CLIPs: Communities of Learning, Inquiry and Practice

1. CLIPs: Communities of Learning, Inquiry and Practice Wellborn Evaluation Symposium March 25, 2010 Delia Clark and Matt Kolan Confluence Collaborative at Shelburne Farms

2. CLIPs: History An Ancient Idea: Guilds Indigenous Cultures

3. CLIPs: History Broad Contemporary Applications: Business Government

4. CLIPs: The Promise Innovation: Improving one’s individual practice Evolution of the field Tapping a sense of collective understanding, intelligence and creativity unavailable when working alone

5. CLIPs: The Promise Safe Environments for Risk: Willingness to accept and offer feedback Openness to multiple perspectives Willingness to make mistakes, explore new territory

6. CLIPs: The Promise Open Source: An antidote to our cultural norm of intellectual property A rapid way to disseminate promising ideas

7. CLIPs: The Shadow Side Group Think: Codified habits of mind

8. CLIPs: The Shadow Side Stagnation: Lack of authentic relationship leads to lack of tension, lack of willingness to challenge ideas

9. CLIPs: The Shadow Side Exclusion: Attract like minds In order to build common language and experience, exclude new perspectives

10. CLIPs: The Shadow Side Idea Appropriation: Great ideas get instrumentalized Partial adaptation of promising ideas

11. CLIPs: Promising Practices Common Purpose: Common set of problems and learning goals Specific shared practice Continually revisit the premise

12. CLIPs: Promising Practices Interdependence: Build trusting relationships through story-telling, shared experience, time liberation Sustain those relationships

13. CLIPs: Promising Practices Engage in the tension: Encourage each person to speak their truth, choosing their finest and kindest words Cultural commitment

14. CLIPs: Promising Practices Build Diversity: Invite fresh perspectives Intentionally expand the network Have agreements that welcome diverse points of view

15. CLIPs: Promising Practices Design for Emergence: Self-organization Collective responsibility, yet coherent governance Facilitate for diverse perspectives

16. CLIPs: Promising Practices Evolving and relevant content: Space for discoveries and new insights Aliveness: excitement, relevance, value Open source

17. CLIPs: Promising Practices Enough time: Ensure that participants are realistically able to devote time to the CLIP, during and between meetings Have occasional retreats

18. CLIPs: Promising Practices Meet Face-to-Face: Meet face-to-face Between meetings, use simple, accessible, flexible IT tools

19. CLIPs: Promising Practices Honor Life Cycles: Let CLIPs end gracefully when they’ve served their purpose Seek renewal when appropriate

20. CLIPs: Ongoing Tensions and Questions How do we simultaneously continue to deepen relationships while maintaining a sense of inclusiveness?

21. CLIPs: Ongoing Tensions and Questions How do we simultaneously continue to deepen relationships while maintaining a sense of inclusiveness? How do we balance outcome-oriented governance with a desire for self-organization and emergence?

22. CLIPs: Ongoing Tensions and Questions How do we create conditions for shared ideas and open source while honoring the lineage of ideas and respectful exchange of information.

23. CLIPs: Ongoing Tensions and Questions How do we create conditions for shared ideas and open source while honoring the lineage of ideas and respectful exchange of information. How does a CLIP tell when it has run through its natural life cycle and it’s time to end?

24. CLIPs: Ongoing Tensions and Questions How do we create conditions for shared ideas and open source while honoring the lineage of ideas and respectful exchange of information. How does a CLIP tell when it has run through its natural life cycle and it’s time to end? How does a CLIP continue to evolve to stay meaningfully focused on the questions that matter most?

25. CLIPs: Ongoing Tensions and Questions What are appropriate design principles for different levels of participation and access?

26. CLIPs: Ongoing Tensions and Questions What are appropriate design principles for different levels of participation and access? In what ways can we develop meaningful, accessible, and useful contact between meetings?

27. CLIPs: Ongoing Tensions and Questions What are appropriate design principles for different levels of participation and access? In what ways can we develop meaningful, accessible, and useful contact between meetings? How do we differentiate between a CLIP (collaborative, reflective, practice-oriented?) and a larger network (advocacy, system-oriented?)

28. CLIPs and YOU