It was a big job, but we’ve finally finished putting together two flash shows of pictures taken at the World Appreciative Inquiry Conference 2012 in Ghent, Belgium.

The first is of the conference itself, the second has images of Ghent, a beautiful city in which we had an all-too short stay! :)

Go to our WAIC 2012 page for more information about both shows, and to find links to view them.

For the time being and for convenience, we’ve also placed clickable links in the sidebar of our home page.

Enjoy!

During the recent World Appreciative Inquiry Conference held In Ghent, Belgium I had a rare moment to myself in between runnning around taking photographs, delivering Tai Chi sessions and attending workshops.

I sat down and caught my breath and started to map out ideas for creating a program for students aged 10-12, (grades 5 & 6 in our primary schools here in Australia).

Before the conference I had some vague ideas about this children’s program and I was inspired when I included a short segment of appreciative questions in our ‘Pozitive Kidz are happy kidz’ program I ran for primary school students recently; it focuses on building self esteem from a Tai Chi perspective.

The children’s response to the appreciative questions in the short segment was amazing as the energy of paired conversation was sustained for the full ten minutes. Of course, I didn’t use the term ‘Appreciative Questions’ – I used terms that were simple, clear and understandable for that age group.

Well, I was further inspired during the conference, listening to various speakers and the themes that emerged.

I decided that, in this new program, I want to work with one class at a time for a longer period, in contrast to the Pozitive Kidz workshops where I ususally have 2-3 classes of up to 50 children in one 40 minute session.

For this program I want to work with grade 5 & 6 students, one class at a time, during a school term and use specific appreciative inquiry concepts to empower them; to make them more confident, resilient and positive. I’ll also use some kinaesthetic exercises and make it fun, so I can engage their interests and help achieve deeper learning.

I’m still working on a pilot program which I’ll offer to a school in term four, without charge, to see how it unfolds.

I enjoy working with adults using our AQ-KQ concept but there’s something special about working with children.

Yes, it’s very demanding and it’s a low paying market, compared with our corporate work,  but the energy and enthusiam that develops once you engage their passions is great.

And besides, making a positive contribution to a child’s development makes it all worthwhile.

From Integration Training and Think Productive  in the UK, here’s a video we think will make you laugh out loud – just as we did!

It’s a wonderful collection of the management jargon we all love to hate.

Brilliant! :)

What’s your particular pet hate? You’ll probably find it here …

Click here to view the embedded video.

An ongoing journey ...

Looking through Chris’s list of highlights from our trip to the World Appreciative Inquiry Conference in Ghent, we realised that none of the great keynotes and workshops were mentioned!

That was not really an oversight. It’s just a sign we’re still absorbing and processing the wealth of information, inspiration and ideas they gave us.

It’s definitely an ongoing journey!

Suffice to say, for the moment, we very much enjoyed all the keynotes as well as the workshops we attended. And, as we continue to reflect on them and talk about them, we’re sure they will influence our work as well.

If you’d like to see them, webcasts of all the keynotes and plenary sessions are now available on the WAIC 2012 website.

You can view and listen to all of them, from David Cooperrider’s opening keynote, to Gervase Bushe’s and Ron Fry’s closing one.

Shoes that bloom!

For example, among other things, David shares the wonderful story of OAT’s shoes that bloom. Shoes that are not only made with minimal ecological impact from start to finish of production, but that are also completely biodegradable – and will grow wildflowers in fertile soil if you plant them!

Gervase and Ron explore the challenge of Appreciative Inquiry to find the generative, not ‘just the positive’, in our conversations and our work together.

And all the keynotes between are a very diverse collection of inspiration, fun and food for thought!

On the website you’ll also find a link to a Flickr photostream and instructions for how to access and download the PowerPoint slides from speakers and workshop presenters.

Chris, as one of the photographers capturing the experience, returned with gigabytes of pictures. We’re in the process of going through them and will be putting together a flash presentation or two – as we did after our trip to the last conference in Nepal in 2009.

We’ll be making them available to add to the WAIC 2012 site and will also be putting them here on our own site.

It may take a while longer to finalise these presentations, as we’re still editing photos and seeking permission for the accompanying music.

So don’t exactly hold your breath … but do watch this space! :)

We thought we’d share this inspiring site we came across.

YANAN or the You Are Not Alone Network is a website that’s been developed by to support suicide prevention for Native youth in the US and Canada. Here is their heart-warming video message to the young people across their communities:

Click here to view the embedded video.

YANAN is responding powerfully to a need that is still as relevant today as it was decades ago:

In every human heart there is a deep spiritual hunger for an abiding belief in some future existence. Such a faith stabilizes character, and many of our young people have no such anchor for their souls. (Thomas Wildcat Alford, Shawnee, 1930)

It’s a wonderful example of adults who care and come together to help make a positive difference in the lives of young people.

You are “our children”. We are concerned “family, and community” members who care about you.

Many of you are choosing to take your lives and think we don’t care.

We do care, and have launched a website to let you know that we value you, we will listen to you, and will provide you with resources for you to get help, as well as give you a voice.

And their work is perhaps an example for all of us.

We can all play a part in helping our young people find an abiding belief in some future existence and an anchor for their souls.

It’s about 10,000 miles or 23 hours or 12 in-flight movies from Melbourne to Ghent, Belgium. That’s many miles and hours we endured to attend the fifth World Appreciative Inquiry conference.

We have just got back from this memorable trip and here are just a few of the highlights:

• Catching up with friends from the US, the UK, Belgium, Nepal – and many other parts of the world.
• Making new friends – the AI mob are a great crowd!
• Wonderful hospitality from Linda Wante and her son Sebastiaan. We stayed at her home and it felt like being at home.
• Providing the early morning Tai Chi sessions – though I won’t miss those 5.00am starts! I had to catch the early bus to get there by 7.30am.
• Helping out with the photography for the conference.
• The Number 9 bus. We managed somehow to catch it going the wrong way one evening, so took more than an hour to get ‘home’ to Linda’s place. Not that we were too worried – we saw more of Ghent and its night life on the way!
• Belgian waffles! Yum!
• Exploring the beautiful historical sites of Ghent and Bruges.
• Being interviewed on WAIC Radio and by some secondary school students for a school project.
• Singing the Australian national anthem on the WAIC Radio with a group of Aussies.  Unfortunately for the listeners, I had to ‘sing’ … and yes, as I know a number of other Aussies will sympathise, I had to read the lyrics. :)
• The wonderful boat ride on the second day of the conference – a leisurely tour of Ghent on our way to the conference ‘party’.
• Our Party Night  - and the great band led by Sarah Ferri.
• A night out with our friends from Nepal, eating at Nepalese restaurant in Ghent.

Gravensteen, Ghent

There are lots more … I could add a whole string of ‘etc’s at the end of that list!

The whole experience of going to Belgium and attending the conference was superb. The kind of experience people often describe as ‘once in a lifetime’.

But that’s not how Sue and I would describe it.

After all, we definitely want to go back to Belgium and visit our friends there again one day.

And we’re already talking about saving our pennies so we can get to the next World Appreciative Inquiry Conference in South Africa in 2015!

We  just missed out on a major project ‘by that much’.

It doesn’t take much to miss out on big projects these days; the competition is fierce as it is in most businesses.

There are many experienced facititators and trainers like us out there and there are many inexperienced ones as well. You can imagine what a difficult job it is for selection panels to decide who should get the job, when they are flooded with applications.

We were obviously disappointed about losing this project because we were, in this case, asked to submit a proposal. Plus there was the loss of potential income after considerable time was spent preparing the proposal.

But, so what?

This is our reality and it was our decision to run a facilitation and training business. There’s no-one to blame. Besides, being rejected is all part of the business process.

In some ways rejections are a test of how passionate and dedicated we are to the business. It also makes us more motivated to develop alternative income streams during tough economic times.

But over the years we’ve been fortunate enough to land many large projects which have not only put pennies in our pockets but have also been memorable and an absolute joy.

Yes, we may have missed this latest project ‘by that much’, but we’ll keep aiming and shooting arrows – it’s only a matter of time until we hit the bullseye again.

Whenever I hear and see the words ‘a PowerPoint presenstation’ I can visualise a room full of participants (captives)  aging incredibly quickly and their bodies slumping to the floor.

But that’s not fair to PowerPoint because PowerPoint is innocent. Its just that it’s been misused over the years by many presenters who use it as a crutch rather than as an aid to enhance a presentation.

In our work we use PowerPoint only where it’s appropriate – and our preference is as little as possible. When a lot of information needs to be shared, we do use PowerPoint but always work in some sort of activity to break the monotony.

Including an activity can be a challenge if we are presenting in a theatrette where the audience can only stand and not move around. But that’s where a presenter needs to be creative and find a way of engaging an audience.

One exercise that works very well for us is ‘paired conversations’. We ask participants to turn to the person next to them and discuss an aspect of the theme we’re covering.

We’ve also learned a few PowerPoint tips along the way, such as keeping the words to a minimum and letting pictures tell the story.

So these days participants tell us they enjoyed the PowerPoint presentation.

And they’re definitely not aging by the minute or slumping to the floor!

For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

Unrealistic expectations of a change initative can sometimes sabotage the desired change.

I remember a training session we ran where a decision maker wanted a three hour workshop related to one of our longer programs. During our initial conversation we said we could do a presentation on this topic – but to train his staff effectively would take two days. He agreed with us about the distinction and hired us for a three hour presentation as a ‘taste of’ the topic.

We delivered the presentation but we got the impression he was a bit disappointed afterwards because we hadn’t transformed his staff into experienced practictioners. That was his reality. Our reality was that cramming 2 days of experential learning into three hours simply does not work.

The irony was that this was clearly explained to him beforehand. I think it was his enthusiam for the topic and his unrealistic expectations that actually interfered with the change he wanted in his staff.

In our experience as facilitators and trainers, ‘instant solutions’ are often just band-aids that will eventually come unstuck.

Learning new skills – or new attitudes – takes time.  Miracles take a little longer. :) And you need to invest enough time and effort for the learning to stick.