Keying thoughts: Engaging Women
In Shifting Sands, Perhaps a Sandbox
ladder of engagement… pyramid of engagement… posting recipes, ingredients (a.k.a strategic data)
Out of the frying pan, into the sandbox
Okay… inside joke… won’t do it again. I’ve been in complex adaptive systems grok-mode since 1998. From a variety of early adopter, early collaborator venues, I’ve been learning how to consider the potential scope of technological advances and how we might better anticipate their cultural, commercial and policy implications: You know, humanity’s transformation and the emerging new rule sets.
I’m in a very early startup stage with a group of kindred spirits who, likewise, recognize technology is now evolving faster than people’s understanding of all its ramifications, and believe, as well, that each of us would benefit from open dialog about this social transformation.
The grande dame of organizational leadership: Margaret Wheatley
In the summer of 1998, I participated in a week long seminar with Meg Wheatley, exploring complex system failures, and New Science Organizational Development. Two take aways: 1) Organizations don’t change, but rather people do. 2) Meet people at the level of their identity.
My thinking forever shifted.
Transformation requires open leadership
There’s a book for that, @Charlene Li’s Open Leadership, How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead. I read the Advance Reading Copy over the weekend. That “very early startup stage” I mentioned? I’m using material directly from the text– especially audits and assessments–to guide the call for critical inputs to our open strategy. I’ll blog more about this as the week goes by. Shifting, in progress ;)
A new strategy of engagement emerges
As Meg said, “Meet people at the level of their identity.” Though some men “worry more that the world of web 2.0 — and what comes after — will distract, not add, from the skill of leaders, make them more, rather than less, remote,” following optimistic women might shift your point of view :)
Though I’ve used Twitter several years, and for many different reasons, I’m now developing a more mindful strategic approach. Let’s call it my Open Social Engagement Strategy. And, let’s use the framework, language, and supporting data supplied by Beth, Charlene, and Marta.
Engaging women, you know?

May 10th, 2010 at 12:06 pm
Definitely important to be mindful in your engagement strategy. Thanks for the link – and also the pointer to Meg Wheatly – love her work