At the end of June we were delighted to support “The Art of Co” conference which took place in San Sebastián.
As an official Equipment Sponsor we provided the organizers with the materials required for the workshops and sessions. Additionally, we were present there with our own exhibition stand.
The name of the conference already indicates what it was all about, namely “collaboration”. We felt appealed to „co“ in many ways as it can be found again in „collaboration“, „color“, „contrast“ and “communication“. All these qualities are also reflected in the range of our Neuland dialog materials.
Appreciative, participative culture of dialog
As our “Neuland” company name indicates, we love to discover new grounds and love globetrotting. It was pretty interesting to experience that many people in different places and different parts of the world apparently have very similar questions “How can we best work together in a collective environment- both within organizations as well as generally within a society? How can we acknowledge the intelligence and the knowledge of a single person as a precious resource and make use of it in a way so diversity and individuality do not end up in conflicts, but in a creative, cooperative collaboration, and as a chance for innovation?”
The answers to these questions can only be found out and tried out together.
There are already many approaches that encourage the appreciative, participative culture of dialog. A glimpse into these methods give Learning Maps, for example “Open Space”, “World Café” or “Appreciative Inquiry which were of a particular interest in Spain. Especially valued were also the refillable markers and the rich pallet of colors. Monika and Laila from Team Neuland explained the special features of Neuland products in different languages. Verena visualized a lot and made one or the other workshop leader happy with her visualization.
The encounter with Co-author of Learning Maps
The fact that networks which have their roots mainly in the USA have been spreading more and more in Europe, pleases not only us. but also Rosa Zubizzareta, the co-author of Learning Map “Dynamic Facilitation”who travelled to Spain, too.
The creator of “Dragon Dreaming”, a participative project planning and project management method was pretty excited: John Croft has been creating a Learning Map for Dragon Dreaming in cooperation with Kommunikationslotsen from Cologne/Germany. Either in a face to face conversation or in plenary session – John shares his vision in such an affectionate and profound manner that we are all getting curious to finally learn the Learning Map No 11: Dragon Dreaming.