Here's a quick summary of what's on offer.
PNI Practicum Level One: An Introduction to PNI
In this 4-week course, we will work together on a single small PNI project. In our weekly three-hour meetings, we will discuss light readings (15-30 pages per week) and go through facilitated group exercises. Outside of class, each student will gather 4+ stories from 3+ people and facilitate a single sensemaking exercise with 2+ people.
This US$700 course will run (every other month starting in January), as long as 4+ people sign up. Class size will be limited to 12 students.
PNI Practicum Level Two: PNI Essentials
In this 12-week course, each student (or collaborating pair/trio) will design and carry out their own small, exploratory PNI project. Our weekly two-hour meetings will alternate between training (readings discussion and exercises) and support (project feedback and advice). Outside of class, each student (or pair/trio) will gather 24+ stories from 6+ people and facilitate two levels of sensemaking exercises/workshops. This course includes up to two hours of one-on-one coaching.
This US$1400 course will run three times per year (starting in February, May, and September), as long as 4+ people sign up. Class size will be limited to 8 students or collaborating pairs/trios.
PNI Practicum Level Three: A Deep Dive into PNI
In this 20-week course, each student (or collaborating pair/trio) will design and carry out their own moderately ambitious PNI project. Our weekly two-hour meetings will alternate between training (readings discussion and exercises) and support (project feedback and advice). Outside of class, each student (or pair/trio) will gather 80+ stories from 20+ people, build catalytic material, and facilitate three levels of sensemaking exercises/workshops. This course includes up to three hours of one-on-one coaching.
This US$2100 course will run twice per year (starting in January and July), as long as 4+ people sign up. Class size will be limited to 8 students or collaborating pairs/trios.
The fine print
All of these course fees can be lowered by the use of coupon codes (of 10, 20, 30, or 40 percent). These are to be used on an honor system by anyone whose local currency has a low exchange rate with US dollars and/or who has a low personal income (and not by their own choice). To use a coupon code, follow the instructions on the course FAQ page.
I have made these coupon codes available to everyone (instead of requiring people to ask for them) because I know what it's like to have to ask for help. If you can afford to pay the full US dollar course fees, please don't use these coupon codes. After giving away ten person-years of work, I need to make some money on these courses. But I also know that many people are struggling. I am happy to accept donations to help me keep offering these coupons.
Cancellation refunds are available at three levels: 100% (up to 48 hours after enrollment, or if a course has to be canceled), 90% (after 48 hours but before a course has begun), and 75% prorated (after a course has begun).
All of the course materials (which I have revised and updated) are still available for free, under the same open-source license as before (it allows anyone to give the courses for free but not for pay).
I have cleared out the old home for the courses (cfkurtz.com/pnipracticum) and given the courses a new home at their own domain (pnipracticum.com).
Changes from my previous courses
If you are familiar with my previous courses, you will notice a few differences in these descriptions:
- I moved the course numbers up by one. There is no longer a zero-level course. It was confusing.
- I renamed all three courses. The old names (Prelude, Smaller-scale, Larger-scale) were confusing. These names are more clear.
- I changed the shortest course so that its readings are required before its meetings (instead of during them). I was able to do this because the new Working with Stories Simplified book has very short chapters. Otherwise the course is unchanged.
- I trimmed the medium-length course from 17 weeks down to 12. This was a big change. But I felt the medium course was too long and too similar to the longest course. To do this I dropped out individual interviews and one level of sensemaking.
- I trimmed the longest course from 21 weeks down to 20. I also reduced the complexity of the last few time periods in the course, recommending that people do slightly less ambitious sensemaking workshops (I may have gotten overly excited about what people could do). I also reduced the required (recommended, really) number of stories from 100 down to 80. One hundred stories is better (for finding useful patterns), but people found the idea of gathering 100 stories intimidating. You can get good results with 80 stories if the stories and answers to questions are meaningful, and some people will probably gather over 100 stories anyway.
- In the medium-length and long courses, I rearranged the content of the class meetings. This is another big change. Before, the meetings were "seminar" (report in, discuss readings, plan out) and "sandbox" (experience an exercise). Now they are "training" (discuss readings, experience an exercise) and "support" (report in, plan out). This new structure gives each student more time to get feedback and advice on their ongoing projects. It also removes the sandbox-before-readings confusion. Now each course lesson proceeds in a more logical fashion: read about a facilitated interaction; talk about it; experience it as a participant; facilitate it in your own project. I did have to pack some training into the first support meeting to make this work, but I think it will create a more useful learning experience.
- I reduced the amount of money people will get back when they drop out of a course. I did this to better protect my income and to discourage people from dropping out and making the peer-support aspect of the course less useful to other students. Not that there is anything wrong with dropping out! Everyone who dropped out of my previous courses had an understandable reason for doing so. But some adjustment was needed nonetheless.
- I reduced the minimum cohort of each course from six to four (but not to three, because if one person drops out, the cohort will get too small for adequate peer support and discussion). I still think six people is a better cohort size, and I hope to get some six-person cohorts going. But a lower minimum will make it more likely that I will be able to give the courses at all.
More course developments
I plan to build two more stories-and-answers data sets to add more variety in the medium-length and long courses. I plan to have those ready to use by May and June. I will be adding them to the open-source versions of the courses as well.
I am thinking about offering two low-cost mini-courses: a single 2-or-3-hour toe-dip course, and a single 2-or-3-hour introduction to NarraFirma. To satisfy my practicum rule, I will incorporate some student work into each mini-course. Probably in the toe-dip course I will ask people to interview each other (or facilitate a bit of sensemaking, or both), and in the NarraFirma course I will ask people to read stories, answer questions, look at patterns, and interpret observations. But these are just guesses. I will need to spend more time thinking about the best way to set these up. I would run them once a month or something.
A Substack blog?
I am probably going to move this blog (or most of it) to Substack. That way people can sign up for an email-newsletter version. I should have done this years ago, but I've been putting it off. But now that the books are done, I think I might be able to (and like to) go back to writing a few thoughtful paragraphs per week. It makes sense to find a better place to do it.
Also, if I do this, I will be able to add a payment option (at like $3 a month) for people who want to help me keep writing. Every little bit helps!
One more book?
If these courses work out, I would love to go back to working (slowly, on the side) on my last wish-list book, At Home with Stories. That's the book I started but never finished on the history of interactions between conversational and commercial storytelling over the past few hundred years. (Its earlier name was Store-Bought Stories.)
I wrote about 15 essays on the topic, here on this blog, some of them chapter-length. I would like to include a few of those essays as they are, but most of them would be more useful as source material. I have an outline in mind for a shorter, cleaner, more practical book.
But I also have a shelf full of books I never finished reading, plus many notes and quotes to pull together. If I was able to work on the book for a half-day a week, say, I might be able to finish it in two or three years. Part of me thinks the world needs me to write At Home with Stories, and part of me thinks it's just a vanity project. I guess we'll see what happens.
If you have any ideas you would like to share with me about any of this, drop me a note at cfkurtz at cfkurtz dot com.
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