Weeknotes for Feb 28th, 2020


Started the week facilitating a Strategy Implementation Retreat for Open Rights Group. When they reviewed the forward-looking calendar created during a previous retreat they were pleasantly surprised at how much they had accomplished. I’m increasingly seeing the importance of creating an organisation-wide calendar with post-it notes with remote based staff. The opportunity to reflect on the future together and for all staff to understand what is happening is invaluable. Finished the retreat with a go-round of aspirations for the upcoming months, that might be useful as a starter self-reflective framework during the next retreat.

Ran an online discussion for a group of UK grantmakers on Data Analysis for 360Giving’s Data Champions Programme. What surfaced: the need for understanding everything about the question the data needs to answer including why is it being asked in the first place; the dangers of confirmation bias can get you into trouble when you are trying to understand how to combat deep systemic issues within communities.

Heather Leson got me into a conversation with a couple of her colleagues on how IFRC might use online discussions as part of their strategy for disseminating a digital transformation strategy. The tech and bandwidth for online meetings have certainly come a long way with the ability to replicate ‘face to face’ activities like small group breakouts. But this also means that you need to be careful not to reproduce and amplify common mistakes of face to face convenings, namely overuse of broadcasting and reinforcing knowledge hierarchies.

I started outreach for The Workshop Lab on March 26th in London. Hoping that stating ‘participants will walk away with peer-reviewed session plans’ is clear in terms of what you will get out of it. Gunner had a good point that the ‘Workshop’ frame may be a bit limiting, as the methods also apply to any convening or meeting.

Also on outreach – the Data Literacy Consortium online discussion on ‘Adapting Existing Resources‘ is getting a lot of interest, looking forward to that discussion on Tuesday, March 10th. Along with the Network-Centric Resources online discussion on ‘Indicators for Success‘ on Thursday, March 12th.