[OSList] listeningcorps

[Michael Wood via OSList]

Dear Kai

Love the vision - YES, YES, YES.

Michael Wood

Perth, Western Australia 

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
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