Tag: Atlee

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Tom Atlee: Abundant Democracy Resources

Advanced Cyber/IO, Blog Wisdom, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Open Government, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Reform
Tom Atlee

Dear friends,

In 2001 the Co-Intelligence Institute released a breakthrough compilation of more than 100 democratic innovations.  At that time there was no other comparable resource on the web.

This year we decided — and began — to update this list, to fix its broken links, to add new innovations and resources, and to make it into a wiki to allow other people to add democratic innovations they knew about.  You can see our initial progress online.

While preparing a grant proposal to expand the project, we researched the web for other lists of democratic and participatory practices and resources.  We were surprised to find quite a few.

We decided that to add the most value in the context of this great wealth of resources, our project should

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Tom Atlee: Two Game-Changers

03 Economy, 04 Education, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, InfoOps (IO), Methods & Process
Tom Atlee

Dear friends,

Every now and then potentially game changing innovations show up.   Wikileaks is one of them, something that shifts the relationship between centralized power and broader national and international populations.  We don't know what exactly will happen with it, but we do know that we're on a different playing field now.

I want to highlight two other potential game changers.

1.  THE KHAN ACADEMY

2.  CREWFUND

Details below the line…

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Tom Atlee: Bacteria–and Human Intelligence

Blog Wisdom, Cultural Intelligence
Tom Atlee

Bacteria — and the intelligence of individuals and collectives

Collective intelligence is not an abstraction.  It is a real-world emergent phenomenon — a phenomenon that ranges from collective stupidity to collective brilliance.  It arises from interactions among entities in shared situations.  Collective intelligence — of any quality — can just happen, or it can be consciously enhanced or undermined.  The diversity of the entities involved and the free flow (and absorption and consideration) of relevant information among them can facilitate higher levels of collective intelligence.  But regardless of what is happening, some level of collective intelligence is always present wherever interacting entities share fate in shared circumstances.

Many people think collective intelligence only applies to groups of people or, perhaps also, to groups of primates and social insects.  But we as individuals are actually intelligent collectives.  One aspect of this can be seen when a therapist helps a patients sort out different “voices” inside them — and then has those voices talk to each other — sometimes with the patient physically moving to different chairs assigned to each voice.  In therapy, these bickering “voices” are helped to come up with some coherent decisions or more conscious relationships among themselves that make the patient more functional and feel more whole.  As it gets its act together, this little internal community acting as one person usually seems to work quite well!

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Tom Atlee: Global Interdependence Movements Et Al

Advanced Cyber/IO, Blog Wisdom, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Gift Intelligence, Peace Intelligence
Tom Atlee

GLOBAL INTERDEPENDENCE MOVEMENTS, DECLARATIONS AND DAYS

by Tom Atlee

It is so good to celebrate INdependence Days in the United States and the many other countries that have successfully gained and defended their independence from colonial rule.

For countries as well as individuals, independence is a dramatic move from dependence into a more self-defined, self-created life.

The next developmental step takes us into greater INTERdependence – bringing ourselves into increasingly mutual, peer, give-and-take relationships with others.

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Changing the World Takes All Kinds…

Blog Wisdom, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics
Tom Atlee

Dear friends:

What is the relationship between transforming ourselves and transforming the world?

In my previous essay, I described seven forms of leverage for deep transformation.  When I wrote it, I was thinking of social transformation.  The seven forms of leverage, in increasing potency, were:

1.  Ameliorate the pain
2.  Slow the damage.
3.  Create alternatives.
4.  Catalyze connections.
5.  Understand the big picture.
6.  Change the story.
7.  Transform the systems.

Hearing this list, a close colleague was surprised that I did not include personal transformation.  His view comes close to two related views held by many transformational agents:  (1) Social change cannot be adequate without serious efforts by change agents to transform themselves and (2) transformation of individual consciousness is a (if not the) primary driver of systemic transformation.

I agree that both these dynamics are important and helpful, but I consider neither essential for social transformation.  Nor do I see them as distinct forms of transformational leverage.

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Tom Atlee: Seeking Leverage for Deep Transformation

Blog Wisdom, Cultural Intelligence
Tom Atlee

June 21, 2011

Seeking leverage for deep transformation

I have long been fascinated by efforts to clarify which approaches to change work are most needed and effective. Among my favorite models are:

* Donella Meadows' Twelve Leverage Points to Intervene in a System

* Joanna Macy's Three Dimensions of the Great Turning

* Sherry Arnstein's Ladder of Citizen Participation

Each of these has informed and shaped my thinking. I'm looking for guidance for activists, philanthropists, and others who wish to make a positive difference. I seek not only to identify what actions offer the highest leverage — the “more bang for the buck” factor which is so important right now. I seek also to understand the value each different approach offers and how all the approaches might usefully fit together. Finally, I tend to think of all this in evolutionary terms: What will help us make the collective evolutionary leap we need within the next few decades?

In recent years a new approach to this has been slowly coming together for me. I offer here an outline of its current form, in which I appreciate each approach for its real value while listing them in order of what I consider their increasing transformational leverage, where #7 offers the highest leverage.

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Tom Atlee: New Developments in Co-Intelligence Work

Collective Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence
Tom Atlee

Dear friends,

This last six months most of the Co-Intelligence Institute's best work has been in behind-the-scenes exploratory conversations, research and development.  We expect the results of all that to become increasingly evident soon.

Here's a sky-view of what we've been up to.  I invite you to consider what impact this kind of work has and could have, and to support it generously.

Headings Here, Details Below the Line

SOWING CO-INTELLIGENCE IDEAS
BIG WINS
ENGAGING DEMOCRACY
GROUP PROCESS BREAKTHROUGH
THREE MAJOR NEW INITIATIVES

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