Human to Human

Wicked article on Greed and Scarcity from Yes Magazine. By Bernard Lietaer. Hard not to be interested in an article on “biggest issues” humanity faces with the doorway of economic systems.

Excellent paper from Toke Moeller and Interchange on applications of the Art of Hosting
Other excellent resources from Interchange

Open Space Technology — Articles and Videos

Life on an AoH Host Team — A helpful description by Teresa Posakony on what it is like to be on a hosting team. Includes some on structure / flow, how to participate, teaching / learning, and working with participant hosting teams.

Guidelines for Calling an Art of Hosting — A few simple steps and rough timelines for people considering calling an AoH.

Arts

Proletariat Theatre — I met Rob Luckau, Company Director, through the Salt Lake Center for Engaging Community. I loved his commitment to building community, theatre being one medium for doing such.

“It is the mission of Proletariat Theatre to provide substantial theatre opportunity, education and experience to people of all communities and socioeconomic backgrounds. We will provide and support quality theatre education and experiences in a helping, learning environment. We value the talent in all individuals and their willingness to learn. We are committed to the development of the artist, actor, writer, techie and director in everyone.”

Articles

The Work of Leadership (Ronald A. Heifetz, Donald L. Laurie) — I love the subtitle: “Leaders do not need to know all the answers. They do need to ask the right questions.” I also like the way this article describes complex problems, “adaptive challenges.” These are not challenges to do more of the same. They are challenges “when our deeply held beliefs are challenged, when the values that made us successful become less relevant…” It also speaks to me to the need to address change from the level of identity. Less from “technical job description.” More from “adaptive learning innovators.”

The Art of Powerful Questions (Eric E. Vogt, Juanita Brown, David Isaacs)

Invitations — For several Art of Hosting Trainings

Tips for Hosting Large Open Space Meetings

Video

Conversation as a Radical Act — Juanita Brown

The Global Mindshift — I like the conciseness of description on the requirement for connection, for global community to be in global challenges.

Harvesting (Chris Corrigan, 3 minutes) — From Tampa Bay Art of Hosting, that Chris and I co-hosted with others in May 2008.

This is a book recommended to me by Vern Woolf. What is alive for me is the general notion that the world and reality is not what it seems. This is something I’ve felt deeply for much of my life. It has led me into many significant paths, including spiritual journeys, and a life of much curiosity. It is a book grounded in science, yet readable for the non-scientist. It is a mind-shifting read, for me, to include deep wonderings (disturbing and compelling) about what is really real.

The book is available here.

A few general ideas that have my attention:

– The universe itself is a kind of giant hologram…projections from a level of reality so beyond our own it is literally beyond both space and time.
– The holographic model helps to make sense of a wide range of phenomena including telepathy, precognition, mystical feelings of oneness, psychokinesis. It also offers alternative explanation about the vastness of memory, recall and forgetting ability, associative memory, photographic memory, and transference of learned skills
– Since Western science has devoted several centuries to not believing in the paranormal, it is not going to surrender its additiction lightly.

A quote that in intriguing:

“Sit down before fact like a little child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.” T. H. Huxley

A story:

Early studies by Pribram were about where memories are stored in the brain. Research in the 30s and 40s indicated memories were stored in specific areas of the brain. However, later research contradicted this. Rats trained to find their way through a maze had parts of their brains removed, even drastic and varied sections, but could still find their way through the maze. The conclusion was that memory was distributed throughout the brain. The implication is that the whole is contained in all of the parts, or is available in all of the parts.

Questions:

If holographic films are created by the interference, the intersection of several frequencies, what does this mean for social technologies? I suspect that as we create formats for interaction, for our individual frequencies to show up in general or around specific issues, the whole of the experience becomes available in any of the participants. This has so many implications for sustainable change in large systems that I am just beginning to find words for. Worth noting that “interference” in this is a good thing. It creates the holograph.

In short:

Wow! What a helpful way to see into more of the whole of experience. My intuition tells me this is spot on. A holographic description helps me to have a bit of an anchor in the letting go of the known. A kind of meta framing for a very different world, much different than what I have told myself that it is. And encouragement to continue to see and feel and work with the resonance of people, groups, ideas, places, times.

2009
2008
2007

January 19-20, 2009 — Providence Care
Kingston, Ontario — Leadership Meeting
With Lauri Prest, Bob Stilger, Toke Moeller, Michael Jones, Teresa Posakony

January 22-26, 2009 — International Disciples Women’s Ministries
Greensboro, North Carolina — Biannual Cabinet Meeting
With Adonna Bowman, Judy Row, Patti Case, Teresa Posakony

February 7, 2009 — Salt Lake Center for Engaging Community
Salt Lake City, Utah — Sustainability Summit Core Team

February 19, 2009 — Salt Lake Center for Engaging Community
Salt Lake City, Utah — World Cafe Workshop

March 22-25, 2009 — Art of Hosting: Strengthening Families
Springfield, Illinois — Open Enrollment Training
With Lina Cramer, Renee Jackson, Chris Corrigan, Muryah Baldwin, Teresa Posakony

March 30 – April 2, 2009 — Disciples of Christ
Morgantown, Indiana — Art of Hosting: Creating a Movement for Wholeness
With Patti Case, Linda Gardner, Teresa Posakony

April 16, 2009 — Salt Lake Center for Engaging Community
Salt Lake City Utah — Appreciative Inquiry Workshop

April 27-30, 2009 — Art of Hosting
Ottawa, Ontario — Open Enrollment Training
With Jean Ogilvie, Pamela Shreiver, Allister Hain, Chris Corrigan, Kathy Jourdain, Teresa Posakony

May 14-17, 2009 — Leadership in a Self-Organizing World
Leavenworth, Washington

May 26-29, 2009 — Canadian Labour Congress
Cornwall, Ontario — Education Committee Training
With Tamara Levine, Chris Corrigan, Esther Matte

June 1, 2009 — Providence Care
Kingston, Ontario — Leadership Development Program
With Lauri Prest

June 3-4, 2009 — Providence Care
Kingston, Ontario — Conversational Leadership Workshop
With Lauri Prest, Anny Symes

June 17-21, 2009 — Institute of Noetic Sciences
Tucson, Arizona — Bi Annual Conference World Cafe and Participative Learning
With Kathleen Erickson, Teresa Posakony, Sharon Joy Kleitsch, Jane Gignoux

June 28-July 1, 2009 — Art of Hosting
Gold Lake Mountain, Colorado — For People Asking Urgent Questions About Money Issues
With Martin Siesta, Christina Baldwin, Ann Linnea, Teresa Posakony, Marty Kurtz, Elizabeth Jetton, Dick Wagner

July 3-12, 2009 — Family Vacation
Fairmont, British Columbia

July 16-21, 2009 — Art of Hosting Community of Practice
Bowen Island, British Columbia

July 29 – August 1, 2009 — Disciples of Christ
Indianapolis, Indiana — General Assembly World Cafe and Participative Learning
With Patti Case, Teresa Posakony

August 3-7, 2009 — Camp Valor
Tooele, Utah — Hemophilia Foundation Camp with Isaac

August 27-30, 2009 — Art of Hosting
Wellington, New Zealand — Open Enrollment
With Toke Moeller, Mary-Alice Arthur, Glen Lauder, Helen Emerson

September 3, 2009 — Landcare Research
Auckland, New Zealand — Client Coaching
With Glen Lauder, Wayne Know, Roq Gareau

September 4-5, 2009 — Te Waiora a Tane
Whatipu, New Zealand — Men’s Gathering
With Wayne Knox, Roq Gareau, Glen Lauder

September 18, 2009 — Providence Care
Kingston, Ontario — Conversational Leadership: Thinking Together for a Change
With Roy Romanow, Juanita Brown, Phil Cass, Lauri Prest, Teresa Posakony

September 25, 2009 — Salt Lake Center for Engaging Community
Salt Lake City, Utah — Sustainability Summit
With Ben Mates, Jane Holt

October 15-18, 2009 — Art of Hosting
Vancouver Island, British Columbia — Open Enrollment Training
With Chris Corrigan, Caitlin Frost, Teresa Posakony, David Stevenson, Diana Smith, Nancy McPhee, Paula Beltgens

November 6-7, 2009 — The Canadian Media Guild
Toronto, Ontario — Presidents Council Planning Meeting
With Barb Saxberg, Marc-Philippe Laurin

November 9-11, 2009 — Art of Hosting
Rosendale, New York — Open Enrollment Training
With Nancy Fritsche Eagan, Martin Siesta, Silas Lusias, Kelly McGowan

December 12, 2009 — The Berkana Institute, The Salt Lake Center for Engaging Community
Salt Lake City, Utah — Participative Leadership Appetizer
With Kathy Lung

December 23, 2009 — Family Holiday
Fairmont, British Columbia

A reflection from a caller and participant of a cafe that I hosted last fall. Meredith Lovato is a student at the University of Utah. She and a few classmates, including a hosting pal here in Utah, Kathy Lung, invited me to create a cafe with them, held in November 2008, the day after elections in the US. Meredith invited her dad, mom, and grandmother to participate. I love the opening that this created, both at the cafe, as well as how it carried to her family home.

Sharing the World Café Experience with Family:

Because our group considered conversation as a radical act that could
possibly change the structures of conversation we have been accustomed
to in today’s society, I decided to invite my family with hopes that
this new way of conversing would change the dynamics of our usual
conversations.

Most of the conversations in our everyday life have the same structure
of pyramid. We listen, only giving suggestions as they are asked for,
or if the environment feels safe. Conversations have become
polarized; I’m right, you’re wrong; it’s this way or that, instead of
working to find a middle ground. W ith the world café, you must listen
to understand; listen with intent. Not just until it is your turn.

Having conversations about political and social issues with my family
can be straining because I share very different views from the rest of
my family. Normally there is a power structure in our conversations
at home, with the majority expressing their views, and everyone else
listening. However, the guidelines of the World Café created a
relaxing and peaceful space where I felt comfortable expressing my
views, even if they were different.

This comfortable environment where everyone was encouraged to
contribute allowed me to consider new perspectives that I hadn’t
before. When you listen with intent, and people become comfortable
enough to share, you discover new ideas and ways of thinking. Through
this process, I found that my conservative father was listening and
finding common ground with a person who had completel y opposite views.

Introducing my family to the World Café was not only valuable for me,
just as valuable for them. World Café gave us the chance to interact
with each other in new ways and get chance to know and converse with
people we normally wouldn’t have the opportunity to meet.

My parents and grandmother loved the opportunity to meet my friends
and classmates, and they also enjoyed being able to sit down and have
a conversation with them. At the end of the experience, my Dad told
everyone in the room how amazing it was to see people of all different
ages, passions, and opinions sit down and talk face to face, and get
along. He was happy to communicate with me through more than a text
message, which made me realize how important it is to actually
communicate with people.

As Kathy mentioned, the World Café was intended to be a process that
could change the core image of the hierarchical structure our social
systems are centered around, and after our project I know that simple
conversation can change things. Sharing this intimate experience with
my family has not only brought me closer to them, and opened my ideas
to new perspectives, but it has also changed how we communicate. This
experience changed the way we communicate as a family. It is no
longer so structured, everyone gets the chance to express their
opinion in a non-threatening way. Just as the World Café intended, we have moved from simply taking to, to listening with intent.