Different Types of Evolutionary Salons

Since I can't revise my original list, I'll say here that I've changed "chataqua" to "Open Forum", because chatauquas are a more specific institution than I realized and, while worthy of further study as a model, are not what I meant when I first used the word.

 I have also changed (C) to read as follows:

C. Deepening Evolutionary Salons
   1.  Experiential workshops that deepen and develop people psychologically and spiritually; personally, interpersonally, and/or collectively; and strengthen their connection to the past, the present, and/or the future and to the whole, the center, the middle.  Some give people experience in tried-and-true approaches, but many work on the growing edge, exploring new possibilities as experiments.
   2.  Community of Process Practice Salons:  People interested in learning and deepening their practice of one or more processes or group practices gather to do that.  For example, we could have periodic open space gatherings exploring the art of hosting, to develop a community of practice to open and hold space for our salons, perhaps modeled on Spirited Work.

I will post a Wiki page on this so we can work on filling out and revising this model together.  Further discussion of this can be found in the Jan Salon session notes on this topic.
 

Dana, you wrote: 

"I am especially drawn to "Experimental Deepening" varieties as I am interested in applying 1) the decades of facilititating deep inner work, 2) ways of accessing the wisdom of deep territories (dream, myth, image) and 3)multi- modalitity ways of knowing (sound, movement,image,intuition) TOWARD something that is beyond the personal and group dynamic levels- toward the emergent unknown---the collective field---the mysterious/transcendent."

I wouldn't use the same words, but it is definitely the Salon that I would like to facilitate!

If you want to share more and generate ideas together with me, let's find some others who want to go deep and wide and start a forum where we can deepen the conversation until it brings us to actually organise it!

Ria 

A.  Strategic Conversations - Convened for evolutionary leverage
   1.  Sector Salons - well-networked people in a field gather to explore the evolutionary implications for that field (e.g., business, philanthropy, education, journalism, religion, etc.)
   2.  Evolutionary Thinktank Salons - experts gathering to produce intellectual products on a specific topic (e.g., social software, disaster response, collective intelligence, etc.) - as done by ISSS: in the months prior to the event they have an organizing committee open to participation from attendees, thematic threads, personal and online work pursuing shared inquries and preparing intellectual content, a well articulated schedule that follows multiple threads, opportunity to focus in a thread or go from thread to thread.
   3.  Convening the Convenors Salons (e.g., evolutionary retreat centers, umbrella organizations, etc.)
   4.  Storyfield Salons - Open Space gatherings of futurists, social thinkers, and experts in sustainability, collective intelligence, evolutionary dynamics, etc., along with society's storytellers -- novelists, movie people, journalists, historians, etc.

B.  Emergent Evolutionary Salons -
   1.  Open Emergent Evolutionary Salons:  wide-range diversity of participants in open space and world cafe gathering around broad themes for community-building, grounding in evolutionary framework, and generating creative/wildcard emergent dynamics. This approach may include some experiments in deepening together (e.g., through ritual)(see C, below).
   2.  Focused Emergent Evolutionary Salons:  Intentional multi-sector diversity gathering in sector and cross-sector conversations similar to Barbara Marx Hubbard's Syncon conferences.

C.  Experimental Deepening Evolutionary Salons - Experiential workshops that deepen and develop people psychologically and spiritually; personally, interpersonally, and/or collectively; and strengthen their connection to the past, the present, and/or the future and to the whole, the center, the middle.  Some give people experience in tried-and-true approaches, but many work on the growing edge, exploring new possibilities as experiments.

D.  Public Evolutionary Salons
   1.  Evolutionary Chataquas - big events which anyone can attend and learn about and talk about evolutionary issues
   2.  Ongoing Evolutionary Cafes - Marc Tognotti's idea of an ongoing public conversation (probably world cafe) held out in the open for example in Washington DC
   3.  Evolutionary Living Room Salons - weekly, biweekly or monthly discussion groups in the tradition of the Utne Salons or Conversation Cafes

E.  Online Evolutionary Salons
   1.  Synchronous Online Salons (including variations of all the above)
   2.  Asynchronous Online Salons (including variations of all the above)
   3.  Hybrid online/face-to-face Salons - online before, during, and after face-to-face salon

And of these can be local, regional, national, global, etc.  Some, especially local ones, may be able to be organized with do-it-yourself templates we develop...