conversing with others
unpacking a quiet revolution – 5 of 5
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Imagine a world where we don’t feel the need to manage people, to play defense, to fake that we know things for validation. Imagine a world where people and connections are our gold, not papers of proof. Imagine believing in each other so much that each person feels valued, right now.
Often the confession, the tie that could bind us, is the bravery of three simple words…
Putting ourselves in the vulnerability of context, open to learn/share/connect/be.
Break down walls. Assume good and become rich. Realize communication is never finished. Cultivate a culture of trust. Question ego, that incessant need to prove ourselves.
Clay Shirky tells a story of ten daycare centers in Israel in his book, Cognitive Surplus. The story really gets at this culture we believe is vital to change.
Here’s the short version: These ten centers had no late fee for picking up children and very few parents came late and not by very much. Then they imposed approximately a three dollar fine on 7 of the 10 centers. The number of late parents increased, and stayed elevated even after the fine was dropped. Shirky explains, the parents see the day care workers as participants in a market transaction rather than as people who’s needs should be respected. Parents viewed workers time as a commodity. They assume the fine represents full price of the inconvenience they were causing.
He goes on to explain the difficulty, once a new mindset for the relationship has occurred, to go back to the culture of trust and humanity. Dealing with one another as a market can fundamentally alter relationships.
Have we turned relationships into marketing transactions, that now require such a large overhead that we have lost the art of living? Are we trusting and valuing people? Or are we trusting and valuing paperwork that basically represents mistrust? And that takes billions a year to run in public ed alone. [Public Ed in the US, now listed as #2 market – at 1.3 trillion.]
Imagine these connections turning into gatherings that matter. Imagine us being more about facilitating and listening than managing, or feeling the need to prove anything. Imagine people finding value in community, in the actual working together and doing, rather than accolades of efficiency.
Again, we’re interested in a space of transparency, perhaps modeled after Deb Roy’s house. Deb exposed the goings on of his son’s learning with video cameras and tech creating a fish bowl view.
We’re seeking to expose the goings on in the emergence of, a healthy community conversation. Can we use things we’re learning from the transparency of the web to break down walls that tend to keep us locally at bay? Can we offer the freedom to *lurk, to build trust? The means to listen-in, unacknowledged, until we hear people we had a beef with did indeed have more than one story, or that other people really are interested in listening and then doing?
[Great insight on the story inside each one of us by 11 yr old Shirley Knotte in her book, Miss, Sir, Are You Mad?]
The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. – George Bernard Shaw
Can we tech infuse a weekly intimate kitchen table or coffee house conversation, by some app that might help us find/share our invisible selves, or videotech that can bring virtual experts in, just in time, to free up our thinking about getting-in places, and focus more on becoming us?
As we emerge individually, because of self-conversations, can we also use tech to help us emerge and share openly, because of community-conversations, .. because of unprotected conversation.
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update: 2 convers as infra ..via tech as it could be.. to augment the interconnectedness of us.. in a space
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upacking a quiet revolution: one two three four five – via five elements
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be you. 