Giving Voice, 

Creating Relationships  

~ facilitated by Stuart Chittenden, Squishtalks

Stuart Chittenden’s humanities project “a couple of 830 mile long conversations” was a journey through conversation into community. Traveling through Nebraska towns in an RV, Stuart talked with residents about their lives, their landscapes and their stories. Listening to others and sharing our voices is a profoundly moving experience. Eschewing “engagement,” we will explore a human approach to motivating organizational community using experiences and lessons drawn from Stuart’s project. Together, we shall consider conversational principles and practices that nurture belonging, motivate a sense of shared endeavor, and guide creation of spaces in our social and business worlds that enable community to flourish.

This session will illustrate conversation in action and inspire your personal reflection on the sharing of our voices. Through structured interactions, you will adventure through conversation into discovering others, revealing your self and catalyzing our community. You will also identify how to create opportunity in your personal and professional spaces to give voice to others and to encourage relationship-based community.

Stuart Chittenden, Squishtalks

Stuart is a British expatriate that has called Omaha, Nebraska home for the last decade. He has come both to appreciate and to be curious about the state beyond the city. He believes that conversation helps us to live better and well, as individuals, families, and communities. Chittenden founded Squishtalks, a conversation consultancy, to design and deliver conversation programs for corporate and non-profit organizations, for public and community purposes.

Chittenden also is a partner at the Omaha-based branding consultancy, david day associates, where he consults on brand strategy with local and national clients, helping them understand why they exist, what their purpose is, and how they should engage their stakeholders.

In the Omaha community, he has been a Big Brother through Big Brothers Big Sisters and served on the Omaha Public Library Board of Trustees. As an amateur poet, Chittenden’s work has been published in The Antigonish Review, the Blue Moon Literary & Art Review, Euphony Journal and the Tulane Review.

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