If you liked what you find below and you’re getting value out it, I encourage you to click the 👏 button and hold down to 20–50 claps as this will help this information get more shared.

Start with excellent 8-minute OST video tutorial by Marai Kiele to get an overview and understanding of the process for in-person or online set-up.

Or this 3-minute overveiw:

Open Space operates under four or five principles and one law. The four principles are:

1. Whoever comes are the right people.
2. Whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened.
3. Whenever it starts is the right time.
4. When it’s over it’s over.

Some facilitators also list the fifth principle:

5. Wherever it happens is the right place.

The Law is known as the Law of Two Feet or Law of Mobility: “If you find yourself in a situation where you are not contributing or learning, move somewhere where you can.”

Edit 21 September 2020 — the latest Zoom update (version 5.3.0) includes “Let participants choose room” option in Breakout Rooms panel. Thank you Zoom for making hosting online Open Space events easier :)

Here’s how you make it happen:

1. Group convenes in a Zoom Meetings video conference and is welcomed by the sponsor, a person motivated to convene an OST gathering. In short events there is no check-in round (a standard video meeting element in my networks) because participants will have a chance to interact informally throughout the event. Some Impromptu Networking could be done, using Zoom Breakout Rooms feature.
2. The facilitator provides an overview of the process and explains how it works. A co-facilitatior can help with Zoom Host Controls. Don’t do it alone. Facilitating conversations on video is a high cognitive load activity, so share it with co-facilitators.
3. Facilitator invites people with issues of concern to write the issue in the marketplace (or agenda wall in above video) section of a shared document [an example], choosing a time box and a breakout room to meet, and announce it to the group. These people are “conveners.” This process continues until there are no more agenda items. Throughout the event a facilitator updates shared document as needed, editing or adding information to reflect current “state of affairs”. When in doubt participants check what’s in shared document.
4. Facilitator in Zoom host role sets all participants as co-hosts and creates a number of breakout rooms: all the required rooms + few extra rooms for people to hang out (breakout rooms in Zoom can be renamed). One of the rooms could be named “lobby” or smiliar. That’s where all participants are moved on start, or for presentation of their topics. From there, participants can move themselves into rooms of their choice. It is good idea to practise moving between rooms for a while, so that participants are clear how to do that. I like to play “catch me if you can” with people. When all clear and ready, facilitator starts breakout rooms, moving everyone to “lobby”. From there, participants move to a breakout room of their choice. This is recommended for up to 30–50 group size. However “There is no limitation on the number of co-hosts you can have in a meeting or webinar.” [source], so with some good co-facilitation this can be done for more participants.
5. Step-by-step, for clarity:
    — Step one: Facilitator assigns Zoom co-host role to all participants — hey, Zoom, Make All Co-Hosts button would be nice to have! [Edit 21 September 2020: there is now even better functionality, see above.]
    — Step two: Facilitator assigns everyone to one of the breakout rooms (“lobby”, for example) and opens breakout rooms.
    — Step three: Participants (in Zoom co-host role) join breakout rooms. At that point Breakout Rooms button appears on their respective meeting controls bar at the bottom of the Zoom window. Clicking on it they can see all the breakout rooms and names of participants in breakout rooms. They can move between breakout rooms themselves, at will. [Participants that are not set as Zoom co-hosts don’t have this possibility; instead they can leave breakout room to return to main room. There they can be assigned a co-host role or moved manually by Zoom host.]
6. Alternative to #4, recommended for larger group size: a number of Zoom accounts can be organised in advance or crowdsourced during the event so that both the main room and every breakout room has its own Zoom link. Free Zoom accounts can be used too as 40 minutes limit on group meetings is not an issue because that would be normally enough time for a session. Facilitators and participants move betwen the rooms using shared document as a reference (or any other form of a web page).
7. Dialogue sessions convene for the balance of the meeting. Recorders determined by each group capture the important points in news wall section of a shared document, in a box assigned to their breakout room number for the time slot (or using any other tool of choice). If wanted, Zoom host can allow conveners to record their sessions locally, to their computer.
8. Following a closing or a break, the group might move into convergence, a process that takes the issues that have been discussed and attaches action plans to them to “get them out into the world.”
9. The group then finishes the meeting with a closing round where people are invited to share comments, insights, and commitments arising from the process.

If you liked what you find above and you’re getting value out it, I encourage you to click the 👏 button and hold down to 20–50 claps as this will help this information get more shared.

More OST and online OST resources:

A Brief User’s Guide to Open Space Technology by Harrison Owen, the originator of Open Space Technology

• Liberating Structures - 25. Open Space Technology
• What Is Open Space Technology?
• Open Space Resources
• What is Open Space Technology?
• OPEN SPACE ONLINE USING ZOOM
• Open Space Technology and Zoom - flexible online spaces - Drawing Change

Fearless Experimentation: doing Open Space event online was originally published in Virtual Teams for Systemic Change on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

If you liked what you find below and you’re getting value out it, I encourage you to click the 👏 button and hold down to 20–50 claps as this will help this information get more shared.

Virtual Team Quick Guide I created for Transition Network:

Virtual Team Quick Guide

On Zoom, my video conferencing tool of choice:

• Standard element in my online events descriptions:
  NEW TO ZOOM or had some trouble last time?
  TIPS HERE: https://goo.gl/5Q8J6j (curated one-pager)
• In Croatian, my native language:
  Prvi puta koristiš Zoom ili je prošli puta bilo nekih problema?
  Svakako pogledaj upute: https://goo.gl/Y5VGCd (jedna stranica)
• For absolute beginners: https://www.slideshare.net/nmaljkovic/super-easy-guide-to-zoom (fun and easy to follow step-by-step guide by Amy Lenzo)
• Zoom curates excellent knowlege base at support.zoom.us and they also offer this support during the COVID-19 pandemic

…and:

Resources for Online Meetings, Classes and Events by Facilitators for Pandemic Response group and other collaborators.

…and!

Excellent and comprehensive resource page by Lisette Sutherland of Collaboration Superpowers:

Remote Resources during the Corona Virus - Collaboration Superpowers

Cheat sheet to download:

• Remote Collaboration | Crisp - Get agile with Crisp
• Tools of the trade

My Shareable Remote Work Resources was originally published in Virtual Teams for Systemic Change on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As we approach the first Urban Arena event hosted by DRIFT in Rotterdam and online on 28 and 29 November 2019, we aim to offer a 3E experience — effective, efficient and enjoyable — for everyone involved.

It will be a blended event, also known as a hybrid event. This is an in-person event that includes participants who cannot travel or choose not to travel for environmental or other reasons. It’s a standard meeting, workshop or conference with participants on site and others who join remotely using fully interactive 2-way audio and video communication, from the beginning to the end of the event—during plenaries, breakout sessions, and sometimes even during social breaks, meals and fringe encounters.

The way I’m picking up the signal, this is the emerging ‘new normal’ for all kinds of events on a planet coping with human-induced climate breakdown that makes flying shame popular. Some call it telepresence.

Similarly to video conferencing, blended events are like beer — an acquired taste. You need to experience one blended event that’s actually effective, efficient and enjoyable for YOU— and that creates value for everyone involved while minimizing stress — before you start to appreciate them. In ECOLISE (the European Network for Community-led Initiatives on Climate change and Sustainability) we are experimenting a lot with video conferencing and blended events. We are all over Europe, we don’t have many opportunities to meet in person, we want to minimize our personal carbon footprint by travelling less, and many of us are following climate activist tradition of choosing not to fly.

We encourage event participants to self-organise using devices we all normally use—laptops, smartphones, LCD projectors , external microphones, speakerphones, tripods, selfie sticks, etc. Hence we have a BYOD policy — bring your own device.

In addition to BYOD, for a blended event to work well everyone involved needs to do something differently compared to a traditional in-person event. Everyone needs to become remote-ready.

How to be remote-ready

If you are online participant, no multitasking, and make yourself seen and heard! To create or get value from participating in a blended event you must remove distractions from your immediate physical environment and from the screen you are using to connect. Join from a quiet and well-lit room (so that people on site can see and hear you well). And think about how to look good on webcam.

If you are an on-site participant, remember, online participants have priority! It is very easy to ignore online participants. For that reason everyone in the room is invited to direct some personal care into including them. Event organisers must make them visible in the room at all times and whenever there is activity facilitators must invite them to speak first. During breakout sessions, small groups and outdoor activities, you are invited to use your own device in order to include remote participants.

You are a facilitator? Focus differently! Blended event facilitators have the particularly demanding task of directing their attention not only to people that are sharing the room with them (which is natural for human beings), but also to people on the other side of the screen (mediated communication is not really natural for us). For that reason we add a new co-facilitation role to the event team: one or more virtual hosts taking care of online participants’ needs. In the room, at every small group table, or a virtual host may walk around with a smartphone showing closeups of people talking or doing an activity. Sometimes almost everybody is a virtual host for one or more online participants, for example, ‘taking’ them outdoors on their smartphones.

You are the event organizer? Design well! A blended event is one event, one space, that aims to provide a meaningful experience for all participants, whether on site or online. It needs to be designed as such from the very beginning. Ask organisers with experience, look for good practices.

I’m looking forward to meet you in Rotterdam or online — let’s make this event truly 3E: effective, efficient and enjoyable experience!

And remember: BYOD.

Air travel is a huge contributor to climate change. A new global movement wants you to be ashamed to fly.

Related:

• Designing the UrbanA Arenas
• Virtual Team Quick Guide
• Should it be online, in-person, or hybrid? - Surviving the Horror of Online Meetings
• How to Make Hybrid Meetings Not Suck
• Successful Hybrid Gatherings - Institute For Online Collaboration

Knowmium Hybrid Live Video Series

Hybrid - Knowmium: The Un-Training Consultancy

An honest* guide to planning and facilitating successful hybrid events by Deborah Rim Moiso

When Hybrid-Remote, Help Community Care For Community

For a blended event, BYOD was originally published in Blog on Sustainable Just Cities on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Are you a permaculture practitioner? You may want to check what I wrote a while ago: Earth Day 2019. Then you may want to join DAF Professions’ Network — I’m convening a Task Group there and we are primarily focusing on Community Action discussion group.

See here: http://deepadaptation.info

What follows is written by Matthew Slater (Community Forge & Deep Adaptation Forum) and Jem Bendell (University of Cumbria & Deep Adaptation Forum), mostly for UK context, and was originally published at jembendell.com. Slightly edited because I’m mindful about differences between deep adaptation and Deep Adaptation [something].

Deep adaptation is firstly and mainly about coming to terms with the end of our way of life, and finding in ourselves and each other loving responses in place of fear and blame. Many people, having dwelled in that space for a while, then seek various forms of meaningful action, usually around living more fully and trying to reduce future harm. Increasingly, people are putting energy into re-localising their societies and economies. The rationale for such action is often quite personal. In our experience of engaging with people who are seeking to localise their lives as part of their deep adaptation, the following ideas often come up:

• there are many links between globalised neoliberal economics and the drivers of the climate crisis
• there is a long tradition of alternative economics promoting localisation for environmental benefit that goes back to EF Schumacher
• most people express little to no political agency at the national level, whereas local politics appears much more accessible
• many people find working face-to-face with neighbours easier and more enjoyable than sporadic collaborations at national levels
• they consider they are more likely to benefit from results of their own local improvements.

It is not that all globalisation is all bad, but that there has been a huge imbalance in power at the global level, with the interests of corporations and banks shaping the agendas. Progressive internationalists can point to many benefits. For instance, global technical standards make the internet available to everyone, our electronic devices (somewhat) compatible, and other infrastructure like GPS means no-one (carrying a phone) gets lost any more. Global law like the human rights charter is a fantastic political achievement despite many countries’ neglect of it. Intergovernmental cooperation is also essential for both cutting and drawing down carbon emissions, as well as adapting to the effects of extreme weather on our societies. So it is important to clarify which aspects of life most need to be local, and indeed, regional and national.

There is one really important reason why we need to rebuild local life, which has been hollowed out by the needs of the economic machine in recent decades, and indeed centuries: that reason is resilience.

There are growing debates about how society will respond, breakdown or collapse through the impact of global heating. Probably the most referenced theory of previous societal collapses is Joseph Tainter’s theory of complex societies. He alleges that when the base conditions change, the layer and layers of governance, bureaucracy built up during long periods of stability come crashing down. That means that our means of global governance, global infrastructure, and global trade, are at the greatest risk — ironically the very things our prevailing ideologies have been driving us towards, in the name of efficiency.

Of course Tainter’s collapse is an interpretation of history, not necessarily a prediction of the future, but it gives grounds for thought. It suggests that if say food, or fuel were to become generally scarce, flows of resources towards the most abstract, and complex organs of society would wither. From that theory, perhaps the Bretton Woods institutions, complex trade agreements, international law, the most complex financial instruments, airlines, computer hardware and social networks, could be amongst the first things to fail?

This could be a matter of ‘falling back’, but it could be worse if we have come to depend on those things. For example much food is imported by air, interest rates in all mortgages are globally linked to high risk finance, and we may struggle to imagine life without mobile phones and social networks. If national infrastructure should start to crumble, life could become very difficult.

A great explanation for all this vulnerability can be found in a biology / economics study which shows that efficiency and resilience lie at opposite ends of a spectrum. Generally, more diverse systems encourage more redundancy and more linkages between components, and more uses for each component. Imagine running across a tightrope — you can go pretty fast unless you fall off! Running across the safety net is less efficient but you are less likely to die. The authors stressed that this principle applied in economics as in other fields. “Economics seems in pursuit of monistic goals and all too willing to sacrifice everything for the betterment of market efficiency… Preoccupation with efficiency could propel into disaster.” Capitalism has always been about building greater efficiency (maximising GDP for a given population), and within that the regular financial mishaps have been regarded as mere abberations. The theoretical cost of super-efficiency is the risk of super-accidents, which implies that economic globalisation is setting us up for the mother of all collapses.

There are several formulations of resilience in general terms. Key amongst them is the need avoid single points of failure, by distributing the work and the processing throughout the system. A related goal for resilience is that the same functions should be fulfilled by different mechanisms so that when conditions change in unforseeable ways, some mechanisms are likely still to work. Localisation is desirable for many reasons, but it is systemically important for these reasons, so after that somewhat long introduction to the topic of localisation for deep adaptation, in the remainder of this blog we will look closer at what it could involve. If you would like to engage on this topic, we recommend joining the Community Action discussion group of the Deep Adaptation Forum.

The most prominent localisation movement in UK at the moment is the Transition Town network, which grew out of the systemic thinking of permaculture. That movement has thoroughly explored what localisation entails in the modern context, and piloted many projects. Ecovillages also play an important role in pioneering deeply different ways of life, which many of them can do, as intentional communities.

So let’s take a closer look. The Transition movement emphasises several areas of life in need of localisation, which we will now expound upon, sometimes using examples from other movements:

Food

Food is usually the highest priority because humans require lots of it, every day, and it requires months of preparation and often lots of organisation to produce and prepare it. The industrialised food system depends on massive inputs of fossil fuels, both to power machinery and for fertiliser, and results in high waste, pollution and often poor nutrition. And yet by growing food in gardens, allotments or on public land, families and communities can dramatically reduce dependence on imports and industry. In most countries there is a large informal food scene, consisting of farmers’ markets and part-time, self-sufficient growers alongside people drying, preserving, baking and occasionally serving labour intensive foods — and those who wish to pay the price. Those who want to support local growers and eat organic food with the seasons can find more and more veggie box schemes, formally known as Community Supported Agriculture.

Energy

Energy prices are increasing over the long term, and our supplies in the West have depended on militarised subjugation of people in other countries. Much energy generated in power stations is lost in transit. The imperative to reduce or stop fossil fuel consumption can involve four approaches: reducing energy consumption and changing usage patterns, nuclear power to which many object forcefully, massive solar and wind farms, and small scale renewable energy, owned by individuals or local communities.

Government

In these kinds of matters, the hand of government is everywhere from creating minimum standards, to reporting requirements, and market influence through taxes, grants, and subsidies. Governments, especially local governments are under enormous pressure to cut costs and sell assets, and this creates an environment, not accidentally, favourable to enterprises led by large corporations with better access to credit, lobbying power, cheap labour etc. Many elected representatives and civil servants don’t really understand the full extent of this process, or if they do, they don’t or can’t organise, stick their necks out, and change it. A recent phenomenon in UK, dubbed flatpack democracy has seen citizens organise, get themselves elected, and accomplish useful things at the local level.

Finance

Modern capitalism favours large institutions which can spread risk and maximise profit for shareholders, which means that small and local businesses find it very hard to get loans. Other non-commercial community institutions, including government struggle for viability, especially after a decade of austerity. Philanthropic funding increasing comes with demands that revenue streams be developed. UK has a law called ‘community right to bid’ which allows local groups to purchase local assets and amenities like post offices, village shops or community pubs. The Plukett foundation helps communities to organise themselves, and the UK government helps them to issue shares for such purposes. We are watching another initiative which aims to create local care cooperatives as an alternative to crumbling state care system. All of this is a far cry from reversing the centralising effect of the last forty years of capitalism.

Currency

The difficulty of all of these things points towards deeper drivers. A number of local money projects in UK were spawned from Transition Towns initiatives, which helped to show the public that money is not the simple/neutral tool it may appear to be to the casual user, but could be designed differently. But the low traction of these projects also showed just how intractable money and assumptions about it are. We critiqued these projects elsewhere. Other initiatives like LETS and timebanking reimagine non-monetary currencies, supporting value-flows and exchange within communities, without banks, debt or government behind the accounting unit. In a forthcoming blog, we will offer two new ideas for local monetary innovation which build on these efforts, while focusing particularly on currency and payment systems that would survive an economic (and banking) collapse.

Leisure

In an era of fuel scarcity we shall have to re-learn how to holiday and play closer to home. In the UK, hardworking people often escape to the sunshine, but a more resilient attitude might be to focus on building quality relationships and having fun with other people, sometimes called ‘staycationing’. Cultivating musical talent, group activities and festivals, form another thread in the transition culture.

Our minds

For the Transition movement, “inner transition” is the mental, psychological and spiritual processes that accompany the social, economic and political transition to a post-peak oil world. It can be a personal or collective process and bears a lot in common with deep adaptation. These practices and ideas can be more intense in intentional communities, where living more closely together requires a higher degree of knowledge of self and trust of others.

Learning from the Limits of Localisation Past

There’s one more reason the localisation agenda chimes with deep adaptation. We don’t know how meaningful any of our efforts will be on trajectory of climate or the global response of humanity. Perhaps the future will disagree with Tainter and our society will collapse from the bottom up! So what is important to us about the localisation agenda and the practical things people are doing in relation to it, is that it is about a more vibrant way of living right now. Localisation points towards a more grounded, more connected, more human way of life in contrast with the ‘alienation’ many people feel from their work, families and neighbours. Helena Norberg Hodge promotes it for this reason, calling it “The Economics of Happiness”.

In Western countries, these efforts at environmentally-friendly localisation have been around for decades. So as we reflect on the implications for deep adaptation, it is useful to consider the limitations of current and past initiatives. Many of them have failed to spread to economically disadvantaged communities. The accusation then heard from some critics is that movements like Transition are elitist and excluding. While the limited extent or diversity of any movement can seem like an unfair criticism of hard-working, well-meaning volunteers, it is nevertheless a central issue for an agenda as all-encompassing as deep adaptation. Therefore, a key question for people interested in localisation to promote resilience for unfolding societal breakdowns and likely collapse is to learn from those limitations.

We can learn from situations in other countries where resilience has been improved in the past. In Cuba, for instance, where the past trade embargo led to self-reliant organic agriculture across the whole country. Or in Kenya, where people living on only a few dollars (equivalent) a day in informal settlements have reduced poverty without foreign aid money by issuing their own currencies. We do not know for certain the reasons for these successes, but the answers might be found in:

a) Community leaders convening those local people with the capacity to explore issues, prioritise actions and implement them in ways that reduce dependence on support from outside.

b) Focusing those initial actions on acknowledging and mobilising existing community assets, in order to collaboratively meet immediate needs.

Unfortunately, when funders get involved, they often start by bringing a deficit mindset, characterising communities by what is lacking. External funders’ agendas and mechanisms then privilege a few people in a community who are best able to look outside the community for answers and, once funded, begin to think on behalf of the funder as much as the community. It is why one of us has argued previously for a more solidarity-based approach from grant makers in the face of climate-induced collapse.

For more on this subject, see the podcast Poetry of Predicament on localisation.

Localisation is for many people an important part of preparing for collapse. Recognising the importance of localisation to deep adaptation is one reason why we launched the Deep Adaptation Groups Network, to support local efforts. You can find out about these local groups here, and also consider starting your own.

The Deep Adaptation Forum would welcome any financial support you can offer via patreon.com.

Originally published at http://jembendell.com on November 2, 2019.

• New Paper on Deep Adaptation to Climate Chaos
• How to learn during planetary cultural change?
• At the Intersection of Permaculture and Degrowth
• Earth Day 2019

Why Deep Adaptation Needs Re-localisation was originally published in Virtual Teams for Systemic Change on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Mnoštvo promjena kojima danas svjedočimo podsjeća na vrijeme kada se pojavila nova komunikacijska tehnologija koja je iz temelja promijenila Europu — tisak. Reformacija kršćanstva dovela je do vjerskih ratova, a nakon njih došlo je do znanstvene revolucije i prosvjetiteljstva. Uslijedilo je doba istraživanja i kolonijalizma, koje nije donijelo samo zlato i srebro u europske riznice, već i nove namirnice poput krumpira — što je pak potaklo industrijsku revoluciju.

Danas se ponovno svijetom širi još jedna nova komunikacijska tehnologija — na struju, sada je to digitalna komunikacija. Ona također mijenja i nastavit će mijenjati globalno isprepleteno društvo. Te će se promjene nastaviti uz istovremeno iscrpljivanje prirodnih resursa, zagađivanje okoliša, prenaseljenost i posljedice klimatskih promjena. Mi smo svi danas postali stanovnicima “globalnog sela” Marshalla McLuhana. Ono što se dogodi na nekom dalekom mjestu može se preko našeg kolektivnog živčanog sustava osjetiti na drugoj strani planeta. Naša su osjetila preopterećena.

Posljedice telegrafom započete električne revolucije sada su vidljive po cijelom svijetu, uz reakcije koje su različite u različitim društvima i kulturama. Nove tehnologije i znanstvena otkrića pokazuju veliki potencijal, no istovremeno dovode u pitanje neke prethodne znanstvene spoznaje. Za znanstvenike je to normalan proces, no građanima može izazivati nesigurnost — pa onda mnogi traže utjehu u izvjesnosti koju nude oni koji prodaju lake odgovore, kao što su protivnici cijepljenja ili homeopatski iscjelitelji. Ljudskim je bićima teško nositi se s kompleksnim odgovorima.

Sada su i marginalne skupine u stanju probiti se do medija i preko njih dovoditi status quo u pitanje. Brze promjene tradicionalnih vrijednosti, često patrijarhalnih, potiču privlačnost populizma i ksenofobije. Istovremeno, kapitalizam praćenja mnoge navodi na ponašanje zatvorenika u panoptikonu. “Strateško i namjerno stvaranje neznanja” postaje zanimljivo kako dobavljačima, tako i kupcima.

Što možemo učiniti? Odgovor bi se mogao pronaći u medijskom četverolistu Marshalla McLuhana. Njegov predložak možemo iskoristiti za razmatranje posljedica tehnologije. Posebno nam je zanimljiv kvadrant “otkriva” (eng. RETRIEVES). Jedan od aspekata koji današnje digitalne tehnologije, od kojih je sačinjen naš kolektivni živčani sustav, ponovno otkrivaju je novi način organizacije rada — udruživanje umreženih profesionalaca u timove. Nitko sam ne može razumjeti sve globalne kompleksnosti s kojima se nosimo. Zbog toga trebamo zajedno raditi i učiti. Ljudska su se bića evolucijski razvila kroz život i suradnju u malim grupama. Međusobnim povezivanjem možemo zajedno doći do boljeg razumijevanja današnjice. No ne smijemo se osloniti samo na te male grupe.

Trebamo pronaći grupe kojima vjerujemo — zajednice praktičara — koje će nam pomagati u boljem razumijevanju svijeta. Uz to se trebamo povezivati i surađivati u većim, globalnim mrežama pa tako stjecati shvaćanje raznolikosti čovječanstva kojeg smo svi dio. Radoznalost o drugima stvara empatiju. Odgovor na populizam nije povratak na staro, niti ironično post-moderno slijeganje ramenima, već nova meta-modernost — višeslojna, utemeljena u odnosima i globalna.

Izvor: Status update on society, objavljeno 22.5.2019. na jarche.com, s engleskog preveo Nenad Maljković.

Što danas čini društvo? was originally published in Dobra ekonomija on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Many of the changes we face today are similar to a time when a new communications technology came along and changed the face of Europe — print. The Protestant Reformation saw the rise of religious wars, which were later followed by the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment. An age of exploration and colonialism followed, which brought not just gold and silver to the coffers of Europe, but new foods such as potatoes, to fuel the Industrial Revolution.

Today the world is dealing with another new communications technology — electric, now in its digital form. It too is and will continue to change a now globally connected society. These changes continue, with the concurrent challenges of natural resource depletion, pollution, over-population, and the effects of climate change. We are now all members of Marshall McLuhan’s “global village”. What happens in one remote location can be felt across the world through our collective digital nervous system. Our senses are overwhelmed.

The impact of the electric revolution, which started with the telegraph, are now evident and reactions vary across societies and cultures. For example, new technologies and scientific breakthroughs show great promise while these new discoveries put into question older scientific work. This is a natural process for scientists but this can be jarring for citizens, many of whom seek solace in certainty from those selling easy answers, such as anti-vaxxers or homeopathic healers. We humans have difficulties dealing with complex answers.

Marginalized groups are now able to break through broadcast media and are questioning the status quo. Rapid changes in traditional, often patriarchal, values increase the appeal of populism and xenophobia. Meanwhile, surveillance capitalism has many of us acting like prisoners in a panopticon. The “ strategic and purposeful production of ignorance “ becomes appealing for both purveyors and buyers.

What can we do? The answer may lie in Marshall McLuhan’s media tetrad. We can use it to examine the effects of technology. Of particular interest is the Retrieve quadrant. One aspect of work that these digital technologies, that now make up our collective nervous system, are retrieving is a new way of organizing for work — artisans and guilds. No single person can make sense of all the emerging global complexities alone. We need to work, and learn, together. Humans evolved to live and cooperate in small groups. Reconnecting is how we can make sense together. But we cannot rely on these alone.

We need to find these trusted groups — communities of practice — to help us make sense in a connected world. At the same time we have to reach out and cooperate in larger global networks so that we can understand the diversity of our common humanity. Curiosity about people yields empathy. The answer to populism is not a return to the old ways, nor an ironic post-modern shrug, but rather a new meta-modernity — multi-layered, relational, & global.

Originally published at https://jarche.com on May 22, 2019.

Related:

• learning in complexity and chaos
• Harold Jarche u Zagrebu

Status Update on Society was originally published in Virtual Teams for Systemic Change on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

U Velikoj Britaniji upravo doživljavamo naglu promjenu odnosa društva prema klimatskim promjenama. To je pozitivan pomak. U posljednjih 5 godina prihvaćeno je da se se klima mijenja i da je za to odgovorno čovječanstvo. Poricanje klimatskih promjena postalo je marginalno — iako se u nekim krugovima nastavlja širiti.

Ipak me, u ovo vrijeme brzih promjena, ponekad iznenadi brzina i opseg tih promjena. Doživio sam to i prije nekoliko tjedana. Bilo je to usred tjedna prosvjeda što su ga organizirali aktivisti Pobune protiv izumiranja (eng. Extinction Rebellion, skraćeno XR), kada su u Londonu blokirali mostove i glavne ulice.

Ovi nenasilni prosvjedi izazvali su ogroman i pretežno pozitivan publicitet. Čak je i načelnica Londonske policijske uprave Cressida Dick teško pronalazila riječi kojima bi osudila tu građansku inicijativu. No policija je svejedno privela oko 1.000 aktivista.

Pomak je u tome što više nije potrebno opravdavati radikalne akcije usmjerene na promjenu našeg načina življenja, a uz taj pomak zamjećujem spremnost i otvorenost mnogih (većine?) za promjene. Hoće li se ta otvorenost za traženje radikalnih promjena stvarno i pretvoriti u radikalno djelovanje? Vidjet će se.

Ovaj pomak osvijestio sam kada me BBC Radio tražio za intervju u udarnom terminu nacionalnog programa na temu temeljite prilagodbe (eng. Deep Adaptation). Temeljita prilagodba je prihvaćanje činjenice da smo u stanju klimatske uzbune, u klimatskom izvanrednom stanju. To se prihvaćanje temelji na najnovijim znanstvenim spoznajama. Osim toga, svi možemo vidjeti da se priroda ubrzano mijenja.

Mi koji istražujemo temeljitu prilagodbu počinjemo se suočavati sa stvarnim značenjem tih promjena i što one zapravo znače za nas:

• Naši politički i ekonomski sustavi do sada nisu bili u stanju pokrenuti promjene u razmjerima potrebnima da bi se osigurao opstanak ljudske vrste.
• Trebat ćemo promijeniti ili preobraziti doslovno sve što činimo i kako to činimo, od proizvodnje energije do našeg ekonomskog sustava.
• Mijenjamo stav i osjećaj o nama samima iz ‘mi smo odvojeni od planeta Zemlja’ u ‘mi smo dio planeta Zemlja’.
• Upravo smo na početku ogromnih i naglih promjena u našim životima.
• Trebat ćemo se pomiriti s velikim promjenama i velikim gubicima.
• Kolaps, odnosno slom društava zbog klimatskih promjena (i gubitka bioraznolikosti) je neizbježan, globalna katastrofa je vjerojatna, izumiranje ljudi je moguće.

Temeljitu prilagodbu imenovao je profesor dr. Jem Bendell u članku koji je dostupan ovdje (prijevod na hrvatski uskoro, nap. prev.). Smatra se da je to najčitaniji znanstveni članak ikada.

S moje točke gledišta, dati intervju za vrlo popularnu nacionalnu radio postaju o radikalnim stavovima u kontekstu klimatskih promjena, i to bez potrebe za ‘mišljenjem druge strane’ potpuno je izvan mojih dosadašnjih iskustava. Zapravo je cijeli jutarnji program, od 6 do 9 sati, bio o klimatskim promjenama i o svemu što je potrebno učiniti u vezi s njima. Kako je došlo do toga?

Čini se da je, barem u Velikoj Britaniji, došlo do pomaka Overtonovog prozora u kontekstu ekologije i klime. Kada dođe do pomaka Overtonovog prozora onda je promjena, pa i temeljita, radikalna promjena — iznenada moguća. Ta promjena ne mora nužno biti dobra ili pozitivna ili voditi do rješavanja stvarnih problema s kojima se društvo suočava. Na nama je da ovu priliku iskoristimo i napravimo promjene koje će nas stvarno usmjeriti prema regenerativnoj kulturi.

Kako bismo pomogli tom usmjeravanju, Gaia Education će u mjesecima koji su pred nama ponuditi nove tečajeve usmjerene na stvaranje istinskih rješenja za klimatske i ekološke neprilike s kojima se nosimo. Te ćemo tečajeve prirediti oko pitanja kao što su: Jesu li kapitalizam i planet na kojem se može živjeti međusobno isključivi? te Uzmemo li u obzir klimatsku krizu i potrebu za temeljitom prilagodbom, što zapravo znači imati dobar život?

Ovo pišem zato što naša braća i sestre u drugim zemlja možda nisu čuli za promjene koje se događaju u Velikoj Britaniji. Mediji možda ne prenose sve što se ovdje događa. Osim toga, osjećam da je ovo važna tema koje se treba prihvatiti — barem je tako u Velikoj Britaniji — i prema njoj preusmjeriti naše kampanje, naše organizacije i naše privatne živote. Ako to ne učinimo mogli bismo propustiti novootvorene prilike za novi svijet koji se u stvarnom vremenu pojavljuje pred našim očima.

Pobuna protiv izumiranja ima tri zahtjeva za britansku Vladu: “reći istinu” o razmjerima ekološke krize s kojom se nosi ovaj svijet, donošenje zakona koji će emisije ugljičnog dioksida u Velikoj Britaniji svesti na nulu do 2025. godine, te formiranje građanskih skupština koje će nadzirati promjene potrebne da bi se to stvarno i dogodilo. Prvi zahtjev je prihvaćen, 1. svibnja britanski Parlament izglasao je objavljivanje klimatske uzbune.

Više nego ikada prije udaljeni smo od regenerativne kulture. Nema vremena za gubljenje, no ipak je važno zastati i uživati u ljepotama ovoga svijeta. Živimo u vremenu paradoksa i nepoznanica, u vremenu bez ikakvih garancija. To nas ne smije zaustaviti ili dovesi u dvojbu. Ritam života poziva nas da bez odlaganja djelujemo na usklađivanju naše kulture i nas samih — sa životom!

Napisao Naresh Giangrande, s engleskog preveo Nenad Maljković. Izvorni članak objavljen 9.5.2019. na web stranici organizacije Gaia Education:

A Day in the Time of Climate Emergency

Želiš emailom primati obavijesti o objavama na ovom blogu? Prijavi svoju email adresu <OVDJE>.

Povezani sadržaji:

• 11.3.2019. Radio Student o klimatskoj uzbuni mladih
• 29.4.2019. Yammat FM o klimatskoj uzbuni mladih
• Globalni prosvjed Mladi za klimu bit će i u Zagrebu, u petak, 24.5.2019.

Dan ranije, u četvrtak, 23.5.2019. u Hrvatskoj gospodarskoj komori je skup o klimatskim rizicima za Hrvatsku. Sudjelovanje je slobodno, uz prijavu do 22.5.2019. Detaljnije na web stranici događaja:

„Klimatske promjene u Hrvatskoj: što možemo i moramo poduzeti?"

Welcome

Jedan dan u stanju klimatske uzbune was originally published in Dobra ekonomija on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

My comments are in italic and are representing only my personal views.

ECOLISE, the European network for community-led initiatives on climate change and sustainability, recognises the unprecedented ecological, social, economic and political threats to dignified life on planet Earth. These threats have been provoked by centuries of ongoing extractive and exploitative institutional systems and practices, a structural dependence on unconstrained economic growth, and the unfettered spread of unsustainable lifestyles.

We mean all of life on the planet Earth, not just humans. We are in Anthropocene, all of life on the planet is dominated by Homo Sapiens and our globalised species is causing sixth mass extinction. Our dominant culture of industrial consumerism and our ways in satisfying our needs are literally destroying the planet. Us causing extinctions in planetary ecosystem does not mean we are excluded — destructive and self-destructive patterns of human societies are historically known. At this point in time things look very bad ONLY FIVE TO TEN years ahead.

At the same time, ECOLISE sees hope in the rich seam of solutions that are being continuously developed by community-led initiatives across Europe and the world, including those that encompass inner growth, inclusive approaches to collaboration and to the governance of commons and stewardship of ecosystems. Furthermore ECOLISE is inspired and motivated by the growing interest in these life-affirming approaches.

“Adults keep saying we owe it to the young people, to give them hope,” Greta Thunberg said at the 2019 World Economic Forum in Davos, “But I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house is on fire, because it is.”

So… that’s it on hope at this point in time, as far as I’m concerned.

On the other hand, actions and changes done by community-led initiatives need to be complemented by systemic, planetary changes. Bottom-up meets top-down was popular project proposal tagline in ECOLISE from the very beginning. Right now, top-down is failing us all, on a planetary scale. There are no global institutions effective enough to deal with the planetary crisis.

“We need global systems now. Not just systems which operate at the level of “countries” anymore, which are largely fictional things to begin with. We need global systems to stop climate change, mass extinction, inequality, social collapse — all the great problems spreading across a troubled world. We need those global systems to nourish and protect and safeguard every life, so that it can reach its fullest potential — whether those lives are yours, mine, a river, a poor child, or a little insect.” — umair haque

In this context ECOLISE’s purpose is to engage in, support and facilitate accelerated learning and collaboration among community-led initiatives, their networks and partners in order to catalyse systemic transformation within and across society.

The emphasis here is on “accelerated” in accelerated learning. We have decades of learning and collaboration behind us and all that we stand for is now under biggest threat than ever. Whatever we are doing we need to spread widely and quickly, extremely quickly… in spite of systemic inertia — acting not only in systems around us that we want to affect, but also in ECOLISE itself (being a human system too).

The work of ECOLISE is inspired by the vision of a compassionate, equitable and regenerative society of empowered and resilient communities that thrive on diversity and inclusion and live within planetary boundaries.

This is nice ideal to strive for. To me, under the circumstances and based on my life experience (I’m 56), this feels like unrealistic utopian vision. Being an idealist as I am, I have had too many “oh, shit!” moments when I have experienced that what is actually happening is VERY different from what I would want that is happening — and I don’t mean small stuff… I mean really major stuff… like intimate relationships or living in war-thorn society. These moments were extremely emotionally charged, very difficult to live through and really hard to process without actual changes in my… personality (ego?), I guess. But with my social permaculture lenses on I know that utopias have very special function — to be tried as prototypes and experiments that might influence the wider cultures — and that’s the only approach that actually makes sense in complex, adaptive systems like our societies and in VUCA world of today!

Guiding Principles (to be expanded)

• co-creation
• social justice
• ecological integrity

For me, these three are identical or close fit to three permaculture ethics: Earth Care, People Care and Fair Share (sometimes named Future Care). No need to be expanded as far as I’m concerned because these three are perfect heuristic (self-learning) rules for our times… or any other times.

ECOLISE pursues three strategic goals:

1. Cultivating a cohesive, integrated network of change-making networks, organisations, groups and people that co-create and inspire a holistic culture of regeneration.
2. Expanding public and political awareness of the potential of empowered communities to positively transform societies and to help reach ambitious local to global level policy goals.
3. Developing a dynamic and inclusive framework for collaboration, sharing of knowledge, research, learning and capacity-building to support communities to engage in and spread transformative action on the ground.

Could it be that networks of networks are global systems we need now? There is a “…global movement that it is leveraging technology and the power of community to connect local and global action and form networks to work on systemic challenges”, Francesca Pick suggests. Can trickle really become a river?

If what you just read makes sense to you and you would like to help spread the word, I encourage you to click the 👏 button and hold down to 20–50 claps as this will help invitations and calls to action above get more exposure. Also, please share this widely in your social media channels… Thank you in advance! :)

Related:

• Earth Day 2019
• We Have Five Years To Save Ourselves From Climate Change, Harvard Scientist Says
• We're losing the war on climate change

• The Climate Change Paper So Depressing It's Sending People to Therapy
• New Paper on Deep Adaptation to Climate Chaos

Have you had your “oh, shit!” moment yet? was originally published in Virtual Teams for Systemic Change on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Nenad Maljković

One Earth Day reflection was originally published in Virtual Teams for Systemic Change on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“The ethics earth care, people care and fair share form the foundation for permaculture design and are also found in most traditional societies. Ethics are culturally evolved mechanisms that regulate self-interest, giving us a better understanding of good and bad outcomes. The greater the power of humans, the more critical ethics become for long-term cultural and biological survival.

Permaculture ethics are distilled from research into community ethics, learning from cultures that have existed in relative balance with their environment for much longer than more recent civilisations. This does not mean that we should ignore the great teachings of modern times, but in the transition to a sustainable future, we need to consider values and concepts outside the current social norm.”— [source]

On Earth Day in 2019, how’s our globalised humankind doing on a scale from 0 to 10 in each of three ethics? My estimate for all three is — close to zero, on a planetary scale. You can guess what that means for my personal “understanding of good and bad outcomes” in years to come. Having first-hand experience of a multinational state collapse (former Yugoslavia) — and violent wars that followed — does not help me being optimistic about human’s ability to prevent a catastrophe (even while being an idealist as I am).

Few days ago BBC broadcasted Climate Change — The Facts, 1-hour long sobering call to action by Sir David Attenborough. In it, professor Mark Maslin, Climate Scientist at University College London said — “If we want to try and keep global climate to 1.5 degrees [warming] we have to half our carbon emissions by 2030, and then hit zero carbon emissions globally by 2050.” — while all the charts and visualisations shared during the programme showed nothing but exponential rates of human consumption and destruction of ecosystems worldwide. On a planetary scale, there is no indication of a slowing down whatsoever. Systemic inertia in human socio-economic systems on the planet prevails. I’ll be happy to be proven wrong on this.

Over last few decades human extinction was mentioned (in 1997, for example), but this message was never as mainstream as it is now: we are on a tipping point as a civilisation, worldwide, globally!

“This century presents us with a beautiful, terrible test. We will all rise together — or we will fall apart, in the blink of an eye, like we’re doing now. Climate change, mass extinction, inequality, and so on — none of these problems can be solved in an individualistic way anymore. We must have global systems, agreements, frameworks, to solve them — or we will not solve them at all.” — umair haque

Modern Agile

Agile is about creating and delivering value early and often, in incremental, iterative manner. The essence of value in permaculture is in our three ethical principles. This incremental, iterative approach is helpful in understanding feedback loops and tweaking that comes after implementation of a permaculture design — a prototype, an experiment.

Agile thinking and approach is usefully synthesised in four Modern Agile principles that are applicable regardless of the “industry”. As explained on the Modern Agile community of practice website, “…you don’t need to be a name brand company to leverage modern agile wisdom.”

Bonus — 2-minute “crash course” on four Modern Agile principles:

If we take three permaculture ethical principles as a measure of value, how’s our globalised humankind doing on a scale from 0 to 10 on Earth Day in 2019 in each of four modern agile principles?

People axis: “Make People Awesome” and “Make Safety a Prerequisite”

Consumerist civilisation on a industrial scale does make some people “awesome” by satisfying their needs — some more than others — while on a planetary scale “safety” is close to zero for humankind and other life forms on the planet Earth.

Current economic system is consuming the planet, destroying systemic elements that make the basis for the whole of life: air, waters and top soils.

There is a need to make safety for all life a prerequisite in all human systems. There is a need for a “…global movement that it is leveraging technology and the power of community to connect local and global action and form networks to work on systemic challenges”, as Francesca Pick suggests here:

A trickle becomes a river

“We need global systems now. Not just systems which operate at the level of “countries” anymore, which are largely fictional things to begin with. We need global systems to stop climate change, mass extinction, inequality, social collapse — all the great problems spreading across a troubled world. We need those global systems to nourish and protect and safeguard every life, so that it can reach its fullest potential — whether those lives are yours, mine, a river, a poor child, or a little insect.” — umair haque

Global, citizen-led, agile system shifting networks could have this role.

Value axis: “Experiment and Learn Rapidly” and “Deliver Value Continuously”

Greta Thunberg recently explained sixth mass extinction to EU parliamentarians carefully choosing her words: “The extinction rate is up to 10,000 times faster than what is considered normal, with up to 200 species becoming extinct every single day,” she said. “Erosion of fertile topsoil, deforestation of the rainforest, toxic air pollution, loss of insects and wildlife, acidification of our oceans — these are all disastrous trends.” Few days later Sir David Attenborough vividly confirmed her words.

That’s rapid, right? Rapidly changing environmental and societal conditions on the planet Earth require rapid learning and continuous value delivery in line with three permaculture ethics. That’s one of the reasons why the most recent iteration of strategy for ECOLISE (one of the networks that I’m weaving) now assumes that “…accelerated learning and collaboration among community-led initiatives, their networks and partners [is needed] in order to catalyse systemic transformation within and across society.”

We need permaculture that is planetary.

We need global, agile and lean permaculture.

If what you just read makes sense to you and you would like to help spread the word, I encourage you to click the 👏 button and hold down to 20–50 claps as this will help invitations and calls to action above get more exposure. Also, please share this widely in your social media channels… Thank you in advance! :)

Related:

Future Scenarios — Mapping the Cultural Implications of Peak Oil and Climate Change (2009) https://www.futurescenarios.org/about/

• 2012, Climate Change and Permaculture - Reality Sandwich
• Future Care - Permaculture Productions LLC
• Why We Have Just One Decade Left (To Fix the Future)
• Why We Need to Fix the World

Earth Day 2019 was originally published in Virtual Teams for Systemic Change on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.