Greetings! It’s that time of year, for those of us living in the Arizona desert, when we keep our Charmin in the freezer for some occasional relief. But once again we, your public sherpas, are here with a few tips to make your work life and life-life a little more successful and, we hope, easier.… read more →
Are You Informed? If you’re at all familiar with the International Association of Public Participation (IAP2) Public Participation Spectrum, you know that the listed range of public influence level categories begins with ‘Inform’. And if you learned about the Spectrum from a licensed IAP2 instructor, you should also have learned that just ‘informing’ people, in… read more →
Dear Valued Associate, I saw former FBI Director James Comey speak a few weeks ago. Regardless of how you actually feel about him, he’s an interesting guy – and really tall. He talked about focusing on ‘the good that follows the bad’, which, as you can imagine, serves him pretty well these days. He also… read more →
Facilitation Tips and Belonging to a Gang? I belong to a motorcycle gang. I’m also in a bicycle club. I never go to the meetings, I don’t actually know many of the other respective members, and I don’t usually see them unless we meet on the road, but we have a bond and a code… read more →
Dear Valued Associate, Punxsutawney Phil crawled out of his burrow on Groundhog Day and did not see his shadow, which means six more episodes of Gwyneth Paltrow selling organic cucumber colon cleansers on Netflix. In honor of this occasion, here’s a wide ranging smorgasbord of ideas and tips that I think you’ll find useful. TPC wants… read more →
Dear Valued Associate, I’ve rewritten this intro several times in the past few days but it never felt quite right, and then I facilitated a meeting last week. It was with a group of people representing various interests that have been meeting regularly for a couple of years to build consensus on an important and complex… read more →
Dear Valued Associate, In the spirit of the season I remember a quote by Thomas Paine (the Common Sense guy) who said, “If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.” On that note, 2019 may test democracy more than it’s been tested in a very long time, and go… read more →
Dear Valued Reader, You can breathe now. The campaigns are over, you may now safely return to your television. Living in a key battleground state, I’ve enjoyed the most expensive U.S. Senate race in history and some of the most vitriolic and vicious ads for a whole range of offices that have ever been produced. It’s… read more →
What is Normal? A constantly changing normal is the new normal. When you think about it, you realize that time changes all of us and makes the previously odd or out of place common and more acceptable. Consider fashion, music, or attitudes about right, wrong, fairness or honesty. Change happens, and people and their values… read more →
Dear Valued Reader, Either Eleanor Roosevelt or Socrates is credited with saying, roughly, “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” We, and most news media, are now kept continually distracted and talking about what people are saying rather than the current events and public policy, rules and law changes (or not)… read more →