While the news is full of partisan politics, an alternative model is emerging for how to make progress in addressing large scale challenges: collaborative networks. Through network initiatives, parts of a system can come together, find common ground, and pursue solutions and collective action from those points of agreement. The Energy Action Network (EAN) in… Read more
Category: Strategy
What it Takes to Create Collective Impact – 20 Questions
I recently worked with the Garfield Foundation to design and facilitate a gathering of people who specialize in collaborative networks and systemic approaches to social change. This meeting convened about a dozen experienced practitioners for two days of rich, inspiring, expansive conversations about what it takes to do this work effectively. These insights will inform… Read more
Setting the Table for a Great Meeting
A key part of our work at New Directions is collaborating with our clients to design agendas that lead to great meetings. Developing strategic clarity is the foundation of the fine art of agenda design. Getting to this strategic clarity is an iterative process best done in conversation. As I save and rename an agenda… Read more
Funders Role in Catalyzing Collaboration in Networks (or Undermining It)
Funders inherently have significant power in a system. The way that they use their funding and positional authority can have huge impact on whether a network works effectively. At the Northern New England Networks community of practice gathering I attended this week, a group of network leaders, funders, and consultants reflected on the question: In… Read more
The Climate Action Conundrum
Years ago, I was in the audience at a conference of investors and environmentalists listening to a panel of presenters talk about what actions they were pursuing on climate. A speaker from NRDC, who worked in their D.C. office and was all too familiar with the political realities, was talking about their strategy of advocating… Read more
An Energizing Staff Retreat
Kathy Gallant, the owner of the Blue Moon Market & Cafe in Exeter, NH, had run this successful health food store and cafe for 12 years when she recognized it was time for the next phase of the business’ evolution. Last October, the doors re-opened as Blue Moon Evolution, a full-service restaurant featuring organic, locally-grown… Read more
Aligning Work at Various Scales
With Google maps or Mapquest, one can zoom in to the level of a city block or zoom out to see how that place that relates to the geography of a city or a region. In working for change within complex systems, we similarly need to be able to work at multiple levels and see… Read more
New Jobs that Support Collaborative Work
In the late 1990’s, I shifted my work from environmental management consulting towards a focus on sustainability. At the time, most of my friends and family, had not even heard of the word “sustainability” and I struggled to explain it as well as to figure out a way to make a living doing this work…. Read more
Opportunity Mapping: The Geographic Footprint of Inequality
In the days after the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans, there was criticism of those who had stayed behind – “they had warning, why didn’t they leave?” However, it came to light that 50% of the African Americans in the city did not have cars. They did not have the means to leave. The… Read more
Creating the Structures for a Generative Economy
A friend handed me a copy of Marjorie Kelly’s new book Owning Our Future: The Emerging Ownership Revolution; Journeys to a Generative Economy and said he thought it was so good that he had bought a case of them to share with colleagues and friends. By the time I was 50 pages into the book,… Read more