bcelnik's blog

July’s Member Spotlight shines on Kim Ammann Howard, a long time collaborator and supporter of the Leadership Learning Community. In 2002, LLC was commissioned by The California Wellness Foundation to conduct an evaluation assessing the overall impact of the Leadership and Professional Development Program of their Violence Prevention Initiative. Kim played a key role on the Design Team and was one of the evaluators and collaborative writers of the in-depth report. She also was one of the collaborators, along with LLC, on the Packard-Gates evaluation of their Population Leadership Program. Kim and Claire Reinelt (LLC’s Research and Evaluation Director) collaborated to write a chapter, Evaluating Leadership Development for Social Change, which was published in the Handbook of Leadership Development Evaluation. We celebrate the spirit of collaboration Kim brings to her work and are pleased to have her listed as one of LLC’s affiliates.

 
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For the May Member Spotlight we would like to illuminate the work of Bruce Hoppe and Connective Associates. As both founder and president of Connective Associates, Bruce works with communities and organizations to better visualize and use their social networks for innovation, influence, and social good.  His blog Connectedness is a rich source of links and reflections on networks and web science.

Bruce has pioneered the use social network analysis in the leadership development field.  At Creating Space VII in Durham, NC, Bruce introduced the LLC community to a social network mapping tool that used real-time data from the participants to map their relationships with each other.  These maps enabled the group to analyze the patterns of their connections and consider when network maps are useful in leadership development work.

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In this month’s newsletter, we are excited to cast the Member Spotlight on two invaluable members of, and contributors to the Leadership Learning Community (LLC) - Dale Nienow, Executive Director and Karma Ruder, Director of Community Collaboration, and their organization, the Center for Ethical Leadership. Karma and Dale have been long-time, committed members of the LLC. They serve as the official conveners of the Seattle LLC Circle and have organized a number of meetings over the last few years. In March of this year, they co-hosted (with four other organizations) a well-attended Seattle LLC Circle on “A Conversation about Leadership and Race” that was organized around the work of LLC’s Leadership for a New Era Initiative Leadership and Race piece. And at this year’s GEO conference, Dale agreed to join as one of the panel participants in a workshop organized and facilitated by LLC Executive Director, Deborah Meehan, on Collective Leadership: Nurturing Vibrant Organizations and Catalyzing Community Change. Karma and Dale were both integral to the design and facilitation of Creating Space VIII that took place in Baltimore. On the other hand, they have been integral participants at many LLC convening’s where their contributions are always rich, thoughtful, thought provoking and insightful. Dale and Karma always bring a spirit of generous sharing to any project or convening and we are pleased to shine the “spotlight” on them and their work. read more »

In October 2009, at a Leadership Learning Community (LLC) Bay Area Circle, Miho Kim and Celia Davis of the DataCenter shared their learning about the “Shared Leadership” model adopted by the Center in 2006.  The two hour meeting was very well-attended, raising many questions, which as a result of the time constraints went unanswered.  The high level of interest and participation in the topic appears to reflect the degree to which many in the nonprofit sector are beginning to explore different models and ways of working together.  Miho Kim generously agreed to a follow up conversation with me to flesh out some of the questions raised at the convening (this piece is a synthesis of our interview and the Bay Area circle convening). read more »

As we were discussing the creation of the design team for the LLC national meeting, Creating Space, someone posed a radical question that went something like, “What if we welcomed everyone who wanted to be part of the design process with the understanding that they would contribute in whatever way they could and whenever they could?” This was being suggested instead of selecting from a pool of community members who responded to an invitation sent to the entire community and who indicated their interest in participating on the design team. If there had been a camera in the room snapping the look on my face at that very instant, I’m certain it would have shouted – “Are you kidding?!!” As a matter of fact, I’m sure I voiced a much softer version expressing my concern and objection to the idea. read more »