coevolution

What's it All About?

Nancy Margulies sent in a link to this Art of Hosting video, which gives a great overview of the self-organizing design shared by the World Café and all living systems work:

New Frontiers in Participatory Knowledge Development

Fielding Graduate University’s Institute for Social Innovation Announces Groundbreaking Research Partnership with the World Café

By Thomas J. Hurley for the World Café Community Foundation

An exciting new partnership brings together Fielding Graduate University’s Institute for Social Innovation and the World Café Community Foundation to develop and disseminate the World Café as a methodology for participatory research and collective knowledge evolution, and to explore applications of the World Café in key areas such as change leadership, organizational development, and societal learning.

Conversation as a Radical Act

Juanita, along with a little help from GiGis (Girl Geeks) Nancy Margulies, Nancy White and Amy Lenzo, unrolled some of her recent thinking in a presentation called Conversation as a Radical Act last week at the 2007 Pegasus Systems Thinking Conference in Seattle.

The ideas focus on the nexus between issue-based content and the 'process arts' that can help us take the conversation about them to a new level, leading to action grounded in collective wisdom.

The Ultimate Source

I have some further thoughts to share on UR ("UR", by the way, refers to not only my initials but “the ultimate source or the start of everything” in Swedish, and as you may or may not know, is the city in the Bible from which Abraham originally came).

In fact it was probably in Africa, not in the Arabic part of the world, that humans first become humans. And guess what - there is evidence that this period, 100,000 to 10,000 years ago, was a period based on collaboration, peaceful conflict resolution and above all talk, talk, talk and more talk.

Swedish scientists have done extensive research on this and they found we first lived in small groups of 20 to 100 people who in any given week averaged 2.5 days for gathering and hunting and 4.5 days on talking. The conclusion they came to from this data was that the brain, the neurological system, and our hormonal systems have had 90,000 years of programming us for talk and collaboration, and only 10,000 years for competition and fighting.

Do you think this will have affected the constitution of the human being? Yes, I thought so! The World Café is a modern version of the oldest form of social construction humans know!!!

Tällberg

The Tällberg Forum is an open conversation that has been going on annually in Tällberg, Sweden for the last 25 years - gathering business leaders, politicians, artists, scientists, and leading thinkers around the world (including Juanita, David, and many others from our communities this year) to explore questions of great importance to us all.

Like the inspiring new public access to TED talks, they've done something really innovative this year. Every day they posted a new video from the previous day's session on their website, each illustrating one of the 9 crucial themes they used as 'Tracks' for 2007's "How on Earth can we live together?" Forum: Do we care? Can we share? What is sustainability? Can we stay healthy? Can we stay safe? Can we agree? Can we do as we do? Is one earth enough? Does only money count?

Oneness

The Global Oneness Project engages with some of the big questions facing humanity through wonderful video interviews, including this one with our own Tom Hurley speaking about healing, perceived dualities of western culture, and the soul's knowing.

I think this is a fantastic use of technology for global storytelling... after all it is through our stories that we become real to each other, and begin to develop the understanding that leads to love and compassion. With the advent of places to share them like YouTube and projects like this, video becomes a new form of conversation that can flash like wildfire through the hearts and minds of internet-connected humanity.

Dresden

Attending World Café Europe's recent gathering in Dresden was a profound experience for me and somewhat like a 'living bardo' that re-lived the cycle of years since February 1945 until May 2007:  from the experience of dreams that brought back what seemed like the endless sound of bombers, day and night, leaving England to destroy the Nazi war machine in Europe.

Eden is a Conversation

Barry Lopez talks of Eden as a Conversation. What a wonderful metaphor. Note to self 1: Have co-evolutionary conversations with sunlight, birds and flowers more often. Note to self 2: Remember that giving and receiving care and attention is co-evolutionary conversing.

Talking it Through

Born on the northeast coast of England, of Viking and Welsh ancestry, I grew up as a granddaughter of the Empire and daughter of the Commonwealth. As a young girl in the years following the First World War, I puzzled and then grieved that the men came back so hurt—legs lost, difficulty breathing––and so many dead. How could we have done this? I wondered. Why couldn’t we have talked it through? This was a question that really mattered to me.

Later, studying the armistice conditions ending the war, it became very clear that the lack of ongoing and authentic dialogue among nations created conditions for future conflict. I determined that, when I grew up, I would study ways in which these mistakes would not be repeated.

Compelling Conversations

The following is a story in response to a question Juanita posed:

How did you become aware of conversation as a co-evolutionary force and why do you think that is an important insight for engaging with the critical challenges of our time?

It was 1970 and I was 16, a ‘run-away’ living in a hippie commune in the back woods of Vermont.