Building The Collaborative Community

Building the Collaborative Community

Building and Maintaining Collaborative Communities

Building and Maintaining Collaborative Communities: Schools, University, and Community Organizations is a new and noteworthy volume in the literature on collaboration among schools and universities. It expands the playing field to include both publically and privately funded community organizations and the effects of the interaction of the three on projects in a multitude of settings both domestically and in international venues. Asked to analyze their projects following the Slater Matrix, nineteen examples provide an inside glimpse into the success and limitations of each project. Chapters are organized in order of complexity of type of collaboration. The editors expect this to be a useful guide for university personnel, school administrators, and community organizations wishing to embark or expand on projects involving schools, universities, and community organizations. In a time of short resources and uncertain sustainability, it should serve as a useful tool in making decisions in the planning, process, carrying out, and analysis of each endeavor.

Discovering Common Ground

Copublished with Industrial Engineering and Management Press This book brings together cases from around the world of a breakthrough new approach to strategic planning, empowerment, consensus building, and whole systems improvement. Marvin Weisbord and 35 international coauthors show how all types of business, government, and nonprofit organizations are successfully using this approach to create shared vision, innovation, commitment, and collaborative action that exceed what people thought possible. In this approach-called "future searches" or "search conferences"-people with diverse interests who have a stake in an organization or issue come together for two or three days to explore their mutual past, present, and future in a global context. Using a self-managing format, they seek common ground among their varied interests, invent ideal futures rather than work old problems, and generate creative strategies, action plans, and commitment.