Joe Gerstandt | keynote speaker, freedom fighter, freak-flag flier

With my writing and speaking I get to live in a very cool world called “The Way It Should Be.”  I love that world dearly and I spend a lot of my free time there.  I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, as my work is really about helping to build the bridge   [Read More…]

More on the alchemy and the ecology of the organization… A couple of things have been bouncing around in the empty space between my ears: This post from my virtual twin brother Jamie Notter.  Not just because he is my virtual twin brother, and not just because I get quoted in the post…I think there   [Read More…]

I think that organizations are truly more about alchemy and ecology than they are about finance, strategy and tactics.  I think that very few organizations actually understand that and this is a big part of the reason that the organizational lifespan is still not terribly long. Organizations that favor conformity over diversity, that value title   [Read More…]

It is Friday.  And on Fridays I try to promote and celebrate the flying of the Freak Flag.  The Freak Flag represents a lot of things.   Here are a few… It is the celebration of coloring outside the lines. It is for wearing socks that say something. It is the celebration of chair dancing, because   [Read More…]

A lot of leaders, organizations and communities say the right things about diversity and inclusion today.  Unfortunately (at least from my perspective) that is about as far as it goes.  I see very few organizations and very few communities that are actually doing anything of substance regarding diversity and inclusion.  I think that a great   [Read More…]

Because of my tree-hugging, dirt-workshipping ways, people tend to assume that I am a liberal / progressive / Democrat. I no longer know what any of those words mean, and maybe more importantly I no longer care.  I do know that they are connected to non-stop efforts to raise money and win elections, which I   [Read More…]

Slidedeck for session at the CHRA 2010 HR Conference: zen and the art of inclusion View more presentations from Joe Gerstandt.  

I heart Twitter. I joined Twitter 686 days ago and will soon be celebrating two years of Twitterhood.  I love it madly.  I do not think that Twitter is for everyone, but if you “do not get Twitter”, I think that you need to spend some time there in order to fully understand it before   [Read More…]

Had great conversations with a couple of people I am terribly fond of this morning and I am left thinking about organizational and community boundaries. All organizations and communities have boundaries and send messages about who is welcome inside those boundaries and who is not.  Some of this is communicated through very explicit messages, but   [Read More…]

Wonderful five minute video I stumbled across on Chris Brogans site: Also, check out EightPrinciples.com Be Good to Each Other.