Archive for October, 2011

Oct/11/11//Gibrán Rivera//Liberation

A Different Stance

Photo By: Zach

We take stances.  Some are weak, some are empowered.  Most often, they are habitual.  There are stances that have powerfully served us but might no longer be helpful.  These might be our habitual stances, our automatic postures, our best known ways of reacting.  It is important to become conscious about our stance. To be awake as we take a stance.  To loosen the grips of our habit.  To make room for new possibilities.

Adrienne Maree Brown, my dear friend and colleague and one of the facilitator’s I most admire, wrote a beautiful post about her visit to #occupywallstreet.  She invites us to consider our stance.  It is re-posted here:

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Oct/10/11//Cynthia Silva Parker//Featured

What kind of elders do we need?

The first person I met when I went to Dewey Square was a mom, about my age, who came down to see what her son was involved with. I have sons in this age range myself. Occupy Boston has me thinking a lot about what kind of elders we need and what kind of elder I hope to be.

In my college days, I had the privilege of knowing Bob Moses, of Freedom Movement reknown. He mostly spoke to us about issues of the day, always in a way that challenged our thinking and pressed us to think about what was calling our generation forward. He had taken a page from Ella Jo Baker’s book, focusing on building our capacity and confidence to shape our own agenda. We rarely talked about his Movement experiences and I was a little intimidated about asking a living legend about those days.

Early attempts to link Occupy Boston and community efforts focused on related issues have me thinking how best to share lessons and wisdom without squashing the enthusiasm of the younger folk. Younger folk—what kind of elders do you need? And older folk—what kind of elders do you want to be?

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Oct/07/11//IISC//Inspiration

Ellen Ochoa

Ellen Ochoa is  best known for being the first Hispanic woman astronaut, having made 4 space voyages, since being recruited by NASA, in 1991.  But, she is also a noted inventor, with three patents for her work in optics, is a trained classical flutist and private airplane pilot

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Oct/06/11//Curtis Ogden//Inspiration

Network Quotes

Offered to and gleaned from the Farm to Plate Network proceedings in Vermont:

  • “For the human species to evolve, the conversation must deepen.” - Margaret Mead
  • “‘The system’ is not out there; it is the way we work together.” - Yaneer Bar-Yam
  • “Do what you do best and link to the rest.” – Jeff Jarvis
  • “Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family; whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.” – Jane Howard
  • “Networks invite us to focus on contributions before credentials.” – Gary Hamel
  • “Transparency of information breeds self-correcting behavior.” – Thad Allen
  • “When it comes to collaboration, it’s about trust.” – Tom Martin
  • “If you don’t think that small things can make a big difference, you’ve never slept in a bed with a mosquito!” – Arianna Huffington
  • “Discover a few vital behaviors, change those, and problems – no matter their size – topple like a house of cards.” – Kerry Patterson
  • “I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there.” – Richard Feynman
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Oct/06/11//IISC//Technology

An Artist and a Leader

Mr. Jobs was neither a hardware engineer nor a software programmer, nor did he think of himself as a manager. He considered himself a technology leader, choosing the best people possible, encouraging and prodding them, and making the final call on product design.

-The New York Times

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