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Just in from Sue Nenneman, our Grove associate in Arizona, is this wonderful flash animation. It's all about power vs. resourcefulness. Alan Becker, the creator, says it took three long months to build but was worth it. Click here to see if you agree :)
I'm at the 12th Annual Visual Practitioners conference and not getting a lot of time to write. But my new blogging ninja friend Nancy White, aka ChocoNancy has thankfully blogged the conference. Click on her name to see what we are doing. Rachel Smith, VP of New Media Consortium also wrote about the conference. Click here to see her blog. After the conference Firehawk Hulin, who presented on Sacred Digital Mirrors at the conference, posted the slide show he made on his web site. Click here to see the wonderful Visual Practitioner community up close and visual!!! .
A couple of days ago Chrissa Merron called from the OD Network to talk about the fireside chat that I and five other award winners would have at the upcoming Organization Development Network Conference in Baltimore. “I’m interested in topics and themes that might be interesting to discuss,” she said. The question challenged me. What do I think is the most important thing to be thinking about as a profession?
What jumped to mind immediately were the deep roots the ODN has in systems thinking and looking at organizations as organic, alive entities. I then mused on why the network would give The Grove the Members Award for contribution to the field. What does visualization have to do with OD? A lot I thought.
I’m flying over this country again to a client in Boston and I can’t shake out of my head a conversation I had last night with the President of a mid-sized company in the baked goods industry. His company buys millions of tons of flour, sugar, eggs, and other commodities every year. He knows the markets like a sailor knows the seas, and he’s scared.
“I used to be able to see the cycles, but its Las Vegas out there now.” He said. I asked him what he meant. “Well, last year the price of flour was about $13-14 a pound. Now it $26. Eggs have tripled in price since last year. It’s a disaster.”
“Why?” I asked. “Ethanol” he answered. The rush to look green and look like we are doing something about energy security has resulted in ethanol producers buying all the corn they can get. “There are 60 more plants on the drawing boards.”
