2009 – Page 3 – The Narrative Lab

Reflecting on the 2009 Cognitive Edge accreditation course

Last week Monday through Wednesday we hosted the 2009 Cognitive Edge Accreditation course in Sunninghil. Steve Bealing, CEO ofCognitive Edge came over from Singapore to present the session. It was his first time in South Africa, and he was probably exhausted after a visit to the De Wildt Cheetah breeding project, watching the Conferation Cup semi-final at Ellis Park and rounding off his visit with a weekend in the African bush. The course was a resounding success, with an eclectic mix of attendees from a [...]

By Aiden Choles|July 30th, 2009|Categories: Uncategorized|0 Comments

Dave Snowden @ the CSIR on 19 August

Dave Snowden is in the country early in August and will be giving a public talk for the Pretoria chapter of the KM Practitioner Forum at the CSIR on the 19th. I've attached the invite for your convenience The topic is "How to make KM strategic to your organisation". Dave's talks are always challenging and entertaining. Seats are limited and registrations are coming in quickly, so make sure you register soon to ensure your spot. I hope to see you there! Attachment [...]

By Aiden Choles|July 29th, 2009|Categories: Complexity|Tags: Complexity, Dave Snowden, KM|0 Comments

SCRUM training 29 & 30 July 2009

Our friends at Kaizania are hosting a SCRUM trainingcourse at the end of this month, and for those who don't know, it has nothing to do with rugby! We've long been interested in the SCRUM methodology, an AGILE approach to project management. It has a solid foundation in complexity and makes use of narrative techniques to ensure effective communication and delivery, especially on complex projects where the end goal is not narrowly defined. It is most often used in the software development space, but we [...]

By Aiden Choles|July 9th, 2009|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: Agile, Complexity, SCRUM training|0 Comments

Have your answers questioned

This blog entry onOpen Forum got me thinking. Specifically this paragraph: "Find some truth tellers. The first thing every CEO must realize is that everyone is lying to him (her too). It just happens. They didn’t coin the phrase “shoot the messenger” for no reason. There are many wonderful organizations out there for CEOs that provide truth-telling services. Vistage is an international group whose tag line is something like “Have your answers questioned.” It’s pretty clear that their ideal customer is the CEO who [...]

By Aiden Choles|July 7th, 2009|Categories: Communication, Leadership & Decision Making, Narrative|Tags: Communication, leadership, Narrative|0 Comments

Storytelling workshops

If you're interested in the more traditional application of storytelling, our good friend Peter Christie will be running a series of workshops on how you can harness your own storytelling ability. The two workshops are entitled: The North, South, East and West of Storytelling in Organisations (11th to 14th October) AND Life Storytelling in Organisations (14th to 17th October). They'll be run in the Maluti Mountains in the Free State. Contact Peter at bigchief@nottheboredroom.co.za if you're interested.

By Aiden Choles|June 29th, 2009|Categories: Culture, Narrative|Tags: peter christie, storytelling|0 Comments

2009 Accreditation kicks off

The 2009 Cognitive Edge Accreditation kicked off in Johannesburg today. We're running the accreditation in conjunction with Cognitive Edge and Steve Bealing (CEO) is here from Singapore running the session. It's Steve's first visit to South African, and Africa for that fact. He's on a whirlwind learning curve on South African culture and traffic ... We'll be live-tweeting the event over the next few days athttp://twitter.com/narrativelab. Follow us there for course updates, thoughts and nuggets of wisdom on narrative and complexity.

By Aiden Choles|June 22nd, 2009|Categories: Narrative, the narrativelab|Tags: accreditation, Cognitive Edge, Complexity, Narrative, steve bealing, the narrative lab|0 Comments

The non-crime hotline

People often ask why "appreciative enquiry" is not our methodology of choice, and why so many negative stories, archetypes and values surface in our processes. One of the key arguments is that humans don't tend to learn from other people's success as it is very difficult to replicate, we can however learn much from other's mistakes as it tells us what to avoid. This great post by Shawn from Anecdote about the "non-crime hotline" serves to illustrate.

By Aiden Choles|June 12th, 2009|Categories: Narrative|Tags: learning, Narrative, stories|0 Comments

J.J. Abrams: The mystery box

I really enjoyed this TED talk by J.J. Abrams. Key points that stood out for me: Sometimes mystery is more important than knowledge Mystery is the catalyst for imagination Mystery offers Infinite possibility A blank page is a mystery box Stories are mystery boxes The difference between what you think you're getting vs what you're really getting is often profound The mystery box IS all of us - what is really inside of you?

By Aiden Choles|June 11th, 2009|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: mystery, Story|0 Comments

Using wisdom of crowds to find Air France 447 black box

It strikes me that the search for Air France 447, and the current search for it's black boxes, has been approached in a very routine way. The French nuclear submarine will be scouring 35 square kilometers a day in search of the black boxes. Is there not an easier way to estimate where they are, or retrospectively, in identifying the possible crash site? So, for example, why not try out James Surowiecki's "Wisdom of Crowds" approach to estimate the location? After all, [...]

By Aiden Choles|June 10th, 2009|Categories: Uncategorized|0 Comments

“I’ll go down, I’m not scared to die …”

Give me a chance to go down today, I'll do it! I'm desperate to get out of this poverty. I'm not scared to die or get arrested because even the police are involved in this. I don't blame zama-zamas; in fact I'm encouraged by their initiative." These are the words of a 18 year old jobless hostel resident in Welkom, South Africa. These words are especially disturbing after a week where at least 76 illegal miners (zama-zama's or chance-takers) have died [...]

By Aiden Choles|June 5th, 2009|Categories: Complexity|Tags: Complexity, safety|0 Comments

Yearly Archives: 2009

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