Archive for May, 2010

May/27/10//Curtis Ogden//Learning Edge

Design Comes Back Around

“Good design is a renaissance attitude that combines technology, cognitive science, human need, and beauty to produce something the world didn’t know it was missing.”

-Paola Antonelli

The other day I was clearing out some file drawers at the office in advanced preparation for our impending move into Boston this summer, when I came across a 17 year old paper written by Interaction Associates founder David Straus.  This paper’s date times with the founding year of the Interaction Institute for Social Change and speaks to the longer historical roots of the Interaction methods that IISC and IA share.  As I read the paper, what struck me most was David’s very early recognition of the interconnections between design, thinking, and cognition.

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May/26/10//Linda Guinee//Structural Transformation

Building a Bridge

Based on the recent conversation we’ve been having here, I thought I’d re-post from last April.

For a while, I’ve been fairly unsuccessfully trying to create a space in my apartment that works both for my heart and for my head. My meditation cushion is there as well as my altar and poetry and spiritual books. It also has my desk, computer and bookshelves overstuffed with books and journals about power, white privilege, race, class, genocide, conflict and social issues. If I’m honest, it’s the most chaotic room in my apartment.

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May/25/10//Gibrán Rivera//Structural Transformation

Policy and Community

conversations

My recent post on the limits of policy elicited a very good conversation.  One of the things that became evident is that in some settings people are so focused on their personal development and their community life that they pay little attention to the issues of the day.  In other settings people are so focused on the fight for justice through policy change that they pay little attention to their own well being or to the hard work of building community. Read the rest of this entry »

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May/24/10//Gibrán Rivera//Collaboration

The Power of Conversation

In a recent post, Janice Molloy of the Pegasus Blog had an insightful way to illustrate the “Power of Conversation,” Janice says:

Where are new ideas born? While some develop through formal processes and innovation think tanks, throughout history, many of the most transformative notions have arisen from informal conversations over a glass of wine or cup of coffee in a café, living room, or neighborhood pub. In this way, sewing circles and “committees of correspondence” played a role in the birth of the American Republic, and debates that took place in cafés and salons helped spawn the French Revolution. Read the rest of this entry »

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May/24/10//Curtis Ogden//Inspiration

Poetry and Space That Matters

On the heels of a very rich Whole Measures training last week, along with a beautiful weekend spent largely outdoors, I have been reminded of the power of poetry and paying attention as means of creating individual and social shifts.  As part of our opening during last week’s training, we invited pairs to read a selected poem to one another, paying attention to any feeling they had in their bodies while doing so, and then speaking to their partners and then the whole group about the impressions with which they were left.  The exercise was a great illustration of how we can tap into the different dimensions of social space to open people to new ways of seeing, being, and doing, and to what really matters most.  So what better way to start off the week than with a little poetry that speaks to what is simultaneously obvious and often missed in our lives?
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