First steps forward

Hi Lonnie

I think that is a great idea. If we can bring together an initial extended design team around some particular problems, that will force us to engage with the system, getting us familiar with what it does and how it works.

Thanks

Jose

One of the ideas we have been discussing (Jose, Wray, Parag and Jack) is how to extend the influence of our community in the lead up to the 16th June and to support dialogues between the participants in the participatory workshops.

The Bluewater Action Research Network (BARN) in Canada are holding a workshop on the 13th April The note below came through from Bolormaa Batmunkk from the Mongolian National University of education about a regional workshop on the 14th April.

" I, Bolormaa Batmunkh from Mongolian National University of Education (MNUE), am writing you on behalf of MNUE acton research community. We are organizing our knowledge democracy regional workshop of ARNA 2017 on Friday, April 14, 2017 and we are required to introduce our action research findings through living posters.

We got your email address and your websites from Dr Kay and Dr Lonnie Rowell to obtain more information on action research living poster requirements and samples. They provided the following websites.

http://www.actionresearch.net/writings/aran/aranposters/JackWhitehead2704.pdf
http://www.actionresearch.net/writings/posters/homepage061115.pdf

We kindly ask you to provide us with the best samples of your living posters and more specific requirements for creating it as most of our researchers are going to create it for the first time here."

I think we need a specific plan for how to "support dialogues between the participants in the participatory workshops." Although the Bluewater group, the MNUE group and the participants in the first workshop, which was organized by Jack in February, likely can link through the common device of the "living posters," I am not comfortable assuming that all groups will use the living poster approach and do not want to limit dialogue in that way. I think we need a larger umbrella for supporting dialogue and would welcome proposals for that. I am wondering if someone can take this on? Janel, might you jump in on this?

Hi Lonnie and everyone,
When I made the suggestions for a world cafe type format, I was thinking specifically of the assembly on the 16th. I was thinking that as people meet prior to the assembly, perhaps they would capture (in writing?) some of their main ideas or questions shared. If we could get those ahead of time, then we as facilitators, could look for themes and "big questions". Then on the 16th we could have a world cafe format that looks like this:
1. Question one is presented
2. Groups of 4-6 participants sit in mixed groups (not everyone from the same country or organization) and have a certain amount of time (20-40 minutes) to engage in dialogue. There is usually a large paper on the table where they can capture their own thinking in words or pictures
3. When time is up, all participants, (except one) move to different tables.
4. One person stays at the table to summarize what the previous group said and then the dialogue continues with this new group of people
5. When time is up with this round, depending on time, you may do one more round.
6. At the end of the last round, the entire large group begins to share the key concepts from their dialogues. Usually themes appear. This discussion is the one that is captured by a "living poster" by a graphic recorder.
7. The process then starts over with small groups addressing the next question through several rounds that are then again discussed in the large group.
8. Note - traditionally this large group doesn't reach any consensus or problem solving or planning, but provides themes and concepts for a core group to then expand on in detail later.

Am I making sense? And am I anywhere on track with my conceptualization about how the 16th is to go?

Hi Janel

Those all seem like good ideas.

@wrayirwin and I put together a general process online for the day, which you can find here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14e7jeU6K1qa_7OBS9PsFVEwsBLTzV04yMwz1KEZqbxA/edit?usp=sharing

It is on page 7 and after

perhaps have a read through this proposal and see where your idea connects with what we have cooked up.

We wanted to create a general outline which was social innovation focused, but which was open and flexible - as we expect, given all the complexities, it needs to be able to evolve a lot between now and the day, and even to evolve on the day.

So this should be a first test of its ability to evolve.

Also, perhaps a discussion like this belongs on a separate thread.

@wrayirwin do you have any ideas what such a thread should be called? do you want to have a go at setting up a new thread that can address this specifically? Or should I do it, or @janelseeley ?

jose

Thank you Jose for pointing me to the document, that helps me see a little clearer the vision for the 16th. I particularly like the idea of disrupting and challenging assumptions and considering AR projects for moving forward.
To be sure I understand, do the small groups that are currently meeting, or will meet prior to the 16th, have particular questions or ideas they are examining that they will bring on the 16th?
I apologize if I am a little slow on getting the big picture. I would like to help however I can though, so please let me know if there is anything specific I can do.
Best, Janel

Hi Janel

This is a perfect conversation to have.

Wray and I were tasked with coming up with an initial design, but now we all need to have a system wide conversation to make this work.

Re: "do the small groups that are currently meeting, or will meet prior to the 16th, have particular questions or ideas they are examining that they will bring on the 16th?"

perhaps @christineedwardsgr or @marymcateer or @lesleywood would like to comment on this.

Christine and others are developing the pre-conference workshop on the 12th, some of which may feed into the 16th.

And Mary and Lesley are heading / facilitating the preparatory workshops around the world (which @jackwhitehead mentioned) and which we also discussed as potentially feeding into the 16th.

So you question is highly relevant, and the puzzle has not been solved!

I'm hoping that others (Mary / Lesley / Christine / Lonnie) can elaborate here.

Thanks

Jose

Hi all
in relation to this point:
Re: "do the small groups that are currently meeting, or will meet prior to the 16th, have particular questions or ideas they are examining that they will bring on the 16th?"

I'm attaching the only guidance document that is given to participants. This gives suggested themes for exploration. The nature of the workshops, and the type of output/report they decide on is left open for them all to realised in accordance with their own needs, and indeed areas of expertise. The document is also available in Spanish.
Does this help?
Mary

Hi Janel,

As soon as we sort out the current communication regarding a vote on a first step, I would like us to take up consideration of your very helpful proposal. I anticipate that by late this week we will be on it.

@jramos @janelseeley I think this is exactly what we need to discuss. the idea will be ( i believe) that the day will be a process to create new futures towards which we will all commit to collaboratively working towards. However we need to understand where we are and disrupt the thinking about the current state of play other wise we will built from our own views of the past/present rather than from our imagined desitination backwards; desiging strategies that repeat the past rather than new ways and connections to achieve the vision. We wont achieve this in a day (I would suggest) so yes we need the participatory workshops to feed into this process by posing questions, insights, vision and feedbacks; we need to capture the dialogue created between the 12th and 15th (posssibly in the spiral spark zone lonnie has suggested taht miirrors the spiral of social innovation) to prompt and disrupt thinking and and reframe the agenda.

but we also need to keep it simple... and @jramos bridge model is ideal... the tools we use to support this are up for discussion, as are the prompts and triggers from the participatory groups etc.

happy to kick off a thread as I think it is appropriate to begin to harvest the discussions to understand how the small groups feed in to the 16th but also how we frame the provocation.