We partner with organizations around the world to develop programs which support individuals in rediscovering how to listen to each other and share first person stories. Our group process and the stories that emerge serve as effective tools for change amidst a world of technology and media overload.

ABOUT THE CALIFORNIA STEWARDSHIP NETWORK In 2008, the Morgan Family Foundation launched the California Stewardship Network as a civic venture, investing $ 1.5 million over 2 years in matching grants to 10 economic regions that agreed to focus on breakthroughs led by stewardship teams composed of business, community and government civic entrepreneurs. While each regional team has developed its own stewardship strategy, all share a common approach. Typically, these strategies are: (1) Data-driven, (2) Based on economic regions and industry clusters, (3) Successful in sustaining the engagement of business, (4) Effective at integrating economic, social, and environmental considerations, and (5) Innovative in their approach to public-private partnerships in implementation. The teams represent the diversity of California ranging from San Diego and Los Angeles in the South to Sacramento Valley, the Fresno Region and the Central Coast to the Sierra Region, Sonoma and Butte Counties and the Redwood Coast near the Oregon Border. These regional groups meet on regular basis and exchange best practices.

The California Planning Roundtable (CPR) is an organization of experienced planning professionals who are members of the American Planning Association (APA). Membership is balanced between the public and private sectors, and between Northern and Southern California. The mission of the Roundtable is to provide a forum for prominent planners to exercise creativity and leadership in promoting understanding of California's critical public policy issues, and recommending action.

Common Good is a nonpartisan reform coalition that offers Americans a new way to look at law and government. We propose practical, bold ideas to restore common sense to all three branches of government--legislative, executive and judicial--based on the principles of individual freedom, responsibility and accountability. Common Good's philosophy is based on a simple but powerful idea: People, not rules, make things happen. This idea is fundamental to how we write laws and regulations, structure government agencies and resolve legal disputes. It affects all our lives, everyday.

At the Center for Wise Democracy we have developed a set of social innovations that offer breakthrough progress on these impossible-seeming issues. These innovations are being proven to work by citizen groups and government leaders. For example in Central Europe, government leaders are using the Wisdom Council to involve and empower citizens, build the spirit of community, break through partisan gridlock, and to leap forward difficult, impossible-seeming issues. Other examples are:

To provide instruction on key concepts and tools of systems thinking. While utilizing the WebEd site, participants will: develop skills and knowledge in the use of systems thinking concepts and tools. experience and practice interactive, inquiry-based instructional and school improvement strategies. use systems thinking tools to analyze issues and identify high leverage interventions. investigate possible applications relevant to their work.

The Arts are key to so many things: human expression, education, economies, community development, and innovation in technology and human thought. Why is this critical component of our humanity still undervalued and under-resourced? We need to find the language and data to help society understand how cultural ecosystems work and why it must support them to ensure its own well-being and survival. At CSI, we create project partnerships to demonstrate and measure how arts operate in promoting sustainability and resiliency. Our projects always target the same outcome: empower the arts and humanity.

The Center for Priority Based Budgeting™ (CPBB), a Denver, Colorado-based, mission driven, organization established in 2010, provides technical and advisory services to assist local governments, school districts and other non-profit agencies achieve Fiscal Health and Wellness through Priority Based Budgeting. This creative and innovative process, developed by CPBB, enables communities to reassess their priorities in order to make sound, long-term funding decisions. Establishing a non-profit solidifies CPBB's mission of being a trusted advisor and a dependable, objective resource, assisting local government leaders who are seeking service excellence, transparency to their stakeholders and a strong desire to achieve the Results that are important to their community.

The Integration Initiative supports cities that are harnessing existing momentum and leadership for change, overhauling long obsolete systems and fundamentally reshaping communities and policies to meet the needs of low-income residents. - See more at: http://www.livingcities.org/integration/#sthash.fTTfVwwk.dpuf

Founded in 1991, Living Cities is an innovative collaborative of 22 of the world's largest foundations and financial institutions. In nearly 20 years Living Cities members have collectively invested almost $1 billion, helping shape federal funding programs, redirecting public and private resources, and helping communities to build homes, stores, schools, community facilities and more. However, our members are not simply funders. They shape our work and priorities by participating on the Living Cities Board of Directors, four standing committees and three working groups. In sum, our members contribute the time of 80-plus expert program staff toward improving the lives of low-income people and the cities where they live. - See more at: http://www.livingcities.org/about/#sthash.Wkj6TLk6.dpuf

IISC provides consulting services to organizations, communities, networks, and others that build their capacity for more effective, equitable and inclusive social change. And we offer workshops that provide participants with the opportunity to learn and practice the skills and tools of collaboration for social change so that they can do everything from designing meetings to building and running organizations and networks with greater social impact.

e-Deliberation™ is a collaborative platform for decision making and strategy building. It is used by teams and communities to resolve multi-stakeholder & multifaceted challenges and problems. Your team has the ideas and experience needed to solve almost any problem or challenge. The difficulty lies in making these ideas emerge and weave them into great decisions, policies, and strategies. e-Deliberation makes this easy. Use the e‑Deliberation™ online platform to support your people achieve a meeting of the minds. Way beyond just consulting people or getting feedback, this is collaborative deliberation.

In his third lecture for Saïd Business School, Clayton Christensen looks at the process of research and explores the complexities involved in developing a theory. He draws particular attention to the importance of finding anomalies in research and the potential of anomalies to shed light and give greater insight into phenomena.

Our approach to work is Appreciative and Deliberative and encourages shared learning. We provide strategic advice to our clients. Experience has taught us that we make the greatest difference in the world when we work with decision-makers to build their organisational readiness to collaborate with their stakeholders. We do this strategic work by building relationships with our clients, understanding their needs and working closely with them as they collaborate with their stakeholders to help find enduring solutions to complex dilemmas. We believe that conversations build relationships and that relationships are an essential ingredient of enduring solutions.

In the second of his lectures for Saïd Business School, Clayton Christensen gives an insight into the 'panda's thumbs' of management thinking- dated practices that hinder management decision-making and the profitability of companies. He gives the examples of managers focusing too heavily on gross margins rather than net profit and refusing to reduce their production costs as a way of avoiding disruption by smaller companies. He then gives an insight his Job to be Done theory.

In the first of his lectures for Saïd Business School, Clayton Christensen explains his theory of disruption, drawing on examples of innovations occurring in the steel industry and from leading companies such as Toyota, Sony, Walmart and Indian refrigerator manufacturer, Godrej. Christensen explores how the theory can explain why the economies of America, England and Japan have stagnated. He also uses the theory to analyse how economies in Asia have achieved prosperity and to examine why countries such as Mexico are not experiencing economic growth.

Fiscal policy can be a matter of life and death David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu "Then the president of Iceland took a radical step: asking the people what they wanted to do. In March 2010, 93% of the Icelandic people voted against financing a bailout for foreign savers of Icesave Bank through draconian budget cuts. Instead, Iceland stabilized healthcare spending. Thanks to this boost to the nation's universal healthcare system, no one lost access to healthcare even as the cost of imported medicines rose as an effect of the devaluation of the Icelandic Krona. There was no significant rise in suicides or depression. Nor were there any significant infectious disease outbreaks. Indeed, last year GDP growth was 2.7%, and unemployment rates have fallen below 5%. Having seen the results, the IMF turned tail, praising Iceland's successful approach."

"The shift in what employers think of as their role not just in the community but [relative] to their workforce is quite radical, and I think it has led to the last two jobless recoveries," said Ron Hira, an associate professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

We face an entangled communications challenge. Becoming a sustainable city is less a technological issue than one of mindset, understanding and behavioural. Too many people still believe there is no problem. How can this be overcome? Do we approach it by engendering fear, cajoling, or persuasion? By providing evidence of the threats or examples of good practices? Do we jolt people into focus by ascending graphs of problems or imagery of iconic events like Katrina or Superstorm Sandy? It is best to show how the shift is doable and already happening and that those at the forefront have a better life economically and socially. The image of the sustainable city needs to feel as emotionally satisfying as the lure of consumer culture.

In GlobalNet21 we bring people together both online and off.  We hold many meetings from those in the House of Commons to online webinars and from larger meetings and presentations to smaller study circles. We work with others to create events that people want to engage in. In creating this virtual "public square" GlobalNet21 has emerged now as a vast social networking system that brings new audiences together to discuss and seek solutions for critical issues of the day - issues that divide and threaten the stability of our society and our planet. We also create space at meeting and online for people to connect and collaborate so that they can take further action whether that is expressing their views through our networks, learning more from others or linking with others to take action in order to make a difference.