Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

-Naomi Shihab Nye

LOOKING FOR NEW TRANSLATORS

If only the mother tongue was allowed some influence on current social life, or was used across the counters of government offices, or directed the postal service. -Albert Memmi

Help us extend the invitation to Pioneers who do not read English. Translate the Newsletter into your native languages -contact the CT.

ON THE INSIDE

You are what you love, and what you love also loves you.

(1) Check out something new at the Farmers Market.
(2) Diversify your colours! So many are created by the sun.
(3) Eat fewer grains and let them be whole.

IN FOCUS Part 1 - Network Dialogue

Networkdialogue History - or, a little story about a community of practise starting to be aware of itself

We would like to share with you briefly about the experiment we started last year in August -what we call the Network Dialogue. Mille was curious about the fact that whenever she would talk to someone about their view of PoC she would hear a different answer. So she began to invite some more people to initiate a process. We weren’t exactly sure about where it would lead us, yet with the help of this our intention was to find out more how we Pioneers see the network – in a way, how PioneersofChange sees PioneersofChange.

The basic idea was to have a series of conference calls within a group of people from the Chaord and Stewards group and open it up after time. And for our first call we were lucky to have Carol Mase as our mentor on board – who so wisely has guided us ever since. She opened up the dialogue by helping us finding out more about the different network structures we have and how the different nodes and hubs within the network communicate with each other as well as what it needs to nourish this communication. Together with a regular attendance of about seven people we remembered that the communities of practice within Pioneers are very important hubs and we decided to have a closer look at them.

Because of the friendship between Mille and Etienne Wenger, the group had the privilege of having two dialogue rounds together with this world-famous expert in organisational learning and communities of practise. In these inspiring conversations, we shared our ideas about the art of gardening (communities) and what tools we have to support us. Etienne shared with us some stories about groups creating their own curriculum and how it helped the members to identify and act within them. Further more we became aware that as the "Network Dialogue community of practise" we do have the unique chance to apply our learning, to play with it, to experiment and experience – in order to learn something we can then share with the other communities – the "real" ones.

For those of you who are keen on joining us, be a guinea pig, stay tuned for some inspiring conversations to come. You are also invited to join the email list http://lists.pioneersofchange.net/mailman/listinfo as well as our wiki https://networkdialogues.pbwiki.com/

• The Network Dialogue Team

IN FOCUS Part 2

Exploring Social Webware, Harvesting Questions Taking parts of the dialogue conversation to you

The CT is out for exploration. What works for you? What doesn't? What do you want out of a virtual community? The field is saturated with tools and opportunities, so where the network's evolution is facilitated depends on you, and what makes you happiest doing your work. Write to the CT address and share your input.

Meanwhile here are some of the available online tools for social networking, and a couple of the questions they entail.

Personal, professional-sector networking is encouraged on sites like http://www.linkedin.com/ and http://www.xing.com/ , where Pioneers have established a presence - you can search for the term Pioneers of Change. If you don't have a LinkedIn account, you can set one up pretty easily; it's free, and will help let funders know about you and your work. There is a lot of corporate traffic.

For everything else, I loved the pre-launch demo of http://www.wiserearth.org/ , probably because of the values according to which it configures its social landscape. Wiser Earth is a networking site created specifically for transparent networking with social, cultural, and ecological entrepreneurial ventures. It is a project of the Natural Capital Institute. Lots of interesting features including geographic mapping and a donations tab with 100% conductivity for organisations participating. The beta launch is planned for April.

On the photosharing website http://www.flickr.com/, you can invite other Pioneers into your network. You can also tag PoC-related photos posted at Flickr with "pioneersofchange" and show us what you've been up to.

Moving right along, one of the newer developments is in create-your-own-network sites such as http://www.Ning.com or http://www.peopleaggregator.net . Myspace for communities of practice.

Several Pioneers have been playing on Fridays in http://secondlife.com/ , a simulated human-centred biosphere with its own virtual economy, complete with adverts.

And we will soon be starting a weblog at http://pioneers.wordpress.com

Google Calendar http://www.google.com/googlecalendar/overview.html allows for collaboration and date sharing, and just happens to be integrated with their advert-driven email service. You can wait for (or look for) a hack to avoid identity lock-in. Pioneers will be setting up shop there as well, so you can get us all involved in your local goings-on.

Technorati http://www.technorati.com/tag tracks blog posts in 20 languages, using labels their authors give them. These labels are called tags and if you search the site for them you might come up with some serendipitous discoveries. (A search for "arts" and "democracy" led me to an article on the Wi-Fi Liberator, http://198.170.88.241/coin-operated.com/?p=668 which you can play with on a Mac.) Consider adding Pioneers of change to your blog post tags. In passing, other social news websites include Digg.com and del.icio.us.

The advantages are obvious. Apparent democracy, user-created content, and horizontal opportunities to discover each other and keep in touch. Dialogue options allow for the possibility of autonomous emergence, chance meetings, cross-pollination, and organic, if not immediate, conversation. Convergence of communities of interest and practice is more possible with some.

BUBBLINGS

"What are the implications of various tools for community building? Your life? Network emergence processes?"
"What can social webware do for you?"
"Am I having fun?"
"Does X use fit my theory of community?"
"How does cultivating an online community affect the local networks? Or, for Pioneers who are not members of any local network, how would it affect geographically dispersed communities of practice?"
"Can the Pioneers experiment with finding depth in a diverse interdisciplinary community? How democratically can we blend virtual and local ecology?"
"Do web-based social technologies facilitate, define, or overwhelm community?"
"Egotism in persona-anchored online communities?"
"So how do you make your choices about which online dialogue tools are really working for you?"

We might finally ask, where is the place for the body? What will it take to create dialogue in depth, when the byword is breadth, and the tenor is upset emotions? How do we host electronic conversations, appropriately involving sensate experience? Continuous partial attention is the phrase one computing executive used to describe a technologically immersed state of perpetual multitasking. What about stepping out of it? Continuous partial attention's implications for transformation, depth perception and attunement aren't much to get excited about. Even email requires peculiar markers to assure readers of warmth. A new kind of language is needed for authentic electronic communication, which, paradoxically, may be modulated. The sort of experience required to span those waters will have to be cultivated offline, or in experimental concert. What is missing in this sort of diverged attention is guidance by the body, and that cultivated sense of ecological presence. Bringing that element back in, in a way that appreciates locality, will be an interesting facilitation project. Electronic communication is not the means by which we can closely integrate our families and our elders in our lives, or ensure the transmission of lived widom. For now the absence of the body also has a benefit. It demands grounding in a context larger than the online community of practice, and exquisite attention to the natural world.

Add to the questions and share your answers by writing to the newsletter.

EVENTS

Workshop: Learn to create your own dialogue tools
29 March 2007, 8.30-16.30
Ljubljana, Slovenia
Carsten Ohm (Unfolding Cards) and Ole Qvist-Sorensen (Bigger Picture)

Join a collective exploration and discovery of how meaningful questions and visual tools can be used to meet your leadership challenges. The main questions being explored are: · How can visual dialog and questions be used as a tool for leading change in organisations? · How can using visuals and questions as tools for leading change increase continuous engagement and dialog within the organization? · How do I start now?

KEY BENEFITS FOR PARTICIPATING…

· Understand the leadership shift from communicating answers and complete images, to raising important questions and sharing incomplete images in order to engage the organization in a process of co-creation and ownership · Learn how to use visuals and questions as tools to conduct constructive meetings, projects, processes and knowledge sharing · Create your own tools that will assist you in your leadership challenge · Build your facilitation capacity

For more information, see http://www.biggerpicture.dk or http://www.unfoldingcards.org

Transforming ideas...
20-22 April 2007
München, Germany

An Open Space session to develop and share approaches to turn ideas into concepts. Connect with other Pioneers and social entrepreneurs around your most promising ideas, concepts and successful approaches/stories. Co-create a comfortable environment of motivation and sharing and exchange useful input. For more information see http://discover-the-q.pbwiki.com/

Circle and Storytalking our way into the future we want
2-5 May 2007
Cape Town, South Africa
Christina Baldwin and Ann Linnea co-founded the PeerSpirit Circle Methodology that has been introduced in dozens of countries and applied in a broad spectrum of professional and personal settings. This spring they journey to South Africa in the spirit of sharing their excitement and expertise at what circle makes possible between people, and in the spirit of deep listening to the power of story. Cost for this experience in shared (2 people per room) accommodation is R4200. For more information contact Kerry Sandison at kerrysan at iafrica.com or call Kerry on 082 5503098.

Christina and Ann will also be conducting a circle training at Kufunda Village in Zimbabwe, April 24-27. For those of you interested in a North American experience, they will be doing a circle training on their home island, August 18-23 (www.peerspirit.com) and at the Shire in Nova Scotia, Sept. 13-16

World Café European Gathering
3-5 May 2007
Dresden, Germany

What if a conversation could ripple out and create new possibilities? Using a variety of formats, this Gathering will foster knowledge sharing and enable participants to actively experience conversations that build collective intelligence. The purpose is to provide a European forum to stimulate collective dreaming, conversation and action within and between organizations and communities about questions that matter across Europe. A wide spectrum of participants are invited to participate in this Gathering: leaders and change agents in private businesses and the non-profit sector, activists and community leaders, young future leaders, consultants, and individuals who are passionate to help bring about meaningful change in his/her environment. The 1st World Café European Gathering is one of a number of regional efforts all over the world designed to foster conversational leadership.

For more see the website:http://worldcafe.kono.de/

Art of Hosting on Art of Hosting
6-8 June 2007.
Heerlijckyt van Elsmeren, Belgium

For the first AoHoAoH, the calling question is: How do we live the next level of our individual and collective practices in the arts of convening, hosting and harvesting meaningful conversations? We want to make a special effort to invite people from Eastern Europe, and maybe Africa. So please take some time to look into your mailinglists and give the people you know over there a special, personal invitation! Thanks! For more information and to register contact Ria Baeck at ria dot baeck at vitis-tct dot be

Art of Hosting
4-6 July 2007
The Shire, Nova Scotia, Canada

The Art of Hosting and Convening Meaningful Conversations explores hosting as a leadership practice. Hosting is convening the conversations most important to our communities, organizations and families. The workshop offers a variety of methods and practices for engaging large and small groups in conversations that matter that lead to implementation and wise action. Toke Møller, Monica Nissen, Sera Thompson and Bob Wing will be returning as hosts - check out www.artofhosting.org for more info on the Art of Hosting.

ANNOUNCEMENTS, IDEAS & INVITATIONS

Dialogues, Learning Journeys, Meetings, Conversations, and movements in your own Ventures. How is 2007 unfolding for you? Swap peace stories by writing to the newsletter care of rabea at pioneersofchange dot net

New issue of Swapathgami from Shikshantar
View the magazine at http://www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/swapathgami_english7.pdf

Thought Piece Invitation on the Future of Civil Society in UK and Ireland From the Carnegie UK Trust
The Carnegie Trust has shifted its operations from distributing grants to collecting thought pieces. Publishing is unlikely, but you can see details at http://democracy.carnegieuktrust.org.uk/civil_society/get_involved

AIR WAVES

"You can bomb the world to pieces but you can’t bomb it into peace" "I believe in the miracles, I believe in the spirituals, I believe in the one above, I believe in the one I love and getting one step closer to you." "Don’t fear the night time, because the monster know that you’re divine" "Is your love enough, your love enough, your love enough or can you love some more?"
Michael Franti and Spearhead (lyrics from different songs of the band)

As a Pioneer and seeker I have always been looking for music and musicians who love their art and create authentic pieces which come from their hearts and speak to my heart. Over the years I have found quite a number of inspiring music outside and even inside the mainstream. And there is one band which has inspired my wife and me for a couple of years now – we would like to share with you. Michael Franti and Spearhead from San Francisco are truly pioneering. Although their music is a mixture of very popular styles such as reggae, funk, rock and hip hop, it really touches something deeper inside of us. The feeling gets multiplied by the power and uniqueness of the lyrics. The band dares to sing about issues such as death penalty, peace and war without moralising. Thinking about what it really is that speaks to me, speaks through me, the term authenticity pops up again and again. Listening to a song about the pain of Iraqi families and US soldiers in Baghdad is one thing. Knowing that the artist went there, armed with his guitar, and sang songs of peace and friendship in the families and in front of the soldiers brings a new energy into it. For my wife and myself the music of Spearhead touches, speaks, shouts, cries, asks, reflects and acts at the same time. That is probably why we decided to choose one of their songs as our wedding song. If you are keen on getting to know them check out: http://www.spearheadvibrations.com/ - Felix

OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS

Women Moving Forward
31 March 2007, Miami, Florida US
Celebrate lives and narratives of women who support, promote, or create justice and explore critical empirical inquiry into justice as a system of right relationships in a forum for connection and discussion. http://www.stu.edu/women-moving-forward-article-1915.html

Deep Democracy: Where Fields Meet
26-28 April, 2007, London UK
Process Oriented Psychology practitioners including founders Drs. Arny and Amy Mindell offer research and dialogue on Process Psychology and its relationship to wide-ranging fields such as Psychotherapy, Psychiatry, Coma, Mind-Body Medicine, Spirituality, Conflict Resolution, Organizational Development , Politics and the Arts. http://www.iapop-conference2007.org/index.html

Re-visioning the Nation: Cultural heritage and the politics of disaster
12 May 2007, Cambridge, UK
The use and abuse of cultural heritage in post-crisis situations. http://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/heritage-seminar/

Forgiving and Reconciliation: Towards an Enlightened World Culture. A Transpersonal View on Conflict, Terror and Love.
20-23 September, 2007
Freiburg, Germany.
www.forgiving-freiburg2007.de

Learning Journey to Oaxaca and Chiapas, Mexico
30 September-10 October 2007
The Berkana Institute
http://www.berkana.org/lj.html

OXYGEN OF THE MONTH

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57xGN0bGkhk

FINANCIAL MATTERS

Pioneers of Change is an independent network that believes it is critical to retain a free and unbiased position. We also believe that financial barriers should not be a constraint to learning and engaging. As such we work hard at ensuring that our learning is available to as wide and diverse an audience as possible.

We invite you to make a donation to support us in our work. We encourage you to think of this donation as an investment into learning that has the potential of enriching all of our lives. If you have any ideas of individuals or organizations that might like to support us, let us know, sera AT pioneersofchange dot net

SMALL PRINT

What is Pioneers of Change?

Pioneers of Change is a global learning network supporting practitioners in their mid-20s to mid-30s. Founded in 1999, by a group of people from 16 countries and now includes participants from around the world.

Pioneers are people who questions underlying assumptions and move into new territory in order to create the change we want to see in the world. We include social entrepreneurs, member of the business, government and non-profit communities, as well as artists, teachers, and free agents from a variety of cultural and social backgrounds.

When you join Pioneers of Change you explicitly commit to the following principles:

Be yourself
Do what Matters
Start now
Engage with others
Never stop asking questions

For more information on Pioneers of Change, see http://www.pioneersofchange.net

Contributions: write to rabea AT pioneersofchange dot net

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