Over the last few months, CIO Magazine has been posting snippets of a video interview of Sheila Jordan, SVP, Collaboration and Communication IT, Cisco Systems and Jim Love, CIO, IT World Canada. (Note: CIO stands for Chief Information Officer) The last snippets of that interview were aired this week. Having spent a previous career as […]
12 Things you should know as a Facilitator of effective “communications”
January 3, 2014 by · Leave a Comment
As a mediator and facilitator of various types of conversations, in-person and virtual, I’m always learning when it comes to being a better “communicator”. In 2013, I added to my list of insights on that front. For instance, did you know… Inter-personal communications is essentially the process of sending and receiving messages. The word […]
Independence or Interdependence: What’s your default when calamity hits?
November 18, 2013 by · Leave a Comment
Disasters happen. The people of the Philippines know this acutely, right now. Typhoon Haiyan was a mega-storm. It had no precedent. How do people survive in a situation like that? What will they rely on for survival, in the storm’s aftermath? Reliance on family Well, it didn’t surprise me to read in this weekend’s Globe […]
Infusing a Culture of Mediation into your organization
November 16, 2013 by · 1 Comment
Organizations with long-standing success often have difficulty in shifting their members culture, when the need arrives. Bridging the old and new ways requires skilled facilitation and ‘bridging’ skills. Mediators are specialists in facilitating conversations and building bridges between people. The need for mediation The attributes associated with mediators are often the attributes in short supply […]
Timeboxing, Collaboration and Personal Time Management
October 15, 2013 by · Leave a Comment
It was (Canada) Thanksgiving Day yesterday. Food, family, relaxation… Well mostly, relaxation. I was still feeling time pressured to get some “work” done. Timeboxed! Time is our cue to act. We all know that feeling: the baby is due in one month, the project deadline is tomorrow, Dad just entered palliative care… Better focus your […]
Webmind: Data mining 24,000 TEDx talks
September 27, 2013 by · 4 Comments
Ecologist Eric Berlow, founder of Vibrant Data Labs (“Data for Social Good”), and physicist Sean Gourley collaborated to map the spread of ideas using TEDx talks and YouTube data. They mined the data associated with 24,000 TEDx talks, from 147 countries, in 50 different languages, and share their findings in their own 7 minute TED talk. (hat […]
Cultural diversity in virtual conversations?
September 9, 2013 by · 2 Comments
Last month, I did a cross-cultural conflict management workshop for the Inter-Cultural Association of Greater Victoria. The participants were all immigrants. Their time in Canada ranged from weeks to years. The content focus was the workplace and employment. Culture and conversation patterns One of the concepts I touched on dealt on was cultural differences in […]
