Facipulation is manipulative facilitation, where you guide/channel/force people into the outcome that you want, but with the appearance of having “merely” facilitated. I probably encountered it dozens of times before the scales fell from my eyes in October 2006 in Manchester, at the post-Climate Camp ‘what next?’ meeting.
Well, I’ve been mulling over a subset of facilitation, where the facilitator is not so much interested in a particular outcome, but in using the process to meet their (often insatiable) needs for attention/affirmation (akin, I think, to the concept of narcissistic supply).
I’ve encountered this a few times (see my avuncularitis post for one example.)
And while I really ought to be
a) writing
b) avoiding too many neologisms (I read a book that was just rotten with them, but seem to think that I am an exception to the “too many neologisms spoil the broth” rule)
I am batting around possibilitites (google does not suggest an alternative)
The best I can come up with is “Fac-ego-tation” in which the facilitator, by “accident” or design, turns the people present from participants to attendees, from contributors to ego-fodder.
Does anyone have a better term? If not, imma start using this one.
Update later the same day – And here is the deliberately crappy video (not that, if I gave it my all, my videos would be discernibly slicker).
marchudson.net 
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