• Reduce the temptation to change the core; like our bodies, the current system’s antibodies will try and kill it. Instead, go to an edge.
• Change making is about finding allies and over time building more allies. Key is finding an explorer as an ally; someone in the current leadership who sees possibility in the change you are trying to create.
• Use metrics that matter to the core and as your experiments show success it will be difficult for the core to argue with your results.

This was very similar to Meg Wheatley’s perspective on innovation and invisibility (my rough notes are here). I wonder if enough of these stories are being harvested? The innovation efforts that get killed off? Or how others inside manage to succeed? I don’t mean the Walk Out Walk On kind of efforts, where people totally walk out of a current system to create something new. I mean more the work of activists inside organizations and current systems.

Where are you documenting and sharing the innovation efforts that get stamped-out, or the ones that manage to succeed inside an organization? How can we collectively learn when this happens?

Outside my organization’s walls I practice PKM through Google Reader, Twitter, Instapaper, the many online communities I’m part of and my various blogs. Narrating my work mostly happens through my blog, but often more as a reflection activity. The context of this is more my personal passions and my hosting/facilitation work, not my corporate day-job work due to confidentiality and code of conduct guidelines. I’m incredible grateful for those in my hosting/facilitation communities who frequently share what they are working on, their thinking, challenges they are facing etc. It constantly pollinates my thinking and helps me improve my practice.

Inside the secured walls of the company I work for? Different story. I cooked up an idea a couple of years ago that was a Yammer-inspired weekly email (I called it Yammit – for those “damn it” moments when you forgot to mention to a stakeholder two times removed what you were working on).  No kairos.  I still toy with the idea of trying it out.

So what can we do? We who don’t have Yammer, Facebook or any social technologies? We who have email? We who have an LMS that does a wonderful job of tracking and registering?

I’ve jammed on some of the items in a list of ideas Harold posted here and come up with some thoughts on what I can do to ‘be the change’ through my own actions:

• Daily routines of posting observations and sharing with team members.
• Hmmm I like this and wonder where I could post this. Maybe on a page connected to my department on the intranet?
• Weekly “virtual coffee” to catch up and help build social bonds.
• This I can do!
• Providing dedicated time for reflection [this is a tough one to get management buy-in].
• This is part of my personal practice at work already; normally connected to meetings or groups I facilitate or my own work planning/reflecting rhythms.
• Regular mediated events like “Yam-Jams” on a select theme.
• I could try using WebEx’s chat function for this; a transcript can be prepared from the conversation.  Where to post though? And tougher to get approval to try this one.
• Social & Value network analyses to visualize network thinking.
• I could use this technique with various project teams I am invited to facilitate or teams I’m part of.

Thanks Harold for nudging me to think about this within my current environment. I hope to try these ideas out soon.

What are your ideas on how to engage in social collaboration activities inside your organization when you don’t have access to many of the tools that enable knowledge sharing and collaboration? How have you hacked this?

I practiced some visual note-taking throughout the afternoon’s conversation and took photos of my sketch notes and uploaded them here (apologies – I should have used a different notebook as the colourful background makes these hard to read). Here is one example…

And a summary of some of my key insights:

• Our community of practice is a place for teaching and learning, to bring our questions.
• To offer what we can and take what we need.
• Exploring centres, how to co-create, the fine art of beginnings and play.
• Exploring edges, the collectors like the edge of a sidewalk where life grows; hacking the system through a honeycomb of conversations that scale.
• Being aware of our own projections; can we be like Atreyu who walks through the sphinx gate without a shadow of a doubt?
• Promising to do bodywork at every gathering (thanks Zack for today’s experiences).
• Using the pattern cards in different ways e.g Celtic Cross tarot pattern.
• We pulled the cards one at a time around the circle, reflected on it then spoke to it in the context of what we know about the pattern and what it could mean for our future gatherings.
• Cards we pulled: Reflection Action Cycle, Time Shift, Experts on Tap, Mode Choice, Appropriate Boundaries, Balance Process and Content, Power Shift, Challenge, and Iteration.
• Ideas for our gatherings: time to reflect on scenarios we might bring forward or practice facilitation, using the space on the ning to share what we want to achieve and take steps to work on that, to play with different modes at our gatherings and also harvest with different modes to share back with the broader AoH community, that our gatherings are in the field of the Art of Hosting but strangers are welcome, to observe any assumptions about our experience/power, to ask for help when we need and to hold these little shoots of growth with compassion, to challenge each other with heart-intention to lift everyone up, to iterate in these gatherings.
• We named a rhythm for our meetings: the last Sunday of every month with additional 1/2 day or day-long gatherings from time to time (a Google Doc will be created to brainstorm venue ideas).
• Then checking out with any unspoken gratitudes. I loved the sense that we were all slowing down together; the description from Laura of having the same feeling of being in her garden – ahhhh.

My biggest insight? This gathering was seven years in the making. What did it take to move from “we should” to today? Invite help and naming a date. That simple. Yes! Can’t wait for the next one.

Where do you have ideas languishing at the sidelines? What is the smallest step you could take to bring it to life?

After a presentation from Mr. Black, “Leading Like I Know What I’m Doing”, where he chronicled his leadership leaps of faith and the big questions holding his attention, we transitioned into a World Café. In itself this was a leap of faith from previous CYP event experiences, holding space for the CYPers to connect and explore “how we can support each other and accelerate our contributions as the leaders the world needs us to be”. And to discover how might the VBOT connect, develop and support Young Professionals in making change on the issues they care deeply about.

I was inspired by the idea of inviting deeper listening at the start of the World Café rounds and began with the imagery of Indiana Jones standing at the edge, needing to cross the chasm. A parallel to leadership today; hearing the call to step into leadership but trembling at the precipice. Indiana takes the leap of faith, steps out and incredibly the ground materializes beneath him. Then sharing the John McKnight quote “We have a calling. We are the people who know what we need. What we need surrounds us. What we need is each other. And when we act together, we will find our way” to lead us into the first round’s question:

What is one question or issue that you personally care deeply about? One that, if explored with others, could make a difference to the future?

The chimes interrupted the conversation and a flurry of harvesting key questions on stickies, followed by the invitation to listen to a quote by Martin Luther King Jr, “Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step” to lead us into the second round’s question:

What small step could you take right now that would start working towards the future of that question or issue?

As the round unfolded I was at the wall trying out my graphic recording skills. More conversation, more harvesting on stickies and we headed into the third and final round:

How can we support each other in accelerating our development as young leaders? What do we need?

The final harvesting on stickies and a short group popcorn of what discoveries or sparks you are leaving with tonight. Words of connection and belonging, of finding common threads and other insights (also see the Twitter story). The group lingered while I finished up the chart (not bad for my first one!) and we had fun with some photo ops with Mr. Black and the fantastic team of Austin Nairn and Adam Cotterall - what an honour!

Where are you feeling called into leadership? What do you need to take the leap of faith?

• Diving into my learnings as a graphic facilitator. I don’t aspire to become a  professional in this area but want to serve the art of harvesting with some amped-up skills for those times when a graphic recorder isn’t available. My two days with Avril were amazing and I have another form to add to my practice intention for the year – letters, icons and more oh my!
• The XYBOOM Conference happened on Friday. Lots more to steep on this one and I’ll write a full post on it but til then here is a curation of tweets and photos from the day.
• This coming Tuesday is a chance to work with the Vancouver Board of Trade’s Company of Young Professionals. I’ve had a blast working with the planning team and am looking forward to our Leadership Cafe.

What’s been cooking in your world? What are you looking forward to?