Dear Colleague
I am writing to you today to let you know about three complexity-related events organized by ISCE Event and/or its affiliates:
1. Storytelling and Complexity in Human Systems, Las Vegas, NV, USA, 31 March - 1 April, 2007;
2. 8th Annual Global Information Technology Management Association (GITMA) World Conference will be held in Naples, Italy on June 17, 18 & 19, 2007.;
3. Narrative Techniques for Business - Seattle (26 March) & Boston (29 March).
For full details and contacts please see below.
Kind regards
Kurt Richardson
******* If you have received more than one copy of this notice then please let me know and I will ensure that the extra addresses are removed from our mail list. If you do not want to continuing receiving notices from the Institute for the Study of Coherence and Emergence then please drop me an email or fill in the removal request at http://isce.edu/Remove/ Either way, my sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused.
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1. Storytelling and Complexity in Human Systems, Las Vegas, NV, USA, 31 March - 1 April, 2007
Organized by the STORI Institute
Sponsored by ISCE Events
"David Boje taught me the value of stories in an organization. Stories are the "oil" that makes the gears work." - Stew Leonard Jr.
"How do you get your message heard in an organization with thousands of people? David Boje taught me the value of telling stories at Stew Leonard's!" http://www.stewleonards.com/stewleonardjr/bio.cfm
Stew Jr.s took two Ph.D. seminars on storytellling when I was at UCLA, and he was in the MBA program. Here are few more of Stew Jr.'s ideas on stories. Here's a few ideas.
"If there's no story, it's too complicated to explain to over 2,000 team members"
If you hear a story being told in the company cafeteria by a front line worker, promote the manager that initiated that story!
"Our company is made up of lots of stories. We've found that "stories" get told and retold and become the fabric of an organization. "Policies" lay unread in the company handbook or training manual"
In this highly interactive workshop you'll collaborate with leading storytelling experts and scholars to take a deeper and broader look at the power of storytelling in organizations. You'll apply cutting edge ideas to your own organization and move you far beyond the customary approaches of using stories in keynote presentations and training classes. And you'll have an opportunity to experience and experiment with critical concepts of storytelling – and story listening – drawn from research and practice including:
- How really listening to the stories of others reveals layers of knowledge that normally pass us by;
- How storytelling can become the engine of creative strategy development and performance improvement for your organization;
- How the stories that matter are often spontaneous and can be the least polished.
DELIVERABLES
During the workshop participants will:
- Identify current organizational challenges that will benefit from a storytelling approach during a pre-conference call with one of the STORI Institute consultants;
- Assess your story-based communication competencies;
- Work with tools for gathering and eliciting stories in your organization;
- Practice analyzing stories to better understand what people are experiencing in your organization;
- Develop an action plan for using stories in their organization;
- Participate in a coaching session with STORI Institute consultants.
STORI is a leading coalition of professional narrative practitioners. Led by Dr. David Boje, a pioneering thinker in organizational communication, the workshop brings together seven STORI founders, each of whom is a recognized expert in storytelling and organizational development. Now the STORI founders have combined their talents to create this original, engaging and practical organizational storytelling workshop designed especially for you and your needs.
DETAILS
Dates: Saturday, March 31 and Sunday, April 1, 2007
Time: 8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Location:Imperial Palace Hotel & Casino, 3535 Las Vegas Blvd. South
Las Vegas, NV 89109
Participation in the workshop is limited to 40.
Cost: $1,200 per person; $975 per person for groups of two or more from the same organization
For more information on the workshop and to reserve your place contact David Boje email: dboje@peaceaware.com
Phone: 505-532-1693
Fax: 505-646-1372
Room Reservations:
Imperial Palace Hotel & Casino
3535 Las Vegas Blvd.
South Las Vegas, NV 89109
www.imperialpalace.com
Phone: 800-351-7400 ext. 2 or 702-794-3286
Fax: 702-794-3368
For more information on the STORI Institute and workshop leaders go to: http://www.storyemergence.org
Thanks for your interest. We look forward to your responses.
David Boje (dialog@peaceaware.com)
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2. 8th Annual Global Information Technology Management Association (GITMA) World Conference will be held in Naples, Italy on June 17, 18 & 19, 2007
This conference provides a unique opportunity to all IT educators, researchers, and practitioners from all countries to get together to network, develop lasting relationships, and exchange ideas.
The clear strength is the international participation and the following people should attend:
- Educators, researchers, and practitioners from North America (including US, Mexico, and Canada)
- Educators, researchers, and practitioners from all other parts of the world, including developed, developing, and under-developed nations
- Educators, researchers, and practitioners doing work in all areas of Global IT Management.
"The GITMA Conference started with a strong focus that continues today. It brings researchers, educators and practitioners together from around the world and fosters an atmosphere conducive to the supportive presentation of emerging and mature research ideas..." Barry Shore, previous Program Chair
Representative Tracks
IT in Australia;
IT in Europe;
IT in Taiwan;
IT in South America;
IT in South America;
IT in South East Asia;
IT in Healthcare;
IT in Small and Medium Enterprises;
Doctoral (Masters) student consortium;
Global Electronic Commerce;
Culture in the Diffusion, Acceptance and Use of IT;
Intellectual property in Global IT;
Security and privacy;
Global IT Outsourcing and Offshoring;
Strategic Applications of Global IT;
IT in Multinational Companies;
Global ERP and SCM Systems;
Global IT Complex networks;
IT and Change Management, Online Education and Training,
For further details please visit: http://www.gitm2007.unina.it/
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3. Narrative Techniques for Business
What's really going on in your organization?
What are the touch points where small changes can transform behavior and morale?
How can you access and transfer the wisdom of your workforce to future employees?
Surveys and metrics can uncover trouble in an organization, but they usually don't help you identify the reasons for dysfunctions, let alone point the way toward remedies for the problems. Instead, learn to use stories as listening posts. From time immemorial, stories have contained collective lessons in condensed form. When gathered and examined, stories that are told in your organization reveal important themes and patterns that in turn indicate effective solutions.
This one-day workshop, led by Australia's leading expert in story listening, teaches you to gather and analyze stories so as to see revealing patterns and use them to gain traction on solving messy organizational problems or reaching complicated goals.
After a full day of instruction, practice and feedback, you will have the confidence and knowledge to apply these powerful techniques within your organization.
Click here to read the full description and learn how to register for the workshop: http://www.anecdote.com.au/coursedisplay.php?cid=14
The workshops will be held in Seattle (26 March) and Boston (29 March).
Who should attend?
Anyone struggling with thorny human problems or complex goals such as the following will gain value from this workshop:
- creating culture change
- building trust
- making mergers and acquisitions successful
- capturing the knowledge of retiring employees
- extracting lessons from projects
- improving occupational health and safety
- managing risk
The instruction is grounded in insights from organizational development and the science of complexity as well as in years of hands-on work with a wide range of organizations.
Practical, hands-on training
Story listening is not something you can learn from a manual. This workshop teaches how to find and collect stories, how to make sense of the stories and then how to design interventions that improve how things work. Participants practice each step in the process with one another and receive feedback that improves their understanding and ability to work with organizational stories.
After the workshop, participants have access to an online forum to share what they learn when they return to their organizations to apply the narrative techniques. The online forum also serves as a place to ask questions and receive suggestions in the context of real-world implementation.
Workshop topics covered include:
- when narrative approaches make sense and when to use other techniques
- how many participants to involve in story gathering and the characteristics you should look for in selecting them
- two techniques that effectively elicit stories from just about anyone
- which media to use for preserving and analyzing stories
- ways to extract meaning from a large volume of stories
- how to formulate ways of tackling truly complex problems based on lessons from the stories.
By the end of the day, you will be prepared to run a story listening project using the narrative techniques you have learned and practiced. This might aim at collecting lessons learned from a large project, improving employee satisfaction, smoothing the way for massive organizational change or enhancing occupational health and safety.
Your facilitator
Shawn Callahan is one of Australia's most experienced narrative practitioners with more than five years of hands-on experience in conducting narrative projects and over 15 years as a consultant and researcher.
These projects have helped tame a variety of seemingly intractable issues-such as trust, understanding the cash economy, and workplace safety. Shawn is the former knowledge-management practice leader for IBM Australia and regional leader of IBM's Cynefin Centre.
Shawn has published papers in Knowledge Management and HR Monthly, and has recently had a book chapter published on communities of practice. Shawn's views on complexity, narrative, and knowledge are posted frequently at www.anecdote.com.au.
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