Conversation as a Radical Act
The days have flown by since Juanita Brown, Nancy Margulies, Amy Lenzo and I engaged a room of over 250 people at the Systems Thinking in Action conference around Conversation as a Radical Act. This was a loving manifestation of the work and thinking of Juanita and her extended community, building on the things they have discovered through The World Cafe. This is world AS cafe. And the power we have to bring light into the world.
The session was an opening on the idea of conversation as a radical act - with radical meaning "from the root." Amy did a wonderful job capturing and harvesting the pearls of the session, and we have continued to harvest on a wiki where we have videos (more to come), photos, the collective manifestation from an exercise and a place for people to continue to think about what it means to convene and participate in conversations as radical acts.
I encourage you to visit both the blog and the wiki. Here is a quote that Juanita shared that might give you a shimmer of what this is all about...
In my work, a lot of people talk about "discussions." It seems to be a more businesslike word than conversations, but I think there is a risk of missing some fundamental qualities of conversation when we move it too far into the clinical side of "discussions." The 7 principles of The World Cafe (page 2 of this pdf) can be a filter to see if we are using the power of our conversations, so they can generate acts that make a difference.
Humberto Maturana in a talk by Fritjof Capra: “We bring forth our worlds through the networks of conversation within which we participate.”
We also have a tendency to say a lot of online conversations are "all talk and no action." But we may be throwing the baby out with the bath water, because we often don't see the impacts of what we each carry away from conversations. We may not be acting in concert with those we just conversed with, but there is often action. Conversation as catalyst. Or enzyme.
A little Tuesday afternoon rambling...
posted by Nancy White at 6:58 PM
3 Comments:
This is a very interesting post in a very interesting blog. I will continue to check in and read your postings, as you seem to put a lot of thought into each of your entries.
Do you have any thoughts on available online education? I know online classes get a bad rap sometimes, but I'm hearing more and more success stories from friends and professional colleagues who have used online education as a useful and convenient supplement to their hectic lives. And it sounds like they've been enabled to advance faster with the benefits of online degrees or credentials. Just wondering if you have any opinion on the accredidation validity of online programs. eLearners seems to offer only accredited online programs that appear legitimate, as does CampusExplorer, although they offer traditional, offline programs in addition to online ones.
Dmitry, I'm going to reply to your comment with a post - but on my new blog, since I have switched platforms. So make sure you are subbed or keep an eye on http://www.fullcirc.com, OK
Thanks
Interesting insights on online conversations. You are right on target with your para on
"We also have a tendency to say a lot of online conversations are "all talk and no action." But we may be throwing the baby out with the bath water, because we often don't see the impacts of what we each carry away from conversations. We may not be acting in concert with those we just conversed with, but there is often action. Conversation as catalyst. Or enzyme."
Can't agree more! I hope you don't mind that I have made a reference to your blog at http://blog.tivamo.com/?p=5
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