Feedback from Tim Murphy

Here the feedback you requested:

First, an overall impression:

            Reading the bios ahead of time, and the powerful goal of the salon (things like “How can “the Great Story" … be told in ways that inspire millions of people…?”, etc.), I felt that this Salon was the starting point of a powerful action team which could design and execute a plan to bring The Great Story to a spiritually thirsty world, enacting nationally visible change within 8 years.  My experience of the salon differed from this.  For one thing, many people didn’t seem clear on what evolution was, or were sure it was something other than what it is in The Great Story.  A large number of people seemed to see evolution as about internally growing to reach your personal enlightened self-potential fulfillment of your highest creative state, or something like that.  That’s quite different from natural selection and the evolution of cultures.  I think this significantly changed the focus – I thought the Salon would be about how to reach the thousands or millions of average people very soon with a living spirituality, but instead some of the Salon seemed focused on how to help the Salon participants feel good, rejuvenated, warm, affirmed, empowered, and personally secure.  It’s fine for people to feel good, but I don’t need to get that from the salon – I’m more concerned about making available the ideas that allow American/world culture to grow than I am about comforting my inner child.  Even with all of that, I think the Salon was great and useful.  Making friends with many others who can help in our great work is invaluable, and the Salon accomplished that.

Specific Questions:

 1)  What are the things you liked or valued most?

Connecting with people who are active and care about the future and our world was most valuable.  I liked the people, I liked the location, and I liked making the connections.
     
 2)  What could be improved, and how?

     I think a clear focus and agreement on that focus was needed.  For instance, people like Jack Semura and other science types understood what evolution is, and cared about how to use it to reach people.  People like Lion brought specific, needed skills are were ready to implement them now.  Many others had other ideas of what this salon was, and I think directed it in other directions.  I think picking the people is a major part of what the salon will be.
 
     Another possible improvement would be a more direct format.  The very open format allowed important topics to be ignored.  Perhaps a very open structure like that would be OK if we had mostly people with direct and clear goals that aligned with The Great Story – but with the group we had, it often meant that the time was spent on other things.  Minor points (like: “do we really need to re-announce every session after they were all announced the day before?”) are relevant, but not as important as focus and people.

       If everyone had read the background reading, that may have helped (most people I asked hadn’t read any of it).  However even that is less than the deep understanding that it would have been nice to be able to just take for granted.  Otherwise, the understanding is not there (and thus the Salon is ineffective), or much of the Salon is taken up with teaching it (and would everyone want to learn?  - I doubt it.).   
    
3)  How do you imagine your gifts contributing to the future of this
movement (of which Evolutionary Salons are but a part)?
 
            I hope to contribute my ideas and my scientific understanding both now and in the future.  In concrete terms, I hope to contribute several hours of my time every month to the wiki.  Ritual and ceremony are important, and I’ve had a chance to try out a few (though much less than you and Connie).  The conference also helped me realize how much UU is doing right – such as providing real religious education for kids and real, spiritually powerful services for all right now.  Yes, there is plenty of room for improvement, but it’s something.  Thus, it helped remind me to maintain and strengthen my UU connections as avenues for the Great Story.

Short thoughts about each of the below:

- The original invitation, stated purpose and envisioned outcomes

 The original invitation and stated purpose were great, though enough of the wording of the stated purpose could be understood different ways to allow people to have very different expectations.  I think that in addition to the goals of the participants, more direction during the salon would have been useful, even in littler things.  For instance, at a plenary circle on Tuesday, I mentioned to Tom Atlee that more direction could be good.  A flute was being played to get people to sit down, and everyone was largely ignoring it.  I said to Tom “here’s an example – he’s been playing that flute since before 9, and it’s now 9:10 and he’s still being ignored”.  Tom replied – “well, why don’t you take charge and get everyone to sit down?”.  I said I could, but that seemed contrary to how this is being run.  He said to try anyway.  So I stood up and announced loudly: “Good morning!  What a  beautiful morning it is!  Let’s all sit down and get started!”.  Within 90 seconds we were all seated and the circle was starting.

- Pre-salon communications

Terri’s planning was great, and quite complete.

- Webpages: http://www.thegreatstory.org/ev-salon2.html and
http://www.evolutionarynexus.org <http://www.evolutionarynexus.org/>

  Great pages!

- Opening (Saturday evening)

Seemed too introspective and self-centered to me.  I think this came from the individuals at least as much as from the planners.  I mentioned this to Connie and we decided that it might just be everyone settling in after their travel.  It wasn’t, it was the theme from then on.
 
-  World Café (Sunday morning)

With little direction nor shared goals, I felt much of the cafe descended into feel-good talk.  Perhaps the format was fine, and it was just a problem with the mix of people there, or perhaps the intent of the café was accomplished and I simply had a different expectation.  Hard to say.

- Introduction to Open Space process

Explanation was fine – it all made sense and was easy to follow.  However, it felt like the wrong tool for the job, or perhaps the right tool given to the wrong mechanic.  Either way, the next result seemed more like the conversations at a college party than a conference with a goal of accomplishing something.
 
- Open Space sessions

They were all very good, but many were again focused on making the inner child happy instead of helping the real world be better for the children of tomorrow.

- Plenary (whole group) circles

Rituals and such were great (I especially liked Chris’ song, etc).  Too much time though spent on personal reflection and “open mike”.

- Ritual and artistic components

Great!  Moving and spiritual.

- Hosting/feedback sessions

Do you mean the meetings in the evening by the design team about how to design the Salon?  I went to two of those, and like before, they seemed to focused on introspection and self-fulfillment than on effectiveness.

- Meals and accommodations

Awesome!  I couldn’t have asked for better.

- Conversations and connections with other participants

This was wonderful, and the best part of the Salon.  I had many meaningful and deep conversations, and many connections with others who are also strongly interested in our great work.

- Appeal for support

It was not a bad thing to ask.  I think we as moderates have to get used to the idea of being asked to contribute, even to things that are spiritual.

- Closing circle

I had to leave just before it.
 
- Anything else you experienced

Overall, despite my less than perfect comments, I did want to say that the salon was wonderful and valuable.  I think it was a step towards a better future, and that though it isn’t as important, that I had a great time to boot.  I especially treasure the great friendships started with many cool and very talented people.  Thanks so much for inviting me, and I hope this Salon and the efforts of all of us grow the Great Story in the years to come.

May our star warm your face-