Narrative Ecology – Blog of Ron Donaldson – fACILITATOR, TRAINER AND COACH

On Friday, Narrate sponsored and organised a first get-together, intending to bring together a European network of Cognitive Edge practitioners. Individuals meeting in the past, and conversations on the community Ning site, had raised issues of isolation, experiences that we were not sharing and new members feeling they did not know where to begin.

We picked Luton airport for ease of access from major European cities and put out an invite which despite clashing with just about everyone’s holiday plans resulted in an enthusiastic gathering of 11 CE practitioners.

With no agenda whatsoever we began with a swoosh of speed dating, exploring interests, backgrounds and intriguing possibilities. A lack of SenseMaker experience lead to Tony giving a detailed run through of our recent projects which generated many questions and was most interesting in illustrating the variation of approach, methods and our emergent understanding of just what SenseMaker can do.

After lunch we dove straight into an anecdote circle of the attendee’s broader experience of CE methods, filling the table with hexagons and patterning an interesting set of themes.

Following just behind but no less important came Future Backwards. In two groups, we explored our experience and understanding of the formation of Cognitive Edge and our use of the methods. Hell followed by Heaven, looked at the next two years.

As usual time conspired against us, but we did begin plans for collaborative work, sharing our knowledge and experience and the need for future, similar, larger gatherings.

Overall a great success, working with interesting and very varied starting conditions, what emerged was a greater sense of who we are and what we know and the beginnings of collaboration, relationships and friendship.

Thanks to everyone who organised and participated in this event. The next one is tentatively planned for 15^th October in Brussels but this will be firmed up very soon so that anyone interested can plan their travel and availability.