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Expressing Thrivability: Michelle Holliday

Gratitude. I want to highlight some people I feel grateful to know and experience, people who are expressions of thrivability.

Today, I want to express gratitude for Michelle Holliday. She is a facilitator, organizational consultant, researcher and writer. She brings people together and helps them discover ways they can feel more alive, connect more meaningfully with each other, and serve life more powerfully through their work.

I first encountered Michelle when my network was excitedly sharing this slideshare:

Michelle clearly gets how aliveness, integration, and living systems are the key to thrivability. A year later, she gave this ted talk.

 

More recently, she co-created this amazing and playful community inquiry that went around the world, Thrivable World Quest. I am such a big fan of her work that I gave her the thrivability twitter handle I had been holding onto.

If you are interested in how organizations can be resilient, adaptive — indeed, how they can thrive using living system principles, talk with Michelle! And keep an eye out for her forthcoming book, The Age of Thrivability.

Come to the Thrivable Future Salon Oct 14 in SF

Mark reading Thrivability in the hammock

Mark Finnern reading Thrivability in the hammock

When we met in 2012 at an alternative currency event in NYC, I could not have imagined today. Here it is! So exciting!

Back then, he was interested in my word, “Thrivability” and led Future Salons in SF. A couple years later, while in SF, we agreed to meet again. He wanted me to talk at his Future Salon.

We never really had that conversation. Instead, we discovered each other. The overlaps in interests and approach were significant, from small things like the soft boiled eggs, to big things like wanting to co-create a world that works (and have fun doing it!). This summer, we married on the beach where we often enjoy sunset picnic hikes.

Thrivability can be like that, full of surprising and delightful twists.

Rather than just having me speak at his Future Salon, Mark Finnern has merged his work with mine (and me with his!).

We will be hosting our first Thrivable Future Salon October 14th at 6pm at Pivotal Labs in San Francisco.

Here is the invitation! After a warm welcome, we will host an Open Mike for you to share your ideas and interests in co-creating a more thrivable work that works. We are particularly looking for ideas that tie back to something one can take action on right now.

The future is created by the present.

Both of us believe we are all in this together. While we will sometimes have speakers, our focus is on high participation among peers (read: you). Come play with us!

Of course, not everyone can be available that evening or be in San Francisco. We will try to webcast it using Spreecast. But look for more webcasts including our friends from across the globe in the near future.

Invitation

Welcome!

Future Salon, please meet Thrivability… and Thrivability, allow me to introduce the Bay Area Future Salon! [Read history below if this doesn’t make sense.]

Hello all. Welcome to the Thrivable Future Salon where we meet to discuss and challenge each other in co-creating a more thrivable future that works for all. We have some audacious goals for the future, sure, and we are having a fun time together moving in that direction.

If you are curious or even passionate about creating the future, imagining new possibilities, or wanting to thrive in your life, work, and community, then come join us!

Can’t make this one and want to learn about future events, online and in person?
Join our mailing list.

Topics

From the angle of “what will make me, us, and all of us more thrivable” we want to have discussions at this and future events about:

  • Collaboration and co-creativity in practice
  • Open source and other forms of network production
  • Tips about personal thrivability
  • Open government and the future of democracy
  • The future of work
  • The future of learning
  • add your Thrivable Future topic here!

Open Mike

For this relaunch event, we would like to solicit topics from you! Open Mike style. If you want to present a 5 minute talk on your own thrivable future topic, let us know by filling out this form.

Sharing Online

Tweet: Create the future, imagine new possibilities, or want to thrive in your life, work, and community, then join us at Thrivable Future Salon! [LINK]

Hashtag: #TFS

Webcast: For those not in the room, we will try to webcast via http://spreecast.com. Try this link. However our focus is on the in person event. Let us know if you want to help with organizing the webcast.

Can’t make this one and want to learn about future events, online and in person?
Join our mailing list.

Agenda

  • Doors open at 6pm for you to connect with each other and grab a beer.
  • At 6:15, our formal event begins, including a warm and hearty welcome.
  • Introduction to Thrivability by Jean Russell
    Future Salon by Mark Finnern.
  • 5+5 minute Open Mike talks (sign up now if you want to offer one).
  • Summarize and synthesize together, answering the question:
    “What can you do for a more thrivable world now?”

We hope you join us afterwards for casual conversations and drinks nearby.

Sponsor

We thank Pivotal Labs for sponsoring this event by providing our event space.

We are seeking a food sponsor. Drinks are provided by Pivotal Labs.

Contact us if you like what we are creating and would like to be a general sponsor for Thrivable Future Salons. Send an email to mark at finnern dot com.

History

Mark has been hosting the Bay Area Future Salon since 2002. The Future Salon has provided our audience with riveting speakers on topics that lead toward a world that works for all, including David Brin, Nicole Lazarro, Mickey McManus, Howard Rheingold, Doug Engelbart, and more.

Ten years later, Mark met Jean Russell, a founder of Thrivability. Jean co-created the Thrivability Sketch with 70 amazing collaborators in 2010. And then in 2013, she released, through Triarchy Press, Thrivability: Breaking Through to a World that Works. The tagline for the Future Salon has been: Bolding Creating a World that Works for All.

And so, with a tremendous shared sense of purpose and practice, not only did they marry, they are weaving the Future Salon and Thrivability together in the Thrivable Futures.

Make sure you are signed up to get our updates about upcoming events online and in person.

 

MarkJean

Resilience Ain’t Enough

It isn’t enough to repair the damage our progress has brought. The unintended consequences of our efforts to improve quality of life for humans has repercussions and requires action.  Yes, and. It is also not enough to manage our risks and be more shock-resistant. Now is not only the time to course correct and be more resilient. It is a time to imagine what we can generate for the world. Not only can we work to minimize our footprint but we can also create positive handprints. It is time to strive for a world that thrives.

As I am wont to do, I had a gathering while in SF. This time it was a brunch filled with amazing people I wouldn’t have a chance to see one on one during my time there. I always enjoy seeing friends meet friends and discovering connection. A couple guests brought someone with them. And one guest took up my twitter invite and joined even though she didn’t know me yet. Everyone brought something to share. Yum. It felt warm and delightful.

Then we got in a debate about resilience and thrivability. Of course I appreciate the friends who not only stand by me but also stand behind thrivability. And, it was really exciting to have someone who wasn’t converted to the thrivability team challenge what it is we mean and to say she didn’t like the term. Juicy.

Where there is a bit of friction, you can get traction.

As a facilitator, you can always be sure I have paper and pens around, so I started sketching it out. Since then, I put together a chart, showed it to a few collaborators, and here it is narrowed down to key points for you. It isn’t enough to strive for resilience, and it won’t motivate enough of us. When we strive to thrive, we create a story of greatness that invites everyone to contribute their very best to making a world that not only works, it also produces joy, delight, and awe.

Comparison chart for Thrivable

Thrivability transcends survival modes, sustainability, and resilience. Thrivability embraces flow as the sources of life and joy and meaning, adds to the flow and rides the waves, instead of trying to nullify the effects. Each layer includes and also transcends the previous layer, expanding both interconnections as well as expanding system awareness as each layer hits limits and discovers that more forces are at work than can be explained within their purview. Also, this is not a progression, where you need to move through one before beginning another. You can have aspects of yourself or your organization in multiple places in the chart and movement within the chart can be from any one area to any other. It is not a spectrum of progression. It is a spectrum of viewpoint. And most of us are like electrons, leaping about from point to point and sometimes seemingly nowhere at all… until you look and ask.

Please allow me to amend with gratitudes:

Thank you to attendees of the brunch that triggered action on the chart, especially: Sarah Brooks, Evonne Heyning, Scott Albritton (photos of chart from brunch), Thomas Kriese, David Evan Harris, Jeanie Kirk, Kimberly Olson, Mair Dundon, and Nicole Lazzaro.
Thank you to thrivability champions for assistance in development and refining: Michele Holliday, Irma Wilson, Joshua Foss, Herman Wagter, and Kathryn Bottrell.