Dear readers, we have been inviting you to oe-tag every year since 2008, usually in the weeks between the end of May and the beginning of June. Once - during the coronavirus pandemic in 2021 - we refrained from doing so. In this respect, it is a new experience for us not to announce an oe-day this year. At oe-tag, it was (and is) important to us to open up spaces, bring people [...]

Dear readers, you could actually keep quoting Adrienne Marée Brown. Today it is: „What we pay attention to, grows“ - what we focus our attention on grows. This Pleasure Principle states that the positive view is a self-reinforcing force: advances in trust build trust; focussing on what succeeds strengthens success. The principle also implies that we [...]

Dear readers, we live in an age in which sentences are created in milliseconds. Algorithms calculate the probability of the next word, fill in blank pages and give us an impression of perfection that we often barely achieve ourselves. We at SOCIUS also work with artificial intelligence on a daily basis - as a tool, as a sparring partner, as an echo. But while we use the [...]

Dear readers, This SOCIUS letter is different than usual. It is a direct invitation. To everyone who has read about our Art of Hosting training in May over the past few months - and asked themselves: Is this for me? The honest answer: We don't know. But you do know. If you are interested in [...]

Dear readers, the days are getting noticeably longer, but the cold is only slowly receding. We are in this interim period in which winter is still lingering and spring is only just beginning. As in the ecocycle - this natural cycle of ripening, retreating and new growth - much is in transition here too. Not everything is visible yet, [...]

Dear readers, behind us all lies a year that has demanded a lot from us. We have juggled between crisis mode and the urge to create, we have held structures and probably all experienced moments in which hope briefly held its breath. We longed for feedback and didn't always get it the way we wanted it, too many [...]

Dear Readers, We can feel the rapid shift in general conditions at every turn. Not only politics, but also organisations, associations, clubs and authorities - they are all currently under even greater pressure to change than was already the case. Funding is disappearing, business models are faltering, value creation and impact logics are changing massively (not only in [...]

Dear readers, You are welcome! It's been a winding road, but now it's here, the new SOCIUS website! It's more than just a website that highlights what we do: it's a manifesto of our approach, an open media centre with hundreds of specialist articles, videos and podcasts, a shop with books and creative tools [...].

Dear readers, Don't be afraid of your magic, use it! This quote by adrienne marèe brown, derived from her essay “believing in magic”, appears on one of our SOCIUS postcards. The text begins with the sentence: "This is for all those who find it difficult to believe in magic, but who also know how important it is to [...]

Dear readers, Summer is here. For many, it's a time to pause, to get away, to let go. A time when we broaden our horizons - out of the dense interior of our work and into other rhythms. And sometimes it is precisely this distancing that brings back something crucial: a new perspective. A feeling for what is essential. [...]

Dear readers, I have the book „Tiny Experiments“ on my bedside table. It invites me to throw the big goals overboard and instead build small experimental set-ups that illuminate the way forward step by step. Not an entirely new idea, but good advice nonetheless: the tension between long-term orientation and immediate action is always [...]

Dear readers, we have been organising the oe-tag - the forum for (non-profit) organisational development - once a year since 2008. Every year, we focus on one topic of organisational development and examine it in depth - such as leadership, culture, self-organisation or improvisation. The oe-tag has never been an event for mere consumption, but always an invitation and offer to enter into dialogue with one another.

Dear readers, I recently attended a seminar on Critical Whiteness. Right from the opening session, the seminar leader reminded us that we cannot afford to be despondent and complain about the current state of the world. What unfolded over the three days was a moving experience of what it takes to overcome darkness and powerlessness [...].

Dear readers, It's been almost a month since the Bundestag elections and all the excitement there was in society during the election campaign, the progressive division of social groups, continues unabated, even though the designated new federal government under Merz negotiated an amendment to the Basic Law with the remaining government in the old Bundestag just last week. The question marks in my head about the [...]

Dear readers, the future is not created in a straight line, but often in spaces in between - in liminal spaces. These are transitional zones in which the old no longer fully exists, but the new has not yet been fully formed. They are characterised by change and transformation. They are places of change - full of possibilities, and also full of uncertainty. They can harbour creative [...]

„We all have fireworks inside us. Sometimes it just takes the right moment to set them off.“ - Alice Walker Dear reader, We all look forward to this kind of inner firework when the moment comes and it ignites. The sparkle and glitter is a celebration for us. And the New Year's Eve rockets? How do [...]