Celebrating our new KnowledgeConnect Cafe Kit

We just completed work on our KnowledgeConnect Cafe Kit LeaderGuide. Yipee! This has been an exciting journey to capture and share something that is powerful for us in leading and being part of organizational and community cafes. We've created a pdf for anyone interested in cafes to get a flavor for how we approach conversation cafes. If you find yourself intrigued, please contact us at info@beideaconnect.com , we'd love to send you the 13 page leaderguide (free). We hope to have it available for a free download soon. We don't quite have the store up and running yet, but we love to hear stories that connect us to others and their experience with hosting conversations that matter.

A little light goes a long way

Last night we had the penultimate (don't get to use that word too often) session in our Facilitative Leadership Forum - see our wiki - and it was a wonderful shared conversation about how we can bring the elements to our facilitative leadership selves.

We've moved to the point in our conversations where we are thinking together about Illumination - Holding a vision and Focalizing energy - about expanding beyond self and small group to the larger forum where Facilitative Leadership can be practiced (as a Facilitator, a Leader and as a Participant).

As we discussed illumination Alara shared:

"When it's really dark - a little bit of light goes a long way."

That really struck me as profound on so many levels. How can we be the light as Facilitative Leaders, even if it's just a little bit of light? When a group really can't see, it can be a simple question to shift the perspective. When we lose our own way, it can be a moment of reflection and reconnection - coming back to being fully present to see what wants to emerge.

Sometimes it is by getting out of the way of the group, and staying fully present to give the light room to grow.

I am a Girl Scout Leader for a Troop of 10 year old Junior Girl Scouts. They decided at our last camping trip that they wanted to participate in a ceremony (they didn't get to participate in the larger flag ceremony) so I shared with them the concept of a "Scouts Own" - where the Troop co-creates their own ceremony with elements that are important to them. As we held our planning meeting last week - with parents due to arrive in the "audience" in an hour - the best thing I could do to facilitate the group was to literally step out of the way. As 10 year olds, they are used to looking to the adult to tell them what to do -and then what to do next (especially in school which is where we were meeting).

I moved away from the front of the room and they gathered around the table and together figured out very quickly what they would do. They created the flow, decided who would speak when and how they would conclude (and I really did hear all girls chiming in). Before I knew it they had co-created their ceremony we were practicing the flow and the hanging of the flag and rehearsing their lines with time to spare before the parents arrived.

Whether they will consciously remember this as an early experience of co-creating, I don't know. At least they are getting the experiences - and as their "Leader", I'm learning that I can shed light by allowing them to emerge and stepping out of the way to let their amazing 10 year old lights shine.

Experience Presencing

One of the concepts we've been exploring in the Facilitative Leadership Forum this autumn is Presencing -- how in sensing the present we are building capability to presence the emerging future. We're finding this is not a simple concept to tryly embody in our day to day. Old habits really are hard to break. Moments are all I've been able to practice ... I guess that's the best place to start.

This morning I recieved the November newsletter from the Berkana Institute www.berkana.org which includes information about two workshops with Arawana Hayashi. I attended a Pegusus preconference workshop last year and in one day was transformed. I can't wait to participate in a longer session with Arawana. There's no better way to really get a concept like Theory U http://www.presencing.com/ than to deeply esperience in your body, deep in your bones. Moving beyond the mental contraints of trying to understand and master to simply moving and dancing with the intention of sensing and allowing. Wonder-full!

"Embodied Presence Practice with Arawana Hayashi, November 21, 2009, Boston, MA, and December 10-13, 2009, Rosendale, NY. Participate in a capacity-building workshop on meditation and embodied presence practice to support and deepen change work using Theory U. The workshop offers non-verbal methods for recognizing limiting thinking and for cultivating the capacity to move toward sensing the present, presencing an emerging future, and realizing beneficial results. Read more about this opportunity. http://www.arawanahayashi.com/socialtheater.htm"

If this attract you I encourage you to follow your heart and mind.
With Love, Lynette

OUR NEW PRINTER HAS ARRIVED! Here is a funny story.

Great News! Our new large format printer arrived at Linda's house, we are very excited. My daughter, Jenny is pictured with it. It isn't quite ready to start printing yet, an error upon first startup requires some additional work. Here's a funny story about the printer's first day.

I shared the printer update with Lynette and she suggested I use healing touch on the printer. As I relayed the story to my husband, Russ, he responded by saying, "skip the healing touch and just bring out a sledge hammer to sit next the printer and intimidate it (Russ is a little different than me)."

Casey (my 15 year old daughter) said to us, "Wow, you both believe in intention setting for inanimate objects."

Susannah responded to my e-mail story with, "Please - no sledge hammer! x( yikes. Hilarious part is Casey's wisdom! Love to all the Dudeks and appreciation for housing the soon to be working printer."

Lynette is still giggling.

Just so everyone knows. I'm hiding the sledgehammer and I've spent some time with the printer....I expect it will be running soon and printing lots and lots of templates.

With love, Linda

Technology's affect on Presencing - Being Present

So technology can connect us and distract us, I'm finding today.

I often leave my email open on days when I'm "at my desk" and check it frequently. Does this keep me immediately in the know? or is it keeping me from focusing on something else I'm choosing to be with?

Of course, when I do this - there's hardly any incoming email that really needs my attention... lots of offers for training and other information and solicitations.

There's a lot to look at on the internet - hard to believe that when we started Ah Ha! 13 years ago, it was relatively new to have a website and we didn't really know how to find sites that were out there. Now we can't go an hour without this amazing resource of information, ideas, inspiration... and distraction (facebook, twitter, shiny things, articles, etc.).

I guess it depends on how we use technology and in our choice of how we are spending our energy and where our focus is.

Sometimes tuning out allows us to tune into ourselves.

I'm still in an easily distracted space and I love my technology. Our family computer has been in ICU and rehab for the past several weeks and we all really miss being able to quickly pop on to find out something, check in with friends, check on work or school, etc.

And the phone (old technology, but technology just the same now that it goes with us everywhere)... Linda just called to tell me she emailed! :) Makes me smile. So I can check in on the email for a meeting tomorrow and make sure we're all aligned on our topic... that's a help for keeping us focused and present!

Thanks for witnessing my rambling... more from me to come.

Susannah

The Practice of Presencing

From Lynette - As posted on the Facilitative Leadership Forum Wiki site.

Since our last gathering, I’ve had a lot of opportunities to choose to not be or to BE PRESENT. As I reflect on what has been offered up to me personally I chose to go to our questions and wonderings at the end of our session. I’ve taken the liberty to reword slightly …

• In what ways does Technology present challenges to my being fully present and engaged? In what ways does it assist me?
• How can my awareness of what is manifesting outside me give me cues and clues to what is going on inside me?

Try this simple practice over the next week several times a day
– Notice your back – notice your front. Rest in this moment of awareness. Remember your body is in the middle of your experience. Breathe slowly and deeply for a few moments and move deeper into the middle of your experience.

Ask yourself: What am I aware of right now?

With a strong outward breath make a move.

Please capture a few notes about your experience and add to this Discussion.

Many Blessings, Lynette

We Wanted YOU to Know … We’re Hosting a Virtual Facilitative Leadership Forum this Fall

We're trying something new and different for us - a Virtual UnConference! So what does that mean? Well, what Virtual UnConference means in the end, will be defined by all the participants who will shift and flex into roles of leader, teacher, learner, facilitator to collaboratively create the curriculum. As a starting point, we will be exploring and experiencing Facilitative Leadership through a series of web based sessions followed by small conversation pods and personal activity and reflection. More detail is available on our wiki, including the initial pre-thinking assignment due to be completed prior to the first call.

When? Six Monday evenings, October 19, October 26, November 9, November 16, November 30, December 14, 7:00PM – 8:30PM ET

To participate, please call 919-363-7562 to register (please see the levels of Participation below). You will need a computer with internet connection and a headset with microphone. There will be an optional call in line provided.

The Outcome of the Forum is for each participant to discover her / his highest potential and create a personal plan for developing her / his leadership.Facilitative Leadership is the practice of leading people toward agreed-upon objectives in a manner that encourages participation, ownership and insight from all involved. In practical terms, it's about connecting people in ways that create energy to accomplish amazing things together. And even better, people bring their best selves and best work to the group. This is a great working definition - what do we do with that...

We're sitting with a lot of questions such as:

• What is Leadership in the Future?
• How can I more fully activate my leadership, facilitatively?
• What are the most important aspects of facilitative leadership?
• How can I evolve my leadership?
• How can we be in collaboration - with a knowing of when is the time to step forward and lead others... and when to lead from within the group

What's in store for you at the Facilitative Leadership Forum?

• a supportive environment for sharing your own leadership ideas and practices
• an open forum for learning and incorporating new skills from others
• a collective experience where you can discover your highest potential

Enhance your leadership through personal skill development.
Enable leadership in yourself and others by thinking together and through coaching and mentoring.
Illuminate the future by holding a vision and focalizing energy.

Levels of Participation:

Level 1 – $500 6 Web Based Sessions

Level 2 – $1000 (a $1,150 value)
6 Web Based Sessions
+ Supporting Materials for working with teams/organizations/groups
2 Team StartUp Kits and 1 KnowledgeConnect Café Kit

Level 3 – $2000 ($2,400 value)
All of the above + 5 hours of Coaching from the IdeaConnect Founders

To register call: 919-363-7562

Congratulations to our First LCF 300 Level Graduate!

Our first LearningConnect Facilitation 300 Level Master Facilitator has Graduated!!!

Lisa Mackay (from Procter & Gamble), YOU and your commitment and focus have been truly inspiring.

Thank you for sharing your journey with us!!! Lisa's journey began participating in the LearningConnect process as a Team member back in 1998. She completed her LearningConnect Fundamentals Training (LCF100) in 2001 and Advanced LearningConnect Training (LCF200) in March, 2009. Her Independent Study focus for her Mastery Level (LCF300) focused on Qualtitative Analysis and Orgaizational Facilitation of Translating and Transferring Knowledge - and boy did she set up some challenging "tests" for herself. You'll be hearing from her soon here.

Congratulations to Lisa: The first Charter Member of the Be IdeaConnect Community!

Will YOU be next??

Learn more about all the LearningConnect training opportunities by visiting our web site.

What is LearningConnect?

We've had some questions come up lately about how to explain to others what LearningConnect is and what it's all about. So we thought we'd post some additional language that may help you share with others. In addition, feel free to download this free gift, which is a visual of the LearningConnect process (along with some description). Many people find it useful as a tool to help explain LearningConnect to others in their organizations... we know we do.

So what is LearningConnect?

LearningConnect is a qualitative research approach that helps teams apply their collective intuitive and analytical skills to discover and bring to life consumer insights in ways that are fully embraced and crystallized. It utilizes a graphic approach to guide conversation and allow people to share ideas. It is a workshop that encourages direct connections. Unlike traditional focus groups, LearningConnect clients are in a front room with respondents, not in a back room or behind a mirror. Depth and breadth of learning are achieved by spending three hours with consumers.

Conversation is guided by means of graphic templates. Having and showing honor and respect for consumers encourages them to participate and speak freely. Conversations with groups of respondents and clients take place around small, round tables. A mix of large and small group activities is used to tap into people's different styles of learning and thinking.

The graphic templates are blank graphic frames printed on large sheets of paper posted on the wall of the research facility. Like outlines, they guide conversations. They are very low tech. They remind interviewers and respondents of the different areas to be explored. They provide a space on which to capture and organize real consumer language. They provide a big picture in a way that reveals connections. The simple graphics stimulate respondent input. They use metaphors such as mountains to provide structures for taking notes. A variety of templates are use to shape different kinds of conversations or collect different kinds of information.

The consumer insights follow from team analysis of the sessions. Team analysis turns insight into action, builds passion, and leverages team members' diverse knowledge and skill sets. It works because it is open and collaborative, goal oriented ("intentional"), and incorporates multiple learning approaches. You really learn by listening to people, recording their words, reading them, saying them aloud, converging and synthesizing them, making decisions, and taking action.

LearningConnect is a model for building wisdom. The stages, as of a pyramid, are to collect data; organize, converge and identify patterns to create information; integrate and build knowledge; and take action. This drives action-based outcomes and tangible results, builds team knowledge and alignment, produces rich, unexpected insights by getting below the surface, accelerates teams' learning by involving them directly in active learning, and sets up a greater knowledge transfer, so the enterprise as a whole becomes wiser. Isn’t that what we all want?

Don't forget, you can see these stages represented in the arrow on our free gift by going to http://www.beideaconnect.com/LearningConnectProcessArrow2009.pdf - the LearningConnect process arrow. We hope you'll download it and use it.

You Know it's a LearningConnect if...

As the creators of the LearningConnect® process we often hear of people doing something they are calling LearningConnect®, but then as they describe what they are doing we say to ourselves “huh? That doesn’t sound like what we created.” Other times people tell us they have done LearningConnect and then as we start describing our recommended approach, they utter “Ooohhhhhh, uhhhhhh, I guess what I was doing wasn’t really LearningConnect. So in the interest of clearing things up here are a few ways you can tell when it IS and when it is NOT LearningConnect:

LearningConnect® is…

• A Team Learning Process (i.e. it doesn’t happen in an hour meeting or even in a day) – it’s multi-day, experiential and collaborative
• Conversational – where the consumer guests have the power – it’s all about them, their stories and their experiences
• Graphically facilitated (it uses templates) so your team collects and organizes data (the actual, real words your consumers are saying) in real time
• When your team spends more time doing Analysis, Synthesis and Building individual and team Knowledge than collecting data … Because the real learning happens in the Analysis – together as a team
• Action focused … when complete, your team has made decisions, collaboratively created Outcomes and is moving your project forward in a real, tangible way – applying insights and taking ACTION. There might even be a celebration!

You know it’s NOT LearningConnect if…

• There’s not a Team Start Up to orient to the process, envision success, and surface team questions, prior to the consumer workshops
• There is a back room or there are team members who are “observing”
  When you are with your consumers you are asking a series of direct questions – like an interview
• Data is not collected and organized during the conversations (using graphic tools)
  Individuals are working alone or independently
• One person takes the data and does the analysis alone in order to write a report
  The only output is a report

What does your team learning look like? When do you LearningConnect?

LearningConnect Webinars

We’ve been training people in our revolutionary LearningConnect process for almost 10 years now. Hundreds of people around the world have attended our trainings and we are ready to take the next step – Webinars!

Here are a few topics we are considering offering to YOU – our LearningConnect facilitator community. We hope these webinars will refresh and reinvigorate your LearningConnect practice. And we’re really interested in what you might be most attracted to – and would love YOUR ideas for topics too. Let us know.

A Refresher (or Introduction) on the 7 Stages of LearningConnect
Has it been awhile since you’ve attended LearningConnect Training? Or have you been on a LearningConnect team journey and are considering attending Training? Join this webinar for an overview of the full LearningConnect process with tips and suggestions on facilitating your team in the immersive learning process with your customers or consumers.

Team Start Up and Team Workout Sessions
Too often we hear “our team is already is aligned” or “we’ve been on the project together for awhile now…” so teams skip these critical steps. Yikes! In our experience a good solid StartUp and Workout session is critical for the LearningConnect process and sets up the success (or potential failure if skipped) of the whole learning journey. Join this webinar as a review of some simple practices to orient and ground your team in order to build a shared starting point and vision from which to launch each project. We’ll review the Team Start Up, Success Looks Like and Speaking Our Minds templates and explore other activities that can enrich these sessions.

Keeping Your Team Engaged along the Journey – ReConnecting during the LearningConnect Process
LearningConnect can be a process that works well over time, with breaks along the way (we know you have lots of other work to fit in as well). One way to manage this is to take a few minutes every time your team gets together to reconnect and restart. We’ll share ideas for revisiting and actively engaging with your Team StartUp templates by adding layers – deepening your team’s connection with the topic and with each other.

Overview of the LearningConnect Templates for Data Collection
Not sure what all the options are for templates to use in Data Collection? Have a favorite that you use a lot and want to branch out to try new ones? Join this session to review the wide range of templates available that can help you in a variety of ways during your data collection. We’ll discuss a range of topics and question areas that each template can provide a framework to capture the conversations with your consumers.

Thinking about Data Collection Design – using a variety of templates in your Data Collection
Now that you remember that there are lots of templates, how can you mix it up during Data Collection to create fun and interesting series of activities and conversation frameworks? Which templates will work well in sequence to dig deeper into your topic? This webinar will review some case examples that use a variety of templates together to layer the conversation.

So what’s attracting your attention? What potential topics do you have?

We look forward to hearing from YOU!

Women in Progress - An Amazing Experience

From Linda and Susannah

We are so thankful we gifted ourselves and others with the Women In Progress, a mother and teen daughter workshop. We just completed an absolutely wonderful week with mothers and daughters in a different way. This year we were in Prospect, PA during the best summer weather ever seen in western Pennsylvania, sunny and 70s.

The best thing we mothers and daughters did was to choose this time to slow down, dream our futures, write and share those dreams and identify some first steps toward reaching them. We shared these practices with our daughters. Some memorable stuff for us and the daughters–

• being outside and in nature, climbing the huge pine tree and “going out on a limb” – literally and figuratively!
• making shrinky dinks, magic wands, treasure boxes and picture collages to remind us how we are always in progress and becoming the women we dream about;
• hanging out with new friends
• spending time together
• capturing our future vision on paper and making some action steps
• thoroughly enjoying the closing ceremony created by the daughters
• having a good time

Mothers listened to daughters and daughters listened to mothers with an open heart. Our connections evolved. Yipee!

We are looking forward to sharing this experience with more Mothers and Daughters in the future and we’re trying other formats, like evening sessions once week over a couple months.

Our next week long "camp" will likely be in Summer of 2011 in North Carolina!

Foam Core - We're Obsessed!

Foam Core -- We're Obsessed!
Back by Popular Demand - a reprint of an Ah Ha! Blog entry from last year.

From Lynette =)

You know from time to time we do get excited about seemingly strange things here at Ah Ha! The latest? We just love foam core -- 40" by 60" foam core to be more specific (we like the 3/8th inch although it is also available in 1/2 inch).

We've found these thin white boards to be magnificent tools in our facilitation of LearningConnect sessions. The 40" by 60" size is perfect for our wall sized templates and with the assistance of a flipchart or even an easel, we can work effectively in rooms that have less than wonderful wall space. And, WOW! these foam core walls have 2 useable sides!!

Remember, an important element of grounded facilitation is taking care of the Operational physical details. Sometimes all the stuff required for LearningConnect even overwhelms me! So recently we've prepped our very portable, very light, yet surprisingly strong "walls" well before DataCollection sessions. This allows us to be more relaxed and attentive to facilitating and being with the team and workshop guests.

When we travel we arrange for a local art supply store to deliver 10 or so boards directly to the facility, conference center or hotel where we're working. When we arrive our foam core boards are waiting for us to get to work. It doesn't get better than that =)

IdeaConnect - we've been around for a long time - although perhaps you've never heard of us.

IdeaConnect provides tools, trainings and workshops that enhance, enable and illuminate Facilitative Leaders, so that they - meaning you - can guide teams to achieve and exceed their own expectations ("team" being a very technical term that translates roughly as "any group of people that needs to get something done.")

We're the R&D arm and idea generator for Ah Ha!, an innovative facilitation and consulting company that works with teams of all kinds in gaining knowledge, integrating information and developing new connections - which serves as a very successful proving ground for our theory and practice.

But we didn't want to stop there. Because, call us crazy, we'd rather let as many people people as possible in on the not-so-secret of what we do, and enable them to go off and do it for themselves.

So no matter what industry you work in, or what job title you have, we can guide you (facilitatively, of course) toward harnessing the power of people to achieve impressive real-world results.

Where it leads? That's up to you.

Stay tuned here for postings from the new IdeaConnect Blog.