Cool Collaborations

Dr. Rebecca Sutherns graciously agreed to be a guest for this episode. When I first connected with Rebecca to chat about being on the podcase, we ended up have a complete conversation about business and a number of other things before we even got to talk about her being a guest. Which gives you a good idea the kind of person Rebecca is, generous, willing to share, and willing to build others up.

So, it won’t be a surprise when you hear about how deeply Rebecca has thought about the different aspects of collaboration, and how she puts them into practice. She is certainly a thought leader in this space, and I hope you enjoy our conversation. 

• Who is Dr. Rebecca Sutherns?
• How collaboration shows up
• Relational currency
• Crisis collaboration
• Creativity
• A book to share

• Dr. Rebecca Sutherns
• Book: What The Hell Do We Do Now?: An enterprise guide to COVID-19 and beyond by Alex Hagan, Mary Butler, Brent Hodgson with 15 others.
• Book: From What Is to What If, Unleashing the Power of Imagination to Create the Future We Want by Rob Hopkins
• Book: Sightline by Dr. Rebecca Sutherns

If you want to get in touch with Dr. Rebecca Sutherns, she can be reached through her website. Be sure to look her up and some of the resources she mentioned. 

Your comments and ratings in Apple Podcasts and other providers are really important, so be sure to subscribe to the podcast. Most importantly, suggest to your friends that they subscribe and share as well. Don’t forget to sign up for other interesting collaboration tidbits at Collaboration Dynamics.

Here we are on Episode 10 of the podcast. For this conversation, I had the privilege of speaking with Lisa Helps, the Mayor of the City of Victoria in British Columbia. As you can imagine, the Mayor of a major city has a few things on the go, so our conversation today is quite short. But we cover a lot of ground. 

I ask Mayor Helps about how collaboration plays into her role as a politician and how collaborative relationships work at a municipal level and among partners with the municipality.

• Taking on the role of mayor
• Translating collaboration to political success
• A concrete example of success
• Victoria 3.0
• Working between municipalities
• Cross-cultural collaboration in a municipality
• A book to share

• Mayor Lisa Helps
• City of Victoria, BC
• The City of Victoria’s work on Reconciliation
• Victoria 3.0
• Book: Urban Magnets: How Activity Subcultures Can Be a Catalyst for Rejuvenating Cities by Bruce Haden, Mark Holland, and Bruce Irvine

If you want to get in touch with Mayor Helps, she can be reached through her office at the City of Victoria at [email protected]. Be sure to look up the other resources on the City of Victoria. as well. 

Your comments and ratings in Apple Podcasts and other providers are really important, so be sure to subscribe to the podcast. Most importantly, suggest to your friends that they subscribe and share as well. Don’t forget to sign up for other interesting collaboration tidbits at Collaboration Dynamics.

For this episode, I’m joined by Gay Robinson, owner of Gay Robinson Consulting. In our conversation, we journey through snippets of Gay’s experience in the field of public engagement and training with examples of “collaboration gone right”. Her deep involvement and commitment to a principled engagement approach shines through, as well as her advocacy for the guidance provided by the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2).

As Gay describes collaboration throughout our conversation, you will get an understanding of how purpose, people, process, and belief come together to make a space for collaboration. Gay points to some of the ways might navigate the challenges that come with the vocabulary of collaboration and share authority among the people participating in collaboration.

There’s a lot to learn and take away from this conversation. Please enjoy.

• Some background on Gay
• Prescribed versus principled engagement
• Experience from the training world
• How does Gay see collaboration?
• Stories of collaboration gone right
• Experimental mindset
• Other lessons
• Getting more people to the magic
• Take away lessons
• Book or resource

• Gay Robinson Consulting
• International Association for Public Participation (IAP2)
• The Health Canada Public Involvement Continuum as part of The Health Canada Policy Toolkit for Public Involvement in Decision Making
• Book: 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act: Helping Canadians Make Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples a Reality by Bob Joseph
• Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue at the Simon Fraser University

Now it's  your turn.
If you want to get in touch with Gay, you should check out her page on LinkedIn. Be sure to look up the other resources Gay mentioned as well. 

Your comments and ratings in Apple Podcasts and other providers are really important, so be sure to subscribe to the podcast. Most importantly, suggest to your friends that they subscribe and share as well. Don’t forget to sign up for other interesting collaboration tidbits at Collaboration Dynamics.

Courtney Breese is the Executive Director of the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation. So, if you were going to talk to someone about collaboration, Courtney would be the right person. She’s been steeped in the world of collaboration since university and now helps businesses and organizations across America collaborate to succeed. 

After getting a bit of Courtney’s background and digging into how she came to be a collaborative expert, we switch to talk more about some of the deeper collaborative skills where we try to uncover and understand our collective values, and then into how to get more people into collaboration. 

This was a fun conversation. Please enjoy.

• Getting to know Courtney
• Conceptualizing dialogue, deliberation, collaboration
• Forest Futures Visioning 
• Building capability in others
• The shift to virtual delivery
• Favourite books and app’s

• National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation
• Massachusetts Office of Collaboration 
• Book: Difficult Conversations by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen
• Application: Zoom
• Application: Evernote
• Application: Jamboard
• Application: Poll Everywhere 

You should absolutely check out the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation webpage if you’re looking for helpful resources to support your project and your collaboration. 

Your comments and ratings in Apple Podcasts and other providers are really important, so be sure to subscribe to the podcast. Most importantly, suggest to your friends that they subscribe and share as well. Don’t forget to sign up for other interesting collaboration tidbits at Collaboration Dynamics.

I happened across Tai Lake and the Hawaii Artists Collaboration by accident, and I am so grateful that I did. In this episode, Tai shares his perspectives on the creative power of collaboration and the ability to bring together masters of the craft to grow their skills and their vocabulary. I found his enthusiasm for collaboration more than a little infectious, and I am grateful that we were able to connect.

Our conversation makes me think about the kind of people we bring into collaborative work and the level of maturity or mastery in an area of expertise that they represent. Tai talks about leaving your ego out and coming together to raise the state of the craft overall. 

I’m sure you will enjoy this conversation with a master furniture builder on the Hawaii Artists Collaboration.

• Getting to know Tai and his craft
• Collaboration and creativity
• Origins of the Hawaii Artists Collaboration
• Who comes to a Colab?
• Cross-pollinating across Colabs
• The changing scene for artists
• Last thoughts - one thing to know about collaboration

• Tai Lake Woodworking
• Hawaii Artists Collaboration
• Danish architect Eero Saarinen:
  • "Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context - a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan" - Eero Saarinen.
• Emma Lake Collaboration
• CollaborationNZ
• Jake James - Blacksmith
• Henry Pomfret – There was no specific link for Henry, but I did find this link to a blacksmithing demonstration at the International Blacksmithing event in 2016.
• Lisa Geertsen - Blacksmith

You should absolutely check out the Hawaii Artists Collaboration webpage and book mark it so you can check back from time to time. At the time I published this, the links to the various studio and artists tours that Tai mentioned had not yet been posted. I am looking forward to seeing the stories behind some of works these Colabs and artists put together. 

Your comments and ratings in Apple Podcasts and other providers is really important, so be sure to subscribe to the podcast. Most importantly, suggest to your friends that they subscribe and share as well. Don’t forget to sign up for other interesting collaboration tidbits at Collaboration Dynamics.

This episode is with Jorgé Avilés, a cross-cultural ambassador currently working with Canada West Land in Calgary, Alberta. It doesn’t take us long to get deep into a conversation about the roots and the philosophy of collaboration. It’s a place where culture becomes one of many identifiers and sources of perspective for collaboration. 

As Jorgé describes his thinking, it becomes clear that underlying all of our interactions, all of our collaboration, is a commonality that is our humanness. We are all more than any label and there is more that makes us alike than makes us different.

• Getting to know Jorgé  - an engineer who repented
• Identity through similarities
• Asking the right questions
• Commonalities within collaborations
• Ambassadors for collaboration
• How common is the mindset?
• Moving beyond solutions
• Labels on people
• Last thoughts 

• Canada West Land (mentioned as CWL in the episode)
• Book: Leading with Cultural Intelligence by David Livermore

I mentioned Canada West Land, where Jorgé works, in the Resources section. Check them out. They do some great stuff. 

Your comments and ratings in Apple Podcasts and other providers is really important, so be sure to subscribe to the podcast. Most importantly, suggest to your friends that they subscribe and share as well. Don’t forget to sign up for other interesting collaboration tidbits at Collaboration Dynamics.

For a change of pace from some of the collaboration-focused conversations I’ve been having so far on the podcast, this episode dives into the arena of deliberative democracy with Dr. Lyn Carson. ‘Carson’ is currently the research director at the newDemocracy Foundation and a former professor in applied politics at the University of Sydney Business School. We explore some of the important aspects of deliberative democratic process with an eye to how they connect to collaboration I’ve been highlighting throughout the various episodes. 

It often seems that the political systems we have in place to represent our voice in policy and decision making are falling short, but Carson points to another path that has been shown to be effective all over the world. She is an expert in the deliberative approaches that give citizens a voice in decision making, which makes this conversation one to listen to.  

• Introducing Carson
• Examples of deliberative democracy 
• Which came first – trials or theory
• Collaboration versus deliberation
• Bragging about success
• Random selection
• Interrogating expert knowledge
• Good books 

• Citizen’s Assembly in British Columbia
• Australian Citizens’ Parliament
• Carson’s podcast – Facilitating Public Deliberations
• UK Citizen’s Assembly
• Democracy R&D
• newDemocracy Foundation
• newDemocracy Foundation project: City of Melbourne People’s Panel (2014)
• newDemocracy Foundation project: Local Government Victoria – Democracy in Geelong (2016)
• The Irish Citizens’ Assembly 
• Book by Benjamin R. Teitelbaum - War for Eternity: Inside Bannon's Far-Right Circle of Global Power
• Book by David Van Reybrouck – Against Elections, The Case for Democracy
• New Zealand Prime Minister – Jacindra Ardern
• Quote: Be the change you wish to see in the world. Mahatma Ghandi

Absolutely look up the newDemocracy Foundation, where Carson is a research director, and read through some of the fascinating projects and research they’ve undertaken. 

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss any of the cool collaboration content and then share with your friends and colleagues. Don’t forget to sign up for other interesting collaboration tidbits at Collaboration Dynamics.

I’d love to hear your stories about collaboration success. Send me a note at [email protected].

Here’s episode #4 and today’s conversation is with Judy Stewart who is a community collaborator here in Alberta. I’ve had the pleasure of working with Judy on a couple of projects over the years, and you’ll hear her passion for environmental issues in our discussion. For Judy, collaboration is very much a coming together of language and ideas. Her experience earlier experience as a lawyer and municipal politician contrasts sharply with her current focus on collaborative practice and collaborative governance.

Judy’s deep involvement in organizations like the Alberta Water Council speaks to her willingness to contribute to hard conversations, and she relates how leadership, humour, and contribution help those conversations grow to be collaborative. 

• From lawyer to collaborator
• Human networks
• The language of collaboration
• Working with Alberta irrigators
• Shifting away from a person-to-person conflict
• Reflexive law and bridging organizations

• Alberta Irrigation Districts Association
• Alberta Water Council
• Clean Air Strategic Alliance
• Calgary Regional Airshed Zone
• Enabling Partnerships - Water for Life Strategy, Government of Alberta 
• Gilles Paquet - past Professor Emeritus at the Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa

In her retirement, Judy still works on projects that interest her. 

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss any of the cool collaboration content and then share with your friends and colleagues. Don’t forget to sign up for other interesting collaboration tidbits at Collaboration Dynamics.

I’d love to hear your stories about collaboration success. Contact me at [email protected] and tell all about the highs (and the lows) you’ve encountered in crafting a collaborative conversation.

For this episode’s collaboration conversation, I’m joined by Vivien Twyford, a collaboration specialist based in New South Wales, Australia. The sentiment running through our conversation is the design of a collaborative process that does things with people, instead of doing things to people. 

Vivien gives insights into some of her more memorable project and shares her thoughts on the importance of all the steps that come before actually working on a solution to a problem. 

Vivian is certainly an expert in collaboration, with extensive experience from all over the world and also deep reflection on what makes collaboration work. 

• Getting to know Vivien
• Uncovering the subtext
• Transitioning to collaboration
• Traffic problem collaboration
• Do clients become believers?
• Complexity
• The Power of Co.
• Most surprising thing
• A few quick answer questions

• International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) – Canadian chapter
• 5 day training in public participation – Foundations in Public Participation
• Book by Vivien Twyford, Stuart Waters, and Max Hardy - Beyond Public Meetings; Connecting Community Engagement with Decision-Making
• Book by Twyfords - The Power of Co
• Appreciative Inquiry
• Book by Hugh Mackay – Why Don’t People Listen
• Quote: Margaret Mead
  • Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
• Quote: Rosabeth Moss Kanter
  • Change is disturbing when it is done to us, exhilarating when it is done by us.

While Vivien Twyford is not practicing any longer, the firm she helped establish continues. Connect at Twyfords Collaboration. 

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss any of the cool collaboration content and then share with your friends and colleagues. Don’t forget to sign up for other interesting collaboration tidbits at Collaboration Dynamics.

I’d love to hear your stories about collaboration success and the highs (and the lows) you’ve encountered in crafting a collaborative conversation.

In this episode, Andre Asselin speaks to the world of multi-stakeholder collaboration and consensus in the context of the complex world of environmental management. Our conversation mixes the language of government policy with the engagement concepts of relationships, trust, and empathy. 

Andre is very skilled at navigating the different perspectives, interests, and positions that come with any broad discussion on water or air management, and he shares some of what makes collaboration possible in that space. 

• Getting to know Andre
• Water Conservations, Efficiency, and Productivity
• The Stick or the Carrot
• Putting yourself in another’s shoes
• Collaboration vs. consensus
• Is collaboration hard?
• Emotional IQ
• Facilitator skills in everyone
• One thing about collaboration
• Influences

• Alberta Water Council
• Clean Air Strategic Alliance
• Alberta Water Council project team - Water Conservation, Efficiency, and Productivity final report
• Emotional Intelligence 
• Book by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry – The Little Prince
• Book by Patrick Rothfuss – Name of the Wind
• Book by D'Arcy Jenish - Indian Fall: The Last Great Days of the Plains Cree and the Blackfoot Confederacy

Get in touch with Andre through the Alberta Water Council or Clean Air Strategic Alliance websites. 

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss any of the cool collaboration content and then share with your friends and colleagues. Don’t forget to sign up for other interesting collaboration tidbits at Collaboration Dynamics.

I’d love to hear your stories about collaboration success and the highs (and the lows) you’ve encountered in crafting a collaborative conversation.