We’ve held 7 meetings:

17 Nov launch party (30ish);

9 Dec inaugural planning meeting (8)

31 Jan dialogue round plus Feb/Mar event planning (9)

17 Feb insider-outsider dialogue 1 (12)

12 April theatre games (14)

17 May insider-outsider 2 awayday (17)

After the party 26 people have attended meetings in different combinations. Fiona, Tony and Colston have attended every meeting. Garth, Ian and Richard have attended 4 out of 5. Ann and Tony Williams have attended 3. Yvana, John Wilkes & Keith Jones have been to 2. Some others have just joined in and are showing signs of commitment: Bill T, Julie B, Malcolm T. Tirdad, Karen L. John Wilson is also strongly supportive. Jeremy K is too but has not been to any meetings. John Wilkes helped to plan May event.

Apart from Fiona and Tony, Richard, Colston, Eva, Garth, Yvana and Jeremy Keeley have all introduced new participants. Extension in February from outer dominated to internal and externals working together. Varied locations. Tony W and Tirdad have both offered corporate venues/support.

Finances: nothing formal. Early events originally financed voluntarily – Tony, Fiona, Keith; Richard in January. April onwards by sharing costs (chip in a tenner).

Mix of dialogue, planning and fun.

Growing interest in website – evidenced by number of hits

7 new articles added to Knowledge Pool since November. News and events regularly updated to show emerging story of New Intermediaries. Soft evidence that most people go straight into Knowledge Pool/News, bypassing other screens once they have had initial look. Some areas for development: list of people on website not yet fully reflective of NI community. Tony/Fiona feel that ‘how?’ section may need reviewing given it currently reflects external consultant perspective and covers ‘our approach and services’.

Tony and Andy currently doing research into change sponsers and role of improvisation in managing change. Hope to publish something in autumn.

Wendy Hirsch used NI as a case example for her Roffey Park research project on alliances and new forms of organisation.

Fiona and Tony authored, printed and distributed article on spontaneous change under NI ‘brand’.

"My thoughts have often turned to New Intermediaries and what I sense is it's catalytic role in developing an ever expanding community of practise of professionals whose role relates to organisations making the transition, out of their fixed and stifling boxes, to the post-modern era. For me some of the essential qualities of this transition are the re-integration of material and spiritual values in all walks of life and a deep and disciplined reverence for boundaries - in the same breath as boundaries are constantly and awarely shifting in relationships that are becoming far more fluid and less ritualised."

"My view is that it is great what you are doing and keep at it. I particularly like the concept of the training days. I (and the team I work with) would like some training in how to be great one on one coaches. We could swap tools and techniques for creative problem solving and lateral thinking in exchange. I know that is one of the New Intermediaries objectives. "

"As an outsider (albeit one who was made to feel very welcome) I would suggest that New Intermediaries has a valuable role to play by providing networking opportunities as well as helping consultants to feel as though they belong somewhere - especially independents appeared to be lonely and requiring to hear that they were still in touch with reality."

"Are you disappointed that the leadership has not been shared more? There are dilemmas for participants if they did want to share the lead. Would they feel impolite? Would they fear admin? Aren't you promising a go with the flow experience anyway? Probably more shared leadership is already happening than you realise anyway! Be realistic though about what stage you are at. Risk that if you dropped NI now it would just drop completely. Leadership is ready to evolve when an organisation knows and understands why it is there. NI may not yet have reached this point."

"Your NI experience is the basis of something. Do not really know what. It is not really something to sell, but it is something creative, a story perhaps. You could write a book about it."

"I think you are in denial about the link between NI and your need to generate work. I recognise and value the altruistic part of your intentions, but I don’t think you should be afraid of or ignore the commercial realities for both you and others. Do the two of you really want to open up the leadership to a larger group or is NI more an expression of your own work together?"

"When I think of NI I remember that dialogue and large systems change is close to my heart. I can lose this connection when I get busy and forget where my heart is. It seems to me that a collection of people came together through a love of what we do. It is important to me that NI provides a dialogue that I can move in and out of. It is continuing, organic, without very much structure. This is very different from the kind of network that

focuses on the question "how do we broker work between us", which might be OK for some people but not for me. If some people want to work on this question that's OK with me but/and I would be willing to examine my resistance to working on this question which would take us back into dialogue. The context of openness around our dialogue is important to me. I have not yet worked out to maintain my relationship to NI when I'm not

able to get to meetings. When my diary is free I will come along."

"NI is phenomenally exciting - a commitment to enhancing knowledge - but the

knowledge comes from contact. I'm realising how difficult it is to do this in e-dialogue space. It is not about top ten tips. There need be no definable outcome. When people do want measurable outcomes from dialogue I have the impression they don't want to do it (perhaps it's too close) or they don't believe in it. I get a bit angry, frustrated and a bit arrogant when people press me for such outcomes in KPMG."

"Since our last meeting I have:

1. felt good inside about my reactions to the people and to the content and process

2. used your phrase to describe what I do – i.e. that I help to make organisations good places to work in

3. discussed the relationship between internals and externals - in general – with clients, and then been able to talk with them about our particular relationship

4. recommended the story telling book to a client – and then bought it myself (thank you Colston).

So there has definitely been a return for me for the investment of time. This has arisen from the group; the design; the content; the information sharing processes.

From this I’d say that the formula is right for me as you have it now. BUT I draw a blank as to how you keep it all going unless you have definite, focused, determined, committed and visionary leaders – as you and Fiona are being. I hope the two of you will carry it on for at least another year as I think it’s still too young to float it off.

The only addition I’d suggest is to explore the possibility for having on-line meetings using the new technology available cheaply on PCs."

In 3 years time:

• New Intermediaries is vibrant and self-sustaining, amplifying the voice of people who understand people/change/organisations. It provides an energy source, a knowledge base, an abundant rather than a scarcity life-style for independent people working with change. We have held number of exciting, buzzy events each year. The energy is palpable. Emails are going to and fro. Face to face meetings are happening. All levels are operational: 1-1, small groups and large group. The website reflects the dynamic energy present and provides supporting infrastructure for online publishing, marketing, discussions, conferences etc. It is a strong attractor drawing people in. It is a place to be, to tell others about.

In 1 years time

• New Intermediaries has held 4 more events on really interesting themes. It is working as a valuable online medium too. New people are working on projects together as a result of being involved in the network together. We have succeeded in coming through early transitional crises over who is in/out and how tight/loose the structure needs to be. It remains a place with minimal structure in which exciting possibilities emerge. The dream of self-organisation has been realised in a few events happening that were not
• run by Fiona, Keith or Tony. F, K & T are succeeding in providing enabling structures that keep independent-minded people excited and involved together.

• A desire to reconnect with the intention and conversations that produced NI.
• Values of emergence, self-organisation, amplifying our voice, co-creating something, new consulting post-masters of the universe, dialogue across boundaries (jeux sans frontiers), creating shared knowledge base using both virtual and face to face channels.
• Creating and growing human capital in knowledge economy, live experiment that demonstrates new ways of working and organising.
• Change sponsors.
• Perhaps as one of many different groups our internal/external community wants to enter dialogue with. Other groups might include investor/shareholders, e-commerce giants, therapists, gurus/academics??? Who do we want to influence? Through whom do we want to
• change the world?

We can link New Intermediaries more explicitly with all of us raising our profile as internal/external consultants, consulting at points of leverage. NI helping us to know and find points of leverage in our work. Helping us become distinctive together for our work, and developing pride/esprit in this. Finding/growing a group of leaders that can feel excitement in working together to enact and evolve this intention.

Making it feel really tangible through a simple but exciting hallmark process, perhaps along the lines of the lightly facilitated process we evolved for May meeting with John Wilkes. Agreeing on a finite number of exciting meetings we want to hold for autumn

term and 2001 that move us forward with this.

• What have we learned so far? How have we each experienced New Intermediaries?

• What are the ‘givens’ which make New Intermediaries distinctive, relevant, worthwhile?

• Are there any sticky issues that need to be surfaced and resolved?

• How would we like to see the NI vision enacted in Autumn 2000 and beyond?