[OSList] Village Care notes! Chats 3 &4

[David Glenwinkel]

Great job, thanks!

 

From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org [mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of Tricia Chirumbole
Sent: Friday, April 05, 2013 10:02 AM
To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
Subject: [OSList] Village Care notes! Chats 3 &4

 

hi all! 

 

Following is a rather lengthy set of notes detailing the past 2 Village Care conversations...whew! 

 

As before, the notes were processed very little and are likely to include mistakes and omissions :)

 

Village Care chat 3

 

Participants: Skye, David, Suzanne, Pernilla, Tricia, Marie Ann, Linda Stevenson, Paul Levy

·         Skye has talked with David 1:1 and asked him, “What does he want out of this?” [skype discussions, interactions]

o   David’s response: He likes metaphysical discussions, but he loves action. What’s next? How do we go global? 

·         David will connect Tricia with the Village Care leader in Nigeria for connecting her Ghanaian friends – he covers Ghana, Togo, Benin, Cameroon….

·         Suzanne: Introduces how she is passionate about unleashing leadership at any level and that our North American model formed in the Industrial Age, hierarchies, etc., is not working!

·         She has been working with Millennials in the realm of unleashing leadership. She feels we are at a crossroads, not just for poor communities, but for the “wasteland” of the young generation. They have vast potential, but also vast college debt. She wants to unleash their leadership so that they can unleash that of others!

o   She wants us all to come to Florida [for the WOSONOS in case you weren’t sure!], so we can respond to the prompt: The world is waiting!!There is much ready to emerge, are we ready? 

·         Paul: He is inspired by the discussion David gave of the respect for elders in the decision making of African villages. 

o   What can we learn about the elder system in business and corporate settings? 

o   He sees commonalities among healthy communities. 

·         Either Paul or David suggests, “that no company is healthy for more than 1 or 2 years at a time” [then they need to reassess, refresh, regroup]

·         David shares that in his experience leaders tend to be buried in companies and are not necessarily the nominal leaders – he can usually “feel the rhythm” in a business and identify the true leaders, as well as feel if there “spirit” is “right” or “wrong”.  

·         David mentions how Village Care is supported by him and 3 friends with no outside support.

o   He was close to spreading the work further, but ran out of money, time, and energy. 

·         Paul: applying the Village care principles to the corporate world: In regards to the importance of using only African facilitators for the village care work, why don’t we find people in organizations , homegrown people, to run the circle?

o   David replies that he doesn’t even do the intro in his programs

o   Skye asks if he can identify characteristics of a good facilitator?

o   David says he is not sure how he does it, he just knows

§  Trying to make all of the program “Dumb ass simple” J so anyone can use it. 

o   Pernilla suggests that it may depend on the question. In a conflict situation, it may help to have an external person, whereas for a “building” focused initiative, internal may make sense.

o   Paul shares that one time on a project in Eastern Europe, he did not feel right opening the circle, so he asked someone else to do it, [someone internal or local I am guessing] and it worked!...Another time, they requested the “Englishman”, so he did the opening. 

·         Pernilla opens discussion about the difficult of applying things at a global level. In relation to the complexity and varying relationships between governments and people.

o   She adds that in Denmark, the citizens have a “graceful view of government”

§  Some Americans on the call are confounded by this concept :o

§  The Denmark States’ relationship with the individual is to protect them from the family/clan [demands I guess] – this is also intriguing to a few of the Americans! 

·         Skye proposes that the key to a revolution is 1) Hope; 2) Seeing Progress

·         Discussion about whether or not to use social media and the web for sharing ideas or how to. 

o   Paul offers that there are comparable web services “behind the firewall” that do not have the commercial distractions and ties of those such as twitter. 

§  More on this Paul? 

·         Discussion on how/if to open up the discussion to everyone interested in the spirit of OS or not.

o   Concern presented that the discussion/group may get too large to manage effectively. 

o   Suzanne suggests some tools she was introduced to by Ben Roberts of Dialogue and Deliberation that can be used to break groups into smaller groups [I think this applies to skype discussions, but not sure!]

o   Seems to be consensus that this approach sounds reasonable

 

 

Village Care chat 4

 

Participants: Skye, David Gwenlinkel, Tricia, Linda Stevenson, Denyse (David’s colleague/acquaintance)

 

·         Skye: Interested in the intersection among OS, Village Care model, and her work with autognomics –

o   possibility of identifying Universal Principles?

§  Seems to include the existence of “self agency” or personal agency

§  Coherence seems to be another

o   Looking at the “why” behind processes that work

o   Applying these concepts to breaking cycles of poverty

o   Notes that the rate of change is happening at a pace in recent history that allows us to observe processes, not just outcomes, as well as the evolution of process. 

§  Inspecting the phenomena consistent across living systems can aid in a revolutionary change in the way we think [about our world and place in it]

§  This way of thinking is in contrast to the predominant modern Western mode of thinking that is focused on things, fixed objects, and the manipulation of these things. 

·         We think we can control and predict based on our understanding of this, but even these seemingly discrete and “fixed” objects have a history and even a personal agency that makes our ability to control and predict their behavior impossible. 

·         David: requests Skye’s definition of self agency. He is currently pondering the concept of language to use and how to agree on this in respect to his work and in respect to his second book, which is almost finished. 

o   His language is defined around his OS work in Africa 

o   Notes that funders still like the terms, “capacity building” and “sustainability”, but these approaches are not working and he wants to define what his network does as something different. 

o   Skye offers that personal agency can be defined in a number of ways. Provides the links:

§  Definition  of Personal Agency: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_of_agency 

§  Common definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycle_of_

§  Notes that personal agency needs to begin very early on and that we tend to interrupt this process from the start by interrupting the natural process of birth [not sure what birthing practices are meant here…anyone know about lotus births? Pretty cool J))

·         David: Reintroduces his self-query, “what is the appropriate level of follow-up?” to provide to the villages that he works with. 

o   He has repeatedly seen communities fall back into their hierarchical tendencies of putting chairs in rows, etc, but that does not necessarily stop the process – he wonders if they would do even better if they maintained the more open practices. 

·         David also wonders how you can let go [I believe in terms of opening up his Village Care process for use by a broader group or completely public use] while still maintaining the claims that they currently make [assuming this means that the outcomes and success observed can still be presented as results that can be expected by users of the process]

o   Tricia’s thoughts on this are that you cannot have both in full expression/pure form – both the opening and the assurance of “success”; adaptations will be made – some better and some worse – but you can mitigate the bastardization and/or improve chances of “quality/accurate” transmission. 

§  Harkening back to the question about follow up: The successes and attrition will vary –all ideas and methods introduced to the world get absorbed and applied incrementally and in patterns that are not easy to observe and perhaps impossible to predict. 

§  Any idea, practice, behavioral tendency, or cultural norm is more likely to grow to a critical mass if allowed the ability for it to be fully open and spread virally with a likely incidence that at some points it will be considered “bastardized” or completely separate from the original intent or core philosophical underpinnings by some.

§  That is not to say it is still not a worthy endeavor to provide education, support, and advocacy for the principles and practices that you find to be valuable. 

§  In my own experience, people and groups absorb and incorporate ideas into their world in their own time, when it is ripe for them. It is challenging to observe when something is having an impression, and likely impossible and not worth the effort to attempt to predict or manage what is having an impression and if/when/how it will be incorporated ….That can probably all be said in a nice one-liner…like, “just let go” J))

·         Skye: Back to Universal Principles and coherence and effective action. Queries, how do we figure out what you do each day? Something has been effective in your past and then get to choose what you do with it. The development of values and valuing occurs in this manner. 

o   References a “Breaking the Cycle of Poverty” Program in Mexico that is redefining personal agency and empowerment and has been very effective.

o   I believe it is this project – book on Amazon, but couldn’t locate link for program:  

o   “Many international development efforts have been limited because they are elaborated as exclusively economic projects. Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen argues, however, that combating poverty requires expanding individual freedoms and capabilities, in place of bolstering only macroeconomic growth. Based on the work of IMIFAP (The Mexican Institute of Family and Population Research) in Mexico and Latin America, this book seeks to transform Sen’s philosophical approach into an operative model for sustainable development through its Framework for Enabling Empowerment (FrEE).”

·         Linda: States that she can hear Harrison’s voice (creepy!): Don’t work too hard [this discussion is not listed in perfect chronological order, so not sure what this input is inspired by, sorry!].

o   The power of OS is the power of self-organization. Reminded about the concept of a “nexus of caring” Opening the space for the personal caring to flourish. What do you care about genuinely? It starts to reveal itself. It is because this is who we are – we already know how to do this – we just need the invitation. We don’t want to fall back into a piecemeal approach.

o   She repeatedly runs into challenges with people she works with in corporations who want results and have no experience that this can work – they are tied into hierarchies. 

o   Recounts the message from [I think a group of young people] at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2010 or 2011. Paraphrased: They are connected so effectively that they do not need hierarchies and do not need to fail. They need everyone’s support and are willing to learn from others.”

o   Notes that it is the aggregate that self organizes. 

o   Innovation gathering proposal: Linda and Suzanne are interested in bringing together 100 people in a room – both young and old – for collaboration and innovation “beyond your wildest dreams” 

·         Skye poses the question: What can we do next? What does everybody want to do? – she would like to explore how her work fits in, but is not sure how it is useful. 

o   David responds that he is not sure that “we need to  be in a big hurry…village care is closer to a place where it can be used anytime/anywhere”. Adds that while information is copyrighted, it is the kind of copyright that he wants to be used

o   Tricia is interested in discussing mechanisms for expanding/opening up village care; exploring the combination of village care with other approaches/philosophies such as Skye’s work – even making it open source; and experimenting herself with applying the model to communities. 

o   Initial thoughts on explore the concept of opening up/scaling:

§  ID existing networks with aligned missions or audiences for spreading the word or adoption

§  Explore value, feasibility, and alignment of various methods for knowledge and expertise sharing – forums, trainings, books, online resources, face-to-face training, etc.  

§  Structures for sustainability - community fundraising, paying clients, all volunteer, multiple methods, etc. 

 

 

-- 
Tricia Chirumbole
US: +1-571-232-0942
Skype: tricia.chirumbole

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20130405/5e3162fe/attachment-0008.htm>