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What’s your “big idea”?
I've been reading a lot about human-centred design these days and one of the "mindsets" of HCD is to have creative confidence. To help achieve this, experts advise that we should venture out of our comfort zone, including learning about and immersing ourselves in...
The facilitator shouldn’t always have all the answers
While facilitating a recent conference session on facilitation skills, near the end of the session a participant I was sitting beside asked me a direct question about my opinion on something. We were having a "raise the curtain" sort of workshop, talking about why I...
What seems normal at the time…
A friend of mine here in Victoria was a "maple syrup connector" for me this week. She, through a friend of hers, brought in a few cases of Quebec maple syrup and I got my cans out of her trunk on Monday afternoon. We spent a few minutes talking about the deliciousness...
One easy idea to improve workshop culture
At a facilitation skills session that I offered at a conference last Friday, the group participated in nine interactive activities in 1 1/2 hours. The first activity was so simple, and something people very often don't do. As the group wandered into the workshop room,...
A presenter’s responsibility to her participants
I'm in the middle of a two-day conference in Tsawwassen, BC and I have one idea to share about a presenter's responsibility to her participants. I feel like I could write a whole manifesto on this (maybe someday I will!) but for now here's just one thing: A presenter...
Recognized
Post by yoUnlimited. A week ago I was honoured at the Unlimited Woman Awards in the category of Community. One of the best parts about the night was that my family was there in person to celebrate alongside me. My parents took my daughter around the room as people...
The girl with the itchy foot
When my daughter was small, a friend of mine gave her a wonderful board book by Julia Donaldson called The Snail and the Whale. It starts off, This is the tale of a tiny snail And a great big, grey-blue humpback whale. This is a rock as black as soot, And this is a...
Creating the volunteering win-win
Last night I attended my last meeting of the UBC Victoria Leadership Council. It's a volunteer commitment that I've had for the last 2.5 years; the council is made up of University of British Columbia alumni and our main purpose is to advise on events and programming...
The merits of being still
I read two interesting blog posts today that both had to do with the merits of being still. They came among the plethora of posts about managing time and setting goals that have been blanketing every corner of the web landscape these past couple of weeks since New...
Don’t tell me that online learning doesn’t work for you
I heard it again recently from someone: "I learn best in a face to face class." It makes me cringe every time. Don't get me wrong, I love teaching and learning with people in person as well but I want to highlight that just because you're sitting physically in a...