Constructive Conflict: Revisiting the genius of Mary Parker Follett

  Last month, my collaborative-minded web friend, John Folk-Williams, introduced us to Mary Parker Follett, in this article on his excellent blog Cross Collaborate.  Among the living humans from 1868-1933, her insights reflected a brilliant mind, systems thinking, and in retrospect, are visionary.  I was totally intrigued, and so I followed up… First, I procured […]

Two books on workplace creativity and collaboration to help jumpstart your organization

I recently finished a couple of excellent books about workplace collaboration, authored by people immersed in creativity and the arts. Amen!  I found these two books complement each other nicely. The Collaborative Habit The first book is The Collaborative Habit: Life Lessons for Working Together.  It’s written by Twyla Tharp, a leading and innovative American […]

Rakunks, Hybrid Jobs, Learning Agents, and other speculations on the future

Just finished reading Margaret Atwood‘s new book The Year of the Flood, what Atwood describes as speculative fiction.  She is one of my favourite writers, a Booker Prize winner, and still writing incredible stories at the age of 70! Most of the Flood story takes place in the dystopic near future, in which there aren’t […]

Peeping as information sharing: How much is a good thing?

On my recent assignment with CESO in the Philippines, I made it a priority to give people I worked with a voice; appreciatively inquiring into their stories.  I posted articles, including pictures and videos, to this blog.  All the while, in the back of my mind were questions like Shouldn’t some of this stuff be […]

10 Lessons on collaboration as taught by our musical brain

Music has been with humans since we first became humans, it has shaped the world through six kinds of songs: friendship, joy, comfort, knowledge, religion, and love.   So demonstrates Daniel J. Levitin in his book The World in Six Songs – How the musical brain created human nature.  I read this book with interest.  I’ve […]