Kim van der Woerd and Michael Quinn Patton worked together in 2016 as part of a team that created the Evaluation for Social Change and Transformational Learning Program at Simon Fraser University. This interactive blog illustrates and updates the kinds of conversations that framed the generation of that program MQP: This is the time of year when […]
From our Gulf of Maine Blue Marble Hub in Portland Maine, we have a Love Story about Nature. In today’s world, the dominant worldview is one where humans have control over nature. What if our love for the abundance that nature provides can be translated as legal status as a living being, not a bundle of
Nature as a Stakeholder – A love story Read More »
“Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going.” – Rita Mae Brown, American feminist writer At the end of each year the Oxford English Dictionary selects a word of the year. The selection is both retrospective, chosen because of dramatically increased use in both
2020 in Words: Insights into the Trajectory of Humanity on the Blue Marble Read More »
In January, before the pandemic, I offered a blog on Moving at the Speed of Trust: The Role of Blue Marble Evaluation. This is an updated review of how attention to trust has evolved during this turbulent year. In that new year’s blog I wrote: Trust matters for transformation. The Blue Marble theory of transformation hypothesizes
TRUST on the leading edge of survival Read More »
It seems like a long, long time ago when the clarion call for managing the coronavirus pandemic was flattening the curve, but it was only seven months ago. I predicted at the time that the widely communicated and highly effective graphic disseminated by CDC (2020) would become the world’s most famous, influential, and recognizable graphic visualization.
I’ve been doing evaluations and writing about the evaluation profession for nearly 50 years. For the last decade, I’ve been writing about evaluation under conditions of complexity (Developmental Evaluation) and global systems transformations (Blue Marble Evaluation). I’ve been getting queries from colleagues young and old, novice evaluators and long-time practitioners, asking how I’m making sense
Evaluation Implications of the Coronavirus Global Health Pandemic Emergency Read More »
On April 21, 2020, the Asia Pacific Evaluation Association hosted a webinar where they asked Michael Quinn Patton to explore the implications of the novel coronavirus for evaluation. The recording of the webinar can be found here. The webinar generated lively discussion among participants. Below are some of the questions and comments shared in the chat during the
In August of last summer, in Portland Maine, I wanted to know if people were interested in the idea of transformations systems mapping and analysis. So, I brought together leaders in Blue Marble Evaluation as well as experts in systems mapping for a design charrette on this topic – and to see if anybody cared,
Blue Marble Evaluation Featured at Esri Geodesign Conference Read More »
At the end of February, as part of a speaking engagement on Blue Marble Evaluation in Charlotte, North Carolina, I had the opportunity to meet with a group of community leaders, activists, and scholars to discuss how we collectively and individually approach the climate emergency in our own work and our lives. The group included
The Interconnection Between the Global and the Personal: A Blue Marble Perspective Read More »
This article by McKnight Foundation International program director Jane Maland Cady was originally published by the Global Alliance for the Future of Food and adapted here with permission. Summary: The McKnight Foundation has supported the first of the Blue Marble Evaluation innovators — from Michael Quinn Patton and the World Savvy team, to the evaluators embedded in the Global
