What are you responsible for? What do you commit to?

selfHUB Berlin member Holger Nauheimer is in Thailand right now sending us this message:

So, what am I responsible for?

My answer: Designing the future, by committing to bring future as a school subject to schools.

What are you responsible for? What do you commit to?
(just hit the comment button below!)

From the eye of the hurricane to the chaos of change

I was leaving Berlin for my first Pioneers of Change Global Journey after a week in the eye of the hurricane. As usual, we have been moving fast working for the selfHUB. Wiebke, the initiator and president of self, announcing she will be leaving for 4 weeks in October (the busy season), having an amazing “Hub Experience” workshop with German-Israeli youth and starting to question my place and leadership style in the organization.

Arriving in Athens, I met up with Julie Cultivation Team mate from Denmark and have my first yummy Greek meal in the old town with some meaningful conversation to start with.

One day later, I checked into the big circle of 30 people from 15 nations with these questions:

• How does self-organising, self-selection or rotating leadership work in my work environment?
• How can we move from discussion to dialogue?

We built the community on day one by opening the space with the question “What do you need to feel at home here?” I joined Maria’s session in the open-air kitchen to learn more about Axladitsa’s Conscious Kitchen – others went gardening to harvest some beans for a nice Greek bean soup.

Settling into Axladitsa-Avatakia, I learned from Maria about guardianship at Axladitsa and wondered “How would a Guardian Council look like for self?” and in one of the next circles I spoke to what was brewing in me: “How do I move myself from leadership to guardianship?”

Moving into stillness with the group…before moving into action…learning: we don’t make things happen, we wait for the right moment…finding a rhythm…what is my next level of pioneering?…

Moving up the U, action-filled conversations followed:

• What’s working in Africa and what is my connection?
• How to connect an Art of Hosting for children with my project idea of “Future goes to School”?
• What are our key learnings in setting up Hubs in cities around the world?
• How to bridge the gap between my skills and my inner needs?

I checked out of the gathering overlooking the Aegean Sea from the skyspace circle: “My clarity is gone. And I stand in confusion to get ready for change. Who will ask me those confusing questions when I go back to my work?”

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More harvesting:

Harvest from Ria, Belgium

and Ria’s pictures

Harvest from Axladitsa-Avatakia

Harvest from Thomas, Brasil

The Green Design Festival Greece

Introducing Lars from the selfHUB in Berlin

On August 12, as every other day , I am taking the metro to work. Living on the former edge of the Berlin wall, around the corner where Honecker and Ulbricht used to live, I have to travel every day across the city to little Istanbul also known as Kreuzberg where the selfHUB Berlin has its home.

One of the Hub members in Berlin, Lars from Art, Ecology & Education, has recently introduced me to the  “Transition Town Handbook” (see Transition Towns on Wikipedia) and I start reading the foreword and the introduction of the Handbook. The concept uses Permaculture principles, the psychology of social marketing and inclusive dialogue processes like OpenSpace to move people from feeling anxiety and fear in the face of ‘peak oil’, to developing a positive vision and taking practical action to create a more self-reliant existence.

When I arrived at my metro station that day, I sat down on a platform bench to finish reading the introduction and was wondering

“How can that concept be adapted to my social change context of fostering social innovation?”

To learn more about Lars’ project at the Hub Berlin:

Sound of Sirens blog

ArtEcologyEducation YouTube channel

Introducing Pioneers of Change Cultivation Team

Pioneers of Change has very close connections to IMAGINE since Sofia Bustamente and Alex Nick joined the conference team.

The network is currently cultivated by some AIESEC alumni and Hosts from Denmark, Bulgaria, Germany, South Africa, and Brazil. Here are some nuggets of our work as cultivation team:

Imagine…carrots in concert

And some interviews in German:

Source: Ode Magazine Article

We Think

Did you know 2.0

The KaosPilots.NL is recruiting NOW!

Imagine a school, where on the first day, you will not be registered with a number, but instead be given a business card with your name on, and a key to the building seconded by the remark: “It is all yours 24/7.. make the best of it!”

Last September, 17 individuals from 8 different countries gathered in Rotterdam to form the first ever KaosPilots.NL team! They are now recruiting Team 2! 20-35 young entrepreneurs with a head for business and a heart for the global society will be offered the opportunity to join Team 2. In the program you will develop your creative, innovative and entrepreneurial talents to enable you to take on the future that you choose! The question is always: “What will be your contribution to the world… what is your impossible dream… and are you risk taker enough to make it happen…?!”

Check out www.kaospilots.nl for info on the school, stories from students and info on the application procedure. Or contact our Welcoming Team at apply@kaospilots.nl.

There will be an info meet on Saturday, April 26^th. Deadline for application: May 19^th, 2008.

P.S.: Ursel from IMAGINE 2007 is on Team 1. I am sure, she is happy to answer your questions…

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:

Web 2.0 meets social innovators

What happens when you get a bunch of software developers and social innovators together, give them a set of social problems and only 48 hours to solve them?

What happens, if you put together the IT specialists with the NGO sector in the selfHUB in Berlin?

Two interesting “unconferences” are coming up in London (April 04-06, 2008) and in Berlin (June 14-15, 2008).