This is the book that takes collaboration to the next step! Collaboration Soup is a guide for transforming boring and frustrating meetings into productive and enjoyable ones. This fun and easy to read book is based on the classic fable Stone Soup, where hungry people working cooperatively and collectively make a great meal for everyone to share. Using this simple-to-follow recipe, new projects can be launched and new solutions found for the complex and inter-dependent problems of today's organizations, communities and families. New or experienced meeting leaders will discover how to create the conditions that effectively blend the collective wisdom of groups and organizations. It includes the authors' best practices and troubleshooting trips gathered over 25 years of professional group facilitation. REVIEWS "Thank you so much for the book on collaboration. I can't put it down! It contains great tips and suggestions, and it's compact. I belong to several collaborations and this provides great ideas to strengthen collaborations." Doug Rowand, President Arrowhead United Way "In the non-profit world collaboration happens all the time, formally and informally, and we haven't had the formal training in order to do it well. COLLABORATION SOUP is a very practical and very specific book that presents things I had never thought of- it's not just philosophical. It is really helpful and enlightening." Claudia Armann McCune Foundation (SB) Co-chair 2011 Partnership for Excellence "Reading Collaboration Soup had the effect of putting me in the right frame of mind for planning an upcoming event-- it got me to the right mental place where I could access my facilitator skills which have been latent for a few months." Lucas Cioffi AthenaBridge-visual software for large-scale online conversations. Jan 8, 2011 "Clarity is hard to come by. Your book has really clear steps for each phase of the process of facilitation. Very easy. I've been involved in so many collaboration groups, and it's so easy to let really important things slide. Wonderful having a simple reminder in front of you about the things you must do." Sandy Heierbacher, Title, NCDD National Coalition of Dialog and Deliberation Dec 6, 2010 "WOW!!! I wanted to let you know how impressed I am and how much I've already gotten out of it. It is definitely a must read for anyone in a similar position to mine. I congratulate you on finally empowering the masses to be more collaborative and therefore more productive. Thanks again for hitting a homerun!" Bill Collyer, Executive Director Santa Barbara Downtown Association Date, 2010