The Centre of Excellence in Communications and The Centre for Excellence in Public Sector Marketing (CEPSM), Ottawa, in association with Catapult Media, Halifax, are offering a series of professional development workshops for the Atlantic Canada public and not-for-profit sectors in the context of the Atlantic Canada Marketing and Communications Professional Development Program, Halifax, Nova Scotia, March 22-31, 2010.

Find out more at:  http://www.comcec.com/atlantic/index.html

For those of us working for progressive social change are we ready to let go of some of our control in the stories we tell?  Doug Lipman offers us this wonderful insight and poses to us as social innovators a remarkable challenge.

“Transformation cannot be controlled or predicted.  When it happens, it may be pleasant.  It may even be ecstatic or awe-inspiring.  It may also be terrifying.  When the unity of the world clicks into focus, you may be put off balance by noticing your connection to something larger than yourself.  Being big may mean giving up the reassuring boundaries of your smallness.”

What are we missing when we push out our stories cemented in our certainty of how the world should be and rock solid in what we need to do to get there? Can we excavate the possibility of co-creation?  Can we be big enough to let go of our smallness?

"No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it.  We must learn to see the world anew"  Albert Einstein 

Creating new narratives that shift our world view to move to the tipping point of progressive change is what storyworks.ca is all about. 

In this sea of information we daily find ourselves, narrative can provide context and meaning. As such it can be a springboard for change. 

Probably one of the most misunderstood things about stories is that they are an outcome of change… and indeed they are… but they are instrumental in the process of change itself.

Creating narrative that helps us see a vision of the future and locate ourselves as participants in shaping that future is what stories have always done well in broad based social movements.

Change when rooted in Ubuntu gives birth not just to possibilities but to probabilities. This year I am engaged with social innovators around the world.  What they hold in common is an unwaivering belief that humanity has the answers it needs to address some of our most pressing issues.  The question is not the "know how" but the "how to".  New models to affect change are underway… they are nimble, experimental, lively, open-ended, strategic, resourceful and as a result resilient.  I will be featuring many of these models in the weeks ahead.

 Until then, the Ubuntu way will continue to invite us to work for social equality on the common ground of our shared humanity.

I suppose the question remains is do we have the elected leadership in place to get on with the job of substantially addressing climate change?   With Australia finally signing onto the Kyoto accord this leaves the US as the only "developed" nation that has not recognized the accord.  With industrialized countries accounting for about 80% of the emissions directly linked to global warming the US government’s lack of willingness to join the international community in dealing with climate change is unacceptable. 

 Climate change is a crisis of unmatched magnitude in human history.  Coastline countries will disappear while food supplies will be dramatically affected.  Drylands will increase and massive migrations of millions of displaced people are direct results of this lack of leadership.  Canada’s record needs vast improvement as does it leadership on the issue.  There are steps that we all can do to stop global warming.  Putting climate change on the political agenda however remains one huge task for civil society if we are to direct the massive efforts we need to halt climate change.

 We don’t live in silos.  So much of our work towards progressive social change however still is so isolated on a sector by sector basis.  Some surmise that the legacy of this isolationism is funder driven for the most part. It continues to be supported however by leadership that remains overwhelmed by fiscal and strategic survival within the limits of their specific sector.  New models are needed for leaders and their organizations to collaborate strategically, programatically and operationally.  This collaboration if it is grow would be best to take root from a values-aligned approach to change not from a framework shaped by fiscal crisis.

A new " mental metabolism" (from Jane Magruder Watkin’s "Change at the Speed of Imagination") is in order.  We need to be supporting the leadership of socially progressive organizations to communicate, connect, collaborate and create new strategic approaches to complex social issues. Building upon our collective strengths to re-educate funders on impact and results, to re-orientate elected officials on investing in change and innovation and to re-engage the public in shaping a just an equitable world.

 Too much to hope for you say?  Thinking small won’t take us the distance.

One of the things that I have learned working in the NGO community for two decades is that we have a hard time telling our story well. In many cases we think we are telling stories but in fact we are not. We are experts in our content areas, we tend to be good at reporting to funders and we can masters at speaking jargon. But we really struggle to make sense of our work, its importance, impact or sometimes is relevance to many others.

Simmons in her new book says, “In this ocean of choice, a meaningful story can feel like a life preserver that tethers us to something safe, important or at the very least more solid than the disembodied voices begging for our attention.”

When millions of people stand up to make poverty history around the world or attend or tune into the Live Aid or Live Earth concerts, wear white bands, open their wallets for Katrina victims or drop off food to their local food bank in record numbers… we know that their is a great hunger to be “tethered” together to something important. Millions are looking for that “life preserver” civil society needs to throw these people a line… by being far more strategic and proficient storytellers.