Change-making our culture - The U.S. Department of Arts and Culture

My friend Amy Elliott recently suggested I check out this program for Cultural Agents from The U.S. Department of Arts and Culture(The USDAC is not a federal agency).  This ties in directly with my thinking recently around the differences/connection between movements and culture.   For example, the relationship between a political campaign and having a culture of being engaged has been something I've been focusing my energy and time on.  I won't go into it fully now, but I'd like to highlight the USDAC's Statement of Values:

WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT:

Culture is a human right.

Coherence Toolkit with Trusted Sharing - Powered by Awesome Facilitators

Howdy partners, it's me, Ty.  Today I have a video that my friend Charles Wu made for Trusted Sharing.  Learn about our Coherence Toolkit and ask me about it next time I see you down at the saloon or yoga den.

Improve your life journey with Mentoring

This is a short post, but is foreshadowing a larger article I'm writing in collaboration with some folks about the power of mentoring, my experiences with co-mentoring and break-through conversations.  Stay tuned.  
Update: my friend Galen Radtke, inspired by this blog post, wrote a build-on post: http://www.wamerjam.com/on-mentoring/


Here is to personal breakthroughs!

I've had 2 simultaneous (over the same few weeks) breakthroughs with 2 mentoring relationships and so I hope to share to encourage everyone else.

I have believed for 10 years or so in the idea of mentors, folks have helped me to move to the next level like Jonathon Flaum​, Ed Brenegar​ and Jenny Fares​.  This month I helped someone I mentor, after about 2 years of working together, find the job in the profession they want.

Then I had a huge breakthrough yesterday with one of my mentors who has changed how I look at conversation and collaboration (which is quite vital for my role at Trusted Sharing).  The other learning was its all about the learnings.  And another learning business is not to stay busy but to help life flourish.  May the cup overfloweth. So if you can find a mentor or be a mentor for someone in need - consider it.

We are all in this together.

Cities 3.0 - Interconnecting Cities with Maggie Ullman

My interview with Maggie Ullman about how interconnecting cities will lead to a healthier world.

http://ashevillegrit.com/cities-30-interconnecting-cities-maggie-ullman

5 Posts that you may enjoy from Ty's 2014 writings

Trusted Sharing was very honored to sponsor a series of events that happened in Asheville in October around Dynamic Facilitation and Wisdom Councils. We had many great people including the founders of these modalities, several authors and some renowned filmmakers. Here are 2 articles that I organized and edited that you can read.


Asheville Wisdom Councils Declare our Social Contract is Broken (on System of Abundance Blog) Wisdom Council Intends to Bring Participation to Asheville’s Government ( on Asheville Grit blog)

In March we partnered with the fine folks at Peppermint, an open source operating system built using the Ubuntu (Linux) codebase. In the process of writing the story we reached out to Peppermint's partner in Africa, Marc Stephan Nkouly, and heard some wild stories. The article was picked up by OpenSource.com, they are an online publication focused on how open source is applied to different areas including business, education, government, health, law and other disciplines of life. Read the article here: Peppermint introduces cloud-based open source desktop to Africa (on OpenSource.com)

One of the realizations I had after our podcast, Spark Tech Talk, interviewed Steve Wozniak, was that connecting with your heroes in meaningful ways was possible. Most folks who have "made it" and are thought leaders want to give back and help spread there ideas even further. So one day I reached out to Harrison Owen, a personal hero of mine and the founder of Open Space (tech folks may know unconferences or barcamps) and asked him if we could do an interview. To make it a truly collaborative experience I partnered with my friends over at Mycelium project, Matt and Ashley, and they ran with the interview. Here is the article: Harrison Owen Interview: Inviting Flow and Self Organization

An on-going theme for me and my life is to work in the social enterprise space. Someone I've worked with and connected with over the last couple of years is Paul Polack. An amazing mind, a leading social entrepreneur and to say just an author would be an understatement. He is like Bill Clinton in my book. One thing that stood out to me was Paul Polack's amazing energy. At 80 years old his mind is more active than most 30 years olds I know. Read the article from January here:  Paul Polak interview about his new book The Business Solution to Poverty

Big news! Ty has a new job.

There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.

Nelson Mandela

I've been slowly letting it out to my confidants, friends, family and trusted network that I've moved on from TopFloorStudio. I am now the Chief Technology Officer (full-time) at a local Asheville company, Trusted Sharing. More on this later in the post. Now, it's important to note here that I've carefully worked out the plan to allow for my clients and folks that relied on TopFloorStudio's service to ease into this transition. In fact if you need services that TopFloorStudio was providing I'm sure I can refer you to someone good. Now that we have that over with; lets get into the good stuff.

Last year I spent more time than I ever have soul-searching and discovering who I am and what I am passionate about. This work is some of the most important I've ever done. After a trip to Bhutan and after a year, some answers really started to culminate. My inner-work paid off and I started to recognize patterns about my past that helped me plan a course moving forward. Here are some of the insights that came to me:

The Open Source Way

The open source way is...

Open exchange

We can learn more from each other when information is open. A free exchange of ideas is critical to creating an environment where people are allowed to learn and use existing information toward creating new ideas.

Participation

When we are free to collaborate, we create. We can solve problems that no one person may be able to solve on their own.

Rapid prototyping

Rapid prototypes can lead to rapid failures, but that leads to better solutions found faster. When you're free to experiment, you can look at problems in new ways and look for answers in new places. You can learn by doing.

Meritocracy

In a meritocracy, the best ideas win. In a meritocracy, everyone has access to the same information. Successful work determines which projects rise and gather effort from the community.

Community

Communities are formed around a common purpose. They bring together diverse ideas and share work. Together, a global community can create beyond the capabilities of any one individual. It multiplies effort and shares the work. Together, we can do more.

Source >> http://opensource.com/open-source-way

Harrison Owen Interview: Inviting Flow and Self Organization

To some, Open Space Technology is a method for organizing meetings or facilitating groups. However, to the vast community of Open Space practitioners, Open Space is a way of life. It’s a philosophical perspective about how the world works, how humans organize, and a method for making visible some of the invisible laws of life and nature. We interviewed Harrison Owen, the founder of Open Space to learn his views on self-organization, structure, invitation and even grief.

 Harrison never expected to find himself in this place of organizational development. He started as an Anglican priest and thought he was going to live his life as an Old Testament scholar. Then the Civil Rights movement came along and he found himself on the streets organizing. His life shifted. His degree no longer felt desirable. He found himself spending time in Africa, working with the NIH, and in various other positions. The constant throughout this life journey, however, has been an ongoing passion for the human process or phenomena of transformation. Seventy-eight years into this life journey, Harrison says, “Open Space - that’s a funny interlude that turned out to be quite significant.”

 “My hope would be to somehow make human life more human.” 

 ~Harrison Owen