Engaging the whole community in co-creating our future through locally hosted conversations
PURPOSE ❤
PURPOSE
CALLING QUESTION
HARVEST 🎉
TANGIBLE
INTANGIBLE
PEOPLE 👥
CORE TEAM
PARTNERS
PARTICIPANTS
WISDOM COUNCIL #
VISION #
EVENT(S) 💥
PREPARATION
EVENT
FOLLOW-UP
PROJECT CALLER
Gill King
PRINCIPLES 🏁
LIMITING BELIEFS
CHALLENGES
INSIGHTS
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
WE NEED HELP WITH / TO
NEXT STEPS
City changes its behaviour: defend democracy, improve wellbeing, reduce emissions
Community discussion/conversations create a different/new/better future where humans flourish
FOOD
Tailor the call/content/conversation to individual audiences eg schools, churches, sports groups
INVITATIONS
CONTENT
PRINCIPLES
Models
Vision scenarios of possible futures to provide people with alternatives to choose from or as entry point for conversations (see work by Bob Costanza, Steve Cork, Great Transition Initiative, Australia 2050 workshop)
❓
What is meant by co-creating?
What is meant by whole community?
'Engagement' does not equal visioning/conversation together – different energies, stigma attached to 'engage'
Need simple, engaging language
ANU Climate Change Institute
Bec Colvin
Communication businesses
Biotext (Kirsten)
ACT Government
Shane Rattenbury
Could partner with any local community organisations
CAPaD (Beth), SEE-Change (Gill, Mark), 350.org, Conservation Council, ANDI, Public Interest Foundation (Beth), Faith groups (Gill), U3A, Probus, Chorus of Women, Fenner Foundation,
etc
Do we need to invite ourselves in ie approach organisations and ask if we can host conversations?
Invite partners who are also trying to do this, ie similar conversation model or purpose
What experience is needed for core team?
Is it just being human (given purpose is involving whole city)?
Diversity: call out widely for core team – call out to community?
ETHICS
Teachers, allies, partners
Invite city as partners?
Different entry points for conversations:
Food, wellbeing/quality of life, safety/threat/security
NEED
Learn from & build on the work of others - applicability of model, bring/adapt, training, practicalities
Climate Conversations (Singapore)
Climate for Change (Melbourne, Katerina Gaita)
What is a 'right' invitation question?
How will we know what invitation is best? Pilot? Co-design?
Consider different lenses.
Tailor the call to individual audiences.
Need to frame the calling question so that it doesn't inadvertently exclude people – make it open and welcoming.
Humans are a herd animal…can sense when something is not right
Engaging through different means including activities
That some people aren't engaged
Should conversations directly lead to actions or focus on increasing agency?
Feeling that it is better to act in community and belonging
Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI)
Creates opportunity for self-acceptance
Ways of valuing the contribution that marginalised people can make
Do you share the outcomes and record of the journey in accessible ways and ways other people can use (eg to lobby for change)? #
City as partners? Or 'city' as city?
CORE
Gill King, Beth Slatyer, Mark Spain, Kirsten Duncan
WIDER
Janet Salisbury, Lyn Stephens, Plaxy McCulloch, Johanna McBride
"How would you know things are getting better?"
"How to have wellbeing in your life"
"How do we know when we are in an emergency?"
Need different calling questions for
- core team, partners, hosts, wisdom council (ie the project)
- participants (ie the conversation events) :
Raising consciousness
Promoting wellbeing
Let people feel part of a herd and that the herd can act
Develop/Build sense of agency, awareness of how they can take action themselves
Do we want people to participate in (climate change strategy) policy process or change their behaviour?
Engage the people who are not engaged or don't see the problem (climate change)
Bigger than climate change – CC as a starting/entry point
Crisis in governance – democracy not working
We need to work together like we never have before
Address increasing inequality
Business as usual will destroy our living system
Move from scarcity to abundance ie sufficiency
Canberra has highest rate of homelessness in Australia
How do we know when we are in an emergency?
Mandates/Needs
Need for safe, open space, not didactic or directive
Feeling overwhelmed by needs indicates project is in emergent phase
VENUE(S)
MATERIALS
COMMUNICATION ⁉
PROJECT TEAM
(inward facing)
Web-based collaboration forum
- Confluence
- Google Docs
- Dropbox etc
PARTICIPANTS
(outward facing)
HOSTING COMMUNITY
REST OF WORLD!
Kirsten investigating options
Needs to enable/be
- threaded discussion
- scalable for more users
- low cost
- intuitive to use
- sharing/storing documents
Project mapping
- Coggle.it (you are here!)
- Invitations
- Resources
- Information about the project
- Follow up after conversations
- Join a community of activated citizens
Holding space for the space-holders
Sharing of harvest and lessons from experience of creating project and hosting conversations
PROJECT IDENTITY
Co-create with partners?
What do participants expect from the experience?
ANU Climate Change Institute (Canberra, Bec Colvin)
That we need to be 'qualified' to have credibility
HOSTS
What is our responsibility to participants?
To start the ripple that becomes a tide for change
Collate our thoughts lightly (yet with enough detail) to start conversations with other groups in a similar space #
Clarify need, vision, purpose
Describe our vision of this a container and its key elements/contents
Bring together all the groups we know of who want this to agree common purpose, ethics of conversations, tools, craft generic invitation
Split this project into 2? - climate change, broader
Explore others for wisdom council
If this is about co-creation, where are (1) the community as partners, (2) the community just being community? Could it be via invitation to the community to join the core team?
Gill organising exploratory conversation
U3A Climate Conversations Group (Canberra, Trevor Powell & Barry Naughten)
Conversations create a new future where humans flourish
click to edit
Multicultural
Rather than open invitations, take the conversations to people through existing groups & institutions #
Catalogue of action options for people to choose from depending on their lens and progress on their awareness-to-action journey (eg Transition Towns)
Learn from elsewhere
What might be the harvest & how might it e used?
Don't let perfect be the enemy of action
Invite community organisers to be hosts
Size of conversations?
Livingroom Conversations (USA)
What are community group goals? How can we use those as lenses for our purpose & meet their needs?
#
What's in it for them?
Invite government, if only to remove the barriers
Climate Conversations (Singapore)
Exeter Uni (Cornwall)
Open space can be a method for people to bring up what's important for them – how they may start change to start the ripple
Scenarios of possible futures
Insert our conversation points into others' conversations #
Vision scenarios to provide people with alternatives to choose from - good entry point for conversations
Scenario Planning (Steve Cork) - Growth, Restraint, Collapse, Transform - rotate between sessions
Fluid & adaptive learning system
People feel better about themselves
Strongly connected, resilient & empowered community
Never do for anybody what they can do for themselves
The power of hearing other people's perspectives
Engaging through different means (incl. activities)
Learning by doing
How will we know what invitation is best? Pilot? Co-design?
Who else is already doing this?
9 April 2018
Ours is climate change - maybe it's governance (AKA 'democracy')
That people need the 'future' conversation before they can start co-designing new sysems
Humans are herd animals
How to find sweet spot of messy/not messy, urgency/time etc
Getting people comfortable with messiness at a time when they crave simplicity & order
What will generate co-creation/dsign of system change?
Who (type of person) do we envisage to be the hosts? #
Articulating common purpose in ways that allow for diverse engagement - multiple ways
Tension between urgency & time/space for deep connection & co-creation.
Diversity
A container for multiple conversations with multiple calling questions to suit different groups of people
Light touch of key elements in container that allow conversations, self-organisation, multiple identities etc, agency (not control/colonize)
Be clear about what will & what won't harvest so expectations are clear
Menu of things & tools people can do & use
Big data people at ANU - collation & analysis -> patterns/themes-> help action & overwhelm of decision-makers #
Organisation only for tools, transparency & method of harvest
Zero-emission Canberra – measurement
COMMENT: Maybe it's not just an environmental emphasis – could be other ways of engaging people
Clear process: do things for self, report to govt, feed into local community, input to budgeting
Is 'Inserting conversations into other conversations' sounds like a harvesting methodology for how
Valuing diversity of groups, ideas & processes i.e. messiness
Self-organisation
Self-empowerment
Ownership
Be explicit about what we are doing & not doing for people
Consider different lenses
Invitation to find a nurturing, loving way of being outside the rat race
Is the calling question for the project or the event?
Engagement is not visioning/conversation together - different energies; engagement has synergies
Focus on purpose, hosts+places+tools - which means multiple calling questions to engage different people
Build community before the collapse (& hopefully prevent it)
To mobilise collective action
Focus on agency or action goes to purpose of project
Conversations that let people feel like they are in a herd & that the herd can act/take the lead
Help ppl move from reptile brain to higher order of thinking
Unleash the power of hearing other people's perspectives
Purposes all very similar/linked so are clearer than first appears
Emergency resilience
People become aware of how they can take action themselves
Come to a temporary Island of Sanity - feeling of belonging & community
Strong & resilient communities survive
Climate change adaptation requires system change
Holding this space as a creative space, a refuge, a space of peace
- magnitude of transformation – we all need to be in this together - we need to work together like we never have before
- ACT is a leader in climate policy action
- ACT Zero Net Emissions target
4.Citizens dissatisfied with development
- increasing inequality
- Government commitment to engagement
Uncertainty does not mean doubt
Citizens summit to provide points to bring together conversations already happening, bring in new people, & harvest themes...to move thinking/conversations/actions to next stage