The real situation for people in Afganistan

Attitudes toward labour

The main difference between Europe and America is the attitude towards labour. In Europe, citizens feel entitled to work - it is even written in the German Constitution. There are long memories about what happens to a democracy when unemployment becomes too high. The rise of Hitler would probably not have happened if the ranks of the jobless and hopeless had not swelled to desperate heights.

In the United States, the right to work has to be earned by each individual. Despite the excesses of Wall Street, the outsourcing of jobs, the tyranny of the corporate bottom line, losing a job is more a matter of personal shame here than of collective failure. People tend to blame themselves more than their employer. This may seem strange, but it accounts for the absence of strike action in a work force that, Europeans would think, had every right to march and mount the barricades.

Community meetings

Meeting design and facilitation should help create and enhance the connectedness and community among participants. This is as true for annual conferences involving thousands of attendees as it is for a committee or staff meeting with only a handful of participants.


People often say community involves:
•a shared goal or common purpose
•a challenge or crisis that unite people to act
•respect and appreciation for others
•agreed-upon standards for group activity
•a commitment to work with other
•a common set of beliefs or values

Facilitators help groups explore these characteristics and surface the individual perspectives necessary for the group to develop its own cohesiveness. Questions are the core of this work: (1) Who is here? (2) Why have we chosen to come together? (3) How do we want to be with each other? (4) What do we want to create/achieve? (5) How shall we approach this work and how will you contribute?

When the group experiences challenges, we should invite them to return to their original responses to these questions as guidance for whatever issues need to be resolved. In short, we help the group become more connected to itself … its reason for being and its way of being. It is tempting to try and fast-track resolution of these questions or to use a flashy technique or exercise to bypass the hard work of discussing what to some will seem too touchy-feely. Doing so is misguided, as this work of "identity development" is critical to community and connectedness.

Conference and meeting design should reflect and support the possible answers that individual attendees might offer for these same questions: (1) the demographics and lenses of participants, (2) their motivations for attending the event, (3) the rituals and rhythms and brand qualities for conference activity, (4) the learning outcomes for the experience, and the (5) formats and flows that will make it possible. Every choice a conference planner makes can then be filtered through the various possible responses. How will lunch be served? Banquet-style? Plated? Boxed and carried out? Family-style?

Any choice made should be intentional and tied not only to logistics, but to how it can connect the community. You talk to people while standing in line for banquet service, and a banquet with different stations can cause you to connect with more people. Family-style meal service connects people at banquet rounds in ways that plated service will not. Boxed lunches can support informal conversations among self-selected groups. Which option best supports the overall desired experience of (and for) the community?

Convening people is a necessary, but insufficient contribution to the development of community. We must do more. When designing or facilitating a meeting, workshop, or conference, every choice holds possibilities for creating the conditions that lead to more connectedness and community among those attending. Every. Single. Choice. As a result, we must be more intentional about our options and more vigilant in our execution.

Understanding Asperger's syndrome

Q&A from StoryCorps on Vimeo.

Be Yourself

Millenium development goals

Millennium Development Goals


• Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

• Achieve universal primary education

• Promote gender equality and empower women

• Reduce child mortality

• Improve maternal health

• Combat HIV/Aids, malaria and other diseases

• Ensure environmental sustainability

• Develop a Global Partnership for Development

Hummingbirds without fear

Hummingbird/Human interaction is so wonderful to observe. This video shows that human beings can take steps to improve our relationship with the natural world.

Autumn is almost here

In a zoo in California , a mother tiger gave birth to a rare set of triplet tiger cubs. Unfortunately, due to complications in the pregnancy, the cubs were born prematurely and due to their tiny size, they died shortly after birth. The mother tiger after recovering from the delivery, suddenly started to decline in health, although physically she was fine. The veterinarians felt that the loss of her litter had caused the tigress to fall into a depression. The doctors decided that if the tigress could surrogate another mother's cub's, perhaps she would improve.
After checking with many other zoos across the country, the depressing news was that there were no tiger cubs of the right age to introduce to the mourning mother. The veterinarians decided to try something that had never been tried in a zoo environment. Sometimes a mother of one species, will take on the care of a different species. The only 'orphans' that could be found quickly, were a litter of weanling pigs. The zoo keepers and vets wrapped the piglets in tiger skin and placed the babies around the mother tiger. Would they become cubs or pork chops??

Take a look...

Self Compassion

This is broken

Seth Godin at Gel 2006 from Gel Conference on Vimeo.

Pay it Forward

The happiness project- money

Technology in Teaching

We now have the ability to teach to each individual and to maximize their learning through technology. If kids can happily spent all of their free time on video games why would we not tap into that interest to shape their learning?

The true power of the performing arts

The true power of the performing arts – Ben Cameron

The Canadian Response to 911

Crises often tend to bring out the best in people. The response in Canada to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 is a case in point.


200 or so aircraft, many of which were of U.S. registry, were heading for the continental U.S. All were diverted to alternate airports in Eastern Canada. Some were too heavy to land and had to dump fuel, before being routed to the nearest available airport. Simultaneously, over the North Pacific, commercial carriers en route from Asia to North America were being diverted to airports in Western Canada, primarily Vancouver.

NAV CANADA faced an enormous task of draining the skies under Canadian control, handling 239 diverted aircraft from overseas as well as those destined for the U.S. and Canada. All landed safely in Canada without incident. Of these, 38 went to Gander, 1 to Deer Lake, 21 to St. John’s, 8 to Stephenville, 7 to Goose Bay, 47 to Halifax, 10 to Moncton, 10 to Mirabel, 7 to Dorval, 14 to Toronto, 4 to Hamilton, 15 to Winnipeg, 6 to Edmonton, 13 to Calgary, 1 to Yellowknife, 3 to Whitehorse and 34 to Vancouver. Gander received 6,600 diverted passengers; Vancouver received about 8,500. The last aircraft to land was from the Pacific. By about 6:00 PM EDT, all planes had landed safely.

Accommodating more than 33,000 passengers and aircrew was a huge challenge for the Canadian communities, who welcomed the large number of passengers and accommodated them in their homes and public facilities. Many lasting friendship were developed during the days that these thousands of stranded passengers were welcomed into Canadaian homes.

About 1% of the victims of 911 were Canadian or had Canadian roots. We honoured them and their memory for caring for others in need.



By September 16th all diverted planes had departed with their passengers for their intended destinations.

Lion Love

This is an old video but it is inspiring and somehow touching. Enjoy!

September 08, 2010


In one of the biggest donations of its kind, financier and philanthropist George Soros has promised $100 million to the global advocacy group Human Rights Watch, to help it expand its work.

Kenneth Roth, the group's executive director, said he hoped Soros's example would encourage other philanthropists "to invest in the ideals of human rights." Soros said his gift to the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), which will be allocated over the next 10 years, was a "challenge grant."
He is asking the group to raise another $100 million over the next decade, mainly from outside the United States, although the grant is not conditional on fundraising performances. Speaking to the Reuters news agency on September 7, the 80-year-old Soros said HRW already had "a pretty strong base in Europe, but I think [in] Latin America and Asia, they need to build that up."Sor os, a staunch Democratic Party supporter, said it had become a liability for the organization to be funded primarily by U.S. donors.

He said the United States had lost its "moral high ground" under the administration of former President George W. Bush, which drew international criticism for its handling of terrorism suspects. The financier said he trusted his $100 million gift would be spent wisely by HRW, adding that he started out as a philanthropist by attending the group's weekly meetings in the early 1980s. "First of all, it's a cause that I believe in very strongly," Soros said, "and secondly, it's an organization that I know very well, and I can vouch for its efficiency and having kept its spirit."

Expanding Operations

Human Rights Watch has a staff of almost 300 and documents rights abuses in about 90 countries. The group said Soros's donation would enable it to fill what it described as significant gaps in its reporting network, including in parts of Africa and Asia. The organization also plans to hire new researchers in key countries as well as staff to engage more effectively with local governments and journalists.The Hungarian-born Soros is ranked 35th on "Forbes" magazine's list of the world's richest people and has an estimated fortune of $14 billion. He has donated around $8 billion during his lifetime, with his Open Society Foundations giving away more than $600 million a year.

Technology in Teaching

The information revolution

Gender bias

Gender Bias

Middle East Comedy

Jeremy Rifkin and Empathy

Photo Safari to places unknown

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