short report from WTF london networked youth Open Space on world change

[Chris Macrae]

There's a ring of London graduates, from London School of Economics etc, who have started running monthly open spaces and parties etc to discuss big issues , and sometimes technological solutions. They are probably one of the strongest peer networked groups "Out of" London (though I always like hearing other nominations). Being fiftysomething, I'm not centrally linked but could probably introduce anyone who needs to be.

Meanwhile here's a typical session notes from yesterday's Open Space meet in Leytonstone (east london):

SESSION
Seeing the whole picture of world change- who networks who, and how to participate from each community up

This awesome discussion was attended by c.20 people (list). First, what title of the session do we want? Either I've forgotten or  we had more than one!

3 MAIN WAYS
Three main ways of looking at connections between issues and networks were discussed:
-1-how to classify the problems into broad themes and interconnections -arguably the traditional way in which World Change is both sectionalised for news and movement, but in many pressing human realities very much interdependent too- example research of the billion people without fresh water shows this is as much a geopoloitcal conflict issue as an ecological one

-2-mapping who or which networks have SOLUTIONS with large and open reach, and to which issues, and who the contact people are

-3-how each person in our conversation describes their own foremost concern for the world and people, and any interlinking system factors

Here are some notes on the 3rd of these views:

the most nominated issue was world peace; for some this was also connected with economic or social systems that deliberately exploit fear or divert people's time from consciousness of what is happening; mass media and big organisations seem to be compounding such loathesome patterns; meanwhile quality of life was mentioned by many as what's being sacrificed at every human's being

sustainability information issues included enshrining in law biodiversity principles, and the public having the right to access the real cost of products which we choose between as consumers

devolving power to communities and/or organising at community levels was advocated as a priority

clearly networking technology (subject of many parallel conversatins) provides many possibilities for either improving or worsening world change; we need people from kids up educated about keeping the internet open, truly communal and what new democracy forms should be chatted about- when 3 million people march to the centre of government they are saying 'one vote every 5 years' to give you carte blanche to represent us on everything is a system of democracy that's well past its sell by date

in human terms, what we want to see and help co-evolve is open (models of) society that gives every person a chance to realise their full human potential, something which most of the crisis issues cited seem to be spinning us further and further away from

WIKI ALL THIS
What Conversation is Next at WIKI version of this?
Your ideas welcome.Please will someone put it up on the WIKI and tell us where. If you saw anyone interested in these notes who I may have missed, please relay (in particular Kip Kolson who wrote his web not email and an email that started princess.. but which I couldnt read).
At the WIKI, will you edit the biggest thing you said that I haven't noted? If we have bookmarks to where problem solving is being led, I'd vote to see a lot of that.

On a selfish note I have a book coming out on how to revalue the trustworthiness of everything big organisational systems do. Its aim, after 5 years of research, is to mix up 4 targets of influence: 1 being humanitarian change leaders who need to mix up the other 3 targets. If anyone feels like helping me edit my one-page version of the book's scope to maximise conversation with this community or ones with mutual affinity, I need that help!)

chris macrae, wcbn007 at easynet.co.uk . I would also love to hear anyone else's most selfish 'do now' notes


These meeting notes are supposed to editorially improve at an after-WIKI but not yet sure whether such works:
http://wtfcon.org/wtf1_goals_for_sustainability

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