Hey everyone. We are excited to announce that, because we have got to (somewhere around) 50 registered members, we are going to start holding bi-monthly “hangout” calls. These will be times to connect and share ideas with each other. 

Here’s the plan. The first Friday of each month we will meet at:

• California 7 00
• New York 10 00
• London 15 00
• Amsterdam/South Africa 16 00
• Melbourne 24 00 (too late for most)

The third Friday of each month we will meet at:

• California 01 00 (too early for most)
• New York 04 00 (too early for most)
• London 09 00
• Amsterdam/South Africa 10 00
• Melbourne 18 00

That way everybody should have a chance to participate.

Please note that this is not our final schedule. It’s just our best guess at what might work so far. If you can think of better times to include people in all time zones, please let any of us know. We will provide updates here as to the final times.

We will post the topic of each hangout in a post on this blog, with just a few sentences to ponder before you call in. During the hangout somebody will take notes, and we’ll update the post with a brief description of what we talked about. Longer notes might be kept in the forum, and discussions can linger there.

If we have four or fewer people we will talk on Skype. However, Skype isn’t great for larger groups, so if we have more than four people we will switch to our Mumble server. (Information on how to connect to the hangout via Skype or the Mumble server can be found on the PNI2 forum. In addition to being useful for our hangouts, the Mumble server is available 24/7 for any PNII members who want to get together for ad-hoc meetings.)

Our first hangout will take place on Friday, 5 June.

The call will last … as long as people want to talk, but let’s say an hour.

As to what we will talk about, we have had lots of ideas so far. These are the topic categories we have considered:

1. PNI applied to various industries/endeavors – e.g., health care, development, pharmaceuticals, defense, emergency services, transportation, mining, education, governance
2. PNI applied to various functions/issues – e.g., customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, retention, work-life balance, community development, urban planning, conflict resolution, safety, training, organizational learning, organizational culture
3. PNI applied to various global challenges – e.g., poverty, conflict, crime, climate change, pollution, environmental destruction, water issues, discrimination, radicalization, inequality
4. Connecting PNI with various fields and approaches – e.g., narrative therapy, narrative inquiry, participatory theatre, qualitative research, appreciative inquiry, Most Significant Change, participatory mapping, participatory rural appraisal, asset-based community development
5. The PNI phases – planning, collection, catalysis, sensemaking, intervention, return
6. Practical issues carrying out PNI projects – e.g., creating projects people want to participate in, selling projects (to clients, funders, and/or participants), dealing with sensitive issues, handling power differences, helping people feel safe to speak, proving the worth of the method, showing results, building one’s practice

Do any of these topic categories appeal to you? Would you like to suggest others? Please let us know (on the PNII forum or through email), because we will be choosing one or two of these to start with before our 5 June call.

We hope to “see” you there!