We Think

Did you know 2.0

The Hub in Brussels at the Art of Hosting

Last week, I have been in Belgium to visit the Hub in Brussels and to be part of the Art of Hosting. Over 50 people gathered at the Heerlijckyt to celebrate diversity, complexity, and collective intelligence through conversations that matter.

 

I had to go to Brussels to meet Mushin from Berlin who wrote about the Art of Hosting afterwards: “Art of Hosting is not a method, even though it uses state-of-the-art (post-)modern social technologies that make a lot of sense and help turn that sense into effective action - if that is what the participants wish.”

Using the Hub vision document to present the Hub concept at the Art of Hosting in the Hub in Brussels last Tuesday, Simone and me discovered the chaordic stepping stones inside:

Simone is the initiator of the Hub in Brussels.

And this is how her week looks like:

The Davos 2008 question

News from Stiftung Welt:Klasse

Hi imaginers,

as promised at our conference in February I’d like to give you some news about me and Stiftung Welt:Klasse project which I presented. It’s not a annoying obligation to do this: I’m happy to tell you, that the idea of Stiftung Welt:Klasse has become reality within the last year and we have really great feedback from the high school students which participated so far at our program in China and Thailand!! I’m happy that we’ve got sponsors, media reports and first awards…. but the most important is that the first students which went abroad came back with a lot of enthusiasm and positive energy!! It’s this feedback which motivates me enormously to go on with the project…

And also Imagine 2007 has it’s concrete impact on Stiftung Welt:Klasse: Ursel did a great job during summer to get started a partnership with a school in Bielefeld!! Thu Phong did amazing work preparing the 12 high school students for China! And finally Eva did the same for the students starting to Thailand

For detailed information you can have a look on www.stiftung-weltklasse.de (for the moment just in German)…  Or just contact me That’s it for the moment…

I wish you all merry christmas and an great and inspiring year 2008!!!

Best,
Matti

Imagine 2008 - Delegate application

We are looking once again for inspiring delegates.

The online application will be available from Monday at: www.aiesec.de/imagine

More details about the conference are available here: imagine_2008_-_delegates.pdf

Resolving the Past – Creating the Future

In October, I have been invited by Young SIETAR to host a World Café at their global meeting. This year’s meeting took place in the youth hostel Ravensbrück situated in the former women’s concentration camp near Berlin.

Inspired by the Peace Café at the European World Café Gathering in Dresden, Allison and me designed a World Café “Resolving the Past – Creating the Future” to debrief the group visit to the former concentration camp site.

The questions that we used were linked to the theme of the conference “Redefining Interculturalism: Past Approaches, Current Needs, Future Directions”:

1. Past – remembering: What purpose does remembering serve?
2. Present – responsibility: What responsibility do I have to address the inequality of my society? And how do I take action?
3. Future – forgiveness: How does forgiveness allow me to move forward?

In the harvest we asked “What is the big question that you avoided asking in this conversation?

Participants captured those questions on post-it notes:
• What can I personally do to address and really act against inequalities in my surroundings?
• Why is there forgiveness with conditions?
• What exactly changes as soon as you forgive (in behaviour, emotions, etc.)?
• What is the power and danger of memorials?
• Are there things you can forgive yourself?
• What did you have to forgive?
• How “majorities” talk about “minorities”, if they are really minority in the world? How to forget or forgive this?
• How to reformulate forgiveness?
• Where am I victim and where am I a victimizer?
• Can we talk about something else, please?
• How do you forgive without God?
• Forgive me for asking, but…?
• With all of this (questions, trainings, etc.) are we (individually) really willing to change (learn, evolve, grow, shift paradigm) or are we trying to feel good and convince ourselves we are good people doing something good?
• When will we be brave enough to face/say what we need to?
• Is there a difference between forgiving people and forgiving “situations”?
• The questions were not answered in such a short time – where are the boundaries of my capacity to forgive?
• Is everything forgivable?
• Is it ever collective? Or always individual?
• How do you forgive?
• How are owning and learning connected in order to move forward?
• How will all the knowledge of this meeting lead me in the future?
• Collective just running from responsibility?
• Why do we pretend to communicate knowing that it is not possible because, thank God, we are different?
• How can we make sure that this event has lasting effects and benefits?
• Why “42” again?
• Do victims who don’t forgive become perpetrators one day?
• Why are we stuck in the same paradigm?
• Will forgiveness and remembering really help?
• Can Palestinians learn from Holocaust remembrance culture?
• understand – accept – feel => forgive?
• Where do we get the love from to embrace our stories, the present, and to forgive?
• Can I influence the process of forgiving cognitively?
• Have I done anything for which I am not yet forgiven?

Personally, this visit to a former concentration camp has been the most moving and touching visit for me. I have visited sites like that before, but when the guide asked the question “How is this history connected to your family” and told stories of how the local people of Ravensbrück where relating their family stories to the site, I realized that I had not asked the question to my grandparents – especially not to my grandfather who was fighting cancer in the last stage, aged 85. I had to leave the presentation room – crying. I have been told war stories by my grandfather but never dared to question things that were told me. What made him a victim (entering the army aged 17, his father being killed by the Russians, his mother committing suicide afterwards, him being a refugee in his own country – moving to Hamburg after the war)? And what made him a victimiser? Was he a bystander not taking responsibility for what was happening in the country?
I was crying that day because dialogue was impossible and my questions were never formulated while he was still alive - which is extremely frustrating for a dialogue facilitator. Exactly, a week later my grandfather died…

Blog Action Day tomorrow

Conversations for Change

Through the online Presencing classroom, I have “met” Deborah Goldblatt who is the initiator and director of the Youth Dialogue Project. I have just watched the 16min video about this inspiring project and would like to share it with you:

Presencing Global Classroom - self stakeholder dialogues

This week, I have used the second exercise from the online course in order to invite 3 stakeholders from self Germany for a dialogue around their objectives and relationship to self.

2 stakeholders followed the invitation so far and I conducted 2 phone interviews: one with a member of the co-operative and one with a friend who has given a personal guarantee for the loan that self will get from the GLS-Bank.

Personal observations/conclusions include:

• The Voice of Cynicism was trying to play games with me and it slipped through once but I managed to keep it out of the conversation for the rest of the conversation.
• I was listening during the conversation for questions to emerge.
• Once we had reached the last question of the outline “What would be the practical next steps?”, I felt that this was not the end of the conversation, I paused, and I asked another question we often use in Pioneers of Change dialogues: “After this conversation, what is your burning question now?”
• And this question actually brought up the key insight for the whole conversation.
• After the first interview, the interviewee made a comment that I hear from a few people lately: “This is a simple process with most elements not being new. A normal consultant can come up with such a process.” How do I deal with this comment? Why is this process so fascinating and engaging for me?
• During the first conversation, I connected the conversation to my current process of defining my role as “Initiator & Facilitator of Change Networks” and to develop a social pioneer Unfolding Cards game.
• In the second interview, I took the personal burning question from the first interview to continue the dialogue among self stakeholders.

The full interviews will be posted on the selfHUB blog within the next few days…