Want to learn more about how to develop an effective online engagement strategy? Attend my upcoming May 19th presentation in Vancouver.

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.