Thoughts On Thrivability
Fiddling While the World Burns
“How can I invite people to my film while California is on fire?” my friend Robin McKenna asked me recently, in distress. She had dedicated five years of her life traveling the world to create the breathtaking feature-length documentary, GIFT, which weaves together...
Self-Stewardship: The Practice of Cultivating Your Gifts and Living a Life of Meaning
My work is dedicated to spreading the view of organizations and communities as dynamic living systems. With this view, our role is to be stewards, creating the fertile conditions for life to thrive within and around them. But what does that mean for our own lives, as...
Will Artificial Intelligence Serve Human Thriving?
Yesterday I had a fascinating opportunity to explore with a group how artificial intelligence may impact thrivability and vice versa. At the invitation of master convener François Lavallée (who - to my delight - describes himself as an organizational biologist), I...
From Cows to Capital to Cultivation
cap·i·tal (etymology): Borrowed from Latin capitālis (“of the head”) (in sense “head of cattle”). Use in trade and finance originated in Medieval economies when a common but expensive transaction involved trading heads of cattle. Compare chattel, which also uses “cow”...
Context and Complexity as Fertile Ground for Thrivability
[A version of this post originally appeared in April 2018 at www.realityseeker.org. It is my responses to a series of interview questions about complexity science, living systems, and the Age of Thrivability.] How would you describe the “context” that filters into and...
Using a Shovel to Build a Bridge: Truth and Reconciliation in Quebec Archaeology
[Originally published May 31, 2013] “I thought archaeology would be simple,” said one young woman. “I mean, I’m working with the dead. What could be complicated?” The roomful of Quebec archaeologists – and even the handful of representatives from various Indigenous...
Beyond Best Practices: How to Listen for Generative Threads of Aliveness in Stories of What Works
How many conferences have you been to that were loaded with dynamic speakers expounding on their latest success stories? This is what sells tickets. And so it should — we all love an inspiring story. More than that, we want to learn from other people’s experience. We...
When Warriors Try to Weave
Living Systems, Jung’s Archetypes, and the Fullness of What’s Needed to Cultivate Regenerative Community I recently participated in a nourishing 3½-day gathering of people dedicated to regenerative, life-aligned ways of living. Presentations and conversations swirled...
A Living Systems Lens on Blockchain: The Promise and the Peril
I recently had my first encounter with an honest-to-goodness “blockchain bro” — a young white man enamored of blockchain and cryptocurrencies and eager to evangelize their potential to transform society. This was my chance to get a personalized tutorial in the...
