[OSList] An Invitation: Race, Poverty and Wealth in America

[Ben Roberts]

Dear fellow member of the OST community [with apologies for cross-posting]:

 

I would like to invite you to participate in a conversation about the
connection between  <http://www.bit.ly/povwealth> race, poverty and wealth.
This is an experiment in “hybrid” process, combining in-person, online and
live virtual spaces in a single dialogic engagement. I am hosting this in
partnership with the NCDD Catalyst Award-winning National Dialogue Network
(NDN) initiative on the theme of “poverty and wealth in America” more
generally, with which some of you are familiar.

 

Perhaps some of you are also convening your own groups as part of the
broader NDN conversation. Please see the NDN website
<http://www.nationaldialoguenetwork.com/>  for more on this opportunity,
which (of course!) pairs well with OST. By contrast, this is an invitation
to take off your hosting/facilitating hat for a change. Of course, even as
participants, I know that members of this community of practice have the
potential bring special value to the conversation by helping to create and
hold “hospitable space” around such a sensitive subject as race.

 

You might also be interested in this engagement as a process experiment,
although it’s not Open Space but more of a “deconstructed world café.” Like
a traditional WC, it is taking place in three rounds using a shared set of
questions discussed in small groups, plus harvesting as a full group. But
rather than gathering live for two or three hours, we are stretching this
out across many weeks as well as many “spaces,” with everything coordinated
via the hackpad platform. It is therefore part of a growing collection of
experiments we are now seeing that explore our ability to cross boundaries
of space and time using virtual tools.

 

We completed Round One a week ago, and are now ready to begin Round Two.
This will run through 10/15, with a third round planned from 10/16 to 10/31.
It is expected that both of these rounds will explore the connection between
race, poverty and wealth.  Note that Round One began before the NDN was
ready to go live with its overall invitation, and so I waited to extend this
invitation to the list-serve until I was ready to launch the next round.
It’s also worth mentioning that “race” was not our initial focus, but rather
something that emerged out of the Round One conversation, in which
participants were asked what they would most like to discuss with others.
For more on how this evolved, please see the links below.

 

Our question for Round Two is as follows:

 

How might an exploration of the relationship between race, poverty and
wealth in America help us to examine our own beliefs, understand those of
others and discover new possibilities together?  

 

If you’re interested in participating, would you consider taking just five
or ten minutes right now to share something simple and heartfelt to help
“seed” the conversation?  To get started, or for more about this round and
why race has been chosen as a focus, please go to the Round Two Main Pad
<https://hackpad.com/Round-Two-Main-Pad-HOX1p1IR0v2>  on our hackpad
platform. 

 

I will also  be hosting MaestroConference calls on the following schedule,
during which small group conversations and harvesting will be taking place:

·         Saturday, October 12 from 8-9:30 pacific/11-12:30 Eastern

·         Tuesday October 29 from 3-4:30 Pacific/6-7:30 Eastern 

·         Thursday October 31 from 11-12:30 Pacific/2-3:30 Eastern.

 

I hope to “see” some of you online
<https://hackpad.com/Round-Two-Main-Pad-HOX1p1IR0v2>  and on the phone. If
you have any questions, please email me here:
ndn2013 at conversationcollaborative.com.  I also invite you consider extending
personal invitations to a few others to join us for this round. Please feel
free to share this link to our “welcome” pad: www.bit.ly/povwealth 

 

In addition, if there is a desire for a “meta-conversation” about this
process experiment (versus engaging in the race/poverty/wealth conversation
itself), it probably makes sense to do that right here on the list-serve, at
least for the time being.

 

Regards,

Ben Roberts

 

The Conversation Collaborative

www. ConversationCollaborative.com
<http://www.conversationcollaborative.com/>    

 

tagxedo 1

 

 

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