“The core of facilitators, spacemakers, and hosts is coming along nicely”.
I tweeted this about a week ago to help me summarize the kind of people in Toronto that are stepping up to creating various intellectually stimulating and transformational experiences. I also remember tweeting it around the time I went to a Design with Dialogue (or DwD for short) event, which happened to be their final one for the time being. There were plenty of reflections, shares of gratitude, and inquiries of what is possible to be had. And while it was the first one I have attended, I understood that DwD has played a crucial role in catalyzing the core that I previously alluded to.
But first, I should probably offer an explanation of what Design With Dialogue is.
From their website: “Design with Dialogue (DwD) is an open Toronto-based community of practice of co-creation for transformation. We hold dialogues as a space for shared inquiries that welcome all viewpoints. DwD has the ultimate purpose of facilitating change and meaningful action in our organizations, communities, collaborative projects and as individuals. We learn and play together through participatory design, strategic dialogue, creative arts and emerging facilitation methods.”
Since its inception in 2008, DwD has been a host to many dialogical experiments such as Appreciative Inquiry, Bohmian Dialogue, How to Be Alpha, Discovering Wisdom and many more. I say this because there definitely seems to be an appetite for these experiments at the moment. And given the recent Torontonian statistics on loneliness and mental health, communities like DwD are needed more than ever for people to be understood, to play in a way that is safe to fail, to cultivate trust with others, and many more reasons. I especially think play is important because play enables us to explore new responses to a predicament so that we don't get the temptations to implement the same responses that got us into the predicament in the first place, to loosely paraphrase Einstein.
If you were to ask me what I think is possible for DwD, I anticipate that people will step up to continue / steward DwD AND I also think it is happening BEYOND DwD with other various facilitators, spacemakers, and hosts trying out different containers of dialogue for various means and ends, but mostly in service of creating more robust forms of collaborative culture(s) / playing the Infinite Game.
And to be more aware of these containers, check out the calendar at the end of the article!
Additionally, I see collaborative culture happening under a kind of stigmergy! (Thanks to Steven Fan for introducing me the term stigmergy).
What it means that you don't need permission and/or consensus to make an event. Instead, you make the event and you trust that others will midwife your vision into existence. Sounds idealistic, but once you consider the need for collective intelligence to tackle complex problems, you start to see that each event / project is a valuable part within a greater whole. There is no Everything project so what you are left with is a project that address a part of Reality, but can be weaved together within a greater ecology of practices. As Vervaeke and his viewers would say, “there is no panacea practice!”. Not only do we need the analytical, but we also need the embodied and the relational in our collaborations. Some of the events are my calendar are designed to help us become fluid with these capacities.
And whether you want to grow as a person or shift systems in entirely new, interesting directions, there is bound to be a container for you. And if you've looked around and see that there isn't one, then go make one! We are in the midst of an “agency explosion” and the question then becomes “How do I take part?”. In my circumstance, cultural curation goes full circle for me because initially I wanted to be a filmmaker growing up and make intellectual stimulating films that shape culture. Nowadays, it feels more like shaping collaborative culture through event curation and participation. But also, “Never say Never!”. Don't count me out on being behind the camera in the future.
What I'm reading / watching:
Metamodern Business Bureau
If I were to connect The Liminal Web and TPOT (This Part of Twitter) for a moment, it seems that one of the main puzzles to solve for is the ability to have many people achieve material stability while doing culture building and/or transformative work. Layman offers some ideas that might be of benefit to both scenes.
But I also hope this means everyone doesn't become coaches...
Soulmakers w/Layman Pascal and Cheryl Tsu
I've been loving the possibility of hearing more autobiographical accounts of galaxy brains. I know your ideas already, tell me your stories! :D
The first edition is with Bruce Alderman and I was moved listening to him navigate the darkness he experienced throughout his life.
What is Wisdom? W/Bonnitta Roy
Bonnitta cuts right to the chase in a stellar distillation of a topic that's been discussed for a millenia. I'm going to have to put “Everything seen perfectly is loved” on my wall sometime…
Calendar
In case you missed the update on Nov 20th, the calendar has moved to a Google calendar on a Notion page, which you can find here
Potential opportunity for Torontonians:
Volunteer Toronto (through The Power of Us campaign) is providing $1000 microgrants to groups and organizations to help Torontonians reconnect with their city. Apply here.
Next issue will be The Year End Review, which I cannot wait for.
And as always, stay pretty y'all!
Hey Chris, wonderful to read from you -- as always!! :)
To quote you:
> what I think is possible for DwD, I anticipate that people will step up to continue / steward DwD
and my immediate intuitive thought was, "maybe one of the people who will step up is this guy called Chris D..." ;)
Anyway, I indeed wish you and all the lovely Torontonians with whom you commune and DwD together that this spirit of community will stay alive and well, and that there will be much flourishing!