commons.ca - for networks

Building effective networks requires clear understanding of stakeholder needs, skillful facilitation, solid planning and a keen eye for collaborative opportunities.

Commons helps emerging networks and partnerships to articulate a vision, foster collaboration, create common assets and build lasting community infrastructure.

Networks are changing our world. Crossing boundaries between organizations and sectors, those who know how to collaborate are able to build trust, gather resources, coordinate voices and make real change.

Open Sourcing Education
This paper provides an overview of the current landscape in open education, and outlines challenges and opportunities for the future. It is based on discussions during the iSummit 2007 open education track, which took place in Dubrovnik in June 2007. Article » Download 145k PDF

BalkanBytes Business Planning Workshops - Regional Environmental Centre
Ran business planning workshop to help environmental NGOs in South Eastern Europe develop technology and information services enterprises. Each participating network created a plan describing market needs, products and services, marketing strategy and financing. Project

Database Strategy for Ontario Settlement Agencies - OCASI
Worked with the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI) to survey the case management database needs of frontline settlement agencies. The process included an online survey, three focus groups, in depth software reviews and software implementation case studies. The final outcome of the project was a report on database and information exchange standards for the settlement sector in Ontario. Project

CAP Business Plan Analysis - Industry Canada
Developed a report on sustainability trends within Ontario-based community-Internet access networks. The report was based on a day long facilitated session with CAP networks as well as a review of CAP business plans from across Ontario. Project

We provide a variety of services to support networks and partnerships, including:

Partnership development: Successful partnerships require clear goals, strong relationships and solid resources. Our hands on, practical partnership development process helps with: community needs assessments; strategic planning and governance; trust building; fundraising and project start-up.

Information ecosystem design: Free-flowing information is the currency of successful networks. We design and implement collective knowledge management and web publishing systems that create powerful information ecosystems within a network..

Collaboration troubleshooting: Collaboration can be hard. Working closely with organizational leaders, we provide troubleshooting services to help partnerships through difficult collaboration challenges.

Management support: While leadership of groups should come from its members, that doesn’t mean that they need to do all the work. We provide neutral management support services, helping network leaders to raise funds, implement strategic plans and facilitate network activities.

Facilitation: Building trust and transparency doesn’t happen on its own. We design and facilitate meetings that build bridges, solve problems, avert conflicts, move things forward to create a strong foundation for ongoing collaboration.