[OSList] 1,000 OS's for 'Civic Listening' (and HO in his hat)

Mon Jan 9 12:25:06 PST 2017

Kai will, and certainly can, answer for himself… But my two cents. No question “We the People” according to the Constitution is Us. We are the government. Law and Constitution are as you say. However,  one of the earmarks of our present time is that nobody really trusts anybody too much. Government, Elite, Experts, Media, Consultants… (to name a few) are all suspect. So from a practical point of view, Opening Space (as in “facilitating” such a thing) might just be done best by somebody nobody knows. That might be you? Now in the best of all worlds, and hopefully “someday,” the “job” of folks in all those stations in life is to open space so that We the People can do some useful things. This might even suggest that a good definition of real humanity is “Space Opener for our fellows.”  Heresy, of course J

Harrison

Winter Address

7808 River Falls Dr.

Potomac, MD 20854

301-365-2093

Summer Address

189 Beaucauire Ave

Camden, ME 04843

207 763-3261

Websites

www.openspaceworld.com

www.ho-image.com

From: OSList [mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of Harold Shinsato via OSList
Sent: Monday, January 9, 2017 1:39 PM
To: oslist at lists.openspacetech.org
Subject: Re: [OSList] 1,000 OS's for 'Civic Listening' (and HO in his hat)

Hi Kai,

Clicking on your link from your first post, I realized - yes - you were a bit of a legend here in the past for your work opening civic discourse as an elected official in the U.S.

I know that many of us are passionate about bringing more open space into civic dialog, and I'm extremely grateful for you showing a successful model of doing this.

I'm responding mostly out of enthusiasm for your posting this offering to the OSList, but I'd love to hear more from you.

Would you say more about "Government is not the most credible or competent convener", and how you sense "We The People" could do the job? I really thought that's what our Government in the U.S. was supposed to be. We The People, as stated in the U.S. Constitution. Surely you must have some special insights doing this convening work from inside Government?

    Thanks!
    Harold

On 1/8/17 10:40 PM, Kai Degner via OSList wrote:

Greetings- 

How about 1,000 community OS's?

I know too few of you, but am a fellow OS convener and am happy to be back on the OSlist.  I just finished 8 years on a local city council (Harrisonburg, VA, USA) and five months running for congress (VA6).  More importantly, I've convened over 25 community summits using OS in that time.  And I had lunch with Harrison on Tuesday (see photo, I'm on the left, Bruce on the right).

Briefly, I believe the dialogue, democracy, facilitation, leadership, business, and communications worlds frequently promote people taking turns talking as sufficiently useful for quality discourse.  We often underemphasize and take for granted individual and group listening skills, and there could be value in focusing on how to "let people feel listened to" rather than just "let people talk."

My time in elected office let me see the opportunity for OS to contribute to what I'm calling "civic listening infrastructure."  How can/does a community listen to itself?  Where are its open spaces?

Government is not the most credible or competent convener, neither is a candidate, nor is an elected official.  We The People could convene We The People, with a little help from the people who know OS. 

The way the Peace Corps or Army Corps builds infrastructure, I am starting The Listening Corps <http://www.listeningcorps.com>  in hopes of inspiring and/or supporting people committed to honing individual listening skills and then facilitating group listening.  OS is a power tool on the group listening tool belt.

I'm hosting a webinar at three times this week to teach some simple listening skills and invite participation in The Listening Corps.  You are cordially invited. Link <https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/rt/6047065842932730372> 

For discussion purposes, I'm curious how the connection between OS and civic listening lands with this group.  Does sparking community OS's on locally-chosen topics seem like a useful way to address the political, class, and cultural divides ?  What could be possible if we joined to create 1,000 such events in our communities?

Thanks for listening -

Kai

-- 

Thanks for listening!  -  Kai Degner

Blogging, teaching, and musing at www.KaiDegner.com <http://www.KaiDegner.com> 

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Harold Shinsato
harold at shinsato.com
http://shinsato.com
twitter: @hajush <http://twitter.com/hajush> 

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