This Thursday, December 8, I’m partnering with Charity Village on a (free) webinar on virtual collaboration. Register here. CharityVillage is the Canadian nonprofit sector’s largest and most popular online resource for recruiting, news and how-to information. As a flavour of what’s in the webinar, I wrote this article, High-context communications in a low-context virtual world, […]
Webinar on Virtual Collaboration – December 8, 2016 with Charity Village
December 5, 2016 by · Leave a Comment
A good metaphor for why habits are so hard to change
October 11, 2016 by · 1 Comment
A good metaphor is gold. Here’s one about how habits are created and why they are so hard to change. It’s from Harvard neurology professor, Alvaro Pascual-Leone, via Norman Doidge’s book, The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science. I love this metaphor. It’s brilliant. And, so winter. So Canadian. […]
Remembering the Brilliance of Ursula Franklin: The Real World of Technology
August 31, 2016 by · 1 Comment
Ursula Franklin died last month, in Toronto. She was 94. Ursula Franklin was a “Canadian giant” for a whole lot of reasons; she was a world-renowned physicist, feminist, Quaker, author, pacifist, professor, Holocaust survivor, public intellectual, mother, and mentor. She was honoured as an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1982 and with the […]
Summer Fun and Learning at Toastmasters
August 26, 2016 by · Leave a Comment
I’ve been part of a local Toastmasters club for the last two years. This was my first foray into the Toastmaster’s world. We meet once a week; early morning (6:55-8:15 a.m), at a local community centre. Toastmasters and my experience with Toastmasters Toastmasters focus is to provide a supportive environment to improve public speaking. Toastmasters originated in […]
Conflict Manifest [A Poem]
July 26, 2016 by · Leave a Comment
[Reflecting on the many journeys we all take when it comes to managing interpersonal conflict, this poem morphed its way out of me, today.] Conflict Manifest I was going along, swimmingly Buzzed by my world And then it happened To my surprise My buzz wasn’t theirs Conflict manifest The dawn of conflict reveals itself Out […]
Foster Civic Collaboration Through the Land-Use Development Approval Process
July 12, 2016 by · Leave a Comment
I recently volunteered to be a co-chair on my neighbourhood land-use committee, that facilitates dialogue between developers and the neighbourhood. In Victoria, most all neighbourhoods and/or communities have their own land-use committee; aka Community Association Land-Use Committee (CALUC). The land-use development approval process is a terrific avenue to involve citizens in a meaningful ways; i.e., […]
Communication Breakdown – A day-in-the-life story of a home care service provider
June 29, 2016 by · Leave a Comment
So much of our daily conflicts have communication breakdown as their root cause. By improving our communication skills, our abilities to “make common”, we give ourselves a huge leg up, when it comes to working with others and effectively managing conflict. Jennie’s story Jennie is a home care service provider. Her job is to provide […]
The Existentialist Mediator
June 27, 2016 by · Leave a Comment
I was reading Sarah Blakewell’s At The Existentialist Cafe on the weekend. It’s an engaging window on the key proponents of modern existentialism; Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Marting Heidegger… and others. Blakewell’s book weaves biography and thought, and “takes us to the heart of a philosophy about life that also changed lives, and […]
