshop we run throughout the year. But if you have just found our site you can download our latest schedule of courses or visit our workshop page to see all the topics and dates.
This month we are offering two workshops:
Narrative Techniques for Business, Melbourne, 27th February
Storytelling for Business Leaders, Canberra, 26th February
Next month we will be visiting Perth to run the Narrative Techniques for Business workshop.
And if you are a fellow blogger we are offering a blogging bonus. If someone mentions your blog when they register, we’ll pay you $50. One blog per registration, of course, but no limit on bonuses per blog, naturally.
| 29/01/08 | | Etienne Wenger's Online CoP Workshop |
Just to let you know that Etienne Wenger and his collaborators at CPSquare are running their 4 week online workshop shortly (starts the 28th of January so you had better hurry). If you are interested go to:
http://www.cpsquare.org/edu/foundations/index.htm
Let them know you found out about the course via the Anecdote blog and they will provide you with a discount.
| 21/01/08 | | The Anecdote Team |
In case you haven't seen the faces of Anecdote, here's our Christmas 07 photo. You can read our short bios or take a look at our updated company profile.
And here is what the Christmas party really looked like. Suggested captions are welcomed (what were Mark and Robyn illustrating?)
| 7/12/07 | | Knowlege Management Workshops in Australia |
We had a great day on Monday running our Narrative Techniques for Business workshop in Canberra. The venue overlooked Lake Burley Griffin and we had a fun group of people attend from within Canberra and interstate.
I started at Anecdote in mid-October and one of the things I have been working on is our 2008 workshop schedule. We’ve decided to focus on three of our most popular workshops: Storytelling for Business Leaders, Starting and Sustaining Communities of Practice, and Narrative Techniques for Business. We’ve just released our schedule for 2008, which can be found on the workshops page of our website. We also have a printable version of this calendar. For more information, or to register for a workshop, please follow the links, or e-mail us on info@anecdote.com.au for more information. We hope to see you at one of our workshops next year.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 26/10/07 | | Dealing with email overload |
Research company IDC says that 39.7 billion person to person emails buzz around the world each day. Hardly surprising given that I have worked in organisations where people used email to arrange meeting for lunch with someone two desks away. That's why I like what's happening at INTEL a lot. Three weeks ago 150 of their engineers participated in the first of what will be ongoing "Zero email Fridays". They haven't banned email entirely. It's a month long trial that's designed to encourage people to phone each other or meet up face to face. The idea behind this is, of course, that it will encourage more direct, free-flowing communication and and a better exchange of ideas. Getting up and walking across the corridor to talk to someone is a simple activity that contributes to building personal networks.
And if you feel that you have 39.7 billion emails or thereabouts sitting your inbox calling your name, you might be interested in the concept of email bankruptcy espoused by Lawrence Lessing on WIRED, where you can simply refuse to work through that truly frightening number of emails you are hoarding...most of which are awaiting action or a reply. Just hit the Delete button and start again with a clean slate. What's your take on it? Would there be significant consequences if you declared email bankruptcy today? Have we become too email dependent? Anyone like to join me in deleting the entire contents of their inbox?
| 27/09/07 | | Patrick Lambe in Melbourne - The Vices and Virtues of Knowledge Management |
Friends of Anecdote are invited to join our colleagues in the Knowledge Management Leadership Forum and the KM Round Table to an evening seminar with visiting guest speaker Patrick Lambe.
Patrick is President of the Information and Knowledge Management Society based in Singapore, and Founding Partner of Straits Knowledge, a research and consulting firm specialising in information and knowledge management.
One of Asia’s most respected knowledge management practitioners, originally trained in Library Science. Patrick arrived in KM via a second career in training and development, and has been based in Singapore for 16 years.
On the evening of October 25, Patrick will run an interactive forum on “the Vices and Virtues of Knowledge Management” which will be followed by an informal networking session with the who’s who in the field of knowledge management.
When: Thursday Oct 25, 6:00 – 8:00pm
Where: Treasury Theatre, Lower Plaza, 1 Macarthur St East Melbourne
Refreshments provided
RSVP to melbournekmlf@gmail.com by Friday Oct 12.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 31/08/07 | | “Yellow Pages” is a registered trademark of Telstra |
Just a warning to everyone out there who is using the term “Yellow Pages” to describe the people directories you might develop to implement knowledge management. Today I received this letter from Telstra's lawyers telling me that I have probably unintentionally infringed their trademark and I must remove the reference from one of our whitepapers. I will make the changes they request, as it is not a biggie, but you should be aware if you are using this terminology that you might have Telstra's lawyers knocking at your door.
Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack
| 24/08/07 | | IBM software - social software for the enterprise |
I used to work with Jimmy Kwang at IBM. He was a terrific supporter of the Cynefin Centre and I must say a terrific host. We always had a great time when we visited Malaysia or Singapore.
Jimmy sent me an email yesterday to let me know that IBM is getting into the social software field and said we could get a look at some of the capabilities by visiting a new blog IBM Singapore set up. www.blog4biz.sg
I had a quick look and while the content is just starting to grow it was good to see the features you would expect in a social software environment.
Technorati Tags: social software, web 2.0
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 23/08/07 | | Knowledge retention seminars |
We are running a series of breakfast seminars in the coming weeks, exploring the use of narrative techniques for knowledge retention. It will be a mini 'road-trip' for us that takes in Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney, and we're all looking forward to sharing our experiences, good coffee and great conversations.
There's been an overwhelming response to these events with most being booked out well in advance. We do however, still have just a few places available for our Sydney breakfast, which will take place on Tuesday, 4th September 2007 from 07:00am to 09:00am at a convenient city location. There is no cost to attend, and breakfast is provided.
This seminar is an opportunity to explore how to best use narrative techniques to minimise the impact of knowledgeable people leaving your organisation. And because we know that learning is ineffective with someone just up front talking at you, we've designed the seminar to be a combination of some talking by us, and some talking in small groups by you. We will also feature a case study from Cadbury Schweppes' expert knowledge retention activity.
This will be an opportunity to hear some of our experiences; but more importantly you will leave the seminar with our rough guide to getting started on your first narrative-based knowledge retention project.
If you're interested in joining us, drop me a note! - daryl@anecdote.com.au.
| 23/07/07 | | Sydney Venue for Upcoming Workshop |
We are currently putting together a series of breakfast seminars on the topic of knowledge retention - more on that later. We are going to be holding them in Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra in early September and I'm trying to find a suitable (professional, good food, nice space) venue for around 20 people in or around the Sydney CBD. Being from south of the border, I'm not too familiar with Sydney. Does anyone have any personal recommendations? If so, would you mind leaving a comment or sending an email to daryl@anecdote.com.au. Thanks.
| 14/07/07 | | The Melbournians |
It's always nice to put a face to a name. Here's Daryl, Robyn and me.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 13/07/07 | | Victoria Ward is blogging |
I can't say how excited I was to find Victoria Ward blogging. I noticed a link to her site over at Bev Trayner's blog (thanks Bev).
So who is Victoria Ward? Victoria founded Sparknow in 1997 and I discovered her work when I was in London last year. Her knowledge of narrative practice is impressive, which is evident from her Taste the Knowledge blog. I've never met Victoria but I hope our paths cross soon.
This insight is illustrative of Victoria's narrative knowledge.
I hold that it is the complexity, ambiguity, discomfort and unease in storytelling (contextualised appropriately through facts and evidence) that is the point. It should not speed up transmission. It should slow transmission, make things messier, harder to grasp, so that the listener/viewer must absorb layers of complexity and develop his or her own judgements about how to act in the light of the experience of receiving the story.
The mainstream business storytellers of course say the exact opposite and while both perspectives are true I think Victoria's slow narrative perspective is more conducive to sensemaking and better decision making. Fast narrative can taste good but we are rarely satisfied and often suffer the consequences in the future.
Technorati Tags: victoria ward
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
| 29/06/07 | | Not so Newcomer |
Well, Daryl’s arrival on the scene at Anecdote has really put the pressure on me now he has published his maiden blog post. Here I’ve been for several months and nothing from me but a deafening silence. For people who have actually met me this is entirely out of character. I have opinions on everything and hardly hesitate to express them. At length. Just ask the two friends who walk with me at 6am in the morning.
So what’s been going on here? Some of it was the steep learning curve inherent in every new job. And you want me to write a blog post too? Sure, just wait until I have a better understanding of how things are done around here, and what exactly is the software I need to use? And how do I put them together? Um, maybe next week. And then a lot of the technical barriers were removed when I maintained a project blog for eight weeks early in the year. But still nothing from me on the Anecdote blog.
It was clear that there was a serious amount of personal effort going into all this blog avoidance. And after some thinking and reflecting about this uncharacteristic coyness I uncovered some deep-seated and entirely irrational beliefs. The first was my late Granny’s exhortation to never put anything in writing that might come back to haunt you. The dear old lady was referring to the quaint old habits of letter writing and journal keeping, where your well chosen and pithy words about Great Aunt Maud’s appalling behaviour at Christmas dinner might be deliberately read by someone only to happy to report them back to Great Aunt M for the sole reason of seeing you cut out of the will. My interpretation of this ancient family wisdom meant that the idea of putting my pronouncements on anything out to the great universe of the internet for comment – well, just don’t go there.
And the second reason was closely aligned with the first. I have spent the last several years in HR roles that have required me to endlessly repeat my Granny’s message in an organisational context. Email privacy is non-existent, even deleted messages can be found, don’t use client or employer provided access to the internet for researching your next car purchase or worse still, surfing inappropriate sites. Then, just as I had finished giving myself a good talking to about the silliness of this particular point of view and committed publicly (well, to Shawn and Daryl at least) that I would get something out there this very week, I found this.
| 21/06/07 | | Anecdote Team Grows |
Hello Everyone,
By way of introduction - my name is Daryl Cook; I'm the 'new kid' on the block here at Anecdote.
How did I end up here? ... well, I'm passionate about group facilitation and collaboration and it's my purpose to discover more human, more productive, and more creative ways for people to work together. Working as part of the team at Anecdote provides a vehicle for doing this and also an opportunity to do some great things.
A little about me ...
one-line infobytes:
1. proud father to two gorgeous daughters
2. interested in social media and open systems
3. armchair philosopher
4. aspiring genius and entrepreneur
5. 2nd dan blackbelt in taekwondo
6. commuter and recreational cyclist
7. passionate about personal and organisational development
extended bio:
My diverse career includes a mix of IT, business and HR roles for several companies. Academic achievements (for what it's worth) include a Masters of Business Administration and a Bachelor of Arts (Human Geography).
I look forward to learning, discovering and sharing with you all. And most importantly, having some fun along the way!
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 15/06/07 | | Posts you might have missed from the archives |
We've been blogging at Anecdote now since 2004. And even before that I had two previous blogging attempts, one using Radio Lands and the other on Blogger. My first blog post was in September 2002. All this mean is that we have accumulated a heap of content and I thought it might be useful to re-post some of the blogs we're fond of and some of the popular posts. We would also like to hear if you have any particular favourites you would like to see back on the front page.
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
| 15/06/07 | | Knowledge management jobs in Hong Kong |
Eric Tsui asked me to let you know he has a couple of jobs going in Hong Kong. Here are the details.
THE HONG KONG POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL AND SYSTEMS ENGINEERING
Post Specification
Project Associate (two posts) (Ref. 95172) [Appointment period: eighteen months]
Duties
The appointees will assist the project leader in the project - “Learning and practicing knowledge harnessing and sharing techniques in the WebCT Vista environment”. Qualifications
For the first post, applicants should:
(a) have a master’s degree in a related discipline;
(b) have prior experience in working with E-learning or Knowledge Management projects;
(c) have an excellent command of both written and spoken English; (d) be a good technical writer; and
(e) be able to work independently as well as in a team.
For the second post, applicants should:
(a) have a master’s degree in Information Technology, Information Systems, Knowledge Management or Multimedia Design;
(b) have knowledge and passion in working with E-Learning and Knowledge Management projects;
(c) have technical skills in evaluating, developing, configuring and deploying simulation, scenario planning or gaming software in an online learning environment;
(d) have good communication skills; and
(e) be able to work independently as well as in a team.
Applicants are invited to contact Prof. Eric Tsui at tel no. 2766 6609, fax no. 2774 9308 or email eric.tsui@polyu.edu.hk for further information.
Remuneration
Salary offered will be commensurate with qualifications and experience. Applicants should state their current and expected salary in the application.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 15/06/07 | | Demonstration of Zahmoo and Sensemaker |
For those of you who will be coming to our workshop in Sydney, we will be demonstrating our new Web 2.0 service called Zahmoo as well as Cognitive Edge's Sensemaker.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 6/06/07 | | Narrative Techniques for Business Workshop in Sydney - 26 July |
It's been over a year since we presented this workshop in Australia, so we are pleased to say we are running our narrative techniques for business workshop in Sydney next month. This workshop has been a tremendous success and we have recently revamped the workshop handbook.
Here is a full description of the workshop.
Here are a couple of screenshots from the manual.
The cost of the workshop is $350 if you register before the end of June and $475 after that.
Please pass on this message to anyone who you think might find this workshop useful and interesting. We have found people in organisational development, learning, human resources, communications, knowledge management and change management get most value from this day.
Technorati Tags: workshop
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 4/06/07 | | Anecdote is Enterprise 2.0 |
Luke Naismith sent me the link to this presentation. And after a quick look it's immediately recognisable; it's how we work at Anecdote. If you are interested in working here too, check out this.
Technorati Tags: enterprise 2.0
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 1/06/07 | | Ross Dawson's Web 2.0 Framework |
It's important for businesses to keep an eye on what's happening on the web as so many new business models are emerging every day. Ross Dawson has done some excellent work pulling together a framework for thinking about web 2.0 and also categorised a bunch of existing services. I hope he will include Zahmoo when it makes it debut.
Technorati Tags: ross dawson, web 2.0
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 30/05/07 | | The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation's Story Guide in now online |
Great news. The Story Guide: Building Bridges Using Narrative Techniques is now available online. Our reader, Jon Revelos, just posted the link today as a comment to this post. Thanks John.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 22/05/07 | | How Gehry designs—the full story |
On the recommendation of Johnnie Moore, I read A Perfect Mess by Eric Abrahamson and David Freedman. I was really looking forward to this book because it held the promise of providing an interesting view of issues dear to my heart: chaos, complexity and messiness (I also hoped it might give me good reasons for maintaining my messy desk). Sadly I was disappointed with the book because the authors spent too much time trying to categorise mess and messy people (The archaeologist, the order prig, the mess distractor), relying on a single source for major arguments (see Corporation's Big Plan and their use of Starbuck's 1992 journal article), and relying heavily on newspaper sources (more that a 1/3 of the 50 sources).
Despite all these flaws I found one story about the renowned architect Frank Gehry and his firm which got me excited, but again I was let down.
Gehry Partners were engaged to design and build the new business school at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. Gehry is renowned for using models to convey how the building will look and feel. As told in A Perfect Mess, Gehry is mindful of how difficult it is to translate the emotion impact of the building when you collapse the model into a two-dimensional blueprint. Abrahamson and Freedman write:
“The school approved the design and brought in a small army of contractors to build it. The contractors duly admired, in a shocked and fretful way, the model of the God-awfully complex structure they were about to undertake, and then asked for the blueprints, to which Gehry's team replied that there weren't any. The contractors thought the group was joking, but Gehry and his associates assured the contractors they were serious. ... Gehry's group maintained that the contractors could derive the measurements they needed by studying the model of the building ...” pp. 87-88
The story continues and the contractors work together with Gehry Partners to co-create the building. The building in delivered on time, on budget and everyone is thrilled with the result. Furthermore, the contractors develop a multitude of new skills and techniques such as new ways to bend steel beams, survey sites, affix unconventional materials. Wow! I was impressed. This was very similar to our three journey approach. The first journey was Gehry and Partners creating the scale models, the second journey was involving the contractors in co-designing the building, and the third journey was its construction.
But something bugged me about the story, so I started surfing the web to see if I could find the source referred to in the book's end notes. I learnt that as the building was designed and constructed the academics from the Case Western Reserve Business School, lead by Professor Richard Boland, were studying the process. There were a number of papers written as a result and I read this one called Design Matters for Management. The first thing I was struck by was how Gehry Partners makes extensive use of computer models in their work. Hmmm, don't you need measurements to make computer models?
So I emailed Richard Boland and he seemed as surprised as I was. It turns out that Gehry does use models in lieu of blueprints a long time before a blueprint is created. The firm works with speciality contractors who are crucial to the success of the project early in the design phase and works with them to create the design. Gehry avoids the traditional approach of drawing something up and saying “here is the blueprint, go build it.”
I think Abrahamson and Freedman failed the plausibility test because that's what we listen for when we hear a story; is it plausible? You can see from the picture I included just how complex (and I think this is complex and not merely complicated) his building are. To think they were built without blueprints seem implausible.
Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
| 11/05/07 | | Learning about Cynefin and Cognitive Edge tools in Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra (Australia) |
Many of you might not know that I got my start in business narrative working with Dave Snowden in IBM's Cynefin Centre in. It was an exhilarating experience. We spent four years creating a range of new tools and techniques for helping companies thrive in complexity, and story-based techniques were at the core of our approach.
Dave and I left IBM about the same time and Dave set up Cognitive Edge to create software tools to support sensemaking techniques. We are proud to say that Anecdote is a partner of Cognitive Edge and offers the Cognitive Edge software and related services to our clients.
Technorati Tags: cognitive edge, dave snowden, sensemaker
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 4/05/07 | | New blogging environment |
I have now migrated over to a Mac and this is my first post as a bit of a test. I'm using Ecto as my blogging client, which seems to have all the functionality I was used to in BlogJet.
Technorati Tags: ecto, blogjet
Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
| 21/04/07 | | Computer problems |
Both Mark and I are having a world of problems with our PCs. So if you have been emailing us and not getting a reply can we ask you try again. Hey Dave, looks like we will need to move to Apple :-)
Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
| 3/04/07 | | Boston business narrative techniques workshop a success |
I’m sitting in the LA airport getting ready to fly home to Melbourne. It’s given me time to reflect on our workshop in Boston. Thanks John for helping me organise this event. It was great to meet face to face. And thanks to all our workshop participants. You were a fun group.
We’ve made some tremendous advances in our workshop since we ran it for the first time in 2004. We’ll run in Australia again this year. Just send me an email if you are interested in attending.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 25/03/07 | | Join Anecdote and make a difference |
Things are continuing to grow here at Anecdote and we are again looking for someone to join our little crew.
We would love to work with
- someone passionate about people; you love working with people, you’re interested in how people work in organisations; and you share our desire to restore humanity to the forefront of organising and organisations.
- a person with 5 or more years working experience; it would be good if you had a degree in a people-related discipline (for example, organisational psychology, anthropology, KM, HR);
- someone who has sound consulting experience and can work with clients to understand their needs and deliver against them;
- someone who will enthusiastically embrace the Anecdote operating principles of: do good things; look after each other; and have a go.
- a person with a great attitude to work, to life: this is far more important than skills.
What we will do for you
- We will train you in all our techniques such as narrative collection, sensemaking, intervention design, storytelling, social network analysis, communities of practice development, and fostering knowledge transfer.
- Provide a diversity of project types and activities that will stretch you and help you learn at a cracking pace.
- Good coffee, great conversations and meeting and working with interesting people.
What you will be doing at Anecdote
- Helping to develop and refine our sensemaking approaches based on our work in organisations, big and small, public and private sector.
- Project activities including interviewing, focus group facilitation, research, presentations, and logistics.
- Meeting and working with outstanding people who form part of the Anecdote global network of collaborators.
Is this you? Are you interested?
Then …
Send a 3 page pdf that conveys your outstanding attributes and why you should be part of the Anecdote team to jobs@anecdote.com.au
We will close the call for submissions on 27 April 2007.
You will need to live in either Canberra, Melbourne or Sydney for this job.
As you would expect, Anecdote provides a collegiate working environment. We’re a small, close-knit team that collaborates without ego or arrogance. Have a browse through our website and get a feel for the company you will be joining. Our perspectives, priorities and thoughts are published here and we think they provide insight into Anecdote’s philosophy.
Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack
| 6/03/07 | | Meeting you in the US of A |
Towards the end of this month I will be in Seattle, Boston and Las Vegas. If you are in or near any of these cities and would like to meet, send me an email and hopefully we can organise a time to catch up.
- Seattle: 26th March
- Boston: 28th or 30th March
- Las Vegas: 2nd April
In case you hadn’t seen the news, but I will running some narrative technique workshops while I’m there.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 1/03/07 | | Over a 1,000 downloads of the ultimate guide to anecdote circles |
I just noticed that we have reached the milestone of over 1,000 downloads of our guide on how to run anecdote circles. Just click on this graphic to download your free copy.
If you would like to receive training in how to run anecdote circles, check out our half day course.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 28/02/07 | | Andrew moves on from Anecdote |
Andrew and I met about two years ago at a meme and complexity workshop organised by the CSIRO. I was immediately struck by Andrew’s intelligence and curiosity and thought, “maybe we could work on a project together.” In the following six months we hit it off and Andrew joined Mark and I at Anecdote.
Over the last 18 months we’ve learned a lot from each other. Andrew’s love of facilitation, trying out the very latest and ground breaking ideas helped us stretch our minds. We pushed and prodded each other and worked out how to collaborate with one another. I was the tight string that loosened, Andrew started loose then tightened.
Mark remembers first meeting Andrew and thinking ‘Man, his hair is curlier even than mine!’ We soon learned that beneath that mop of curls was a highly ethical, first-rate brain that was always able to provide a perspective that opened new opportunities and ways of approaching issues. His love of Yum Cha is legendary and we look forward to our continuing education in this discipline.
So you will probably be surprised to learn that Andrew will be leaving Anecdote today and heading out to pursue his interests in facilitation. We wish him all the very best and thank him for his efforts at Anecdote. Andrew will remain a kindred spirit in the field of business narrative and I’m sure there are still many coffees (or herbal teas) to be had.
Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack
| 20/02/07 | | Putting stories to work |
Over the last few months we’ve talked about the importance of having a short phrase or mantra to help everyone in an organisation implement the company’s strategy (here and here). At Anecdote we’ve had a few catch phrases over our relatively short life and we’ve never been totally happy with any of them. Here’s the chronology:
- complexity – narrative – knowledge
- narrative – narrative – narrative
- insight and empowerment
- learning and change
After reading Made to Stick we realised the problem. Each attempt was abstract and passive and the phrases didn’t really give us any indication about how to act nor tell our clients what we were all about. So here is our new tag line: Putting stories to work
Let us know what you think.
Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack
| 19/02/07 | | Business narrative workshops in Seattle and Boston |
Just a reminder that the early bird rate for these workshops closes in 1 week. Here is a description of the workshop. The full description and registration details can be found here.
- What's really going on in your organisation?
- What are the touch points where small changes can transform behaviour and morale?
- How can you access and transfer the wisdom of your workforce to future employees?
Surveys and metrics can uncover trouble in an organisation, but they usually don't help you identify the reasons for dysfunctions, let alone point the way toward remedies for the problems. Instead, learn to use stories as listening posts. From time immemorial, stories have contained collective lessons in condensed form. When gathered and examined, stories that are told in your organisation reveal important themes and patterns that in turn indicate effective solutions.
This one-day workshop, led by Australia's leading expert in story listening, teaches you to gather and analyse stories so as to see revealing patterns and use them to gain traction on solving messy organisational problems or reaching complicated goals.
After a full day of instruction, practice and feedback, you will have the confidence and knowledge to apply these powerful techniques within your organisation.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 19/02/07 | | Using stories to retain and keep alive retiring employees' knowledge |
I should have mentioned this earlier but this Friday (23rd February) I will be presenting a workshop in Sydney on how to use stories to retain and keep alive retiring employees’ knowledge. It will be a practical session where the participants will have fun crafting questions to elicit stories, conduct interviews, facilitate anecdote circles and then use a couple techniques to help make sense of the stories. Communities of practice will feature.
The two key messages I’m hoping to convey in the workshop are:
- communities keep stories alive
- lessons from a few stories collected once are fun and interesting; lessons from many stories reviewed widely and regularly nurtures wisdom
This workshop is a post-conference event for Extracting and Sharing Knowledge from an Ageing Workforce conference. To receive a full copy of the brochure for this event please email Louise at louise.badcock@keyforums.com.au or call on +61 2 9436 4255.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 13/02/07 | | Where are we at with Zahmoo? |
You might be wondering what is happening with Zahmoo? The main reason for the delay is our busy lives at Anecdote. Zahmoo is a labour of love and while we have made great progress and actually have an alpha version of the software working, I’m holding things up with a list of things I need to do that seems to be constantly trumped by other priorities. Please be patient and thanks for you all your help and interest so far.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 31/01/07 | | Upcoming Practical Social Network Analysis Workshop |
With Social Network Analysis (SNA), the technique of analysing and exploring social networks, experiencing a resurgence. I’m pleased to announce that I will be running a 2 day workshop titled "Practical Social Network Analysis: Skills and techniques for facilitating organisational change". This workshop will be held in Melbourne on the 22nd and 23rd March. This practice based workshop will provide you with the skills and tools to be effective with the use of Social Network Analysis in your organization.
This workshop is for those who want to:
- Build their confidence and expertise in applying the theory and practice of social network analysis for facilitating change within their organisation
- Gain an understanding of the key concepts and models which inform the practice of social network analysis and sensemaking for change in organisations
- Gain enhanced understanding and capability to use and apply the specific software tools for conducting social network investigations within your organisation
As a special offer, the first 5 participants to register for this course will receive a free copy of Rob Cross' book "The Hidden Power of Social Networks: Understanding How Work Really Gets Done in Organizations ". Regarded as one of the most practical and comprehensive guides written to the application of social network analysis within organisations.
To find out more about this course including how to register simply download the registration brochure here: http://www.anecdote.com.au/files/Social_network_analysis.pdf
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 24/01/07 | | Carnival of the Capitalists on David Maister's blog |
Last week David Maister invited his blog readers to participate in the Carnival of the Capitalist and submit a blog post that his readers might enjoy. David organised the posts into six categories and I was thrilled to see our post (The Hierarchy of Explanation) topped his list in the category “Articles I Enjoyed the Most”. It’s worth popping over to David’s blog and checking out some of the carnival posts.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 18/01/07 | | Narrative for Business Workshops in the USA |
Update: referral bonus for bloggers. See below.
We are pleased to announce that we’re running two narrative techniques workshops in the USA at Seattle and Boston on the 26 and 29th of March. Come and join us for the day and learn how to tackle seemingly intractable business issues like,
- fostering culture change
- building trust
- making mergers and acquisitions successful
- capturing the knowledge of retiring employees
- extracting lessons from projects
- improving occupational health and safety
- managing risk
A full description of the workshop and information on how to register is here.
Here are some of the organisations we’ve trained that are successfully using business narrative techniques:
- Australia Army
- IBM
- National Australia Bank
- Telstra
- The Treasury
And if you want to get a head start on learning about our techniques, take a look at our Guide to Anecdote Circles, which will be one of the techniques you will be learning.
One last thing. Some of you might be familiar with Steve Denning's work on business narrative. This workshop is nothing like that which Steve teaches (I talk about some of the differences here). Steve’s techniques are primarily aimed at helping leaders craft stories for a range of purposes (to persuade, to spark action etc.). Our techniques involve finding the stories that are already being told in an organisation and then helping decision makers make sense of these stories so they can create interventions to change how things are done.
I was inspired by Seth Godin to offer the following:
BLOG REFERRAL BONUS
If someone mentions your blog when they register, I’ll pay you $80. One blog per registration, of course, but no limit on bonuses per blog, naturally.
If you buy three seats for your colleagues, the fourth is free.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 8/01/07 | | Postdoc in KM Technologies at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University |
An opportunity exists for a postdoctoral research fellow to work on KM technologies at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) from 2007. The successful candidate needs to be a PhD graduate within the last 3 years, IT-savvy and possesses a strong publication record. Potential research areas include, but not limited to, ontologies, data/text mining, search engines, knowledge portals, peer-to-peer collaboration tools, E-Learning systems, and knowledge visualization tools/algorithms. PolyU's KM Group aggressively pursues action research with clients and collaborative companies and has an established track record of research and commercial KM projects in the region. Remuneration is approximately A$50k/year (and HK has a capped tax rate of 17%).. Interested parties please contact Professor Eric Tsui at Eric.Tsui@polyu.edu.hk , phone +852 2766 6609 or +61 2 8207 0138.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 19/12/06 | | Narrative for Business Workshop in the USA |
Hi there. We’re planning to run our successful Narrative Techniques for Business in the USA in early 2007. We’re at the “choose the city and date” stage and are hoping you might let us know if you are interested in attending this one-day workshop. If so, what city in the USA are you based in? Just follow this link to send your feedback. We appreciate your help and look forward to meeting you in 2007.
Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack
| 7/12/06 | | The Open Space Fishbowl - A new way to an energised conversation |
A few months ago Larry Peterson and I discovered and tested a great way to apply the Principles and Law of Open Space Technology to a “fishbowl” to create a dynamic, energized conversation with a whole room of almost 200 people in a short time frame.
Some of the participants said:
“I really enjoyed the openness of the fishbowl, next time I will be in there swimming.”
“We were pleasantly surprised with the number of participants willing to brave the fishbowl, and even more so with the conversation that followed. This was a format that engaged those within the fishbowl to offer the type of forthright commentary that may not have surfaced in another meeting format”.
Thanks to Larry we have put pen to paper and written about our experience, including the approach we have named the Open Space Fishbowl.
Download a copy of: The Open Space Fishbowl
Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
| 14/11/06 | | Interested in Wellness? |
Then don’t miss out on the Third Annual Australian Wellness Conference to be held in Brisbane November 30 – December 1, 2006.
The feature topics will span areas of personal wellness, self-management, worksite wellness, wellness coaching and wellness in the health professions.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 11/11/06 | | Running our communities of practice workshop in Hong Kong |
I’m planning to be in Hong Kong for the The 3rd Asia-Pacific International Conference on Knowledge Management (11–13 December) and as part of the conference I will be running a half day workshop on Starting and Sustaining Communities of Practice on the 15th of December. You can register for the workshop here. Here is the description of the workshop. Of course there will be a good amount of narrative included the workshop.
Communities of practice are one of the most powerful organizational structures available to connect people, access expertise, facilitate learning and create business value. But communities of practice are often fickle, and present paradoxical challenges in their design and management.
This interactive half-day workshop is designed to help participants to design and foster sustainable communities of practice within their organizations, be they public sector, private enterprise or not-for-profit. The workshop will address the creation of social structures that can take responsibility for fostering learning, developing skills and artifacts, and managing knowledge. It will help participants to understand how to balance the need for sustainable communities by having both autonomy and informality; and for the community to be structured to support organizational objectives.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 9/11/06 | | Focus, focus, focus - the big four |
Paradoxically, one of the dangers of specialising in the practical application of narrative techniques is their wide applicability; sometimes the people who might be interested in your services are unsure what business issues you can help with because you appear to do so many things. So last week we decided to focus on four business issues. We selected these four because our clients are asking for this type of assistance, we’re experienced in helping clients address these business issues and each issue is a natural fit for story-based approaches. They are:
- how to keep your people and knowledge
- facilitating meaningful and lasting change
- assessing the impact of difficult to measure initiatives
- getting knowledge flowing and enhancing collaboration
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 22/10/06 | | Some free eBook resources |
Like they say, life is about timing.
Coinciding with the launch of our recent ebook The ultimate guide to Anecdote Circles, Chris Corrigan has released an 81 page ebook called the Tao of holding space. Definitely worth a read for all those interested in Open Space.
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
| 19/10/06 | | The Ultimate Guide to Anecdote Circles |
We are very pleased to announce the release of a little eBook we have been working on called The Ultimate Guide to Anecdote Circles. Our aim for this book is to bring together the combined practical experiences of Anecdote in running anecdotes circles and presenting the information in a fun, easy to use format. You can download a copy from:
http://www.anecdote.com.au/AnecdoteCircles
Feel free to pass it on to anyone you think might find it useful and we look forward to your comments and suggestions.
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
| 13/10/06 | | Nancy White and me at VPSCIN |
Nancy and I facilitated a workshop this week for the Victorian Public Sector Continuous Improvement Network (VPSCIN) where we explored the relationship between communities of practice and technology. Frank Connelly describes the event here and Luke Naismith summarised the workshop here.
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
| 10/10/06 | | Which storybased techniques are most used? |
Since completing our Australia wide survey on the attitudes and awareness of story and narrative approaches within organisations, I have been working my way through sharing the results. So far, the analysis has surfaced interesting results around:
- Australian managers intuit story most useful for culture change
- The 7 story forms valued within organisations
- The 5 ways storytelling has been discouraged in organisations
- What are you more aware of - positive or negative stories?
- Anecdote from a survey participant - on being a storylistener
This blog post shares the results from asking nearly 400 participants to identify, “as far as you are aware, which of the following story-based techniques does your organisation use”.
The big surprise for us was how popular Most Significant Change is!
(Which reminds me, have you heard of Zahmoo?)
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 5/10/06 | | Australian managers intuit story most useful for culture change |
When asked in our recent Australian wide survey on the attitudes and awareness of story and narrative in organisations “How much have you heard or read about narrative and story methods for business?” the response from the 390 participating HR Managers, GMs, Directors and others was on the whole some or not much. (See figure below).
Even though the majority of our participants had read little around the approaches of story and narrative methods in business, when asked which areas they felt might have the greatest application and use for story approaches the area of organisational culture change was the clear leader.
The top 4 areas which emerged being considered useful for story were:
- 37.1 % Organisational culture change initiatives
- 32.6 % Enhancing leaders ability to motivate
- 32.2 % Enhancing leaders ability to communicate vision, goals and direction
- 31.4 % Organisational learning initiatives
It may come as no surprise to some that story has utility with working with culture. The work of Jung and Campbell, although controversial, was all grounded in story to explore cultures. It is also through story where we can learn the most about organisational culture. Think about those first few days in a new job, or in a new organisation. Think about the water cooler conversations you might have overheard. The tea-room stories shared. All of these stories provide a powerful way to learn about a companies culture. Yep, it makes sense to me that our participants might have intuited that story is useful for organisational culture change initiatives.
Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack
| 4/10/06 | | The actKM conference: 25-26 October |
actKM is running its 7th annual conference on 25 and 26 October. This is the best KM conference in 
Australia because it consists of practitioners talking about how it is done – no vendor presentations. It’s a two day program with an excellent conference dinner—not to be missed. The conference theme is “Realising the Knowledge Management Vision” with a focus on balancing and integrating the cultural and technical elements of knowledge management theory and practice to deliver tangible organisational benefits.
I will be there along with Robyn Ciuro. Let me know if you are going because I would love to catch up.
The conference program is here.
And you can register here.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 4/10/06 | | Improv and Story to help you in life and work |
In a previous post Izzy Gesell and I asked the question How can one improvise in a virtual world?
Why do you care?
Maybe you don’t but with our upcoming virtual workshop on October 10th being a taster for our “Change your story Change your world” program running with Izzy across the Australian eastern seaboard in November, we certainly do!
This morning Izzy, myself, Carla and one other brave participant experienced how improv games feeeeel in a teleconference kind of environment.
For Izzy, the 3 foundational skills of improv are Presence (showing up and being present, focus), Acceptance (remaining in the present) and Trust. In our teleconference today we ran with a few improv games which help to illustrate these foundational skills. The three games we played were “the one word story”, “the counting game” and “Yes…and”. Even with four of us, we had a lot of fun.
Three learnings I came to were:
- 1. Be prepared to provide more support for people in this ‘virtual’ environment – Unlike an event in real time and space, in a virtual environment one needs to be mindful of participants frustrations and how to lessen the burden
- 2. Lag on teleconferences may provide a “gift” to consider for how rhythm is created within these kinds of group interactions
- 3. Even Improv has structure – As Izzy keeps telling us “If creativity fails, go back to technique”
If you’d like to learn more about how Improv and Storytelling can help you in life and work, come along to the virtual workshop on October 10th 10am. There are still some places left, AND it’s free!
Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
| 4/10/06 | | Anecdote is growing |
Back in July we decided that the Anecdote team needed to grow and we ‘advertised’ via the blog and using word of mouth. We received many applications and met a whole bunch of fabulous and interesting people during the interview process that we will be keeping in touch with. To everyone who applied – thanks.
Most importantly, we are pleased to announce that Robyn Ciuro will be joining us in mid-October. Robyn was a real stand-out candidate. Her diverse career includes teaching, system testing and senior HR roles for several companies. Academic achievements include a Masters of Education and a Masters of KM. Most importantly of course, we love her and her attitude to life and work! We look forward to introducing her to you. Robyn faces a bit of an uphill battle in bringing some gender balance to Anecdote though :-)
Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack
| 1/10/06 | | Share your story about blogging on Zahmoo |
Are you a blogger? Maybe you blog professionally. Maybe your blog supports your business in some way. Maybe you blog inside an organisation. Maybe you have a personal blog.
Whichever it may be, we’d like to invite you to join in Zahmoo’s exploration of the Most Significant Change across the blogosphere and share your story around what has been the most significant change since you’ve been blogging. This is the first phase of our exploration. We will be providing information regarding the next steps in due course.
In the meanwhile, we would like to invite you to use the comments section of this blogpost to provide your answers to the following two questions:
- Describe a story that epitomises the most significant change that has resulted from your blogging .
- Why was this story significant for you?
In your comment, please be sure to provide your story and the reason why it’s significant for you.
Click here to join in and share your story.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 19/09/06 | | Free Webinar: Change your Story Change your World |
Interested? Come get a taste at our free webinar that Evolve has invited us to present. Check here for more info.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 13/09/06 | | How can you become a skilled story listener? |
Business people love stories yet most of them just don’t know it yet. Luckily, many of the world’s leading business thinkers and business leaders point to stories as vital in understanding issues like organisational learning, cultural change, leadership, and evaluation. Using story approaches assumes one important aspect: stories. Storytelling is in our nature, but it seems that many of us have lost or forgotten the gentle art of listening; especially in organisations. How can you elicit stories? How can you help people share their stories? How can you become a skilled story listener?
Running Anecdote Circles is one great way to become a skilled story listener.
Soon we will be releasing our “Ultimate Guide to Anecdote Circles” ebook. In this eBook (which we will be giving away for free) we have drawn upon our collective experience of running hundreds of Anecdote Circles and have focussed on the art and science of anecdote circles. In particular we have aimed to distil our practical know-how which covers the seascape of skills, tricks, tips and exercises useful to running successful, fun and inspiring Anecdote Circles.
If you’d like to be one of the first to receive our free eBook be sure to subscribe to our newsletter. Otherwise, feel free to drop me a line.
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
| 11/09/06 | | Nancy White is coming to town |
We have a rare treat for anyone who’s in Melbourne on the 11th of October. Nancy White is giving a presentation on social software organised by VPSCIN, KMLF and Anecdote. To find out what Nancy will cover and details to register for this free event, visit VPSCIN here.
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
| 11/09/06 | | Interview with Jess Dart |
I have just posted an interview with Jess Dart, co-developer of the Most Significant Change technique, over at the Zahmoo blog.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 7/09/06 | | Convey complex ideas with compassion, clarity and comprehension |
In a complex world where the future is inherently unpredictable, it's sometimes better to wait to the very last minute to make a decision.
Do you have the 20th or 21st of this month free? Can you free them up?
Here's your opportunity to join us in learning to find, craft and perform compelling stories for work and all your other passions.
When you register it will be our pleasure to give you a free copy of Doug Lipman's fantastic book "Improving your storytelling".
Decide now!
Click on this link: http://www.anecdote.com.au/coursedisplay.php?cid=12
And send in your registration form as fast as you can! 
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 4/09/06 | | Zahmoo blog is up and running |
If you are interested in the Most Significant Change technique or, more generally, in ways to assess the impact of initiatives that are difficult to measure, then you might like to keep an eye on the ZahmooBlog. We will posting on how MSC is being used and can be used; updates on Zahmoo—the online service for MSC practitioners; profiles of MSC practitioners; and a range of useful MSC tips and resources.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 1/09/06 | | August commenters and linkers |
Thanks again to everyone who has participated in our blog for August. We look forward to your thoughts and suggestions in September.
Commenters
Matt Moore, annette, ken, Chris Corrigan, Michael Wagner, frank.connolly, Moya Sayer-Jones, Sue Huckson, James Taylor, James Dellow
Linkers
davidmaister.com, Going to Pieces, Interactions, Knowledge Jolt with Jack, Greg Magnus, Random Walk in Learning, Lee Hopkins, How to Save the World, Em duas línguas, Marketing Interactions, mindflush.com, Knowledge Futures, S A R U S H I B A I .., Connecta, Weblog - Connecta, P3, Learning Alliances, Library clips, Other Interests, Middle Zone Musings, Far Wise in Knowledge Management, Adventure of Strategy, Prato Dialogue, knowledge is everywhere, entreprise_et_blog, elearningpost, odd time signatures, Bob Sutton, MindBridge, Full Circle Online Interaction, John Westworth, G. Brett Miller
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 1/09/06 | | Happy Blog Day |
The guys at www.blogday.org has asked bloggers to list 5 blogs you love reading. Well, here are my five:
- http://www.vpscin.org/ – all the happenings in the Victorian Public Sector
- http://37signals.com/svn/ – all about online services
- http://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/ – the author of the no asshole rule
- http://davidmaister.com/blog – on professional services
- http://gladwell.typepad.com/gladwellcom/ – new ways to look at the world
If you want to see all the blogs I read, visit:
http://www.bloglines.com/public/unorder
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
| 28/08/06 | | 10 reflections on storytelling |
It’s good to reflect. Take some time. Sit back... Reflect. Here’s some links to our thoughts on storytelling:
Story telling versus story writing
Ignite your story telling
Telling stories for a living
Using storytelling in sales
Story spines for sensemaking
Using story to communicate who we are
Storytelling is more about creating connections than knowledge transfer
Instructional video on storytelling
Storytelling survival guide
Storytelling versus storysensemaking
If you’d like to learn more about storytelling and really get your hands dirty we have 2 great workshops coming up in September and November!
Change your story Change your world and From story disaster to story master (or journeyman)
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 27/08/06 | | The Prato Dialogue |
A handful of community of practice practitioners are meeting in Florence this October to reflect on the field’s theory and practice. Here is the blog Beverly Trayner has established to support our efforts.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 17/08/06 | | Be an early bird - From story disaster to story master |
Here are three signs that you could benefit from our storytelling workshop:
- Ever felt limited by a ‘dot-point’ type mentality?
- You find yourself in meetings where there is alot of conflict and people can’t or don’t seem to really listen to you or each other.
- You are searching for a more humane and meaningful way of communicating
If this sounds like you, be sure to catch our early bird, closing on the 20th August!
Also, read some more here.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 16/08/06 | | A new applicaton to support Most Significant Change projects |
Most Significant Change is a monitoring technique based on the collection and selection of stories. The technique involves collecting stories, gathering people together to talk about them and then selecting the stories they believe are the most significant. This selection process creates new conversations in an organisation while systematically developing an intuitive understanding among staff of a program’s impact. Here is a short history of the technique.
Today we are announcing that we will soon launch a new web 2.0 innovation that will help you run your most significant change projects. The project is called Zahmoo and if you want to get an early look at the application, sign up as a beta user here.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 14/08/06 | | Change your story - Change your world |
What happens when you cross a well known Improv guru with a company passionate about story? You get a new workshop, of course!
With Izzy Gesell coming all the way from the USA to Australia in November we have worked together to design a new workshop called “Change your story Change your world”. How story telling and Improv Theatre skills can help you honour your past, understand your present and shape your future. We’ll be running this workshop in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. Check here for dates. Don’t miss out!
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
| 10/08/06 | | Clear Horizon is running Most Significant Change training |
Jess Dart, an Anecdote Associate, is running her excellent Most Significant Change training in October. If you are interested in learning how to assess the impact of difficult to measure projects then this is an important technique to learn. Jess is one of the co-developers of the technique so you will be getting the very best information and I know she loves lots of participation and interaction. Here is the link to the course details.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 9/08/06 | | Narrative techniques for knowledge management |
Many thanks to yesterday’s workshop participants for their tremendous participation and openness in sharing their many insights. It was a really good day and everybody had lots of fun. And people may have even learned something :-)
Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
| 2/08/06 | | Thanks for participating |
David Maister has inspired me to copy one of his blog practices; thanking everyone who contributes to the online conversation occurring on the blog. So to everyone who has made a contribution at Anecdote, thank you. Here are the contributors for July. I’ll post a similar message every month.
Comments
Harold Jarche, Matt Moore, Michael Vanderdonk, Les Posen, Nerida Hart, Dennis D. McDonald, Gary Bourgeault, annette, Luke, christianhauck
Trackbacks
David Maister, Luis Suarez, Frank Connelly, Jason The Content Librarian, Robert Hruzek, Jack Vinson, Dave Snowden, Donald Clark, John Smith, Library Clips, annette clancy, National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation, Psybertron Asks, Darren Woolley, Emanuele Quintarelli, The Corner, Dennis Kennedy, Geoffroi Garon, Laurent Haug, Lilia Efimova, CPH127, Dances with Books, Beth Shankle, Joitske Hulsebosch, Beverly Trayner, Christina's LIS Rant,
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
| 28/07/06 | | Interested in facilitation? |
Then you’ve gotta make it to the Naked Facilitator Conference to be held in Geelong this year November 28–1st December. There are some great people going to be there like: Bob Dick, Viv McWaters, Johnnie Moore, Izzy Gessel, Andrew Rixon. Hmmm.
Be an early bird and get in before 1st September!
Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
| 26/07/06 | | Cognitive Edge (aka Cynefin) blog is up and running |
Dave Snowden has officially started blogging. I’d keep an eye on this site as Dave is renowned for his unique style and new perspectives on complexity and organisational issues.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 24/07/06 | | World eBook Fair |
Free Access to the public from July 4th to August 4th, in celebration of Project Gutenberg's 35th Birthday
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 21/07/06 | | Join Anecdote and make a difference |
Last week, I was sitting in a hotel room in Sydney with Shawn and Andrew following a workshop by Brenda Dervin: sense-maker extraordinaire. The workshop re-confirmed our conviction that sensemaking really does matter and that it is time to expand our little company …
We would love to work with
- someone passionate about people; you love working with people, you’re interested in how people work in organisations; and you share our desire to restore humanity to the forefront of organising and organisations.
- a person with 5 or more years working experience; it would be good if you had a degree in a people-related discipline (for example, organisational psychology, anthropology, HR); and some consulting experience is desirable (though definitely not essential).
- someone who will enthusiastically embrace the Anecdote operating principles of: do good things; look after each other; and have a go.
- people who are comfortable in conversation and with whom others naturally share their stories; we’re looking for people who are interested in Anecdote’s work and learning about it; not necessarily people who are already experienced in this field.
- a person with a great attitude to work, to life. This is far more important than skills.
What we will do for you
- We will train you in all our techniques such as narrative collection, sensemaking, intervention design, storytelling, social network analysis, communities of practice development, and fostering knowledge transfer.
- Provide a diversity of project types and activities that will stretch you and help you learn at a cracking pace.
- Good coffee and great conversations.
What you will be doing at Anecdote
- Helping to develop and refine our sensemaking approaches based on our work in organisations, big and small, public and private sector.
- You definitely won’t be making Shawn’s coffee
- Project activities including interviewing, focus group facilitation, research, presentations, and logistics.
- Meeting and working with outstanding people who form part of the Anecdote global network of collaborators.
Is this you? Are you interested?
Then …
Send a 3 page pdf that conveys your outstanding attributes and why you should be part of the Anecdote team to career@anecdote.com.au
We will close the call for submissions on the 15 August 2006.
You will need to live in either Canberra or Melbourne for this job.
As you would expect, Anecdote provides a collegiate working environment. We’re a small, close-knit team that collaborates without ego or arrogance. Have a browse through our website and get a feel for the company you will be joining. Our perspectives, priorities and thoughts are published here and we think they provide insight into Anecdote’s philosophy.
Feel free to pass this post onto someone you think might be interested.
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
| 18/07/06 | | New Anecdote workshop - From Story Disaster to Story Master |
We are excited to announce our new workshop designed to help people find and tell organisational stories. Here is the description.
http://www.anecdote.com.au/coursedisplay.php?cid=12
I recommend you download the brochure and see the detailed information. Feel free to pass it on to anyone you think might be interested in honing their innate storytelling skills.
Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack
| 14/07/06 | | Sensemaking and Social Networking in Sydney |
Early next week we’ll be in Sydney. On monday, there is Brenda Dervin’s sensemaking workshop which I’m really looking forward to. On Tuesday we are running our free Social Network Analysis and Sensemaking seminar. Drop me a line if you’d like to come!
I’ve also recently updated my squidoo lens around Sensemaking approaches to social network mapping and analysis. Take a look. Let me know what you think.
To finish. A good sensemaking quote I like:
“We act our way into a belated understanding”
-Karl Weick
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 10/07/06 | | Australian-wide survey on awareness and attitudes of story and narrative techniques in organisations |
Since our survey launch last week I have sure been busy. We’ve had a fantastic response rate and are collecting some interesting perspectives which we will be pulling together into a report which will be available after we’ve completed the analysis and write-up. Watch this space.
If you would like to participate and contribute to an Australian-wide benchmark around the awareness and attitudes of story and narrative techniques in organisations please feel free to join in by clicking this link. The survey should take you around 8–10 minutes to complete. We will be closing the survey July 21st.
We hope you can share your experiences with us!
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 3/07/06 | | Australia wide research on story and narrative techniques in business |
Today is an exciting day for us. Today, we launch an Australian wide research project.
As a company dedicated to story and narrative approaches in organisations we are launching an online survey investigating the awareness and attitudes of story and narrative techniques in organisations. We are hoping that this will help to provide an Australia-wide benchmark on story and narrative approaches.
If you would like to join us and contribute to this Australia-wide benchmark, send me an email at: andrew@anecdote.com.au. I can then send you a link to our survey.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 2/07/06 | | This month in HR Monthly |
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 28/06/06 | | Getting started with Anecdote Circles |
We’ve spoken about anecdote circles a bit on this blog (here, here and here) and people have asked us how they can get started with using the technique. So, to help you start collecting your company stories we’ve created the following service:
http://www.anecdote.com.au/anecdoteCircles
Let me know what you think.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 26/06/06 | | How to seach every library catalogue in Australia |
Just found a excellent online service provided by the National Library of Australia which allows you to search all Australian library catalogues. It’s called Libraries Australia.
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
| 23/06/06 | | Getting Management Buy-in For KM |
Patrick Lambe and the folks at Straits Knowledge have setup a small narrative project to capture stories about the times when management buy-in for KM was obtained or denied. Please add your stories here.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 21/06/06 | | Learning retention rates appear to be a hoax |
Yesterday I posted a pyramid diagram purporting to be the learning retention rates for a range of information presentation approaches. Harold Jarche rightly ask the simple question: Any idea if this is based on sound science? I started to look and found a range of anomalies and then discovered this article describing the illustration and associated percentages as a hoax that’s been perpetuated since the ‘60s.
I apologise for passing this information on. I need to be more skeptical of the information I discover.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 20/06/06 | | What our workshops look like |
Just thought you might be interested in what sensemaking and intervention design workshops look like so I’ve updated our Business Narrative Squidoo lens with some snaps for your viewing pleasure.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 20/06/06 | | KM Masters in Hong Kong |
Eric Tsui is a friend of Anecdote and he’s looking for a masters student in knowledge management. Contact Eric directly if you’re interested.
An opportunity exists for a master level research degree (with an option of converting into a doctoral degree) on Knowledge Management at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU). Focus of the research is socio-technical based with particular emphases on Personal and Peer-to-Peer KM. The following project titles are an indicative guide only:
- A personal knowledge management desktop for supporting collaborative work and social networking
- Knowledge fusion between enterprise, peer-to-peer and personal knowledge management
A monthly stipend will be paid to the successful candidate. This research is full time and requires the student to be based in Hong Kong. PolyU's KM Group conducts research into organizational learning and change, knowledge audit, taxonomies, and collaboration tools. The Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering operates Asia Pacific's only Master of Science in KM (via blended learning) and is home to several state-of-the-art centres including the Knowledge Solutions Laboratory, Business Automation Laboratory and the Logistics and Simulation Laboratory.
Commencement of project is anytime between July and October 2006. Interested parties please send your CV and contact
Professor Eric Tsui
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
E-mail: Eric.Tsui@polyu.edu.hk
Phone: +852 2766 6609 or +61 2 8207 0138 (direct call from Sydney)
URL: www.ise.polyu.edu.hk
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 12/06/06 | | Update to our Business Narrative Squidoo Lens |
Squidoo lenses are great. In one page you can get a snapshot on a topic. I’ve made some updates to our business narrative squidoo lens today which I hope you will like. My aim is to highlight all the posts that will give you a good overview on this topic. I’m also adding a list of books we’ve found useful.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 10/06/06 | | HR Magazine's top 100 most influential people in the field |
Here is the 100 top most influential people in HR as voted by HR Magazine readers. Dave Ulrich is number 1.
[via Cathy Mosca]
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 8/06/06 | | The unconferencing meme resurfaces |
Late last year I pulled together a few threads around the popular meme of unconferencing.
Unconferencing is back with this post on How to DIY Unconference.
Often the simplest things in life are the best.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 6/06/06 | | Last chance for early birds! |
Today is an auspicious day, for those who are superstitious 6–6–6 might have some particular meaning….
If you’re not superstitious, that’s ok, but today is your last chance to get in as an early bird for our marvellous Appreciative Inquiry course on July 5th and 6th.
Appreciative Inquiry is a technique to facilitate organisational change. It's different, and effective, because rather than focus on problems to be solved it starts by asking: “what’s working around here?”
Read more here.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 3/06/06 | | Squidoo lenses for Anecdote |
Seth Godin put it nicely when he said that blogs are like watching a movie, if you are not there from the beginning it can be a bit hard to follow. As a result he invented Squidoo lenses that allow you to highlight important posts (among other things) based on a topic.
I’ve been playing with Squidoo for a while and we will gradually add a set of lenses on topics like business narrative, communities of practice, knowledge strategy and sensemaking so you can easily find the posts that matter with additional commentary to glue it together.
Our first attempt is on business narrative. Check it out and let me know what you think.
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
| 3/06/06 | | Stories about Melbourne knowledge management |
I’m on the hunt for stories about knowledge management activities that are happening in Melbourne. Why? Because I’m on the organising committee for Melbourne KM Leadership Forum (KMLF) and we have a blog where we are posting about KM things happening in this fine (but sometime wet, windy and cold) city.
I’ve just written a little description of what Department of Primary Industries are doing with collaboration. I would love to hear about what you are doing too and happy to come visit and write something up if you’re game :-)
An observation: knowledge management is rarely called knowledge management any more. Yet you find knowledge management being practised in a range of different projects like continuous improvement projects, culture change initiatives, leadership development, project management and practically anything else you can think of. In fact if you are systematically encouraging knowledge behaviours like the ones I posted about a couple of days ago, then you are doing knowledge management.
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
| 1/06/06 | | Shopping for Hexies? |
Hexies sure are popular these days. We have just made shopping for Hexies easier. You can now buy ‘postage paid in Australia’ packs of hexies directly from our shop. They range from single packs of 12 hexies to a bulk pack of 5 x the pack of 12. They’re worth a look.
After all, Hexies are better than ordinary post-its…
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 24/05/06 | | The Melbourne Knowledge Management Leadership Forum has a blog |
Some of you might know about the Melbourne Knowledge Management Leadership Forum—better known as KMLF. It’s a voluntary group that organises free face to face events for knowledge management practitioners. I’m on the coordinating committee and this week we’ve launched the KMLF blog for all you Melbournites and travellers to Melbourne to keep an eye on upcoming KM events and other KM happenings.
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
| 15/05/06 | | Free management book reviews |
Bill Godfrey has made all his book reviews available online for free and is hoping to attract other book review writers to develop a truly open source book review resource! Bill says:
My hope is that users will find it worthwhile to contribute to maintaining the currency of the site - some may wish to take primary responsibility for reviews within a specific field. I will continue to write some reviews and will retain an editorial role to ensure that inappropriate material is not added. I have also added links to appropriate sections of Wikipedia, and may be allowed to provide links back to the site from appropriate Wikipedia articles.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 12/05/06 | | Hexies Post-it Notes are Better |
One of the narrative techniques we use involves identifying the characters, topics and behaviours from a collection of transcribed anecdotes. This process usually involves groups writing these characters, topics and behaviours onto post-it notes ready for group clustering and sense-making. Now we don’t just use any kind of post-it note, we use Hexies Post-it Notes.
The types of clusters look like this:
As you can imagine, using normal rectangular post-its for this kind of clustering would take up a whole lot more wall space, not to mention being clumsy with no visual appeal. (Ok, thats the libran in me speaking through, we’re sposed to be aesthetic creatures).
Where can you buy these wonderful hexies? Look no further than here in our shop. Don’t get caught without.
Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
| 10/05/06 | | Opening our Anecdote Shop |
“Whoever said money can't buy happiness simply didn't know where to go shopping”. As a patient husband who has trekked around my share of shops on ‘shopping missions’ I’m not sure about this quote… But...
Now you can come shopping in our new Anecdote shop. Take a look!
In the upcoming months we will continue to stock our shelves so keep checking in. In the meanwhile, if you have any suggestions for products you’d like to see in our shop we’d love to hear them.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 30/04/06 | | Improved whitepaper availability on the Anecdote site |
James Farmer and James Robertson both suggested we ditch our requirement to enter your details in order to download our whitepapers. We had been thinking about this for a few months and have now made the changes to our website so you can go directly to a list of whitepapers and articles and download the pdf.
Here is the whitepapers page.
Over time we will include a full html version of the paper as well. I’ve done one today here and look out for the others over the next few weeks.
If you want early notification for new whitepapers just sign up for the Anecdote newsletter. We have a policy of making new whitepapers available to our subscribers for a week before posting them to the website for general access.
All feedback is welcomed as we want to incrementally improve our site. Thanks to James and James for acting as a trigger to this improvement.
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
| 22/04/06 | | Jajah may be more useful than Skype |
I discovered today that Daniel Pink writes a column for Yahoo Finance discussing trends. In his latest piece he suggests water will be more valuable than oil, that Do It Yourself is really taking off, and Jajah is a new voice over IP service which utilises your desk phone with really cheap rates.
Jajah works as follows. Register on the site, then type in the number of your land line or mobile phone. When you want to make a call, pull up the site, and type the number you want to call. A few seconds later, your phone rings. Pick up your phone, the phone you're calling then rings -- and your call is connected. That's it. No need to strap on a Time magazine operator headset or shout into your laptop's mini-microphone.
Jajah is really worth a look.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 21/04/06 | | Welcome to the blogosphere - Straits Knowledge |
Patrick, Edgar and Paolina over at Straits Knowledge (in Singapore) has just started a blog (Green Chameleon) and it will be one of my must reads. Check it out and subscribe to the RSS. You’ll thank me.
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
| 7/04/06 | | Modelling Human Ecosystems with Agents |
Pascal Perez is running a short course in Canberra I thought you might like to know about. Here are the details:
Modelling Human Ecosystems with Agents
An Intensive Postgraduate Course: June 19 – June 30, 2006.
9.30a.m. - 5.00p.m
Course Convener: Dr Pascal Perez
This course aims to introduce students to the principles and operation of Agent based Modelling in studying Human Ecosystems. It will provide a clear understanding of the possibilities (and limits) of this approach recognising that these human eco-systems are inherently unpredictable, as their global behaviours emerge from their local interactions in complex, interwoven ways. Agent-Based Modelling deals with the problem of complexity and the related search for simple representations of the real world. This course uses real case studies to demonstrate how these models are developed, and in its teaching approach is equally divided between academic lectures, computer demonstration, and hands on training. It is expected that by the end of the course students will be able to develop their own simple computer application to a human ecosystem, and be able to identify future opportunities for integrating them in social science research.
ANTH8021 is a 6 point course provided as part of the MAAPD program, and is offered as an elective for students enrolled in other programs. The course is also available on a non-award basis for students not wishing to enrol in a full University program.
For further information contact:
Prof. Patrick Kilby, MAAPD Coordinator
patrick.kilby@anu.edu.au
Ph 6125 4041.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 31/03/06 | | Our new courses page |
Over the last week or so we’ve been working on our Anecdote Courses page on the website. Please take a look and we would love to hear your feedback. I’m sure there are still a few things to iron out.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 30/03/06 | | Last day for early birds |
Just a reminder that tomorrow is the last day for the early bird price for Starting and Sustaining Communities of Practice workshop. Either fax your registration form or give me a call.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 19/03/06 | | Observation: leaving things to the last minute |
Have you noticed that people seemed to leave more and more things to the last minute? There are some good reasons for a decision-delaying strategy. If the situation you are facing is uncertain, changing, and their are plenty of options and competing possibilities then one strategy is to just wait and see what happens. The problem of today might very well be a distant memory tomorrow. Technologies like mobile phones support this strategy. Who needs to precisely plan a get together when you can text some friends on the spur of the moment, find out where they are and nominate a rendezvous point there and then. Does this sound uncomfortable? Get used to it because this is the way the world is moving.
A decision you shouldn’t delay, however, is signing up for our communities of practice workshops. The early bird discount is available up until the 31 March. You can download the brochure here.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 9/03/06 | | Starting and Sustaining Communities of Practice - New Workshop |
We are excited to announce our new Starting and Sustaining Communities of Practice workshop. We will run it in Melbourne and Canberra on the 19th and 20th of April respectively. Mark and I will be your facilitators and we look forward to meeting you.
Here is the brochure describing the workshop with the form for registration.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 8/03/06 | | Andrew, Shawn & Mark |
Andrew, Shawn & Mark
Originally uploaded by Shawn Callahan.
Just trying out how you can post to your blog from Flickr. This photo is of Andrew, me and Mark on nearly the first day we started Anecdote mark II. Not the best photo in the world. I took it with my Palm Treo.
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
| 3/03/06 | | Comments problem fixed |
Have you tried to comment lately and was refused saying you content was questionable? Well I was duped by a spamming commenter and accidently blocked all comments that had ‘s’ in the comment. 296 comments blocked!
Anyway, all fixed now and sorry for the inconvenience.
Thanks to Felix and Dorine who were persistent enough to use the contact form to ask for their comment to be posted. Without it I would have never known I was having a problem with comments.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 23/02/06 | | Cynefin software |
Steve Bealing (CEO of Cynefin Software) spent 3 hours with Mark and I yesterday describing the new version of the Cynefin sense-making software. Exciting stuff. The new version will be released in April which will enable our clients to extract additional value from their investment in collecting and making sense of narrative. When we see the new version we will give you a complete review.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 18/02/06 | | Off to Singapore and Hong Kong |
Mark and I are travelling to Singapore and Hong Kong tomorrow. We have a busy schedule including running a narrative techniques workshop in Hong Kong, presenting at the iKMS and Hong Kong KM Association and catching up with Patrick Lambe, Steve Bealing and Nick Noakes.
Let us know if you would like to catch up while we are in the area. While the schedule is getting tight it’s easy to add people to our dinner engagements or catching up for breakfast.
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
| 1/02/06 | | A new and improved company profile (we hope) |
Like all new businesses we’ve been asking questions of ourselves about what our business is all about. We’ve also had clients and friends say to us, “guys, read your company profile but we still don’t know what you do.” Hmmm, bit of a worry.
After many weeks of discussion we’ve come up with a new company profile and we were hoping you might let us know what impression it leaves on you. Your thoughts will be greatly appreciated.
Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack
| 25/01/06 | | Open and closed language in facilitation |
It was during one of my first strategic planning workshop facilitations when I noticed it. This was in a time before I discovered open space facilitation. The group had just spent the last 20 minutes in discussion and it was time to ask them to feedback on their discussions to the room. Casually, maybe even naively, I said “could you tell me your ideas”. The group looked stunned. I sensed that there was something wrong with this language. It just didn’t feeeel right. Rephrasing I tried again with “I’d like to invite you to share your ideas…”. The group’s composure appeared to change from winter to spring, ideas and discussion flowed forth.
After that experience I started to become more mindful about the words and phrases that are used in facilitation. Speaking to my wife about this, a university trained linguist, I got a confirmation that indeed there might just be something more to this. She too started to noticed how groups seemed to respond to words like ‘conversation’ and ‘discussion’. Maybe also how popular those words can be amongst facilitators. The final nail in the coffin was when I recently spoke with Viv Mcwaters about this phenomena and it resonated. For Viv, it resonated around the areas of tacit and spontaneous knowledge in facilitation. Something I can’t wait to hear more of when Viv eventually comes online with her own blog.
To explore this further, Viv and I are now inviting facilitators to join us together in a reflective practice designed to help you to become more mindful of your facilitation practice as well as providing an opportunity to learn more about the ways and practices of other facilitators. Our focus is on the language facilitators use to encourage or discourage a group discussion. This reflective practice will run over 3 months and for those participating we will provide reminders, feedback and stories from other participants. We aim to share our learnings and findings at a workshop for some upcoming Australasian facilitation conference... If you would like to join in on this reflective practice, send either Viv (viv@thereef.com.au) or myself (andrew@anecdote.com.au) an email and we will join you in to our program.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 16/01/06 | | Visit to Hong Kong and Singapore in February |
Mark and I are visiting Hong Kong and Singapore next month (20–22nd Feb in Singapore and 23–25 in Hong Kong) and we’re keen to meet with any of our blog readers. It would be great to meet you face to face. Just pop a comment here and we can tick tack on the email.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 11/01/06 | | Employment Today has published our paper on narrative |
Employment Today has published our paper called Telling Tales which is a version of Using Stories to Size up a Situation. This paper is primarily about the use of anecdote circles and how they can supplement surveys and interviews. If you want to understand the full process we use to collect, make sense and design interventions based on complexity principles I suggest you take a look at Avoiding change management failure using business narrative.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 21/12/05 | | Like Andrew I'm taking a couple of weeks off |
And I just wanted to thank everyone for visiting and reading our blog. It has been great fun and we have learnt a lot. We’ll be back to it in January 2006 refreshed with a host of new ideas to share.
Our good friend Kerenza sent me this link today which represents the world’s news in a single 10 x 10 matrix of photos. Something to keep an eye on during the holidays.
http://www.tenbyten.org/now.html
All the best for the holiday season and I hope you have a excellent 2006.
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
| 19/12/05 | | Narrative and Change Management Whitepaper now available online |
I recently announced our new whitepaper entitled Avoiding change management failure using business narrative. I’ve now posted it on our site. Would love to hear your thoughts about it.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 30/11/05 | | Ricky Gervais to podcast |
The Guardian reports that Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, writers and stars of the UK come
dy The Office, will be publishing a weekly podcast. Ricky says:
“I want to do a radio show where I can say what I want, when I want for as long as I want and that's free for anybody who can be bothered to listen anywhere in the world.”
I can’t wait.
[via Johnnie Moore]
Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
| 26/11/05 | | One year on and an updated look and feel |
We’ve given the Anecdote blog a face lift in celebration of its first year of blogging service. This is my third blog. My first started in 2002 as a bit of an experiment and then I moved over to Blogger in 2003. Blogging is still a bit of a mystery to me. For example, I’m not really sure who is reading yet I often meet people who say they love our website; I’m rarely certain what to write yet new topics seem to pop to mind out of left field; and I’m delighted with all the new friends I’ve met in the blogosphere and look forward to the face to face meetings.
Thanks for reading and I hope you like our updated look. We’ve put a new link just to your right so you can ask us some questions and we will post the answers—I probably should say we will post our attempt at the answer because as we know, we do live in a complex world.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 25/11/05 | | Whole of Government Innovation CoP |
Thanks to Elena (pictured here in a fetching Christmas hat) for organising the Christmas lunch today and Frank (or should I say Frank’s brother-in-law) for the wines. I’m looking forward to our meetings next year.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 15/11/05 | | So what does Anecdote do anyway? |
A typical comment from people who visit our website is, “love the content Shawn but what does Anecdote actually do?” We seemed to be so busy over the last year doing stuff that we hadn’t really clearly described our services on this site. So, to remedy this oversight we now have what I think is a clear description of Anecdote’s services. Of course the true test if whether they make sense to you. Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 15/11/05 | | Free access to Peter Drucker articles in commemoration of his recent passing |
McKinsey Quarterly is making available articles by Peter Drucker in commemoration of his death this week. He will be sadly missed, especially for those of us in the knowledge management profession.
Normally reserved for premium members, these articles are available to all site members until November 21. Read them for free this week only.
Best practice and beyond: Knowledge strategies
1998 Number 1
Managing the knowledge manager
2001 Number 3
Do you know who your experts are?
2003 Number 4
Making a market in knowledge
2004 Number 3
The 21st-century organization
2005 Number 3
Update: Thanks to Hal who checked these articles out (see comment). He found they are not actually written by Drucker but reference him. Still worth a look however.
Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
| 31/10/05 | | One week to register for the narrative techniques workshops |
This is the last week before we run our narrative workshops in Sydney and Brisbane. If you want a really practical understanding of how to use narrative in knowledge management, culture change or any other business issue that is seemingly intractable then join us next week.
To register just download the brochure, which is just over there on the left panel of our website, and fax us your details.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 18/10/05 | | ActKM Conference is next week |
This is the best KM conference in Australia because it consists of practitioners talking about how it is done – no vendor presentations. It’s a two day program with an excellent conference dinner—not to be missed. The conference theme is “MANAGING KNOWLEDGE FOR BETTER PERFORMANCE”. Let me know if you are going because I would love to catch up.
The conference program is here.
And you can register here.
Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
| 4/10/05 | | Trip to Wivenhoe Dam |
Last week I had a lovely day at Wivenhoe Dam working with SE Queensland Water. It’s 50 km or so outside Brisbane. I did, however, loose my keys on the day so let me know if you find them ;-)
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 30/09/05 | | Want to get more things done? Communicate! |
It’s interesting (maybe even common-sensical) that a recent poll on http://www.ceoforum.com.au has found that lack of communication is considered a key obstacle to getting things done.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 27/09/05 | | What would you like to read more of here on our Blog? |
One of things which we do alot of at Anecdote is Listen. Shawn has posted previously that story-telling is just half the story. The other half is listening, or as Shawn says “story listening”.
So, I’d love to listen to you, to your story… to hear what you would like to read more of here on the Anecdote blog.
Please, send me an email: andrew AT anecdote DOT com DOT au
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 27/09/05 | | Brisbane this week |
I’ll be in Brisbane on Thursday this week. If you would like to catch up for a coffee please drop me a line: shawn AT anecdote DOT com DOT au
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 24/09/05 | | Google Blog Search is now available |
If you are looking for blogs try Google Blog Search. One of the nice features is the ability to subscribe to your search via RSS or Atom. I’m using it to see who’s referring to our posts in the blogosphere so I can pop on over and contribute a comment.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 20/09/05 | | The Anecdote team grows to three |
I’m pleased to announce that Anecdote has moved to a new and exciting phase of its evolution with Mark Schenk and Andrew Rixon joining the company as Directors and experienced practitioners.
Mark and I have had a long association starting with SMS Consulting Group where we kicked off their knowledge management programme. Since then we have been working together on knowledge management projects and more recently we’ve been collaborating on narrative projects, such as a Defence Materiel Organisation occupational, health and safety project. It makes great sense for us to join forces.
Andrew and I met 18 months ago at a CSIRO workshop on memes and complexity. Andrew’s PhD is in complexity science and while he has a background in mathematics (we can’t hold this against him :-D), Andrew is a practised open space facilitator and focuses his mental energies these days on social system dynamics.
We’ve updated our website with Mark and Andrew’s biographical sketches. I look forward to introducing them to you f2f in the near future. In the meantime you will see their blog posts right here.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 9/09/05 | | New narrative techniques workshop for Oct-Dec |
Our popular narrative techniques workshops are scheduled again. If you have heard about narrative techniques but perhaps came away wondering what you would actually do, this is the workshop event to attend. We will delve into the nitty gritty of running a narrative project: how to collect anecdotes; how to make sense of the information; and how to design interventions based on complexity principles.
Here are the brochures for Melbourne and Canberra. Sydney and Brisbane will be announced soon. We will also be conducting workshops in Auckland and Wellington, New Zealand, on the 16th and 17th of November.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 26/08/05 | | Founder of complexity? |
I noticed Ark Group has given Dave Snowden the title of “Founder of Complexity” on their KM Asia website. Sounds to me like marketing hyperbole out of control.
UPDATE:
Dave contacted me today to let me know that he has asked Ark to remove “the founder of complexity” title. As I suggested in my post this was Ark’s idea and Dave had no inkling until he found my post.
UPDATE:
Nilay Gencturk from Ark Group has posted in the comments the following correction:
CORRECTION: Ark Group wishes to apologise to Mr Snowden for misprinting a reference to him being “Founder of Complexity”. Dave Snowden is an acknowledged founder of organic knowledge management and acclaimed expert on narrative patterns. He is Director of the Cynefin Centre for Organisational Complexity which focuses on the application of complexity theory to organisational issues.
Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack
| 9/07/05 | | KM Australia next week |
Off to KM Australia on Wednesday.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 9/07/05 | | Etienne Wenger in Canberra and Melbourne |
I will be in Canberra on Monday to host a series of events ‘starring’ Etienne Wenger. I will be doing the same in Melbourne on the 19th in collaboration with Sandra Mercer, the coordinator of the Victorian Public Sector Continuous Improvement Network. Should be great fun.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 9/05/05 | | What has been keeping me away from blogging |
Blogging seems to have taken a back seat in the last couple of weeks. I was in Auckland last week helping a law firm with their talent management strategy. My colleagues at FPO collected the anecdotes and we ran a sensemaking workshop. This week marks the beginning of some new community of practice work and the Introduction to Narrative Techniques workshop in Canberra. The workshop is fully subscribed and I look forward to meeting everyone on Wednesday.
Mark Schenk, who has just started his new business called Dialogue, and I are also working on an occupational health and safety project using business narrative techniques. Congratulations on your new venture Mark.
Keep an eye out for my latest paper which will be on how to align brand promises with customer service. If you are an Anecdote subscriber you will be the first to be notified of its availability.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 23/04/05 | | Businessweek is trumpeting blogs for business |
There is a gradual awakening to how blogs might be used in business. Here is an article in Businessweek which provides a hosts of interesting facts and will bring you quickly up to speed on the blogosphere.
A couple of quotes:
Go ahead and bellyache about blogs. But you cannot afford to close your eyes to them, because they're simply the most explosive outbreak in the information world since the Internet itself. And they're going to shake up just about every business .
The innovation that sends blogs zinging into the mainstream is RSS, or Really Simple Syndication. Five years ago, a blogger named Dave Winer, working with software originally developed by Netscape, created an easy-to-use system to turn blogs, or even specific postings, into Web feeds. With this system, a user could subscribe to certain blogs, or to key words, and then have all the relevant items land at a single destination. These personalized Web pages bring together the music and video the user signs up for, in addition to news. They're called "aggregators." For now, only about 5% of Internet users have set them up.
Thanks to CorporateBloggingBlog for the link.
Technorati tags: blogs
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 19/04/05 | | Change Management Monitor |
Welcome to the land of blogging Bill.
Bill’s blog (Change Management Monitor) will be an important resource for anyone wishing to keep up with the deluge of management books on the market today. Bill writes excellent management book reviews and it is the first place I go to find out which new book I should get hold of next. He also offers a subscription service to access his full length reviews and—I hope he doesn’t mind me saying this—as a subscriber I often drop him a note for his opinion on where I should look to get up to speed on a new topic. Terrific value.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 1/04/05 | | Narrative Workshop Brochure and Registration Form |
The brochure and registration form is now available for the Introduction to Narrative Workshop to be held in Canberra on the 11th May.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 21/03/05 | | Narrative Techniques Workshop in Canberra |
I’m pleased to announce that I will be running the Introduction to Narrative Techniques Workshop in Canberra on the 11th of May. This workshop was a sellout in Melbourne and once again I will be limiting the numbers to 20, so be sure to book early to secure a place.
The emphasis of the workshop is on gaining a practical understanding of how to use business narratives—those stories told in your organisation which reveal the true values in operation. In the workshop we will practising the techniques, discussing their application and ensuring we have sufficient time to absorb the new concepts which form the basis of the method.
I very much look forward to seeing you there.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 17/02/05 | | Why no posts Shawn? |
Auckland has been a delight. I’ve spend the last 3 days running a workshop called, ‘Succeeding in Complexity’. It seems to have been well received. We spent much of our time getting hands-on experience with the Cynefin techniques and listening to how each participant was coming to grips with the new mind set required to address complexity.
I’m off tomorrow morning to Canberra for the wedding of two dear friends (Kathryn and Larry) and then its off to South Africa for a few days.
Blogging will be back to normal on my return to Melbourne.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 6/02/05 | | Succeeding in complexity |
The last week has been frantic. I’m developing a new course called ‘Succeeding in Complexity,’ which I’m delivering in Auckland next week, and, as always, it takes longer that you think to get everything together. I have put considerable effort into the course notes so participants walk away with more than just a slide pack and vague memories of what they did. Unfortunately, as a results of my efforts, I haven’t had a chance to blog. The good news, however, is that the course development has created a wealth of new material to blog about, which I will be doing in a few weeks time.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 3/12/04 | | Telling it like it is |
The December issue of HR Monthly has just published a version of my paper on how to use stories to size up a situation.
Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
| 23/11/04 | | Sydney Cynefin Training - Dec 2004 |
This years' Cynefin Certification Training is shaping up to be a well attended and exciting event. Dave Snowden will be here with me and Viv Read to facilitate the learning. There has been considerable interest in the researchers' stream, which is a new idea for us. It will enable people to delve into the theory which underpins the techniques.
| 22/11/04 | | Starting a new blog |
This is my 3rd blog with previous efforts at blogspot and radio. I plan to republish some of my previous blogs here as well as keep you up to date with what is happening with Anecdote and Cynefin in Australia.