Jan 01, 2009

Jan 01, 2009h in Collaboration Strategies, Community Building, Leading Change, Organization Development, Personal Development, Sustainability by

It’s New Year’s and I’m filled with hopeful stories I heard at a Compassionet gathering I attended this week. About 12 of us gathered with Srinivas Sukumar at Rudite Emir’s house in Mountain View. Sukumar was a client of mine at HP in the 1990’s—head of strategic planning for the labs, and is now the Community Program Manager for the CAL IT2 Institute at UC San Diego, having “retired” a few years ago. I went to India with him in 1998 to do strategic visioning for a Chinmaya Mission school in Coimbatore and we have been close colleagues ever since. Compassionet is a circle of his friends that all share an interest in spiritual matters combined with work in service of the community.

We meet a couple of times a year when Sukumar is back in the Bay Area from San Diego, and we’re beginning to deepen the threads that connect us. I’d like to share some of the things that inspired me when we recently crossed paths.

Compassionette - Seeds of Hope

 

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May 13, 2008

May 13, 2008h in Community Building, Family, Graphic Facilitation, Personal Transformation, Visualizing by

Groveseeds1jpg - Seeds of LightCan I walk each day in a sacred way? Can I start each day in the clear light mind? Can I have my work and play circle around my spiritual practice rather than fitting my spiritual practice into my day? These are the questions that are front and center on returning from my Joshua Tree Vision Quest. The deep nourishment I received from my reflective time on the desert feels almost like waking up again from a long sleep. I want to stay awake. And I want to stay engaged! I feel like I am watering little seeds of light.

At Joshua Tree I connected deeply with what I consider to be my real work, which is to plant and nurture seeds of hope, and to awaken myself so that who I am and what I do supports others waking up.

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May 01, 2007

May 01, 2007h in Collaboration Strategies, Community Building, Graphic Facilitation by

This last Saturday I had the honor of helping create a histomap of the life of Michael Doyle, my mentor and first supporter in business 30 years ago. He passed away this last January 29, 2007, and his wife Juli and a design team of colleagues created a special memorial day to honor his professional contributions. Some 60 people came from all parts of the collaboration spectrum.

Honoring Michael Doyle

We’ve been keeping a special blog in memory of Michael since he passed, and his history is posted there if you are interested in seeing it. Just click here to go to Remembering Michael Doyle.

 

Nov 25, 2006

Nov 25, 2006h in Community Building, Innovation, Leading Change, Service Learning, Sustainability by
The Time is Ripe for Social Entrepreneurs

Coro Alums Using GS Tools

I found myself in Aptos, CA recently at an alumni gathering of Coro, the leadership training organization through which I got my start professionally. It stirred my thinking like an ice cream beater on a hot summer afternoon, and the results are exciting me almost as much as the ice cream I can remember from those days long ago.

I’m beginning to believe that our country can reinvent itself in the civic arena much as we did in the early 1900s, after the very uninvolved 1890s when millions were coping with the industrial revolution and the isolation and confusion in the new cities. Robert Putnam’s book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Communities, made this appeal to me several years ago, but I wasn’t optimistic then. I sense a quickening now.

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