CW
Highpoint
Linkedin

Home

About

Services

Collaboration Tips

CW Blogger

Publications

Partners

Links & Bibliography

Contact Us


Together logo
The Ottawa We Want
The Ottawa We Want Wiki

bus-gov relations
For students of MBA5210 only

e-gov forum
For students of ADM3108 only


Take the Partnership Test!


‘forging better results through collaboration’

This is the homepage for Christopher Wilson and Associates (CWA), a management and research consultancy operating in Canada's National Capital since 1997. We specialize in issues of collaborative governance, regional stewardship and community-based action.Frequently acting as a learning coach, we work with clients to help them assess and reframe issues, build partnerships, create practical strategies, form effective policies, and evaluate outcomes. 

Our mission is to help organizations forge better results through effective collaboration. Our passion is to work with community innovators who recognize that making a difference, means bringing people together to work collaboratively. Our work with partnership organizations has led to important insights into partner management and governance renewal (see Resolving Collobration Issues).


Our philosophy is that people can accomplish more together than they can separately. This in fact is the philosophy that underpins every community.  In addition, we are commited to the principle of stewardship in organizations. We believe that those most affected by problems and those most influential in resolving them should take ownership and accountability for doing so. Top-down, patriarchical management practices are neither innovative enough nor compelling enough to produce the necessary commitments from stakeholders to achieve effective and lasting results. Yet if we can create more welcoming and authentic conversations, we cab begin to forge a new vision of possibility which we can then all begin living into.

See our
sample Wish List of projects we would be excited to participate in.

The core of our work, therefore, aims to address the problems of collective action and overcoming the ‘social traps’ that are created when individuals and organizations work together. To accomplish this, we help to develop new frameworks and paradigms, to improve levels of trust and transparency, and to create better mechanisms for satisfying contingent cooperation so that citizens, business leaders, and governments can make better use of their common resources in responding to their collective challenges.

As a point of departure, we encourage you to take the Partnership Test below to begin reflecting on the challenges that may be present in your organization or collaboration.

Our network of associates and partners includes leading academics, business and community leaders, and senior public service professionals, and technology application developers.
See Christopher's recent article "Attention to Place" in The Journal of Public Sector Management. It presents a comparative review of community-based policies in Canada and abroad as a means of addressing the 'policy imbalance' capacity.
In working recently with the Social Planning Council of Ottawa, CWA has identified 10 collaborative practices to encourage community knowledge mobilization, the development of a community of practice, and online collaborative tools by community stakeholders... more
As a learning partner, we have been effective interviewers, program evaluators, case writers and facilitators, engaging clients in the processes of both meaning making and analysis. CWA also designs and delivers professional development and learning programs (see Services).

Our experience covers all four sectors – public, civic, educational and private. Previous clients include HRSDC, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, Industry Canada, the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, the Ontario Ministry of Training Colleges and Universities, the City of Ottawa, the Ottawa Carleton Board of Education, the Commonwealth Secretariat, Ottawa Youth Services Bureau, CARE Canada, the Social Planning Council of Ottawa, Canada’s research granting councils (SSHRC, NSERC and MRC), the Centre on Governance at the University of Ottawa, the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation, in addition to private clients like CGI, Nortel, Mitel and the Internet Institute.
Perspectives picture

See Christopher's chapter on Innovation and Governance at KAO Infosystems Canada in Perspectives on Ottawa's High-Tech Sector
Our focus has been in six principal areas:
  • distributed, multi-stakeholder governance and community-based collaboration;
  • community networks and smart communities;
  • community information systems;
  • local workforce systems;
  • e-government;  and
  • regional innovation and regional advantage.

This page created with Netscape Composer

last updated 27 August 2009