Max Dumais is widely known as the Zing man because he installs and trains facilitators to use this electronic meeting system, but he is no stranger to Local Government.
“I started my professional life as a community development officer at the City of Sunshine back in the early 70s and spent two years in the early 80s as Mayor of the City of Malvern,” he said. “In fact, most of my career has been facilitating community planning consultations of one kind or another.”
In 1996, Max was appointed founding CEO of Dr Edward de Bono’s Institute in Melbourne. He found working with someone with this higher order level of thinking both inspirational and rewarding. A key result was the interest he developed into researching the interface between thinking and technology.
“De Bono’s notion of parallel thinking is simple, but highly effective,” Max Dumais said. “It means that people don’t have to adopt a position and spend all their energy defending it. Rather, everyone gets a chance to take an issue apart together, and then put it back together – together. When you marry that process with an electronic capturing system like Zing then you are really harnessing the collective synergy within a group.”
This month Max has donated his time to work with the LGPro’s Corporate Planners Forum to demonstrate the power of ICT systems in revolutionising the way people can work together strategically and collaboratively – and without the loudest voice dominating!
To find out more, visit www.aheadofthegame.com.au
