Here are my initial thoughts on the range of general co-intelligence-based efforts that could be carried out around any broad social problem -- especially technological threats to communities.. -- Tom
- improving the capacity of issue organizations, coalitions and
local communities to effectively self-organize and function well
- supporting/developing leadership towards self-organization,
at all levels
- generating coherence among stakeholders (in communities, in
issue groups, etc.), while at the same time promoting increasingly
inclusive definitions of "who is a stakeholder" (e.g.,
the disfranchised, future generations, the natural world, etc.)
- facilitating shared respect, understanding and coordinated action
among diverse players addressing any particular aspect of the
issue
- promoting dialogue and other high quality conversations of all
kinds (circles, world cafes, etc.) throughout issue-related activities
-- within groups, between groups, and out in the public
- making sure that the institutionalization of such dialogues
in cities, counties, states and countries is part of any issue-based
agenda, to increase the ability to the society to fruitfully digest/reflect
on their issue as well as all other issues
- arranging things so that expertise (and leadership) is on tap,
not on top
- building common ground that honors (and creatively utilizes)
diversity
- evolving our culture's dominant story field by enriching its
pool of subsidiary narratives and increasing the proportion of
life-affirming narratives based on holistic assumptions and collaborative
values
- helping our culture usefully digest (process) archetypal differences
that manifest around any controversial issue
- increased equity, peerness, and shared suffering and benefits
through any crisis, and in any proposed solutions
- catalyzing collective learning (including functional information
flows and feedback systems) and the emergence of community wisdom.
This could be on-the-ground learning that improves local responsiveness,
as well as culture-wide learning regarding the causes and meanings
of the issue.
- transforming our democracy towards wise, conscious, on-going
collective co-evolution
- increasing the resilience of community life - and the resilience
of individuals and groups THROUGH community life
- applying the fullness of human capacities (synergistically!)
to this problem/opportunity -- individually and collectively.
(Those capacities include perception, reason, emotion, intuition,
imagination, narrative intelligence, verbal capacities, somatic
abilities, musical and artistic capabilities, practical sensibilities,
guidance by higher powers, etc.). Dealing with them all -- especially
emotions -- in life-enhancing ways.
- using any controversial issue to stimulate greater participatory
consciousness, participatory motivation, participatory competence
and participatory opportunities. This includes both active engagement
and letting go of control and blame.
- advocating collaboration and partnerships (with each other,
with nature) as fundamental approaches to dealing with the issue
- utilizing the free resources available through leverage (exercising
one's influence on a system most effectively, given limited resources,
usually by "moving upstream"), design (the capacity
of a pattern or context to make a difference), synergy (that quality
of a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts), holergy
(the aspects of a part that make it greater than its role in the
whole), with-ness (moving with the grain/flow/energy/gestalt of
a situation, rather than against it) and transcendence (shifting
a frame of reference to increase the desirable possibilities available).
- advancing people's understanding of interconnectedness, wholeness,
co-creativity, living systems, co-intelligence, etc.
- preservation of the knowledge, methodologies and infrastructure
of co-intelligence in the face of (or even by means of!) any potential
catastrophe (political, social, technological or natural)