Chinese new year

Attached are some pictures to give a feel of a Celebrating Shanghai (Year of the Pig - a Golden one this time), and a unique Christian church - built in the style of a Chinese Buddist Temple.

Over the last few weeks since I've been here Keke and I have run Client Interventions which at first sight appear to have little to do with Technology of Participation (ToP™) - however in fact we thread the Objective; Reflective; Interpretative' Decisional (ORID) Discussion methods into most reflective processes - and use Workshop methods along with World Café, derivations of Future Search and various Improv games - to really provide an experience for Client's participants that moves them along the path of respect for all and the importance of every voice in a shared perspective broadening that really does honour the  basic core ToP/Facilitation dynamics.

Key items were we -

* Provided an indepth workshop to a major International Pharmaceutical company of a set of thinking tools (KinnoMinds) focused around creativity (there are other thinking tools - as part of a Facilitated Thinking Environment). The workshop both provided training in the tool set AND provided an initial round to address intractible and strategic issues.
* Provided a 1x day workshop to and International electronics companie's senior Leadership gathering (drawn from 7 countries) on 'leveraging off diversity" - using variants of Group/Plenary workshop methods , and internal vs external cultural perspectives facilitated dialogues. We also tested out responses to the ICA's Melbourne'07 Mod #6 core reality questions - and guided the discussions to enhance the the Diversity cultural appreciation (part of an ongoing experiment to see what can be done with the Mod #6 provocations on life.
* A presentation / Q&A in Beijing to China's brightest and eagerest young leaders drawn from leading Universities - as part of the International AISEC (www.aiesec.cn) effort - around the importance of Execution vs Strategic Planning (drawn from my Corporate experiences)
* Closed business and provided event Facilitation to a leading international Tyre manufacturer who had just acquired a local tyre manufacturer. this event had the full International CxO (incl. Ceo)team come down to China to do an indepth communciation exercise to the some 120 local leadership team (in XuShou).
We provided -
- A 'Larry King live' interview with the WW CEO and Local China CEO - using a focused conversation ORID format - followed by Plenary reflections
- A custom built international 'Bingo' night based upon questions drawn from local/WW/General/Company perspectives - that provided a fun and competitive environment to introduce and exchange a dialogue on various Cultures
- A custom event reflection using non-verbal group 'sculptures' that portrayed the group reflections.
* Proposal submission for an International Oil (based in a remote China port city ) companies needs to draw together a wide group of disparate stakeholders into acknowleging and working with their diversity. This will have the format of Future Search flow elements, and include World Café, & Improv - all gird with strong Focused conversation reflections to draw out and deepen the overall sharing and outcome learnings.
There are specific multi-level outcome objectives for this exercise.
* Attended many American Chamber and Joint EU  Chamber of Commerce events - people networking is the key to gaining business.
* etc ....

And all this amidst a special Chinese New Year treat - catching up with friends in the time-houred Chinese fashion - long shared Meals.

Also in order to be able to sleep amidst the almost continuous exloding fireworks at this time we adopted a 'brutal strategy' - over 3 nights we viewed - from 10pm to 6am each night - some 36 episodes on DVD of Grey's Anatomy - it’s addictive....

So that's a brief 'snapshot' of Tom in China during late January and February, 2007.

Go well
Tom