Grandmothers and Collaborative Learning

[Note: I originally wrote this post, and had it posted a couple of months back, as a guest blogger on Lorie Vela’s excellent Collaboration Ideas blog.  Thanks Lorie.  With children shortly returning to school, and parents, and others, occupied by thoughts of “good learning”, I thought it might be timely to post it again, here.] […]

Great collaborative workspaces are designed with diversity in mind

En route between visits to family in Vermont and rural Ontario, I spent a day in Toronto last week.  Toronto is Canada’s most diverse city, and alongside New York, perhaps the most diverse in North America. While in Toronto, I had the good fortune to meet and chat with Tonya Surman, executive director of Canada’s […]

How to build dispute resolution capacity in public jurisdictions and systems

Conflict is part of our lives, from Day 1.  Disputes happen; all kinds of disputes.  Public jurisdictions, and systems, should ensure that there are sufficient resources available for people and organizations to resolve disputes.  They should.  Few do. How to build local capacity Larry Susskind is a leading figure in the field of public dispute […]

Summer, jazz, and lessons learned

Summer and festivals go together. I’ve been volunteering this week at Jazzfest, the Victoria International Jazz Festival. It’s the 27th annual. It’s a great festival.  I’ve volunteered other years, too.  It’s one way I show my appreciation for what jazz has given me. Jazzfest, the festival The Victoria Jazz Society is a professional arts organization […]

"Out" your assets to expose your collaborative potential

Each one of us has gifts to offer, whether you’re a bookkeeper, beekeeper, barber.  Do you know the gifts of that person sitting across from you? Do you know what yours are? Your gifts are assets. Identifying and sharing those assets can increase the value of whatever situation, team, organization, neighbourhood, association, city, you are […]