An upcoming event will celebrate Appreciative Inquiry (AI) as an effective change-management tool over the past 10 years.
The event is sponsored by AI Consulting (AIC), which was founded 10 years ago as a global consultancy dedicated to using appreciative, strength-based approaches to organizational change.
“We thought that a 10-year anniversary would be a great time to take stock of how our original mission, which was to lift up AI in the world, had fared,” says Ada Jo Mann, a founding member of AIC and designer of the event.
Storytelling, which is central to the AI approach, will be key to this two-day forum taking place in Washington, D.C.
Dubbed an AI Storython, the event will consist of a string of 15-minute stories shining a light on how AI has had an impact on corporations, government, non-profits, schools, health care, communities and individuals.
Mann says she will share the story of a program, the Global Excellence in Management initiative, which was geared to expanding the capacity of non-government organizations around the world, using AI.
“(The initiative) was a fabulous living laboratory for experimenting with and building on the original theories of AI . . . (and) an excellent way to jumpstart the awareness of AI in the field of international development,” Mann tells Axiom News.
AI thought leader David Cooperrider, a professor at Case Western Reserve University, will be the keynote storyteller, with strategic designer Diana Arsenian illustrating the stories.
People sharing their stories will be videotaped and the accounts made accessible on the Internet in order to continue “lifting up AI around the world,” says Mann.
Taking place Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, the storython will also include an exploration of the future role of AI in the world.
“We will have discussions that focus on what is the world now calling AI to become over the next 10 years and beyond. So it’s both a retrospective celebration and a forward-thinking visioning of what’s next for AI,” says Mann.
To learn more about submitting a proposal for a story you would to like to relate, or to register, please visit this link.
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