This month, July 2011, is the 20th anniversary of one of the most remarkable journalistic initiatives I’ve ever seen — an innovation so cutting-edge that even the innovators did not recognize its world-shaking potential. In July 1991, MACLEAN’S m…
I have long been fascinated by efforts to clarify which approaches to change work are most needed and effective. Among my favorite models are: * Donella Meadows’ Twelve Leverage Points to Intervene in a System * Joanna Macy’s Three Dimensions of t…
The three articles below describe major approaches to addressing the deficit — for health care, taxes and the military — that would have a greater impact on America’s budget woes than ANYTHING being currently negotiated by Congress and the Obama…
So much is happening under the guise of “the budget crisis” that I thought it might be useful to deconstruct this issue a bit. I am concerned, in particular, because a number of efforts are emerging to formally engage the public in deliberations a…
Probably virtually everyone reading this is already aware of the triple crises in Japan — mega-earthquake, mega-tsunami, and mega-nuclear catastrophe. I have found it often difficult to find truly useful information and perspectives on this crisi…
The emergence of the Wikileaks phenomenon is a game-changer of the sort I highlighted in “Are we ready to change the Game yet?” http://bit.ly/bwGTJO. The unfolding Wikileaks saga is generating an increasingly novel playing field — remarkably diff…
Recently I’ve seen a swirl of information (mostly on the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation listserv) about participatory budgeting. Below, you’ll find a sampling of this info, in relatively raw form. I do not know enough to sort it …
Thomas Friedman suggests that the special strength of Egypt’s youth-led revolutionary movement has been “the fact that it represented every political strain, every segment and class in Egyptian society.” But then he turns around and says that dive…
A large and growing body of knowledge exists about how to carry on powerful conversations — methodologies, facilitation know-how, dynamic understandings, and more. This knowledge informs professions ranging from therapy to diplomacy and conflict …
Some people say Gandhi was about nonviolence. And he was. But he is significant for something else that I believe is far more important: He changed the game. With no one’s permission, he reconfigured the playing field of colonialism to a higher Ga…