This is Tonya Surman the ED of the Centre for Social Innovation (CSI) in Toronto. I posted a review of CSI last week here. CSI is located in 215 Spadina - one of the many Social Space Projects organized by the amazing Zeidler family - more on the Zeidlers later.
Here is a view from the roof looking out over the downtown
As with my other interviews with leaders of the Commons movement (Hub in London, Workspace in Vancouver) I wanted to find out from Tonya why she committed to start the CSI, what she was learning from it and what her dreams were.
So Tonya how did this all begin - how did you get here?
I grew up in a very non corporate family - hippies really. I was always comfy with being different. After a try out as an actress, I got into the dotcom world as it was booming but in the non profit side. It was funny, we had no money and our for profit competitors had loads of it - they failed and we survived - I think there was a lesson in that we are growing naturally and for a real reason.
The bigger lesson I learned though was that the Internet changes your consciousness once you "Get It". As I began to understand the nature of the Internet, I began to understand more deeply the nature of connection, community and of Open Space. A new model for organizing in the real world started to emerge out of the web for me. At the same time I saw how disconnected much of the work for social change was - I saw so many non profits all struggling and all trying to do much the same thing. On their own and disconnected from others - they had little power. What if we could help connect them?
At first we tried aggregation. We developed some great tools but this did not seem to help much. There was something missing.
What was missing was the art of Convening or Hosting. Simply building a social space does not mean that they will come! They don't come. (Berkana has training for this)
The work that took us down the better road of Convening Community was the work that we did to set up the Canadian Partnership for Children's Health and Environment. (CPCHE) Here we learned a lot about the type of Leadership required to lead community as opposed to leading a conventional organization. Here we learned a lot about the reality of Collaboration versus just tossing off the word in hope. We learned a lot about Convening and about Emergence and we learned a lot about the type of Governance required for Community.
As we learned how
to do this, Margie Zeidler began to think about a new project at 215 Spadina. She was a key designer of the Centre, our angel landlord
and VC partner. She brought CSI to life. Other key people involved in the development of the
project were Eric Meerkamper, D-COde, Pat Tobin, Canadian Heritage and Mary Rowe
of Ideas that Matter. It was quite a team.
Here is 215 Spadina
We have been going now for 2 years. We have 15 organizations in residence. We have regular offices and we have open space for smaller organizations and for individuals. We have been successful in incubation and have had residents outgrow us. Our primary residents have been very loyal.
What new insights has this experience given you?
I see a growing problem - Communities of Interest based on ideas or common values are growing and Communities of Place where we all actually live are shrinking.
But we are human and have to interact in person. I think that places like ours and other Commons' can offer a reconnection back to communities of place where we not only feel at home again but can work together to make our places better for all. We can link healthy communities of interest to healthy communities of place. If we do this we can solve our problems and stop being as helpless as we seem to be today. (See the follow on for how Rob sees this problem)
What more do you see in the future?
I hope to see places like ours spreading out like hubs and thus giving power and substance back to places. I see many aspects of life that are now disconnected being connected again - in life as well as online. I see places where you work can go to the dentist, work, have a daycare and live even.
Rob laughs and tells her about how many in public radio feel the same way. Here is Ellen Rocco of NCPR showing the crowd her view of hubs.
Here is a link to my thoughts after meeting with Ellen where we talked about the role of public radio in recreating the Commons - see follow on for more.
There is an interesting book called Getting to Maybe (not the one on Law School) that talks about how to overcome this feeling of being helpless. My hope is that we can help give people back their belief that they can make a difference and give them back the community that will help them act well.
Thank you Tonya
(Rob - Here is the blurb) Many of us have a deep desire to make the world around us a better
place. But often our good intentions are undermined by the fear that we
are so insignificant in the big scheme of things that nothing we can do
will actually help feed the world’s hungry, fix the damage of a
Hurricane Katrina or even get a healthy lunch program up and running in
the local school.
We tend to think that great social change is the
province of heroes – an intimidating view of reality that keeps
ordinary people on the couch. But extraordinary leaders such as Gandhi
and even unlikely social activists such as Bob Geldof most often see
themselves as harnessing the forces around them, rather than
singlehandedly setting those forces in motion. The trick in any great
social project – from the global fight against AIDS to working to
eradicate poverty in a single Canadian city – is to stop looking at the
discrete elements and start trying to understand the complex
relationships between them.
By studying fascinating real-life examples
of social change through this systems-and-relationships lens, the
authors of Getting to Maybe tease out the rules of engagement
between volunteers, leaders, organizations and circumstance – between
individuals and what Shakespeare called “the tide in the affairs of
men.”
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