Sensemaking

• 2018-01-31

  Mail bag: Dimensional axes for sensemaking

  I get emails pretty regularly from people looking for a bit of focused advice on some aspect of PNI work they are doing. I almost always respond (though usually not immediately). It occurred to me the other day that most of these responses would make good blog posts. So: this is the start of a… Read more

• 2016-09-14

  Liminal Thinking

  So about a year and a half ago, Harold Jarche introduced me to Dave Gray, whom he met at a conference. Dave was writing a book about agility; Harold told him about my work; Dave wanted to talk. He was interviewing lots of people for his book. I said yes, and thus began a fascinating… Read more

• 2014-08-09

  Stories in search of characters

  I thought that in returning to blogging more regularly I’d write one of my old-style blog posts, the kind where I take a handful of thought pebbles out of my pocket and line them up on a table for us to look at together. (I tend to find them in the places where things foam… Read more

• 2013-08-27

  Getting to priceless (the Mistake Bank book)

  I’d like to start this post by owning up to a mistake. When John Caddell published his excellent book The Mistake Bank a few months back, I promised him I would post a comprehensive review here and on amazon.com. But my level of frustration at my own book being really and truly nearly done led… Read more

• 2013-01-31

  Tick tock tick tock tick

  This post is about a little thing I’ve been thinking about for a long time. It’s not a story thing, it’s more of a complexity thing, but I’m allowed to talk about that here because I said I would. Clocks to leaves I spend a lot of time looking out of windows. Most of the… Read more

• 2012-04-06

  How wisdom happens

  Lately my thoughts keep returning to the topic of wisdom. Why? Because it’s my own particular friend, in a way I will now explain. One spring day when I was about ten years old, my Aunt Honey came to visit. She came into the kitchen carrying a woody shrub covered with tiny yellow flowers and… Read more

• 2011-11-10

  What we see and what we build

  So my son and I are reading this excellent book called Maps: Finding Our Place in the World, and so far I have found two elements that just beg to be connected to narrative sensemaking. They are both in the chapter by Denis Cosgrove on world maps. First, Cosgrove talks about how we think of… Read more

• 2011-05-03

  What are you building?

  Here is a small insight, just a tiny one, that you might find useful. One of our every-spring projects is our gradual cabin. Last spring we learned how to set up and stabilize a foundation, so last year it was just a tent platform with a big tarp over it. This spring we are learning… Read more

• 2011-03-24

  Context as trap and tool

  So I’m looking at an old copy of National Geographic a few weeks ago and I see an advertisement that makes me ponder. And ponder. And write. Two guys holding things The advertisement strongly featured two photographs. Here is the first. Being a visual person, my eyes immediately went to the photographs, and right away… Read more

• 2010-12-17

  Story games

  This post is about story games, in three ways. First, it is an announcement to my readership that, due to the lamentable fact that I am apparently incapable of making any utterance less than five pages long, I will be switching to biweekly posts for the foreseeable future. I just can’t keep up this level… Read more

• 2010-07-29

  Groupthink, groupfence, groupsense

  Here is a rambling series of mental peregrinations, a set of musings that you might find muse-worthy as well, about thinking and creating individually and in groups. I often find that things I think I’m unique in thinking about turn out to be on the minds of lots of other people too, so see if… Read more

• 2010-07-06

  Two times two is four

  Here is another comment response the system threw out for being too long, and that I thought was worth bringing up to a blog post. This is thanks to Stephen Shimshock, who commented on the Of hypotheses and tools, models and frameworks post. Stephen mentioned how my diagrams (in the Better confluence diagrams post) that… Read more

• 2010-07-05

  Of hypotheses and tools, models and frameworks

  My thanks to everyone who has commented on the Confluence and Better confluence diagrams posts. One particular comment on the Confluence post (by Paula Thornton, twelveth in the list, starting with “Seriously”) got me so motivated to write (thanks Paula!) that I ended up writing something too long for a comment; so I moved it… Read more

• 2010-03-12

  Gems: Studying Those Who Study Us

  Here I begin another series of blog posts, this time on resources I’ve found (mainly books) that have been so useful to my understanding of organizational and community narrative as to call them “gems.” As usual it’s far too long, and again I beg your tolerance. Cases and stories When people start exploring what has… Read more

• 2010-01-27

  Characters in search of sensemaking, and vice versa

  This post is about narrative sensemaking and play at the level of society. It will take a circuitous course, so come and stroll with me. The grand charade To start with, I’ve been watching how people are contributing to Haiti lately, for some reason. I’ve been amazed by the “Hope for Haiti Now” telethon (and… Read more