Design, Process and Facilitation
Finding better questions. Together.
In creating meetings and events, Jacob brings his innovative and idiosyncratic style to peer-to-peer focused facilitation, collaborative practice, process design and systems thinking.
He brings experience with conferences, unconferences, social labs, keynote presentations, accessibility and inclusion policy, debating workshops, online collaboration, and 20 years of creating theatre and dance in which groups of different folk coming together to make the world a more interesting and engaged place.
“Jacob's capacity to deeply listen, as well as communicate to a wide variety of individuals, are key to his skillful approach to group facilitation - especially in spaces where diverse ideas and perspectives need to be aired, held and positively engaged.” – Cheryl Rose, Associate Director, Banff Centre: Getting to Maybe Social Innovation Residency; personal and professional coach for change agents.
Combining theatre, performance, and his experience working with large, small, and diverse groups, Jacob's facilitation process inspires magical moments of insight and understanding that help any company or organization move their creative projects and productions forward.” – Sunshine Chen, founder of Storybuilders
Interrupting processes and systems of power is how the important work happens.
Jacob Zimmer and participant Dianne Roussin of the Winnipeg Boldness Project at Hope Decoded at Banff Centre.
3 Lessons Learned
1. Collaboration takes practice. Like sport or performance, collaboration is different every time, and it helps to have practiced. In the middle of high stakes project development, with the game on the line or the audience in their seats is not the time to start practicing. We need special spaces and time to practice very real skills and mindsets if the collaboration we hear so much about is really going to succeed.
2. Big conversations are hard, and important. And could use help. Real change is often difficult and can always benefit from caring design and empathic facilitation. Curious, kind facilitation focuses on impact and better questions to create spaces for listening, reflection and transformation.
3. In order for change to happen, we need to do things differently. This might sound obvious, but we've all been to a conference or a panel on "Innovation" that is run the same old way. How we work impacts the outcome far more than any visioning board or mission statement. And yet the systemic patterns that shape our collaborations are rarely examined, let alone reimagined.
If you've got a project or a team that needs more collaborative practice or big conversations, get in touch and we'll talk about how I can help.
Collaborate to create:
Creative organizational models
Better Questions
Inclusive Conversations
Lead workshops for:
Collaborative Strategies
Design Thinking
Theatre skills for facilitators, entrepreneurs and leaders.
Presentations and public speaking
Inspire with:
Talks, keynotes and workshops on the importance of bridges, play, difference and connections in art and beyond.
Founding Small Wooden Shoe Planning and Performance, I included "planning" because I knew that the wisdom and strength of the creative processes of performance connected with the struggles and opportunities of a much wider network – including social innovation, product design and any time that groups of people come together to make the exceptional, the reality. - Jacob Zimmer