An Art of Hosting Pattern Language

A Pattern Language for the Art of Hosting

The Art of Hosting is not a methodological approach to hosting conversations. Rather it is a shared learning journey around patterns that make for creative and productive conversations that lead to higher levels of collective engagement and good work.

In this pattern language we are especially looking at how specific patterns work with large-scale conversation-based change within living systems. Please feel free to contribute thoughts here. At this point we are in the phase of collecting information about these patterns, how they work and how they show up in meetings and conferences as well as in other parts of human social life. On the final link we are considering a pattern language template, which we can use to structure the patterns consistently once we have enough information on each.

If you have any questions please contact Chris Corrigan: chris@chriscorrigan.com

The model

Here is a link to a post on Chris Corrigan's weblog that describes this amalgamation of mental models and world views.

The Art of Calling

The Caller
The threshold of longing
Seeing and Sensing
Intention
Iterative Invitation
Discerning the Need
A Purpose
A Calling Question
The Poetic Principle
Clarity
The Core Team
Strange Attractors

The Art of Hosting
Morning Practice
Personal Silence
Curiosity
Generative Polarities
The Fire in the Centre
Self-organization
Maps
Breath
A Circle
A Talking Piece
Emergence
Cafe Tables
A Marketplace in a village
A Bulletin Board
Defining the Need
The Cafe
The Centrepiece
The Rim
Collective Silence
Divergent Thinking
The Groan Zone
Convergent Thinking
Checking In
Checking Out
Powerful Questions
The Small Group
The Large Group
A Team of Hosts
Conversation
Simple Instructions
Stop talking
Interviews
A walk outside
The coffee break
Letting go
The Host

Roles and Archetypes
Elder
Student
Storyteller
Butterfly
Bumblebee
Warrior
Midwife

The Art of Harvesting
A Harvest
Friends catching up
Newspapers
Graffiti
The Griot
Gossip and nosiness
Knowledge made visible
The Artefact
The Feedback Loop
A Tablecloth
Doodles
Process Landscapes
Intentional Harvest
Emergent Harvest
Adaptive loops
Generative loops
The prototype
A journal
A co-created piece

The Art of Stewardship
The Steward
Practice
A Village
Giving
Fellowship
The threshold of memory
Ripples

Client

Coach

Mental Models
Chaos and Order
The chaordic path
Organizational forms
The Diamond of Participation
Six breaths of process design

Pattern Language Template

Client

Within an Art of Hosting training we aim at giving participants from early on the opportunity to learn by practicing. They will form little hosting teams to prepare parts of the next days program. In order to make this work, these little hosting teams have a Client - the one who gives them the task - and a Coach.

The Client will offer:

- the purpose of the session

- the context in which this needs to happen

- the challenge of the session

- the givens (timeframes, rooms, amount of people)

- the criteria for success

- the purpose of the harvest: immediate and/or beyond

- if appropriate: go beyond words - touch wholeness

Coach - in training hosting teams

Besides the role of the Client - in the training hosting teams - there is the role of the Coach, who is coaching the little hosting team in order that they can fulfill their assignment.

The coach will offer:

- a (deeper) teaching of the methodology

- availibility on the teams invitation

- create an agreement of the relationship

- support to be bold and wise

Pattern Language Template

This is a suggested template for our pattern language. When we have enough material, let's write the pattern according to this format, to keep things consistent.

Of course this format s also editable, so please suggest and make changes if you think there is a better way to capture information about patterns.

TITLE

PICTURE: "First there is a picture, which shows an archetypal example of that pattern."

CONTEXT: "Second, after the picture, each pattern has an introductory paragraph, which sets the context for the pattern, by explaining how it helps to complete certain larger patterns."

PROBLEM HEADLINE: "Then there are three diamonds to mark the beginning of the problem. After the diamonds there is a headline in bold type. This headline gives the essence of the problem in one or two sentences."

PROBLEM BODY: "After the headline comes the body of the problem. This is the longest section. It describes the empirical background of the pattern, the evidence for its validity, the range of different ways the pattern can be manifested in a building, and so on."

SOLUTION: "Then, again in bold type, like the headline, is the solution--the heart of the pattern--which describes the field of physical and social relationships which are required to solve the stated problem, in the stated context. This solution is always stated in the form of an instruction--so that you know exactly what you need to do, to build the pattern."

DIAGRAM: "Then, after the solution, there is a diagram, which shows the solution in the form of a diagram, with labels to indicate its main components."

CONTEXT: "After the diagram, another three diamonds to show that the main body of the pattern is finished. And finally, after the diamonds there is a paragraph which ties the pattern to all those smaller patterns in the language, which are needed to complete this pattern, to embellish it, to fill it out."

Scaling and Sustaining Social and Organisational Innovation - Communities of Practice

By Ria Baeck and George Pór

[Word version]

Seeds for a collaborative inquiry

Scale of reach

Forms of training

Distinguishing domains of community practice

The meaning of scale and the scale of meaning

Sustaining with communities of practice

We are already a community of practice - what are we practicing?

Invitation

There's a forum topic of conversation dedicated to what is outlined in this report, here.

Seeds for a collaborative inquiry ^top

There are a few things we know and many we don't.

We do know that to reach the scope of collective intelligence and wise action that humankind needs to survive, we must discover/invent the practices that connect us across time and geography. What needs to be co-created at any level (e.g. team, organization or a whole culture) calls for us to keep our connections fresh, current, receptive and capable of acting together with precision, in an instant, when that's what is needed. It calls for us to stay connected with the ongoing processes of our co-creation, our mates, the spark of inspiration in the eyes, and our collective knowing field. Not just for the time of a meeting, training, or conference call, but as a permanent condition of daily life.

What we don't know is: what are the best ways to "sustain action arising from collective meaning and purpose?" This question - that came in an email from Tim Merry on 25 July 2008 - struck a resonant chord in most who received it.

Following that, 10 of us said Yes to a conference call on 1 September. There was a preliminary call on 1 August "to identify some constructs about scaling and sustainability that could be put on the table as raw material for a broader conversation with more folks drawn to these questions." The participants were: George Pór, Phil Cass, Ria Baeck, Tim Merry, and Toke Møller. This report is based on the transcript of that call. We (Ria and George) have attempted to identify key patterns of meaning that emerged from the conversation. All the quotes are from the transcript.

We asked ourselves what had the most heart and meaning for each of us, as we listened to, then read and re-read the transcript. Below is our joint effort to articulate it. We imagine that somebody else reading the transcript could have come up with a different report. The full record of 10 pages is also attached, in case you are tempted to read it. There's much richness in the details that cannot be reflected in this summary.

Scale of reach ^top

"The essence of personal transformation, the essence of collective transformation, and the essence of structural innovation that serves life, all have the same DNA. It is probably our consciousness and our practice of consciousness that are the seed stones or elements of that DNA."

"Each of these pieces is deeply integrated but they are also essential distinct elements of how systems change can happen."

The awareness of those different scales was very present throughout our conversation. Here is another expression of it:

"There is that step of commitment to be a practitioner... Then there is when a core group of people makes a collective decision to be in practices that allow them to be a community of practitioners as one thing... Then there is the whole thing around assemblies, stakeholder conversations also becoming ongoing."

Forms of training ^top

Those different scales of reach that also represent different levels of complexity to work with, call for different forms of training.

An Art of Hosting training event provides individuals with the experience of hosting themselves, and introduces hosting as a new leadership paradigm and competence. To deliver that value, the trainers need to operate as a collective, a hosting team that acts as a core group inviting others into the hosting experience.

If the objectives of a training event include facilitating collective transformation in leadership teams as core groups, then "classic" AoH training may not be enough. "The Art of Participatory Leadership is a step beyond that, which means training in a leadership paradigm over time, in an ongoing, specific context." To deliver that value, the trainers need to operate from a broader scope, where the community or the organization as whole is the system in focus.

Scaling up yet further, when the need is to host the transformation of a whole organization (maybe with the yet-to-develop "Art of Evolutionary Leadership"?), then the hosting team has to operate from the next higher-level social field, the global one.

In short, the pattern here is that the hosting team must host from the next level up from the field they are hosting.

Distinguishing domains of community practice ^top

With each level of training, there is a corresponding level of community of practitioners, distinguished by whatever domain of practice is their focus. Subsequent levels build on familiarity with the practices of the previous one. These communities, at each level, support the shared practice even when the training is over, and help practitioners apply the principles of their art to emerging situations.

The foundational community is the AoH community of practice. Given the global spread of AoH practitioners, it is not one community, more like a network of inter-linking local AoH communities. Their distinguishing domain is hosting conversations that matter.

Building and expanding on that, there can be an Art of Participatory Leadership (APL) community. Its distinguishing domain is hosting sustainable relationships within and across ongoing core groups that host transformation.

Finally, when the domain is the transformation of a whole organization or social system, the CoP focusing on that domain can be called an "evolutionary leadership community."

Like any model or map, this is only an approximation of the territory, and needs fleshing out and refining by the practitioners themselves. The vibrant ecosystem of AoH is constantly producing new communal life forms, such as reading circles, place-based learning centers, and the fellowship of those who are dedicated to nurture the AoH/APL field as whole.

The following diagram is an at-a-glance overview of the patterns described so far.

Forms of training	Hosted by	Scale of reach	Sustaining through CoP domains of:
Art of Hosting: introducing a new leadership paradigm; first experiences with being a hosting team	a hosting team	Individuals, and their impact on their organizations or communities	principles and practices of AoH
Art of Participatory Leadership: implementing a new leadership paradigm over time in a specific context	a hosting community, including and bigger than the actual hosting team	core groups or hosting teams, responsible for hosting change initiatives	organizational transformation
Art of Evolutionary Leadership (?): sustaining large-scale systemic change	a hosting community, including "eagles:" wise advisors	organisations, networks, social systems	world-centric, multi-sectoral change work

The meaning of scale and the scale of meaning ^top

We started exploring what we mean by "scaling," why scaling is important to us, and how it is already happening. What follows needs more exploration and unpacking; it provides rich starting points for the continuing inquiry.

"People are building connections across previously fragmented pieces. That is how scale works: pieces start being connected. People enter into a relationship with each other that includes and transcends the purpose of the individual pieces."

Everything is scaling up. "The problems in the world are going to scale. The needs in the world are going to scale. Trust is going to scale."

But "we are not talking about large systems alone; we are talking about scale that is inside us!" The larger the scale of action, the broader is its scope, the greater must be people's commitment to their own personal evolutionary practices (see diagram below) if they are to be reliable and trustworthy practitioners of hosting transformation in self, organizations and society. Inner and outer work is not separable.

"Coming together around specific content in these new ways is about commitment to a long term journey together, this collective purpose that includes, transcends and sustains my personal transformation and consciousness, that is the underpinning of the collective change we are going through."

"You cannot take these practices apart, you cannot choose one or the other. You have to choose all of them - in your own way and whatever is possible in the context - but it is a deep essence that taking it apart, it may not be possible to create sustainable change that we can be proud of and has dignity for all."

What connects the inner and outer dimensions of scaling up is its meaning as "expansion, wider space where more can happen that is good."

Grounded in being the change that we want to cause, hosts of transformation recognize the specific systemic interdependences that underly what needs to be changed. At that point, they start seeking and finding allies for changing the defining context. That's how the purpose, the meaning of their work is scaling up.

"What are the operating practices that will allow large scale change to happen?" That is a question that begets the collective self-reflection of all those who are engaged in scaling up organizational or social innovation. What we do know is that large-scale change will not happen - cannot be be sustainable - if it is not integral.

The evolution of individual consciousness does not have an answer to all our crises; neither do improvements in our health, culture or technologies, especially if we overemphasize any of them at the expense of others. Large-scale change must be approached with an integral lens, including all "four quadrants" (Ken Wilber), or it will collapse, causing more problems than it tries to solve.

Sustaining with communities of practice ^top

"We know how to create community and relationship that has meaning in very short periods of time now, where we can sink into that quality of relationship. The challenge is now: How to build long-term sustainability into these relationships so that they continue creating magnificent things over time?"

Holding the "four quadrants" as a lens to that question, we see:

1. individual authenticity, commitment to evolve and host oneself (upper left)

2. evolving practices in hosting conversations that matter (upper right)

3. cultivating a culture of networked learning communities (lower left)

4. creating the right mix of technological and economic enablers (lower right)

The "lower left" work is part of the iceberg that Tim Merry referred to on the call: "I saw the tip of the iceberg in terms of some new thinking about Communities of Practice and how it relates to what is cooking in the Art of Hosting / Participatory Leadership field."

"Communities of practice are groups of people who share a passion for something that they know how to do, and interact regularly to learn how to do it better." -- Etienne Wenger. Communities of practice (CoP) are central to the strategy of "Using Emergence to Take Social Innovations to Scale."[1]

Many of us reading this report, are members of one or more such communities, thus directly benefitting from and contributing to them. Communities of practice[2], like any other social life forms, grow through stages of development. We have found both Etienne Wenger's 5-stage model[3] and NASA's and David Sibbet's 7-stage[4] model useful to illuminate that journey.

An important developmental shift occurs when a community of learners becomes a community that learns. The purpose of the first is to enable the members to benefit from the fruits of the group's shared knowledge and experience. The purpose of the second is the same, plus to advance the whole field of practice and knowledge and create social value.

Communities that learn develop a shared memory and continually augment their collective intelligence, thus both the capacity to respond to emergent challenges and opportunities, and resilience. A key enabler of that is a well-tended community knowledge garden that can be accessed anytime from anywhere.

We are already a community of practice - what are we practicing? ^top

"Art of Hosting was born out of people stepping into learning relationships to advance the field. That feels to me as rooted in CoP."

"In this call we are in a CoP, we are practicing what we are talking about!"

Yes to both, and CoPs, like any other life forms, go through stages of development. In the coalescing phase, we recognize the value of learning/training together and engage in it. In the maturing stage, which the AoH community is now beginning to enter, we need to learn to pay shared and sustained attention to our community knowledge garden. That includes the AoH website, blogs that hosts write, the AoH lists, and the AoH community site at Evolutionary Nexus. How can the wiser uses of that garden increase its value to all members and their stakeholders? This is a central question in the life of all maturing CoPs.

"CoP yes, but what are we practicing?"

The first practice is the same as "a core element for going to scale (and to become sustainable over the long run): Hosting oneself within a hosting team that is committed to a purpose."

Another practice connects us with the social technology of Theory U. "The piece of AoH in the U-process is part of the envisioning innovative structural change, and then the requirements to be in that kind of relationship to oneself and to each other to sustain the consciousness that lives below the structural innovation that we bring into communities. " It is also a practice "to stay in this chaordic space and to go there again and again."

Yet another practice is to " intentionally sow the seeds for CoPs, with AoH and Art of Participatory Leadership trainings." That also means to make transformation stick, to be sustainable, when supported by communities of practice at any scale shown in the "Domains of CoP" table. The practice includes increasing our individual and collective capacity to assess the community-readiness of the situation and engage the process of hosting the community when that is called for.

Of course, these are only examples. The question "what are we practicing?" is a precious question to hold, not to give a definitive answer to. In fact, holding that question in the community's shared attention and meaning-making processes is a way in which CoPs evolve.

Invitation ^top

"I think what we are inviting here - and being invited into through the work we are involved in - deserves that we have a conversation, so something gets sharper that we invite others into. I am sensing an ongoing circle spiraling into more and more clarity. "

That conversation can take place by combining recorded conference calls and in-person dialogues, when we are lucky to in each other's company, in the AoH community blog and wiki at Evolutionary Nexus. If you feel called to participate, you are invited.

Contact: Ria.Baeck(at)community-intelligence.com

[1] By Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze, http://www.evolutionarynexus.org/node/620/

[2] An excellent introduction to the concept is here: http://www.ewenger.com/theory/communities_of_practice_intro.htm

[3] See diagram at http://www.elearningeuropa.info/extras/img/think.gif, from Wenger, E., R. McDermott, and W. Snyder, Cultivating Communities of Practice. 2002: Harvard Business School Press.

[4] See: http://wiki.nasa.gov/cm/wiki/?id=2698

Patterns of moving into and out of community

A new map: talking our way to a decision

I was working with a group yesterday that was making a number of small decisions as they worked their way through an agenda. The meeting was semi-formal and my role as facilitator was mostly to hold space and draw attention to process where appropriate.

I let the group talk, asked questions from time to time and noted the decisions that they had made. As I was observing this group working, I noticed something interesting about their process.

Frequent readers will know that I use the diamond of participation often as a map to organize and design meeting processes.

One feature of the diamond is the three phases that groups go through, from divergent thinking through emergent thinking to convergent thinking. There are noticiable transitions between these three phases, with groups becoming quiet when the hit the groan zone, and the energy becoming lighter when concrete proposals and decisions begin to emerge.

Yesterday I was watching the pattern of the conversations in the group and I noticed that the language changed. Participants began and ended each journey through the groan zone using lots of “I” language and while they were in the middle, there were lots of “we” statements. A typical agenda item began with one partcipant introducing it with a personal statement or a question. The group listened and then replied with further I statements. These responses were a combination of personal questions and personal responses to ideas. Typically I heard things like “What I\m wondering about is…”, “I don’t like that idea very much…” “I can see your point…”

As the conversation unfolded however, there was a shift to “we” and group members began exploring ideas that were in the best interests of the group. People seemed less preoccupied with their own ideas and began working on the emerging ideas that were capturing energy. There was the occasional drift back to “I” language but for the most part I heard things like “We could do it like this…” “We don’t have the time or resources for that…” or “How else could we do that?”

Finally, you could tell the conversation was coming to a close when people started discussing the personal implications of the emergent decision. “Okay, so I will make that change to the timetable…” “I like this choice…” and so on.

Not just a flow from I -> WE -> I, but I also noticed that the conversation went from curious to concrete, and that this map took the form of quadrants, similar to the ones I have worked with before. This observation is in line with Otto Scharmer’s Theory U, and this diagram above shows the path the conversation took also shaped like a U, with the group going from inquiry which opened up options to concrete decisions and implementation plans.

The cool thing about this map of patterns is that it gave me enough for to be able to hold very lightly the conversational space that the group was in. I watched them go through this process something like 15 times over the course of the day and only a couple of times did they get stuck. When they did, it was simply a matter of consulting the map to see what to do. I intervened at least one in each of these four quadrants, something like this:

Asking for more clarity in personal introduction of agenda ites, and alos inviting the person introducing the item what they are curious about.
Helping the group see emergent ideas as they were taking shape and asking about the nature of the ideas rather than people’s personal preferences or thoughts.
Inviting people to concretize what they were hearing, and to explore the implications of one option over another.
Inviting personal responsibility and ensuring that implementation plans were in place for each decision.

Simple, but this is value of having maps at your finger tips to help find your way through the wilderness of emergent conversation.

Why does this matter?

As a basic pattern for individuals participating in groups, this pattern may be foundational to creating and sustaining communities of practice. As hosting practitioners we can attend to the conditions of the container that invite these stages of participation. They line up well with Scharmer\s work and with William ISaacs work on the four stages of dialogue as well.

These are useful maps for beginning the conversation on practices for foster the community part of CoPs.

Three essential domains for moving to communities of practice

Originally published at my weblog, Parking Lot...

I’m working a lot with communities of practice these days, or more precisely, teams and groups that aspire to becoming communities of practice. In seeking to be simple about the process of moving from a group to a deeper community, I’ve been designing meetings using this map, to ensure that we give equal weight to work, relationships and co-learning. In my experience, when we do that we set the conditions for a group to become more cohesive and to discover new learning and emergent solutions to the issues on which they are working. This is a design tool, a map to help us keep what’s important in mind. Within each of these three domains are a plethora of practices and tools, and all of these need to be applied wisely, but I am finding this 30,000 foot view useful.

Work

Of course the reason for meeting is to do work. Getting clear on this is important, and I use several different maps for helping groups come to clairty about the work they need to do. My favourite at the moment is what we call the chaordic stepping stones, which is a logical procession of moving from need to structure and practice by anchoring everything we are doing in what is needed at the moment. Gaining clarity on what our work is is important.

Tools for gaining clarity on work include design tools like the diamond of participation, the chaordic stepping stones and other project planning tools that invite clairty about questions and harvest insights back into the team’s work.

Relationships

For groups to be more than just collections of individuals, they need to focus on their relationships. Relationships are the glue that keeps work sustainable. When we pay attention to how we are together it creates the conditions for our work to excel over the long term. Teams or communities that have to focus on toxic, competitive or unhelpful relationships spend too much energy caught in conflict and difference and can’t get real work done. At the outset of working with a team or community of practice, it’s important to identify relationships as a key capacity leading to innovation, excellence or success. And when things go sideways, having solid relationships in place ensures that hte group can find a way out quickly and effectively.

Tools to support good relationships include using participatory and inclusive processes like World Cafe or Open Space Technology and spending time listening to one another’s stories and perspectives. A list of principles like these ones help groups focus on what is important in the container of their work. Good process matters..

Co-learning

If an individual or a group is wanting to become innovate or to think or practice its way to another level of work, learning is essential. At a personal level, cultivating curiosity is critical, so that individuals enter work, practice and conversations with questions that guide their participation in an endeavour. Conceiving of these as a learning journey is very helpful in this regard.

Beyond individual learning, collective learning or co-learning is the fastest way to breathroughs. Engaging in collaborative inquiry, co-presencing and co-realizing a la Otto Scharmer’s Theory U is important to keep a group on the edge of its own learning. Groups need to practice fearlessness to try to embrace new ideas and new ways of doing things.

Tools to support this work include learning journeys, appreciative inquiry, co-presencing and ongoing high level conversation about what a team is learning - a meta-level process.

Alive in the intersecations

The intersection of work and relationships results in one feeding other and leasd to sustainability in the kinds of endeavours one is undertaking, especially when the going gets tough. At the intersection of work and co-learning is innovative thinking that helps to drive work to new levels. At the intersection of co-learning and relationships is where a group comes to see itself as more than just a team, and learns new ways of being together and new forms of connection that serve the greater purpose.

And of course at the centre of it all is the possibility of community, arising out of a balanced approach to all three domains.

To give this model a test run, think of a number of groups you are currently involved in and think about what you hunger for in them. It’s likely that you are paying attention to just one or two of these domains, and that the missing one contains the thing that you hunger for.

I realize some of these concepts may be unfamiliar, or couched in strange language, but the idea is pretty simple: do what you can to pay attention to an dbalance these three factors and you can set the groundwork for a group to meet in a way that helps it evolve into a community of practice.

I would love to hear reports of how this map describes your territory.

The Art of Hosting training - Belgium2 - March '08

The specific purpose for this gathering in Belgium springs from the very soil of this hospitable country, its communities in troubled relationship and the great diversity of cultures it hosts, both local and international. You will join and learn from a rich mix of people! We sensed from the beginning that people from many different contexts would gather to learn together, and that diversity – and how we are able to deal with it, and learn from it – would be a central theme. As the hosting team we are looking forward to this challenge and learning opportunity.

The Art of Hosting training in Belgium - Oct'06

Here you can make new child pages where you can share your reflections, learning and experience from open space sessions you hosted or attended at the Art of Hosting training in Belgium in March 2008

Open Space session on Connecting Our Conversations

HOW TO CONNECT AND SCALE UP OUR CONVERSATIONS?

This Open Space session was convened by George Pór at the Art of Hosting training in Belgium, March 2008

Participants: George, Mushin, Erik, Louise, Andries, Minke, Toke, Simone

KEY INSIGHTS

1. Scaling up social innovation goes from loosely connected networks to communities of practice (CoP) to systems of influence. (Meg Wheatley and Debbie Freeze)

2. A Community of practice is primarily not about knowledge but about how we care about each other.

3. To connect and scale up conversations there needs to be a core group.

4. The strength of a community is proportionate to how central its shared domain is to the identity of its members.

5. To be successful, a community of practice must support me in creating my livelihood. Not directly making money but to contribute somehow to one's livelihood.

ACTION
George will set up an online space on Evolutionary Nexus to continue this session and take it to the next level by forming a "Connecting Our Conversations" CoP, at the rate of 30 minutes to an hour per week.

Initial CoP members: Andries, Dirk, Erik, George, and Mushin.

NOTES

George: The collective intelligence of circles needs to be guided by their collective wisdom. If not, they may birth monsters.

Why do we need to connect our conversations? The global transformation that we're going through is accompanied by much unnecessary, man-made suffering. For example, when millions are dying of hunger, that's not because there's not enough food for all on this planet.

Meg Wheatley co-authored a seminal essay with Debbie Freeze, in which they outlined a path for scaling up social innovation. It goes from loosely connected networks to communities of practice to systems of influence. We are a network of practitioners. Connecting our conversations, we can become a community of practice. Connecting with other communities of practice, we can become a system of influence.

What are the conversations that we, in this circle, are involved with and want to connect with other conversations?

Mushin:
Involved in meta-conversations. Conversations that center around questions like, how do we make the values we care for more transparent to others so people can get involved with them; conversation about creating systems that would make those values more transparent.

Erik:

Involved in effort to connect conversations in Belgium for changing consumer behaviours towards more sustainable behaviours.

Dirk:
Involved in a project that is about better communication between translaters in the EU Commission with 23 departments for the official languages and the institutions that produce the legislation. So for each document you need 23 languages and 3 institutions on each. So try to bring them together and let them realise that they are part of the chain, To not re-invent the wheel.

Frauke:
Conversations at different levels and different places. One of the questions is how do I facilitate self organisation? I would like to apply in different places and organisations what is happening here. Involved in Pioneers of Change - phone calls every Wednesday. Will go to the intergenerational gathering in Greece in September. Conversations also on consumer behaviour. "We are what we do". 15 simple things that you can start doing. Most important conversation at the moment is how to be in the creation process of creating chaordic organisations based on dialogue.

Dieter:
Works in the Hub in Brussels. Involved in the process of creating a hosting team to welcome the people to work in the Hub, who are social entrepreneurs, people with good ideas to change things in society. In the initial phase of this it is important to learn to ask the right questions.

Louise:
Pioneers of change, being in the cultivating team. How to link the local and global level in the network? How to enable self-facilitation and connect all these people and make something happen to have the sparks fly from these connections?
How to create a Hub in Copenhagen? How to connect top-down and bottom-up sustainable development to channel the right resources to right people!

Andries:
How to design and facilitate the creation of sustainable human settlements? More than 50 percent of human population live in urban regions. Many problems out of that: transportation, family life, eco villages, ... many stakeholders and many scales.
How to deliver sustainable cities in the future?

In current professional practice: How to enable the current global network of AISEEC to become a stronger self organising community? How to add scale and learn from the past? There's is a yearly turnover in management - 8000 managers are shifting every year. That can hold back the network from developing. How to enable a new design based on self-organisation to become a smarter global community?

Minke:
Holding meeting with 120 persons next week.
The era governed by knowledge, statistics and spreadsheet is ending... a new knowledge form coming up.
One of the questions is: How can we create space in order to let people step really freely in to experience what needs to be experienced?

George:
My question right now is how can I contribute to make all those conversations successful beyond our wildest dreams? That is really the idea behind Evolutionary Nexus: a now-forming network of communities with transformation projects. The purpose is to increase connectivity in the ecosystem of world-changing initiatives. The way we go about it is by combining social technologies with electronic technologies, and helping the development and interaction of communities of practice (CoP). It is something that you may be able to use in your work.

Members of a CoP learn from and with one another because they want to become better at what they are doing. We are here a potential community of practice of people who are connecting conversations. How do we do that? How can we become better at it, together? What are the good practices and tools that we know of?

Erik:
Why don't NGO's create their own communities of practice? We have different conceptions of change and therefore do things differently.

George:
In a CoP, every participant represents him/herself and not an organisation. Organisations are not capable of being members in CoP's.

Mushin:
There's a list of 120.000 NGO's in the world, see: www.wiserearth.org.
There is a large-scale movement but how do we connect the conversations?

I have lots of knowledge - why don't I change? I change easily if I get acknowledgement from the world around me. What would be needed as a kind of knowledge and feedback systems to us.

George:
Acknowledging comes easily when there's a deep caring about the development of each other. When we care about each other's success in becoming our best, then ourselves become better by it. I know that I cannot be totally free to realise my best unless you all are.

Otto Scharmer is talking about "presencing circles." In a circle like that, we stand for and support the realization of the highest aspirations of each of us. It is so natural; it is a common way of being in healthy families. Why can't we have a society where all institutions are designed to support the blossoming of each individual and their communities?

One element of CoP is sustainability. To have not only one-off conversations but to deepen these conversations. A way of continuing the conversation is to uncover our connections and make new ones. A CoP is primarily not about knowledge but about how we care about each other.

To connect and scale up conversations there needs to be a core group and there needs to be something that we can scale up. The CoP exists for the members. If it doesn't provide value for them, then it falls apart or never comes into being. We need to make sure that our members' needs are met.

We could continue this conversation by set up a community in Nexus and start inquiring into the questions. The community thrives on a creating a common learning agenda.

Minke:
I am a member of a CoP that has been in existence for 25 years. All attention and focus is around four core values. We gather together once every month. 25 professionals. What made this community last? Sharing the same values and the same dream. There is a connectedness of the soul and therefore it is strong.

George:
Based on what I hear, it seems that the strength of a community is proportionate to how central its shared domain is to the identity of its members.

Erik (?) What do we need? CoPs don't seem attractive or juicy enough for many people. I am looking somewhere else. Things like Facebook and YouTube have caused a massive change.

George:
We can upgrade the idea of CoP, to communities of co-creation. Not just learn and practice but create together! Similarly, instead "scaling up," we can aim at enabling the conditions for self-organisation at increasing levels. How? Facebook and YouTube are creating new social practices. These kinds of technologies have evolutionary opportunities when we use them smartly.

How many meaningful conversations can I sustain at the same time? For the young people that limit is frequently, while for the older ones it is lower. It is as if they have another nervous system.

Erik:
What is needed to make large scale self-organising of wholesome organisations sustainable? What is the minimal structure needed for self-organising?

Toke:
Becoming more conscious. Not just intellectually but in a wholeness of experience that many here know and trust. I have experienced that when I enter that it is like an osmosis with the universe or with how things work.

What if at every single moment, the osmosis and the opening in me and the we-ness in the universe... at every moment, it self-organises to a higher level? Osmosis understood as the letting go and giving into... that the osmosis is happening all the time as we speak. I am in service of organising an osmosis where what is already happening can take place. Let that begin to take place and be conscious rather than fearful. There is both diversity and oneness.

Andries:
It is about awareness and people awakening. But is there a more systematic, a more integral approach?
What made Google, YouTube and Skype big? Can we learn something from the large organisations that have taken over the playing field in the recent years? How can I create the Google of sustainable settlements?

George:
"Integral" is a good term. It includes the inner dimensions that Toke is talking about with osmosis. It also takes into account the social structures, systems, and technologies. Facebook has thousands of applications created by people, many of which are quite silly or even annoying. But what if we could come up with a Facebook application for collective intelligence? Facebook was not created for that but there is an opportunity to use it for cultivating collective intelligence.

Andries:
Why am I using Google? Because it is extremely convenient. And I choose to be part of communities that give me something with identity. But it must be convenient and easy to bump into again. Must be complementary. Curious of the next Google revolution.

Simone:
The Hub's are creating a space for hubs with self-organising and emerging.

Toke:
For a community of practice to be successful it must support me in creating my livelihood. Not directly making money but to contribute somehow to one's livelihood.

George:
The answers will need to be found in principles and not in technology

Erik:
Benefits - the more people join, the more value
Everyone can participate

Irimi - the art of entering

When practicing irimi

- the art of entering -

I can attack my fear with gentleness

so that my fear does not become my enemy

My friend the enemy wakes me up

My enemy is someone with whom our conventions of human relationship have been broken

- learning essences from the aikido Irimi workshop in Open space 3 day aoh in belgium March 2008