The history matters.
Helping People Work Better, Together
Professional Development
Presentations
The History Matters
Audience: All, including professional development
Have you or your group ever faced a problem, maybe one associated with the statement, "Well, that's the way it's always been"? Reasons exist for why people don't look to history to address today's problems. But if we don't know the history, we can't solve the problem.
This interactive presentation allows for individual or group engagement with how "doing" a bit of history can
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help us understand our own value in creating change
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open up possibilities for how to move forward more creatively
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lead towards resolution of problems--in our lives, in the workplace and institutions, and even on a much larger scale
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Solving Today's Problems
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Audience: Communities, organizations, companies
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Does your organization seem to face the same challenges over and over? Do prior efforts to address such challenges leave you feeling stuck in a rut? The "Solving Today's Problems" presentation teaches groups to think and work historically to address and deal directly with pressing challenges, including getting more people to notice you.
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This interactive presentation will help your group learn how much historical thinking can
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be used to better identify and understand the challenge
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contextualize the challenge
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reveal blind spots and bottlenecks of current problem-solving strategies
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lead to substantive change solutions.
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Takin' It to the Streets
Audience: Educators at all levels and across specializations
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How do we help students make direct, relevant, right-now connections between the classroom and the world at large--their world at large? And not only in a history or social studies classroom? This interactive presentation offers opportunities for encouraging students to engage with "real-live" history in families and our local communities, discovering the lived lives of people they may have more in common with than they realize.
Educators at all levels and across specializations can learn to see how thinking more historically
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​reveals relevance that many overlook
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peels away layers (sometimes literally) of what we see every day
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allows students to increase their engagement in their own education for the long term.
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We Can All Be ACTIVHISTorians
Audience: All, including professional development
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What is an ACTIVHISTorian anyway? Have you considered that thinking historically can help address today's problems? This foundational presentation explores how the historian's toolkit allows individuals, communities, organizations, companies, and government entities to address challenges that keep them from achieving goals and moving forward in new, creative ways. This presentation can also set the stage for a future workshop focused on the specifics of your group.
Attendees at this interactive presentation will learn how thinking historically can
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​generate new ideas, whether in a classroom or in the boardroom
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allow us to notice that a problem may be something different than we think
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help us rethink and reset goals with a more inclusive--and expansive--mindset
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Workshops
What's the Real Problem
Audience: Organizations, non-profits, companies, institutions, government entities
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Has your organization set goals or written an aspirational mission statement? Might those asked to carry them out sometimes notice a gap between aspirations and actual problems they grapple with in their roles? The "What's the Real Problem?" interactive workshop teaches organizations how to zero in on what might be creating that gap whether in the realm of marketing, recruiting (and keeping) volunteers, or otherwise.
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This interactive workshop allows attendees to discover how historical thinking
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​can help identify whether a mission is still in focus
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allows for a realignment between goals and actions
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encourages greater collaboration among people at all levels, leading to prevention of a disconnect between goals and outcomes.
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Making the Invisible, Visible
Audience: Organizations, government entities
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In the interest of other priorities, has your organization postponed a more careful assessment of the deeper roots of the challenges it faces? Do some seem to respond with resistance when questions enter that territory? This interactive workshop is designed for larger organizations that are ready to explore the vast opportunities and productive outcomes that are possible when we actively assess the past as we seek good questions--and good solutions.
Also adaptable for smaller groups, "Making the Invisible, Visible" allows participants to
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​view questions as opportunities, rather than threats
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explore how looking to the past increases opportunities for the future
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fully engage with how integrating historical thinking can reap organizational rewards in marketing and far beyond
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establish a stronger sense of trust and vested interest among employees and a client or customer base
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We Solved That Problem . . . Didn't We?
Audience: All
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Do you or your group notice that a challenge previously addressed seems to have morphed into a revised version? Has a solution to one problem inadvertently seemed to create a new one? This workshop grows from the foundational
"Solving Today's Problems" presentation, but does not require taking a prior workshop. It offers an interactive experience especially useful for those attending with common goals.
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Participants will discover more about how historical analysis can
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aid in more carefully assessing root causes of problems
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offer a collaborative approach to understanding a recurring problem
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prevent whack-a-mole approaches to solving problems and expanding organizational reach
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Digging Up Your History
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Audience: Small groups, organizations, institutions, companies
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Do individuals in your group have an interest in their personal history or has your group ever considered how its own history might be learned, recorded, and preserved? How might that history help expand your marketing reach? Does a rotating cast of volunteers that does a lot of your organization's work sometimes wonder "how that used to be done" or "is this a new problem"? "Digging Up Your Own History" offers attendees opportunities to consider why their history matters in crucial ways that go far beyond, but also integrate with, the sort of record-keeping that accountants, lawyers, and HR staff may require.
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This interactive workshop offers a foundation for discovering
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why knowing and preserving your history matters
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how individuals and groups can locate and preserve original documents while still promoting that history in digital form
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where people can look to discover history they didn't know existed--or mattered.
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ACTIVHISTorian Training
Audience: Versions for educators & organizations
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This interactive workshop extends beyond the foundational, "We Can All Be ACTIVHISTorians" presentation, and it is recommended that attendees have that experience prior to attending this training.
For educators, the focus is on bringing basic ACTIVHISTorian skills into the classroom and is especially appropriate for those teaching high school and higher education courses, but is available to all educators. Educators come away with
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increased knowledge about using an ACTIVHISTorian approach to engage students
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a greater understanding of how to help students locate historical documentation related to their interests/projects
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ideas for directly engaging with families, communities, and organization to help students see how much knowing their history matters
For organizations, this workshop increases skill development for solving specific challenges pertinent to the attendee's role or organizational goals. Individuals come away with
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increased knowledge about using history to uncover challenges and setting organizational goals
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clear steps for moving forward in addressing a challenge
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a greater understanding of how to locate historical information relevant to their goals
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how to situate themselves as a go-to person for adding insights for solving the next challenge
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