People & Organizations
June 19, 2005
This is the story of my recent trip to a conference on Innovation in Community Engagement in Perth, Australia. Due to the innovative, comprehensive nature of this conference, I have done a fairly thorough review, highlighting certain parts so you can scan it quickly if you like. I have also provided many links for those who would value more in-depth exploration.
Halfway around the planet from my home in Oregon lies Western Australia, where THE GOVERNMENT has been sponsoring remarkable innovations in community engagement and deliberative democracy for four and a half years. (Oh, how I wish it were happening in the U.S.!!)
At the forefront of this committed experiment in democratic collective intelligence are two remarkable politicians eager to move beyond cynicism and distrust -- Western Australia's Premier, Dr. Geoff Gallop, and his Minister of Planning and Infrastructure, Alannah MacTiernan. Behind the scenes, designing and organizing it all, has been my heartful, down-to-earth, brilliantly hyperactive Perth host -- one of the most creative, visionary process organizers I know -- Dr. Janette Hartz-Karp.
Continue reading "Australia's Amazing Conference (and Work) on Deliberative Innovations"
posted by Tom Atlee on Sunday June 19 2005
updated on Saturday September 24 2005
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June 13, 2005
I just returned from Australia. It will take a few days for my experiences there to ripen into something I can write for you. In the meantime, I want to share an intriguing example of human-animal communication and intelligence that came my way.
Among the hundreds of emails awaiting me on my return was one from the Lifebridge Foundation. They support innovative activities ranging from the Co-Intelligence Institute (with whom I work) to artist Aimee Morgana and her remarkable parrot N'Kisi, whose work they shared in the article below. Intrigued, I Googled N'Kisi. I didn't find the article referred to, but I found a comparable one about N'Kisi's conversational capacities, as well as one about a double-blind experiment demonstrating his psychic abilities (as well as a third article providing the full experimental data and much more about Ms Morgana's partnership approach to teaching her precocious bird).
Among the aspects of this that intrigue me are:
- I wonder how much of N'Kisi's apparent genius is due to his own exceptional intelligence, and how much is due to the respectful teaching approach used by Ms Morgana
- Parrots are already known to be among the most intelligent animals, and they are highly social. There is an interesting correlation in the animal world between complex social relationships and individual intelligence, which suggests once again a collective dimension even to individual intelligence.
- The fact that N'Kisi is only about 5 years old, and that he could live to be 60 or more - and that he can creatively use about a thousand words - makes one wonder what he will be saying decades from now, and how he might teach parrots about us and us about his brethren. Is that too far-fetched?
- Psychic abilities seem to suggest a level of cognitive interconnectedness among living beings. Some, like quantum physicist David Bohm, suggest that individual consciousness may be more accurately described as our window on collective consciousness, or our particular manifestation of it. We are not as isolated as we think. Although many forms of collective intelligence do not rely in any way on theories of collective consciousness, "noetic" (consciousness-based) theories are definitely part of the picture.
The email from Lifebridge notes N'Kisi is being featured in the Jane Goodall special "When Animals Talk" tonight, June 12 at 8pm EST on Animal Planet.
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Continue reading "What does it mean to share ideas with a bird?"
posted by Tom Atlee on Monday June 13 2005
updated on Saturday September 24 2005
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May 01, 2005
Bruce Wilson is a programmer interested in citizen journalism. I talked with him about my idea for citizen journalists to co-create wikipedia-like multiple-viewpoint online databases summarizing and giving access to the range of views on news events, public statements and issues in general. I was looking for software that could facilitate that, so that anyone could participate in a relatively unmanaged, self-organized way. I learned some interesting things from his response.
Continue reading "Citizen Journalism vs Framing Issues for Deliberation"
posted by Tom Atlee on Sunday May 1 2005
updated on Saturday September 24 2005
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April 28, 2005
I just got another letter from Brad Blanton. This author of Radical Honesty is running for Congress in Virginia. In 2004 he got 24 percent of the vote with $4000 and some grassroots help. With two million dollars (including selling his home) he figures he can replace the incumbent Bush ally -- Rep. Eric Cantor -- with a different kind of politician. If years as a Radical Honesty workshop leader aren't enough to convince people he's for real, he's planning on wiring himself for sound so that everything he says and does is recorded 24/7 and broadcast on his website (with searchable transcripts soon after). A radically honest politician. Interesting idea. Perhaps its time has come. And Brad goes further...
Continue reading "Brad Blanton's Campaign and the Transformation of Democracy"
posted by Tom Atlee on Thursday April 28 2005
updated on Saturday September 24 2005
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Trackback link: http://www.communicationagents.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.r484.cgi/1641
Australia's Amazing Conference (and Work) on Deliberative Innovations
June 19, 2005
What does it mean to share ideas with a bird?
June 13, 2005
Citizen Journalism vs Framing Issues for Deliberation
May 01, 2005
Brad Blanton's Campaign and the Transformation of Democracy
April 28, 2005
One Provocative Future of Media
April 21, 2005
A New Collective Intelligence Friend
April 14, 2005
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