It’s only natural

Tom Atlee’s story about a glass of water containing 13.7 billion year-old hydrogren atoms and us being the front edge of a wave that started with the Big Bang, evolving from atoms to genes to thoughts as its ripples spread.

We are stardust

We are golden

And we’ve got to get ourselves

Back to the garden

And I dreamed I saw the bombers

Riding shotgun in the sky

And they were turning into butterflies

Above our nation

We are stardust

Billion year old carbon

We are golden

I let my mind wander back over the days at Brainjam, the National Conference on Dialogue and Deliberation, and the Future of Talent Unworkshop. Awesome amount of learning going on. All you have to do is look.

Memories and snippets:

• A series of eight speed-dating style, five-minute, one-on-one dialogues on “What ignites true passion and makes your heart sing?”
• Podcasts as conversations that wire the global brain.
• Value humanism and diversify your blogroll.
• Net neutrality should be called net discrimination. (Or “outright theft by the phone companies.”)
• OPA = outcome, purpose, action
• Things that matter: Civil discourse, relationships, and citizen engagement. Wear an orange ribbon if you want to talk of these things.

Open Space

1. Whoever comes is who was supposed to come. (Passion is the ticket of admission.)
2. Whatever happens is what was the only thing that could happen. (Don’t burden yourself with expectations. This moment will never come again.)
3. Whenever it starts is the right time. (Why not now?)
4. When it’s over it’s over.
5. Be prepared to be surprised.

In addition to participants, some are bumblebees who polinate the discussions. Others are butterflies that weave our connections.

What would open space education look like?

More memories

• I am because we are. Varella (mind) + Bateson (brain): All is one.
• We began by completing and sharing three small drawings: one of ourselves and two of people who inspire us. Then drew connections. Great way to open an event.
• Executives are interested in using unconferences to expand talent pools.
• It’s becoming harder and harder to find good people.
• Another metaphor for linear vs. networked: roadmap vs mosaic.
• Opportunity hires are the stem cells of the organization’s future benchstrength.
• Attitude of the new generation: This is me. No mask. No presentation layer. What you see is what you get.
• Email is dead. IM is alive.
• Story from a friend: Saw a diatribe by Newt Gingrich on C-SPAN. “What’s your answer to that?” he demanded from the audience. Again and again. At the close of the event, the camera panned the room. The audience chairs were empty!
• Great facilitation includes persistent graciousness and subversion by inclusion.

The Dialogue Community

We mentally package our world in boxes. The dialogue people are working on some of the exact same issues our Unworkshops are dealing with. They are marrying process and problem, describing a repertoire of techniques for encouraging authentic, productive interaction. I plan to incorporate this in an Unlesson soon. It’s too bad the training community hasn’t linked arms with these folks. That’s the problem with packing things in boxes.