For those of you in the SF Bay Area, I'll be giving a talk on Dialogue
Mapping on Monday evening in San Jose for the monthly meeting of the South
Bay Organizational Development Network (SBODN). $10 at the door, no
membership requirement. I'm told they're expecting 80 people ... it should
be fun! Details below.
Have a great weekend!
Jeff

>Envelope-to: D30026808-jeff@...
>To: jeff@...
>From: Rossella Derickson <rossella@...>
>Subject: SBODN: Mon, Feb 6:Dialogue Mapping
>Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2006 14:55:39 -0600 (CST)
>
>
>TOPIC: Dialogue Mapping: A New Approach to Meetings and Collaboration
>
>DATE: Monday, February 6th at 5:30
>
>TOPIC: Dialogue Mapping: A New Approach to Meetings and Collaboration
>
>Traditional approaches to problem solving and design have assumed that the
>problem was well defined and the problem definition was stable. Cognitive
>studies have shown that, when faced with a complex and novel problem,
>humans use a fundamentally chaotic process (“opportunity driven”) to
>organize information and solve the problem. This insight helps clarify the
>situation when a problem is “wicked”: proposed solutions primarily serve
>to illuminate hidden aspects of the problem, there are many stakeholders,
>“immutable” constraints change, and there is no definitive solution. Seen
>in this light, technical projects succeed or fail on the group’s ability
>to overcome communication problems and to make sense of a dizzying array
>of conflicting points of view and inconsistent “facts.”
>
>This talk presents Dialogue Mapping, a new approach to meetings and
>collaboration in which collective intelligence is achieved through framing
>powerful questions and conducting a comprehensive and creative exploration
>of their possible answers. The methods have been proven in strategic
>planning, product development, aerospace project planning, environmental
>planning, policy formulation, and system design.
>
>In the first few minutes of this ambitious session, Jeff Conklin
>introduces the key concepts:
>
>-Wicked problems: you must come up with solutions in order to understand
>what the problem really is … what the real issues are … and the problem
>definition depends on whom you ask!
>-Social complexity: the number and diversity of stakeholders whose
>participation is essential.
>-Opportunity-driven problem solving: empirical evidence says creative
>thinking does not follow a linear process!
>-Shared understanding: overcoming fragmentation requires forging shared
>understanding about all aspects of the problem-solution space.
>The remainder of the session is interactive. We will select a wicked
>problem topic and discuss and dialogue map it. Then we will cover the
>basics of dialogue mapping so that you learn enough to start using it
>immediately in your own practice.
>
>BIO: Dr. Jeffrey Conklin
>
>Dr. Jeffrey Conklin has over two decades of experience and an
>international reputation in the fields of hypertext and collaborative
>technology research, and years of professional experience as a
>facilitator, consultant, and teacher. Dr. Conklin is perhaps best known
>for his work with the Issue Based Information System (IBIS) method and
>extensions of it, such as research tools ("gIBIS") and commercial products
>("CM/1™", "QuestMap™") that support IBIS. He is advisor to the Compendium
>Institute, which distributes the open source Compendium mapping tool, and
>Director of CogNexus Institute (http://cognexus.org ).
>
>Dr. Conklin also developed the Dialogue Mapping facilitation technique, a
>radically inclusive approach to knowledge management that allows groups to
>capture and make sense of unstructured knowledge during project meetings.
>Dr. Conklin has taught Dialogue Mapping to hundreds and hundreds of people
>all over the world. He has facilitated thousands of meetings, with such
>clients as the World Bank, the United Nations, the US House of
>Representatives, the City of Washington DC, NASA, FAA, the General
>Services Administration (GSA), as well as Southern California Edison, AOL,
>Verizon, AOPA, Doug Engelbart's Bootstrap Alliance, and other high-tech
>organizations.
>
>Dr. Conklin's research on collaborative and facilitation technologies has
>been published in numerous academic journals and conferences. His book
>about this work, Dialogue Mapping: Creating Shared Understanding of
>Wicked Problems, has just been published by John Wiley and Sons
>(http://cognexus.org/dm_book.htm ).
>
>
>WHERE: HOST SITE: Altera (www.Altera.com, directions below)
>
>Altera Corporation - Building 3
>101 Innovation Drive, San Jose
>in the middle of the 101 - 237 - 880 triangle
>between 1st Street and Zanker, just south of Tasman
>
>RSVP:
>
>RSVP ahead and Altera will have an entrance badge pre-printed and waiting
>for you to pick up at the front desk. Simply reply to this automated program.
>
>http://mh.databack.com/scripts/sbodn.php?E=jeff@cognexus.org&EID=Feb_6_SBODN_me\
eting
>
>You can also drop in and attend a SBODN meeting.
>
>CONTACT:
>
>If you would like to reach one of the Directors of SBODN, you can send an
>e-mail message to: Krista@..., or Rossella@.... Please do
>not send an email to this automated announcement.
>
>WHEN:
>
>Monday, February 6, 2006
>
>TIME:
>
>5:30-6:00 Networking / Light snacks
>6:00-7:00 Program
>
>FEE:
>
>There is a $10 fee collected at the door. This is an open forum, and does
>not require membership.
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>NEXT:
>
>March 6: Thinking Today as if Tomorrow Mattered: An OD Role in
>Building a
>Sustainable Consciousness: John Adams, Professor and Chair of
>Organizational Systems, Saybrook Graduate School
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>DRIVING INSTRUCTIONS:
>
>Altera Corporation - Building 3
>101 Innovation Drive, San Jose
>in the middle of the 101 - 237 - 880 triangle
>between 1st Street and Zanker just south of Tasman
>
> >From Highway 101:
>
>Take the Montague Exit. Go toward the Bay. Stay on Montague until you
>pass North First Street. The next light is Zanker. Turn left on
>Zanker. Go through the light at Innovation Drive. The next driveway
>(directly across from the entrance to Sony) is the easiest entrance to
>Altera. You will see Building 3, obstructed by some landscaping, directly
>ahead. Park in or near the parking structure. Move to ON THE SITE below.
>
> >From Milpitas:
>
>Take 237 to Zanker Road to the south. Just past River Oaks, turn right
>into the Altera complex (across the street from the Sony entrance). Move
>down to ON THE SITE below.
>
>Once on the site...
>
>It is best to park in the 4-story parking garage. Building 3 is partially
>obscured by landscaping, but it is diagonally across from the corner of
>the parking structure. Follow the signs to building 3. Check in at the
>desk; the SBODN meeting is just off the lobby, around the corner to your
>right, room 3171.
>
>
>
>Rossella Derickson and Krista Henley
>SBODN Directors

Dr. Jeff Conklin <mailto:jeff@...>
CogNexus Institute ... Collaborative Display, Collective Intelligence
http://cognexus.org Phone: 707-256-3425 Fax: 707-256-3903
1037 Juarez St., Napa, CA 94559 USA