Genevieve Taylor’s Blog

I had the opportunity to work with the Laguna Foundation over the last several months to design and deliver their “State of the Science symposium”.  This year’s theme was Meeting the Challenge: Strategies for Adapting Watershed Ecosystems to Climate Change.  Over the three days, we saw over 200 scientists, land managers, public policy decision-makers, and non-profits.

To ensure that the conference met its outcomes of building community and engaging audience participation, we used the World Cafe Methodology, gathering small groups of people into 15-20 minute conversations to discuss how the learnings gained from the presentations could be applied to the challenges of climate change for the Laguna Watershed.  They will be producing a “proceedings” document which will detail the list of likely impacts we generated, as well as possible management strategies; but most exciting was the formation of three working groups who will be “sustaining the momentum” on into the future.

I had some amazing volunteer facilitators from The Halle Group and Global Genesis, alumnae and master’s students from the  Sonoma State Organizational Development Department, Reos Partners, and the Green MBA at Dominican University.  While a lot of work was done prior to design the three days, the real magic came as we collaborated to refine and “adapt” the process to meet the needs of the conference participants.  It was such a pleasure working with all of these folks!

Finally, this is an article about the Laguna de Santa Rosa, with a mention of the conference.