Friends, My USA tour is shaping up very nicely. I'll be meeting with Jim Rough (creator of Dynamic Facilitation) in Port Townsend, Washington. He set up a 30 minute TV show for the two of us, and we'll be having (separately) a roundtable discussion with some of Jim's friends. Several other meetings and discussions are also being arranged in Oregon. I'm particularly looking forward to meeting with Tom Atlee, Rosa Zubizarreta, and Tree Bressen - all involved with facilitation and community building. When in Hawaii, there may be an opportunity to give a public talk in Honolulu. In Palo Alto, on Weds Feb 18 at 8pm, we're having a roundtable discussion. Several people have signed up already, and there is room for more. Let me know if you're interested and I'll send more details. all the best, rkm ____________________________________________________ New idea for Global Transformation ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ In ZGT (Zen of Global Transformation, on the cj website) I put forward the idea that the key to global transformation is the creation of community identity and empowerment. The key to building community, I suggested, is learning to listen to one another and work together -- despite differences in interests, values, and beliefs. The final element in ZGT was the identification of the kind of process that can enable such listening and learning - Dynamic Facilitation (DF) or the equivalent. Recently, as I've reported, a Wisdom Council session was held in Oregon and it demonstrated exactly the kind of community breakthrough that I anticipated in ZGT. The session used DF and was facilitated personally by Jim Rough. I think this was a strong validation of some of the ZGT concepts, and I'll be meeting with several of the people who were involved in the event. I plan to incorporate some of their comments and experiences in my next publication project. What was lacking in ZGT was any notion of how we could systematically encourage the spread of such processes, and hence the widespread emergence of community. I've now thought of a way for that to happen, and as usual your feedback and comments will be appreciated. The idea is a simple one: self-replication. Instead of trying to arrange lots of community sessions, through some kind of activism or organization, the idea is to invent a kind of group, and a kind of process, which naturally clones itself - a social meme. The spark for this cloning - the launch of the meme - will come in the form of a carefully designed pamphlet. Let me first say something about the non-content characteristics of the pamphlet... Consider some of the meme pamphlets / books that are already out there, such as the best-selling stop-smoking and diet books. These propagate by two means - catchy cover and word of mouth. The pamphlet I have in mind would have a very catchy cover, with a good title and cover design, and endorsements from famous people. I'm hoping to get a Forward from Michael Moore. I'd probably publish it through one of the on-demand self-publishing organizations - it gets out quicker that way and gets listed on Amazon.com, Barnes&Noble.com, and bookstores get a listing for it. By these means, there would be hope for decent initial sales. If the content of the pamphlet delivers what I hope it will deliver, the word-of-mouth promotion should also be good. As regards content, I have in mind a Forward and three chapters. I'm not sure yet about the titles yet, but for now I'm calling the pamphlet, "We The People - Your Guide to Transformation". For the chapters, the working titles are, "Why Bother?", "Guide to Empowerent", and "Why not?". The "Why Bother?" chapter is basically an essay about how people can make a difference, and how ordinary people can find wisdom within themselves under the right circumstances. I'd hope this would be written by someone like Tom Atlee or Jim Rough. The idea is to cut through the reasons for political apathy and cynicism, and the assumptions that elections are the only way people can hope to 'make a difference'. The goal is to inspire hope and curiosity - motivation to read the rest of the pamphlet. It will suggest: "Use our Guide to start a group among your friends, neighbors, or colleagues. You will experience a breakthrough of mutual understanding and empowerment." The "Guide" chapter is a "How To" manual for holding DF-style sessions. This is one of the things I'll be talking to Jim and others about on my tour. We need a modified DF process that doesn't require a trained facilitator. This is typical of How To books. Usually some practitioner (doctor, counsellor, etc.) explains in layman's terms what she does in her own practice - so that people can do it for themselves. I'm hoping one of our DF practitioners (Rosa, Tree, or Jim) can write this chapter. This is the heart of the pamphlet. The "Why not?" chapter is about making use of the empowerment - "Why not go out and make a difference?". I'm thinking I'll write this one myself. There would be some words about how our civilization is heading for disaster, and how We The People are the only ones who will or can do anything about it. The rest might be summarized this way: "You've found in your group that We The People exists. By using the right process, your group has awakened to its identity and power. Why not start another group to spread the awakening further? Why not help awaken your whole community?" This chapter will include case-history examples where this kind of thing has been done successfully, or at least where significant progress has been made. Jim and Tom have such examples on their websites. Here's why I anticipate a meme / cloning effect - in addition to whatever propagation occurs from the publication process and word-of-mouth. From the experience in one of these "We The People" groups, I would expect that some percentage of the participants would be naturally motivated to 'spread the message' by forming another group. In addition, the "Why not?" chapter would encourage this explicitly, and would include suggestions for how to proceed. Notice that there is no political message, no reform program, and nothing that favors the Left over the Right. It's about creating democracy - and trusting the democratic process to carry things further. ____________________________________________________ -- ============================================================ "...the Patriot Act followed 9-11 as smoothly as the suspension of the Weimar constitution followed the Reichstag fire." - Srdja Trifkovic There is not a problem with the system. The system is the problem. Faith in humanity, not gods, ideologies, or programs. _____________________________ cyberjournal home page: http://cyberjournal.org "Zen of Global Transformation" home page: http://www.QuayLargo.com/Transformation/ QuayLargo discussion forum: http://www.QuayLargo.com/Transformation/ShowChat/?ScreenName=ShowThreads cj list archives: http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?lists=cj newslog list archives: http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?lists=newslog 'Truthout' excellent news source: http://www.truthout.org subscribe addresses for cj list: •••@••.••• •••@••.••• ============================================================