Robert Paterson's Weblog

"The Energetic Field" - "Deeper Conversations" with Johnnie Moore Part 3 of 4

If you are to see deeper beneath the Logjam of difference. If you are to ask the question that unlocks the Unspoken. Then you have to sense the hidden meaning. You have to have all your listening faculties available. Your ears are only a tiny part of these faculties. You have to be able to listen to all the channels in the Field.

A reason why we seem to fail both as individuals and as organizations to make any headway right now is that we have cut ourselves off from the innate tools we need to guide us through the social complexity that is all about being human. We rely almost completely on our rational mind that uses only the surface to see and to process and so miss the meaning that is always there. We are like the 3 Apes who miss it all. Would you like to see more? If so read on..

For words and the surface literal observations are only a small part of how we communicate. Look at the couple below. Do they need to talk? Words fail this couple. Most of what is being communicated is within the "Field". Each of them is filled with feelings so powerful that they hurt. The air between them crackles. Words are in fact useless. I hope that you have felt this.

How about this? How can you console with words? Words are useless in these situations. 

Love and grief demand Deeper Conversations - they rely on us reactivating the tuner deep within us that connects us to the "Field".

In this the third part of our 4 part series on Deeper Conversations, where I synthesize our conversation about Deeper Conversation. (Part 1 here - Part 2 here), we talk about the larger context for a conversation - the Energy Field that embodies us and that is where we find the truth for ourselves in the surface and rational world.

The Field is real.

Have you ever fallen in love at first sight? Have you met a person and felt revulsion? Have you been in a situation where on the surface it looked OK but you just "Knew" that you must leave immediately? Have you been in a meeting and felt something in your body that told you that this was bullshit or that the other person was lying? Have you entered a room where your parents were arguing and felt the tension. Have you been in a theatre and felt swept up by the performance? Have you been in a mob and done things that you would never have done alone?

If you had shown the iPhone to someone 100 years ago they would have thought it was magic. You know it is not. It is based on our growing understanding of the electro magnetic field. We live in one too. This field is real and is no more a New Age Fantasy that say the field that runs this device. 

 

Like the iPhone, The Field, connects us to many things and also even over long distance. Like the iPhone it has things that you need to know how to tune into. If you don't have a tuner, all you get is noise or nothing. But you have a tuner and deep down you know how to use it. You just may have had the kind of habits that have switched it off. So let us remind you of the amazing tools that you have to tap into this field. "This is an innate ability that we all have in us".

Here is Johnnie facilitating an Open Space meeting in DC back in 2006 for NPR and the leaders of Pub Radio. The structure of the room is designed to tune the people into the group energy. For all of human existence, we have communicated best in a circle. It surely came from our early use of fire. We all face each other. The power moves to the centre. The maximum bandwidth is available.

Eye contact is very important. We are able to look many people in the eye. In open space eye contact is a hugely powerful tool for opening. You recall the picture of Johnnie staring at a participant. He also scans the room to find out who is staring at him - they have energy to use. A sign that even the most shut down of us can read well is when the person we are talking with averts their eyes.

One of the powerful tools that Johnnie also uses to bring the energy into being is SILENCE! Yes silence speaks volumes. As we move into an topic, Johnnie will sometimes just stop. Seconds, minutes go by. Each later minute can feel like an hour. It hurts after a while until someone speaks and what they say tends to be real - it has come from the energy in the room. Some one has been compelled to speak. They speak from the feeling they have and not as a skilled retort in an argument. Because they speak from the heart, others can then follow up the same way- the room tunes into the channel.

For in most meetings - even between just 2 people - we are more focused on the point that we want to make. We are so focused on our next sally that we are not listening. Not listening to the words or to the energy of the other. We are stuck in us alone. Masturbating in public! It's all about me and not about us. There is very little conversation. Talking too much is as much of a sign as averting the eye. Too much talk is hiding something important.

Talking about silence, Johnnie mentioned how nice it was to sit in a room on Sunday with a few pals and just read the papers. Done that? Stuff is going on all the time. Feels very cosy. Small grunts can say a lot. Look across a restaurant and a couple that have been with each other a long time. They are tuned in so much that most of what gets said is in the silence. 

What makes up this field? Well some of it is pure electrical energy. 

If you had no electrical field, you would be dead. Try this. Hold your hand up in front of another person. Gradually push them closer. You will feel the field kick in. Try this with your body. When you feel odd - you have found the boundaries of your personal space - your field at rest. What happens when you make love? Part of it is physical, but it is also a blending of two fields - two fields become one especially at orgasm when the conscious mind shuts off completely.

When we travel in a confined space like a plane or a bus with a lot of people - it is tiring. Part of the experience is Field Overload. In defence, we often shut down our tuner. The more we do that the less good our tuner gets at picking up faint signals. We miss important meaning because we have broken the aerial. This is a reason why I live in a small community. 

I suspect that much of the field is electrical. But there are other parts to the field and several ways of tuning in.

A lot of it is smell! Most of our partner selection comes down to finding the right smell in your partner. This is not just about smelling nice but smelling RIGHT.

Huge amounts of information are transmitted by smells we can't consciously smell.  Makes me question deodorants. We might be picking the wrong partner! Smell also tells us about fear and nerves. A lot of what is below the surface is discovered in smell. This is not a channel that is connected to our conscious brain at all. But it helps to know it is there. For you will react to the unknown smell. You will sense Attraction; Repulsion; Fear; Lying; Truth. If you tune into how you are feeling - you will be processing this channel.

Eye dilation sends equally powerful signals. What is on her mind?

Police use eyes a lot in their work. Is he going to pull a gun? Is she lying? Good cops get good at this. Blink. Will she sleep with me? Again, like smell, this channel does not access your conscious mind. But it will activate a feeling in your body. You will sense real danger. Lying. Attraction. Love even. Not understanding. The information is there is you can be sensitive to feeling it. 

Ever wondered why babies sleep so much? One of the reasons is that they are learning so much. Our wiring for life is set in the first 3 years. This uses a huge amount of energy and also the brain needs to proces what is going on. Ever gone to bed with a problem and woke up the next day with the solution? Our unconscious mind is able to process vast amounts of meaning and is much better at coping with complexity that our conscious brain. But of course this is heresy to the Corporate Mind that is overwhelmingly rational.

But to use this tool you need to sleep a lot. How much sleep do you get? The average is very small. Remember when you were a teen and you slept a lot? Remember that place between sleep and awake? Find it again - it is where so much shit gets worked out. 

If you have tough problems, sleep on them. If you have an idea that you can't see though, sleep on it.

Touch is a modern no no. But touch is one of the most powerful channels that we have in the field. I don't exaggerate. You surely know the story about the Romanian Orphanages? Babies that had been fed and cleaned but not touched enough died from lack of touch. We don't use touch enough as adults.

Touch is the best way to tune into another person. They can tell so much. When a friend is dying what can you say? But if you hold their hand, all will be said. But in the corporate world we don't touch. And we NEVER touch at school! We have sexualized touch too much and so cut ourselves off from its power to communicate. Its power to help us tune into an other person. 

Want to know where a person is in themselves when they are with you? Touch them. Have a tough thing to say to another - touch them and see if that is enough.

"I never said that!" is something we all hear spoken back when we get angry at another. What we are reacting to is usually their tone of voice.

Tone says so much more than the words. Here is Marie Therese Keller singing the Pie Jesu from Duruffle's Requiem - It's all about tone - she is more that performing she lets us into her soul and the deep grief of loss - you don't have to know Latin to get the meaning.

Tone says everything really in interpersonal terms. Ever been with people who don't speak your language? I have found if alcohol is present, that after an hour or so, it is possible to make a connection - by tone!

Most of us in the corporate world have a Corporate Tone Voice. can you hear it? If you can't it is because you are so in it that you can't. I assure you that it is real and distinct.

It's a voice that has most emotion stripped out of it. It's that "I'm clever, on the ball, in charge, confident" Voice that has no doubt and so invites no attraction. It pushes away. It prevents listening. It's usually lying too because deep inside we are all filled with doubt and fear. The lie is embedded in the Corporate Voice and so it cannot be trusted. This is why when I first started blogging I wrote crap - because I only knew that voice. This is the lie of so many so called social media experts. The only way to be heard is to get rid of that tone. Many now use this voice all the time - even with their mates and kids.

What might that mean?

Try your office voice on your dog! He won't be able to hear you. For him it's all tone and touch and smell. He is real, you may not be.

This dog is doing it all - using his sense of smell, taste, touch and eyes. 

Industrial Man is Emotionless - Literal - Fact Based - Surface Confined. When we are this way we are Zombies.

Slow - stupid - focused only on brains - unaware - easy to kill.

I say all of this having been a Zombie myself for most of my adult life. The great news is that you can come back to life - if you want to.

In the last post Johnnie and I will share some exercises that we have used on ourselves to help us come back to life.

We will also talk about a few personal and organizational situations that will help you see some practical steps you can take to change your habits so that the tuner that you have can be switched back on again and you as a human can tap into the field again. 

In the meantime "Brains... Brains...."

Part 4 here

 

 

 

Breaking the Logjam - "Deeper Conversations" with Johnnie Moore part 1 of 4 parts

Source: (Backspace)

Much of America seems locked in a polarized anger. Defense, Immigration, Energy, Unemployment - pick any topic and we are gridlocked. While we fight the other side, the nation is ignored in the noise of the conflict. 

The media are not helping either. The polarized groups have their own tribal media megaphones such as Fox or MSNBC. And those that claim to be reasonable and fact based, such as NPR or PBS, are locked into the Voice from Nowhere that has no chance of showing a way to a solution.

So are we stuck or is there a way forward? Is there a way of asking better questions maybe that may enable progress? 

Can we help media that is not entrenched in the polarization to help the nation? Can we help each other live better by going Deeper?

I called on my old pal Johnnie Moore, who is one of the world's best Open Space facilitators, to talk this problem through.

We began with no idea of the "answer" but as we talked more, we began to see some hopeful ideas.

This then is the first of 4 posts that will describe, as best as I can, some conclusions that we came to.

Part 1 - In this post we will talk mainly about "Breaking the Logjam" - finding a way though the polarization in public life. We will look not at compromise - that suggests each side give up something important but how by going deeper we may find something in common. A very different experience. By the way, the Logjam also exists in many families too. How often do we end up hating our spouse or sister and find in them the focus of our problem? Our hate for another person close to us gets us as stuck as politics has America stuck. Johnnie will explore how we can find the deeper common ground that can exist way down beneath the surface.

Part 2 - In the next post we will explore "The Unspoken" - You boss is driving you crazy with his demands and insensitivity - Your husband is still a boy - Your 30 year old daughter can't get her life together and so on - we all know these set ups. But we don't confront them. We are too polite. We use manipulation. We are too scared to point out the "Elephant" that we can all see but dare not discuss. The great barrier here is fear - If I confront the Unspoken Secret - Will I get punished? So most of the time we don't confront the Unspoken Secret. Instead we ignore it, manipulate around it or complain with others in a futile conspiracy that usually leads to further frustration and angst. Johnnie will explore how we can use Confrontation in a healthy way to open up the infectious boil that is the Unspoken Secret and let the poison out.

Part 3 - In the third post we will look at the "Energetic Field" or maybe the "Pond" For no answer is available on the surface. No answer is to be found in the words. No answer is to be found in the literal. For we don't listen in a full enough way to what people really mean. We forget that we live in a social field and are connected in many ways that we normally don't "see". Body language, smell, the pupils of our eyes and energy itself - we feel emotions like a cell phone picks up signals. Going deeper demands that we tune into this other array of connections. Not just listen to others but more importantly to listen to ourselves! Here Johnnie will offer some help on practical does and don'ts. Not the Top 5 Best Ways etc but some practices that he has found that have helped him be more "Tuned In" to himself and then to others.

Part 4 - In this last post we will look at "Lessons" - What can those of us in media, business, government and well just "us" take from this? How can we listen better? Notice more? Ask the kind of questions that open people's hearts?

So let's begin. I offer up not the transcript of our conversation but a synthesis of what we discovered together and what has come to me later after a few sleeps. 

Breaking the Logjam - Two angry camps throw insult and blame at each other in America. By now the two sides have become entrenched in their anger. Their anger has become morally based as well. "Gott Mitt Uns" I am right - you are wrong. I am good - you are bad. God is on my side - You are Godforsaken.

If we stay here nothing can be resolved. 

Lincoln in the middle of a civil war could see that there must be a something deeper - that God could not be on both sides or maybe even on either side:

"Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes."

You cannot seek a compromise in such a conflict. The choice is either Armageddon, 600,000 dead and the South destroyed or to seek to find out what is so important below the surface and expose that in the hope that some compassion may arise, as it did in the heart of Lincoln.

Johnnie key insight is that "Anger means that something important is at stake." But it's source is not to be found on the surface. 

Let's explore Johnnie's thinking by looking at our own personal lives as a test. 

The angry couple enter therapy spitting and hissing at each other. Both blame the other. The kids are used as weapons and as pawns in the fight. Blame is central. It's all about the current and so surface hurt. But the good therapist knows a few things that the couple have forgotten. That the roots of this conflict often lie deeper than the surface of "He betrayed me with my best friend" or  "She never appreciates what I do for her". As serious as these surface issues are, they tend to be symptoms of deeper hurts. This is why it is so hard to help couples if the therapist stays on the surface and tries a surface compromise or peace treaty.

In this context, a promise to never be unfaithful again is a band aid. So is a promise to be nice to my husband. For the wound that causes this behaviour is still infected with an older deeper fear. A deeper fear that is usually part of a pattern of hurt that began many years before the couple ever met. Unless this fear is surfaced by persistent questioning aimed at exposing this deeper infection, then the promises or the peace treaty will fail. Each time, the promise is broken or the treaty fails, the trust is eroded further and the chance of a reconciliation dissipates. 

"Anger means that something important is at stake." The good therapist works to expose what this is. If the therapist pushes hard enough below the surface, a context for the surface behaviour can emerge.

Now the husband's infidelity can be understood not solely as an act of betrayal but as the action of a man who never felt loved as a child. His work now becomes to understand this and see his actions in this deeper context. His deep need is for love. A love that he did not have when he should have had it. Not being clear on this, he may have confused this hunger for sex. His wife's deep need is for an intimacy that cannot be shared. Her need is also for love. In this deeper context, she might be able to see that his betrayal of her was driven by a powerful need that had little to do with her. So the hurt remains but her ability to understand makes the wound more bearable.

Both of them need love. The deep need is that. A good therapist can help them find this. 

Such a course is not a guarantee of a return to happiness. But it has a chance. And it has a chance of reducing the anger and the walls. It gives each party a chance to work on their part. Can he resolve his barren childhood is a less destructive way. Can she judge him less. Can both make the marriage and their kids the goal? 

Johnnie's point is that there is a vulnerability that is waiting to be recognized. Once each of us in a partnership can see the wound in ourselves, then we can have compassion for the wound in the other.

So what is the "Something that is at Stake" in America today that motivates this great anger that divides and paralyses the nation? What is the underlying vulnerability?

Quite frankly I don't know the specifics of the question. Nor does Johnnie. But know this, that there is a deeper cause that can be found and there is is a style for asking the question that we know.

The style must seek to break through the surface.

I chose the picture of Johnnie with great care. He is hosting a meeting of 300 pub radio folks in DC back in 2006. A very senior person has made an angry claim and Johnnie is grappling directly with him and is asking him what he really means. Johnnie is is not accepting the statement at face value and is asking the person to explain what he really means.

He is confronting the other person. "For the only way past the block is through it."

Lincoln confronted America in the second inaugural address. He is clear - that a terrible sin has been committed by all Americans

He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came... From now on the civil war would have to end in some redemptive way. For if it did not it would never end.

Anger is the sign and the doorway to what is below. 

So who is angry now? What is the anger that is energizing American Politics? Is it not embodied in the Tea Party? Who does this group represent? What has happened to them as a group?

What is on the surface of their anger? Ask yourself what may be beneath this surface? What is the deep hurt that motivates them? Motivates you?

Ask yourself also how this energy affects the mainstream parties?

Deep down is their part in all of this too. Their anger also has deep roots. What might they be? Might they be related to what ails the people who make up the Tea Party?

So the big question might be "What ails America?" Not who hurt us? Not what happened? This question is at the heart of the Grail Legend helps us get away from fault or blame.

Time for us to go deeper. Next Post here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Raj on the Value of Nothing - Brilliance in 3 Minutes

 HT Charles Frith

This is the pathway to our future - we go this way or we go nowhere - and you only have to invest 3 minutes to hear the ultimate in coherence - a masterpiece of compression and story telling - I am aghast at how thoughtful he is.

Are Books Bad For Us?

Have books been bad for us?

by Rob Paterson

May 12, 2010 at 1:10 pm · Filed under Collaboration, Community, Culture, Innovation, KM, Network Effect, Relationships, Social Media, Social Networking, Social Objects, Trust, Trusted Space, User Revolution, Wikinomics, Wikipedia, Wisdom of Crowds 

A really weird thought has been building in me for months. Have books been a bad thing?

Is this better?

If so – why?

If so – Is this the campfire of all campfires?

So what’s my argument?

Many people are convinced today that the birth of the web is making us stupid. That the web is only superficial. That only dense books can contain and spread real knowledge.

I am coming to the conclusion that the opposite is true. That books make us stupid and that the web, like the campfire and for the same reasons as for the campfire is what makes us clever.

So here goes. All our foundational knowledge was discovered around the campfire. Imagine you a hominid sitting around the fire at night. You are awake. You are looking at each other. I would imagine that at first, before we could speak, we sang or made music together. The fire elicited a social dance of interaction and community.

I think we can surmise that the campfire helped us speak and so it helped us become conscious. Something like this happened about 100,000 – 60,000 years ago. For suddenly our tool development, art and technology took off. All the foundations of our world today were discovered in a 10,000 year period. Tools had been the same for a million years. Within a 1,000 years they were completely different. We invented pottery. We invented metallurgy. The wheel. Everything we depend on was discovered then. Not only discovered but widely disseminated in a short period of time.

How did this occur?

My bet is that it happened because of the social process created by the campfire and by our hunter gatherer culture of equality. Such an environment extracts order from chaos. Design from intuition. It is ideal for the exploration of implicit knowledge. It is ideal for discovering things that we don’t know exist. It is ideal for taking half baked ideas and refining them. Let’s use a thought experiment.

How did pottery get invented? Surely no one said “Let’s have a project to invent Pottery!” How can you invent something that had never existed? No it must have happened like this – The People stopped for the night after a rainfall. The next morning, as they prepared to leave, the fire keeper noticed that beneath the coals that she was harvesting, the ground had baked to a crust. Maybe she could carry the fire in this thing – this bowl. That night as they shared the food around the fire, she told the people what had happened and showed them the “bowl” that she had lifted out of the earth the day before. And the conversation began – how had that been? Did it hold the fire well? What else could it hold? What if we put it back in the fire? Would it hold water? And on and on. Experiments were made. Some earth worked better than others. At the seasonal meeting with the Cousin Peoples, the People shared their story with the others and gave up a “bowl” as a gift their elder. At the next season meeting, the two tribes spent days sharing the stories of the experiments that they had been making…….

There was no peer review. There was no authorized way of doing it. No one was telling anyone. They were sharing and asking and arguing. They were having conversations!

But with the book comes authority. With the advent of the book, much of knowledge development stopped. Only the in group was allowed to play. What mattered was not observation. Not trial and error. Not experiment. Not sharing. But authority. Most of the accepted authority were texts that had no basis in observation or trial and error. Ptolemy, St Augustine and Galen ruled.

Worse because of the “Book” people who did observe or test were killed or persecuted. The Book stood for the ONE WAY. It spoke not you.

For a while, with the advent of the press, knowledge opened up.

But where did the great advances then come from? Did they come from the Universities? No they came from amateurs – from Natural Philosophers. Who met in clubs over dinner to talk about their work. Gradually, the “BOOK” came back. Only papers written and approved inside the authority system counted as being right. People outside the authority system were discounted.

Knowledge was seen as an explicit thing – an object. The Book was its metaphor.

But now with the web, we have a global campfire. Once again, we can play with ideas, with observations and experiments. Once again we can share with equals who will not knock us down. Even better, this time the group around the fire is not 35 people but all of us.

What new things will come from such a process? Surely amazing things. Things that could never have come from the use of books.

As a person who loves books, whose life is reading, I now wonder……

via fastforwardblog.com

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

Can we get to a good place - Immigration - KETC is trying

The statue’s pedestal bears the words of poet Emma Lazarus, written in 1883:
Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

When the Ellis Island immigration center opened its doors on an island in New York Harbor near the Statue of Liberty in 1892, Lazarus’ words welcomed the 12 million immigrants who passed by “Lady Liberty” after trying trans-Atlantic journeys on their way to becoming Americans.(Daily Cufflinks)

Is this still true? Is America still the land of opportunity for those that seek it?

There is no doubt that in 2010, Immigration, will move to the top of the list of issues that Americans think about. But what will the debate be like? Send all the illegals away! Give amnesty to all! Will it pander to our worst fears? What is the truth?

Can we find a truth? Labeling people is so easy. We know “us” and we don’t know “them”, so it is easy to put our fears on “them”.

At KETC we are trying an experiment - we are going to do our best to help each other find more of the truth. For we know no more than you. We too only know what we know and that is not very much.

So here in this space we are going to do our best to make a place where we can discover more of the truth than we could know if we only bandied about soundbites. We plan to build a very complex web presence to handle a very complex issue. In addition we are planning a 4 hour TV series on Immigration today in America that I think we can use as a Social Object or Catalyst to focus attention.

There have been TV shows that have had a web add on before. There have been web series on issues. This is a first. The first time that a TV station has built a holistic whole of TV and Web. Where the broadcast has been wrapped in engagement from the first.

The TV series will be shot this summer and fall and we begin this week with the web. The engagement process, where we go out to the community and find out from them directly what is going on started 2 months ago.

Here is our design for how the web will role out over the nest few months.

News and Comment - We are getting ready to bring you the most interesting stories being written by anyone. We as a team are scanning the web and we ask you to help us here too. We are also experimenting with a brand new type of search tool, Darwin, that will look for how issues rise and fall on the web. (More on that later).  We are building human networks that will reach into the immigrants in St Louis – nurturing social bridges that we hope will enable people who today are only labels to others find their own voice and not only tell their own stories but also help each other find their way in the strange new land that is America. We hope that we can go back and forth between the web and the people and see how the truth emerges.

We will be adding a Twitter and Facebook stream to this soon and we hope that you can help us find material that will add more light to the entire topic. We hope that this space can become the best place to go to find out the wider truth. To discover an emergent picture of what is really going on.

Helping new Americans find their way - As we prepared for this project, we were stunned at how complex the journey is to become not only a legal American but also as important an assimilated American – a person who fits into the culture. We were stunned to find out how complex the legal issues are. We were stunned to find out how much conflict there is between cultures that see the extended family as the core of existence and the homeland culture that looks to the law. In this segment we plan to offer a number of views. First of all people need expert advice. Getting the system wrong is easy and has enormous consequences. We plan to find sources of expertise who can shed light – just as we did in our Facing the Mortgage Crisis project. We at KETC can never be the experts, but we can help you find ones that you can trust. But we have found that there are two kinds of experts. The technical experts and those who have lived and are living what you are going through. We plan to offer the second kind as well. We hope to have a panel of New Americans that have made it. Made it through all the system and also made the cultural adaptation. We hope to find a panel of  immigrants who too are finding their way. It is our hope that such a panel will have the practical expertise to ask and answer the best questions. For who will know more than they about how to make this journey?

Helping established Americans find a place for their concerns - Many people have deep fears. Fears of having their economic future threatened. Fears of losing their community. Fears of losing their culture. Many others merely dismiss these fears as being stupid and then wonder why people become angry. We plan to explore these fears. For a fear explored is then a fear that can be coped with. What is the impact on jobs? What is it like to have your community change around you – who gets to set the culture? Most of all “Who are these strangers” and “what do they want”?

Dealing with the “Other” - Nothing is more scary than the unknown. As we walk down the street and we see people who are unknown and unknowable to us. They look so different. We plan to explore the “different”. What it is to be Bosnian in St Louis. To be Liberian, to be Mexican, to be Chinese, to be Irish or Scots, to be different. We will explore food, music, religion, family life. What is their culture. We will explore what brought people here and what the journey has been like.

We hope to give people a chance to be themselves in public to show yes how different they are but also how much they are the same. How they too want the freedom that America represents. How they care about many of the same things. About what they face from the dominant culture. How surface similarities hide fears. Such as how a Liberian can be taken for an African American until he opens his mouth and how the same is true for a Bosnian being taken for a WASP. We will find out that many immigrant groups who believe that they are unique will find out that others share much of their story such as how both a Liberian and a Bosnian have both come from a war zone so horrific that we cannot imagine – how maybe both boys saw their father killed in front of them.

Established Americans are strangers too for many newcomers. Much about the established America is hard to understand. This is manifested not only in the streets, the schools and the workplace where we all meet but in the homes of many traditional immigrant families. As the youth adapt, as girls wear new clothes, as boys listen to new music and eat new food, the older generations become afraid. As the power to translate the new culture moves to the young the old power lines in the family are threatened.

Our hope is to give all a chance to celebrate who they are and so give us a glimpse of not of a stranger but of people that we get to know who too have fears, hopes, families and a deep desire to do well in life.

Video and Story - As you can see as this project evolves, we intend to give up most of this space to you. Much of it will involve video. So to enable you to tell your story well on video, we have set up a “school”. This “school” is here to help you learn how to master short form story telling for the web. We will teach editing, all the mechanics and how best to tell a story. To help in this, we also have more than 100 Flip cameras that we will be lending to those that wish to tell their story.

The Documentary - Currently we are in the development phase of the film making process. We are deciding on what 4 big stories we will tell and what each story needs to be made. As we get more defined, we will come back to you here and tell you what we are doing. You will see the documentaries being made – the “story of” will be made as we make the story. There will be times when we need your help and we will ask you here for it.

The Team - At the moment the team is all from KETC. It involves people from all disciplines. But in time, we will withdraw to the background. Most of whom you will see and hear from will be from the community of St Louis.

via explorehomeland.org

This weekend we launch a new project at KETC. We are taking a subject that is at the heart of the nation - its social, economic and cultural heart - and trying something never before attempted.

We are trying to get away from the "He said" - "She said" - "on the one hand" and "on the other" POV of how issues are traditionally covered by the media.

We hope to offer up the broad complexity of the issue.

We are creating a TV series that is surrounded and informed by social engagement and the web. No add on after the show but the Petri Dish in which the show is born.

We are creating a "Social Object".

Over the next year, I will do my best to tell you the story of this project.

This post is from our new website. It has just been launched. It's only a starting point right now.

We are at the day of birth today. Much has been happening in the womb before this day. Much of it messy and painful. We have had to go from let's put on a show to having a real plan based on real objectives. Later I will tell you about those struggles.

Our new child is as helpless and feeble as a new born is. But as the months go on, she will I hope, grow into a strong and capable person - capable of reaching the potential that her "parents" KETC hope for her.

My hope is that by November we can have expanded the debate beyond the demagoguery that I fear and that we with your help may shed light and hope into this so complex and taxing issue.

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

David & Goliath - Making the Very Small Organization Powerful - A Series at the QSC

It is now clear that the many parts of what can be described as Social Media are not merely the fantasies of an elite group of nerds but are a set of excellent tools can help the very small organization - business or NGO or artist etc - to do so much more for less.

An artist of musician can break out more easily - she/he can attract a core of supporters who can act as both an amplifier for their work and also as a sense maker for the scene keeping the artist in context.

A small business can have the marketing and power of a very large one - it can use video online to show what it does, who are the people involved, answer questions - it can use Twitter to follow trends, pick up problems and opportunities - to have the kind of research that a major corporation would die to get. It can use powerful tools to write, present, handle numbers, keep the group in touch that the larger organizations would envy. It can attach it self to a wide range of resources and help.

A small NGO can get its message out, build a powerful support group - it can tell stories that help stimulate change - be more effective for much less money. 

The very small can use these tools to have the power of the very large - for almost no extra cost.

But there is a catch.

Where do you learn this? There are no courses run by the usual institutions.

How also do you get over the fear of the really new?

The place could be the Queen Street Commons and we can get over our fears of the new by helping each other as well as having some experts.

Here is a link to the Queen Street Commons Blog where you can see what kind of place this is.

We will host a series of lunchtime meetings where we will have conversations about how to do many of the things that will enable you to become good at using these tools. Each meeting will have a few people who know a lot but the meeting will also be designed as a conversation. You too will have a lot to offer.

Outside the meeting we will set up a supporting online community where you can try stuff and seek help from the people that you have met face to face.

Our intent is to have not only "teachers" but also people like you who have already put their toe in the water -  fellow explorers who have not got it all solved - people like you who don't have all the answers yet.

With luck you will find an ongoing resource in this group - "go to" experts that can answer a question or solve a problem - confidants - suppliers - new customers - friends.

Some of the topics that we are thinking about might be:

• How to make and use video online
• Leading to how to tell a good story
• How to use Twitter to listen and to influence
• How to use the web - community building - blogging etc
• How to use a wide range of free or close to free tools on the web - from Word Processing to Blogging
• How to create your own "Place" on the web - your TV/radio station - Your Community etc
• Setting up and running networks

We plan to offer these during the lunch hour. The price will be affordable by any individual or small organization.

I have not talked about the details yet because I still have some work to do in staffing and scheduling.

What do you think? Will this help you? Would you like to help.

Future of Public Radio

This weekend I am off to Washington for a meeting of over 300 delegates from all across the Public Radio system in the US.

Our intention - to find agreement on how we will go into the future together.

This meeting is the culmination of a voyage that has taken 9 months (a certain symbolism there!) We will have had 6 meetings for stations across the US that have included over 300 leaders in the system, many internal meetings at NPR with over 200 staff, all the executives and the board.

The great choice before the group is can they commit to working together as a system. I am confident that they can.

The stakes are high. For many who will attend, the issue is much more than the survival and health of public radio but the survival of the last large media space in America that can be trusted. Some see the stakes as higher yet. They see the opportunity that public radio  can expand its role from trusted news source to a space where the citizens of the nation can come together safely and solve the pressing problems that confront their communities.

So in Boston WGBH is asking why are our kids doing so badly in school. In Cleveland - how can we the citizens renew our broken community, in upstate New York NCPR is asking the summer visitors and the locals to come together and heal the wounds that their separation cause to the community.

These are all issues where vested interest and the existing institutions prevent dialog. Public radio can be the new "Agora" where the citizen can speak out and influence what happens.