vesterberg.se

I am back home again after yet another green world café. We might not have been a huge crowd, but for me to experience the connections and conversations that emerge among diverse people, young and old, businessmen and students, environmentalists and just “ordinary” people are so inspiring. As I have written before, diversity is really powerful. Facilitation dialogue is the most exciting (and challenging) thing I have done for a long time. If you haven’t heard of conversations like the World Café, read about it at theworldcafe.com.

On-line cafés

Afterwards a few of us discussed the possibilities to include people from other countries in the conversations through video-conferencing systems. Imagine discussing sustainability issues with people from Greenland, Malaysia or Borneo, or having “joint-cafés” happening at the same time at different places.

We need mirrors

We have ways of thinking and solving problems in Europe that we believe is right. Many people are not aware of that their way of thinking is just a way of thinking. Do you follow me? We have one perspective, but there are more. We try to be “objective”, but in a fact we have blind spots that become visible to us only through meeting people from other cultures. These people are gifts to us! This is an alternative way to look at immigrants. They are gifts, not problems. We are often so eager to export our thoughts and solutions. We have good ideas, yes, but do we know it all? People from other cultures are in a way like mirrors. Through conversation and friendship with them, we can see ourselves in new light and we change to the better.

On-line conversations

We have people with different ethnicity close by, in our own city, but wouldn’t it be a fascinating to utilize new technology to connect across cultures? You might read this and live in New Zealand, Kenya or Singapore. You are a gift to the Swedish culture and I am a gift to yours. Would you say yes to a cross-cultural conversation?

So, some people have begun to understand the message about sustainable living. They are stirred on the inside and want to take their responsibility. They change their lifestyle and choose products in a conscious way. But is it enough? Can their individual contributions make a change and turn the ship? Isn’t it today’s powerful global institutions, multinational companies and governments that decide the rules? How can we make our voices heard?

I have been thinking a lot lately on how to make best use of the new social tools we have these days like blogs, newsgroups, email, mobile phones, etc. As never before we can connect and coordinate. Information can be spread in a moment’s notice to millions. Media coverage is no longer governed by professionals. Coordination is no longer only possible by well-managed organizations. These tools can be a real boost to democracy.

While looking for resources on this subject I stumbled over “Here comes everybody” by Clay Shirky. I finished reading his book today. In this very interesting book these things are discussed, with many examples of how the new social tools make a difference. The success of Flickr, Twitter, MySpace, Meetup, Wikipedia and Linux are examined. The author also compares similar stories that occurred some 10 years ago and again recently. He shows how amateur journalism totally changes the landscape of information distribution. Stories that for different reasons media or organizations decide to suffocate can spread in spite of that. The open software movement shows that complex cooperation is possible.

A big question in the past has been whether a task was best dealt with by the state, directing the effort in a planned way, or by businesses competing in a market. Now there is a third way; we can have action by loosely structured groups, operating without managerial direction and not motivated by profit. Clay Shirky puts it this way: “We used to have a world where little things happen for love and big things happen for money…Now though, we can do big things for love.”

I would like to explore and discuss these social patterns and tools. I work with software development and we talk about agile development. Agile means that we are quick to create a solution and, if needed, quick to modify it. I believe that with an agile attitude we can make use of social tools with the purpose of creating public opinion in environmental issues. Yes, we write in our blogs and forums, but I believe we can stretch further. If we are aware of the potential, we can tailor the use of tools according to our purpose and audience. Social software makes possible what 10 years ago was impossible. We can make our voices heard, multiply and create landslides.