In development
What I’m noticing, exploring, and learning
I use research, lived experience, conversation, data, place, and poetry to make sense of a rapidly changing world.
This is where I share current Allison Group thinking: ideas in progress, longer reflections, conversations, and things I think are worth noticing.
— Mary Ann Allison
This page is being built now. New pieces will appear here over the coming weeks, including two upcoming interviews with Mary Ann.
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Something worth noticing
Graphic recording from the Gary Hubbell Roundtable with Mary Ann Allison: Social Pattern Literacy, grounded hope and agency, inner development, alliances of intention, appreciative inquiry, truth, learning, purpose, and Ukraine in a single visual record of a live conversation.
Select the image to enlarge it.
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Social Pattern Literacy
Seeing the larger pattern
Social Pattern Literacy helps me look beyond individual events to the larger patterns shaping how people organize, communicate, decide, learn, and work together.
Here I share writing, essays, videos, conversations, and observations about social change—and what emerging patterns may help me understand about the choices in front of us.
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Poetry
Another way of seeing
Analysis is not the only way I understand a changing world.
Poetry can hold ambiguity, reveal relationships, and make visible things I may sense before I can explain them. Here I share poems arising from place, social change, Ukraine, loss, beauty, uncertainty, and possibility.
Living in This World
Patterns of Change
- From the Inside March 2026
- Footprints of the Now-Future September 2026
- Old Woman 1992
The Ukraine Cycle
- Fiddler on the Roof January 2026
- My Pilgrimage Thank You Letter October 2024
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Seeing the World Clearly
What I’m looking at now
Any living system needs a reasonably accurate understanding of its environment. Our World in Data makes an important contribution by bringing rigorous evidence to questions about how our world is changing.
From time to time, I select a chart that helps me see something worth noticing—and briefly explain why I chose it.
Why I’m looking at this
5 October 2026
Good news is especially welcome these days. After getting over the shock of reading that “In 1950, almost one in four children worldwide died before their fifth birthday,” I found this overall picture very encouraging. I took the time to look at the statistics by country. There were some interesting surprises for me. They prompted me to think more about each country that surprised me and wonder what the most important factors were. Finally, it is clear we still have work to do in this area.
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Explore more ideas
Search or filter by subject or format to explore writing, video, conversations, poetry, and other material.