Thoughts On Thrivability
Lessons from Amsterdam
Stepping out of the train station in the center of Amsterdam, I was immediately struck by the way the city flows. “It’s orderly... but organic,” was the thought that came to mind. There are three times as many bicycles on the road as cars (three times!), and even more...
Ten Frames
I heard a beautiful story recently - a true story set at the height of World War II during the devastating Siege of Leningrad, when the Germans blockaded and bombed the city for over two years. The story centers on the famed Hermitage Museum. To protect the museum’s...
Smart Cities, Living Cities
I spoke last week at Webcom, a Montreal-based conference about "smart cities" - meaning, those that are connected, informed and creative thanks to digital technology. The message I shared was that cities are "smartest" when they operate in alignment with Nature's...
Organizational Hospicing
It’s funny how life works – or I should say: it’s funny how death works. I had a conversation about organizational hospicing with a friend last week Thursday and then the next day I was presented with an opportunity to practice hospicing in my own life. My sense in...
Lessons from the Jam
5 hosts. 6 teams. 35 other cities participating. 48 hours to “rock the public sector.” Those were the key stats of GovJam Montreal, a global event in which local teams applied the tools of “service design” to conceive and develop viable projects that transform some...
It’s Alive!
I had a wonderfully stimulating lunch conversation with new acquaintance Lise Palmer of Spark Consulting recently. She had the delightful ability to challenge everything I’m passionate about in a light, playful way so that we could both happily learn through the...
You Can’t Plant a Forest
“You can’t plant a forest,” a friend said to me recently. He was speaking in general terms, saying: it's a physical impossibility. After mentally wrestling with the concept for a moment, the phrase struck me with its deep, practical wisdom – and its vital...
The Power of Place
Thrivability Montreal. Thursday, February 21, 2013. There are fifty of us gathered to explore what we’ve called The Power of Place. More wanted to come, but the room couldn’t accommodate it. We should’ve known it would be like this. So many of us quietly hunger for...
The Practice of Thrivability
Thrivability is a worldview, a global movement, and an active practice. Guided by what we know about living systems, it is a continual and purposeful drive to create the fertile conditions for life to thrive at the levels of the individual, the organization, the...
