By Curtis Ogden
In her analysis of leverage points to intervene in a system, the late Donella Meadows highlighted mindsets as one of the most fundamental levels on which to focus if one is hoping to make deep and long-lasting change. The case for this is well made in a recent article in Mass Audubon’s Sanctuary Magazine.
Katherine Scott writes in “The Wind in the Wash” about the lost art of the clothesline in America, largely obscured by the now ubiquitous clothes dryer. In this day and age, notes Scott, many children haven’t the remotest idea of what a clothespin is. She is not simply waxing nostalgic, but making an important point about the way we think.
Today clothes dryers can account for upwards of a third of household energy use in the United States, and are therefore significant producers of carbon emissions. Scott remarks that in many other countries around the world, air drying is the more common practice. In Australia and New Zealand, for example, some 90% of households air out their laundry. This is not a matter of whether one lives in warm weather or not; clothes dry effectively in cold weather, as is attested to by year round air drying around Europe.
While technology is advancing to make more efficient clothes dryers, nothing holds a candle to air drying. It’s cheaper (no purchasing or maintenance costs for a machine), less toxic (no exposure to synthetic softeners), easier on clothes, and safer (no risk of fire through the ignition of lint). So what’s up? Turns out that throughout the US, there are numerous community ordinances that prohibit the outdoor hanging of clothes. Doing so is in some cases viewed as “a flag of poverty” that lowers real estate values. So clearly there is something in the way we think that keeps us dependent upon our dryers. While some might point to the issue of convenience, it seems that this too is rooted in our perceptions, in our mindsets about how much we have to do, how productive we have to be, and what one may or may not derive from a practice as mundane or perhaps sublime as ceremoniously hanging garments to blow in the wind.
Check out some hopeful developments on this front in Vermont . . .
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
This I Believe
By Curtis Ogden
In the 1950s journalist Edward R. Murrow hosted a radio program called This I Believe, in which he invited people from all walks of life to share their personal philosophies. Fifty years later, Dan Gediman revived the show on National Public Radio with the goal of “encouraging people to begin the . . . difficult task of developing respect for beliefs different from their own.” The result has been a growing movement of communities and schools jumping at the opportunity to invite citizens and students to articulate their core beliefs and values, and to align their lives accordingly. For a taste (actually a glimpse and/or listen), check out this link.
In the second published book of collected personal philosophies, This I Believe II. Gedimen includes an invitation to and guidelines for those who care to try their hand at articulating what they fundamentally believe, stating that the “transformative” benefits are not always readily apparent until doing so. I find his guidance for essay writing to be particularly helpful, touching on ways that we (or perhaps I should say “I”) might more powerfully express myself and connect with others in the process:
Tell a story: Be specific. Take your belief out of the ether and ground it in the events of your life. Consider moments when belief was formed or tested or changed. Think of your own experience, work, and family, and tell of the things you know that no one else does.
Be brief: Your statement should be between 350 and 500 words. The shorter length forces you to focus on the belief that is central to your life.
Be affirmative: Say what you do believe, not what you don't believe. Avoid speaking in the editorial "we." Make your essay about you; speak in the first person. Avoid preaching or editorializing.
Be personal: Write in words and phrases that are comfortable for you to speak. Read your essay aloud to yourself several times, and each time edit it and simplify it until you find the words, tone, and story that truly echo your belief and the way you speak.
Seems to me that these are great guidelines for our work helping groups and organizations discover and express their core identity, define their higher purpose, and collectively live out their values. And you?
In the 1950s journalist Edward R. Murrow hosted a radio program called This I Believe, in which he invited people from all walks of life to share their personal philosophies. Fifty years later, Dan Gediman revived the show on National Public Radio with the goal of “encouraging people to begin the . . . difficult task of developing respect for beliefs different from their own.” The result has been a growing movement of communities and schools jumping at the opportunity to invite citizens and students to articulate their core beliefs and values, and to align their lives accordingly. For a taste (actually a glimpse and/or listen), check out this link.
In the second published book of collected personal philosophies, This I Believe II. Gedimen includes an invitation to and guidelines for those who care to try their hand at articulating what they fundamentally believe, stating that the “transformative” benefits are not always readily apparent until doing so. I find his guidance for essay writing to be particularly helpful, touching on ways that we (or perhaps I should say “I”) might more powerfully express myself and connect with others in the process:
Tell a story: Be specific. Take your belief out of the ether and ground it in the events of your life. Consider moments when belief was formed or tested or changed. Think of your own experience, work, and family, and tell of the things you know that no one else does.
Be brief: Your statement should be between 350 and 500 words. The shorter length forces you to focus on the belief that is central to your life.
Be affirmative: Say what you do believe, not what you don't believe. Avoid speaking in the editorial "we." Make your essay about you; speak in the first person. Avoid preaching or editorializing.
Be personal: Write in words and phrases that are comfortable for you to speak. Read your essay aloud to yourself several times, and each time edit it and simplify it until you find the words, tone, and story that truly echo your belief and the way you speak.
Seems to me that these are great guidelines for our work helping groups and organizations discover and express their core identity, define their higher purpose, and collectively live out their values. And you?
Friday, June 19, 2009
Our Bodies Carry Our History With Us
By Melinda Weekes
One of the benefits Ive experienced in our social change work as process experts and professional facilitators, is the exposure we get to have in various fields of social change work. Since last October, my colleague Andrea and I have had the pleasure of consulting with an amazing collaborative of stakeholders, the Springfield Health Equity Initiative, who have determined to build a plan to reduce the incidence of diabetes in the black and brown neighborhoods in the city of Springfield, MA. Even more boldly, these dedicated and thoughtful leaders have also chosen to take up an analysis for their work that incorporates how systemic, government sanctioned, racial discrimination has played a direct role in creating the egregious disparities in health outcomes we see today among black and brown folk in the U.S., and regardless of class.
I have learned so much. About diabetes. About social determinants of health. About the inextricable link between personal wealth and personal health. Its made me, personally, look with more intentionality to my own family history, health maintenance, and sadly, about how it is that I too carry in my own mind, body and spirit the affects of stress, strain, pain and struggle that is due to reacting to and surviving though racism, racist practices and its ugly remnants. Whats bad is that I dont know what its like to not live in this reality. What's worse is that while I am conscious of occasions and senarious that make for my racism-stress, there is that which does not even register with my head or heart, yet still takes up residence in my body in some way, shape or form. Such reflection has made for a poignant and sobering personal subtext to the inspiring and pioneering work of the fine and committed souls we've met who refuse to relent to daunting statistics and blatant injustices that plague their -- our -- families, neighbors, children, and communities. And, of course, there is also the context of the national political conversation around finally get universal health care, and the recent activity in our own state that jeopardizes healthcare coverage for low-income legal immigrants.
In graduate school, I took a class, Vocal Performance for the Stage, with a dynamo of an instructor, who also taught us that our bodies really do store every single emotion and psychological bruise of our past. I recalled how amazed I was at that idea when I heard the similar statement made by one of the expert in this video: "Our bodies carry our history with us". She was making the same point my instructor was making in voice class,, but emphasizing the social-histories we also carry within us.
Sure, I've made goals with Fall-due dates designed to help me stave off the hypertension that runs in my family (D.A.S.H. diet, lose 10 lbs., exercise 3x week). But Im wondering, for all of us: whats the anecdote for unwanted history that somehow resides in our bodies? Do answers about history lie in the notion of power of re-story, and narrative...re- incarnating?. I think of the violence perpetrated upon black bodies through slavery. I think of the dehumanizing body images and stereotypes perpetuated about black folk ever since.
So, I ask, in the context of considering processes for social transformation, while we often engage in processes to re-imagine and re-vision the future, what might be the healing, revolutionary, psycho-social justice work of re-membering our bodies? Of deconstructing or defeating past hurts, injustices, infractions...if that is even possible?
I know....a blog isnt supposed to be this deep.
But then again, the work of social transformation wouldnt have to be so deeply messy if the injustices we seek to transform and transcend were not themselves so vile, unpleasant, de-humanizing, perverted.
What do you think? How best do you perform your body work? Your body work related to social justice? Your body work related to undoing racism? What does/might it entail? How do you assess what parts need tending? What is the mind-body-spirit connection strategy that is directly targeted to combat injustice? Is this work for all, or just work for some?
One of the benefits Ive experienced in our social change work as process experts and professional facilitators, is the exposure we get to have in various fields of social change work. Since last October, my colleague Andrea and I have had the pleasure of consulting with an amazing collaborative of stakeholders, the Springfield Health Equity Initiative, who have determined to build a plan to reduce the incidence of diabetes in the black and brown neighborhoods in the city of Springfield, MA. Even more boldly, these dedicated and thoughtful leaders have also chosen to take up an analysis for their work that incorporates how systemic, government sanctioned, racial discrimination has played a direct role in creating the egregious disparities in health outcomes we see today among black and brown folk in the U.S., and regardless of class.
I have learned so much. About diabetes. About social determinants of health. About the inextricable link between personal wealth and personal health. Its made me, personally, look with more intentionality to my own family history, health maintenance, and sadly, about how it is that I too carry in my own mind, body and spirit the affects of stress, strain, pain and struggle that is due to reacting to and surviving though racism, racist practices and its ugly remnants. Whats bad is that I dont know what its like to not live in this reality. What's worse is that while I am conscious of occasions and senarious that make for my racism-stress, there is that which does not even register with my head or heart, yet still takes up residence in my body in some way, shape or form. Such reflection has made for a poignant and sobering personal subtext to the inspiring and pioneering work of the fine and committed souls we've met who refuse to relent to daunting statistics and blatant injustices that plague their -- our -- families, neighbors, children, and communities. And, of course, there is also the context of the national political conversation around finally get universal health care, and the recent activity in our own state that jeopardizes healthcare coverage for low-income legal immigrants.
In graduate school, I took a class, Vocal Performance for the Stage, with a dynamo of an instructor, who also taught us that our bodies really do store every single emotion and psychological bruise of our past. I recalled how amazed I was at that idea when I heard the similar statement made by one of the expert in this video: "Our bodies carry our history with us". She was making the same point my instructor was making in voice class,, but emphasizing the social-histories we also carry within us.
Sure, I've made goals with Fall-due dates designed to help me stave off the hypertension that runs in my family (D.A.S.H. diet, lose 10 lbs., exercise 3x week). But Im wondering, for all of us: whats the anecdote for unwanted history that somehow resides in our bodies? Do answers about history lie in the notion of power of re-story, and narrative...re- incarnating?. I think of the violence perpetrated upon black bodies through slavery. I think of the dehumanizing body images and stereotypes perpetuated about black folk ever since.
So, I ask, in the context of considering processes for social transformation, while we often engage in processes to re-imagine and re-vision the future, what might be the healing, revolutionary, psycho-social justice work of re-membering our bodies? Of deconstructing or defeating past hurts, injustices, infractions...if that is even possible?
I know....a blog isnt supposed to be this deep.
But then again, the work of social transformation wouldnt have to be so deeply messy if the injustices we seek to transform and transcend were not themselves so vile, unpleasant, de-humanizing, perverted.
What do you think? How best do you perform your body work? Your body work related to social justice? Your body work related to undoing racism? What does/might it entail? How do you assess what parts need tending? What is the mind-body-spirit connection strategy that is directly targeted to combat injustice? Is this work for all, or just work for some?
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Daddy's Back
By Curtis Ogden
Next week I return to work after three blissful weeks of parental leave. Well, perhaps I should say three very full weeks (I’m not sure that nights with little sleep and days filled with constantly changing diapers constitute bliss). I am forever grateful to the Interaction Institute for Social Change for having such a humane parental leave policy, for a father no less. This is certainly not the standard in this country.
The flip side of my gratitude is the sadness that comes from needing to leave my two infant girls, and to leave my wife with her hands full. It is certainly much more than a full time job to raise three children, and considerably more to do it well. And I am sad to think of all the parents in this country who do not have anything approaching the kind of benefit we have at IISC, and hopeful that efforts to enact some kind of federal legislation will be successful.
In recent interviews with candidates to be a “mother’s helper” to support my wife Emily once I am back at work, we talked with a Brazilian woman who looked at Em mid-way through our conversation and said, “You American women are my heroes. You try to do everything. It’s too much.” That said a lot. We certainly seem to value productivity in this country, at times at the expense of our own health and that of our children. Often during conversations I’ve had with people of retirement age (meaning my parents’ generation) they will comment that they cannot imagine trying to raise kids in this day and age - it’s too expensive, the expectations are too high, we know/think too much about what could possibly go wrong. Above all, there is a common sentiment that there just seems to be less regard for the job of parenting. About this I feel the greatest sadness of all, and a resolve to do what I can to shift things.
As I get ready to get back in the saddle, I know I will be a different man when I return, a parent for the second (and third) time, and someone who now more than ever knows that the priority for me is family. And so I am committed to carrying the spirits of my little girls with me, to guide me in the work that needs to be done and that supports my family in the fullest way. And I am eager to hear suggestions and reactions from others about how to strike the balance. What is the connection between our efforts to make social change and a parent/child/family (however that might be defined)-supportive culture?
Next week I return to work after three blissful weeks of parental leave. Well, perhaps I should say three very full weeks (I’m not sure that nights with little sleep and days filled with constantly changing diapers constitute bliss). I am forever grateful to the Interaction Institute for Social Change for having such a humane parental leave policy, for a father no less. This is certainly not the standard in this country.
The flip side of my gratitude is the sadness that comes from needing to leave my two infant girls, and to leave my wife with her hands full. It is certainly much more than a full time job to raise three children, and considerably more to do it well. And I am sad to think of all the parents in this country who do not have anything approaching the kind of benefit we have at IISC, and hopeful that efforts to enact some kind of federal legislation will be successful.
In recent interviews with candidates to be a “mother’s helper” to support my wife Emily once I am back at work, we talked with a Brazilian woman who looked at Em mid-way through our conversation and said, “You American women are my heroes. You try to do everything. It’s too much.” That said a lot. We certainly seem to value productivity in this country, at times at the expense of our own health and that of our children. Often during conversations I’ve had with people of retirement age (meaning my parents’ generation) they will comment that they cannot imagine trying to raise kids in this day and age - it’s too expensive, the expectations are too high, we know/think too much about what could possibly go wrong. Above all, there is a common sentiment that there just seems to be less regard for the job of parenting. About this I feel the greatest sadness of all, and a resolve to do what I can to shift things.
As I get ready to get back in the saddle, I know I will be a different man when I return, a parent for the second (and third) time, and someone who now more than ever knows that the priority for me is family. And so I am committed to carrying the spirits of my little girls with me, to guide me in the work that needs to be done and that supports my family in the fullest way. And I am eager to hear suggestions and reactions from others about how to strike the balance. What is the connection between our efforts to make social change and a parent/child/family (however that might be defined)-supportive culture?
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Design for a Living World
By Curtis Ogden
I find the idea of designing for a living (or livable) world to be a powerful invitation for those of us engaged in creating experiences to bring out the best in others (innovation, collaboration). I hear the call to be mindful and respectful of the cultural and ecological contexts in which I find myself, to work with (not against) the surrounding social/natural environment, and to think in restorative (as opposed to extractive) ways. As David Orr, environmental philosopher and author of The Nature of Design, suggests, sustainable design is all about creating harmony between intentions and “the genius of particular places” (we might add particular people). The standard for Orr is not so much efficiency or productivity, but health. So here’s to ours, fellow designers.
"Ecological design competence means maximizing resource and energy efficiency, taking advantage of the free services of nature, recycling wastes, making ecologically smarter things, and educating ecologically smarter people. It means incorporating intelligence about how nature works . . . into the way we think, design, build, and live." -David OrrThe Nature Conservancy's “Design for a Living World” Exhibition, which recently opened (May 14th) at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, features ten designers exploring the relationship between the natural world and the products we use. Each designer was asked to develop new uses for sustainably grown and harvested materials and the results are quite beautiful in a number of different ways.
I find the idea of designing for a living (or livable) world to be a powerful invitation for those of us engaged in creating experiences to bring out the best in others (innovation, collaboration). I hear the call to be mindful and respectful of the cultural and ecological contexts in which I find myself, to work with (not against) the surrounding social/natural environment, and to think in restorative (as opposed to extractive) ways. As David Orr, environmental philosopher and author of The Nature of Design, suggests, sustainable design is all about creating harmony between intentions and “the genius of particular places” (we might add particular people). The standard for Orr is not so much efficiency or productivity, but health. So here’s to ours, fellow designers.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Generation G
By Curtis Ogden
In the final chapter of What Would Google Do?, Jeff Jarvis makes a provocative statement about the future and promise of a networked world. Many of the points Jarvis makes appear to turn things on their head, at least compared to the way that many of us might first react to developments in our ever more densely connected and information-rich world.
A few things to ponder:
1. This current generation is growing up with an ability to stay in touch with nearly everyone they meet throughout their entire lives. Whereas those of us who grew up pre-Facebook may have lost track of old childhood friends and college buddies, this generation has the possibility of always being more directly in touch with the different chapters of their lives. Scary? This seems profound to me, and yet I don’t really know exactly how. What might this do to the very nature of relationship?
2. The flip side of TMI (too much information) is greater transparency. Young people are putting so much more of themselves and their lives out for public consideration. Often this gets construed as risky and/or a kind of exhibitionism. However, if more people are playing the same game, then perhaps the rules will enforce greater overall acceptance and safety of full and liberating self-expression. Jarvis quotes author David Weinberger (who was quoted by blogger Lisa Williams - and so it goes in a twitterific world) - “An age of transparency must be an age of forgiveness.” Wow.
3. And what about all of that apparently inane information that people share about their bunions or the mold growing on the bathroom tile? Well, how about the benefit of “ambient intimacy” (Jarvis quoting blogger Leisa Reichelt, swapping the small details of our daily lives? This may just help us to develop stronger relationships as we come to know more about people who would otherwise be just acquaintances, or grease the wheels for the next time we physically see one another or talk by phone (less catch up time).
Throughout these and multiple other points, Jarvis seems to be suggesting that more integrated lives and more widespread trust are a result of living in the Google age. Given that collaboration thrives on trust, and that collaboration may be our saving grace as a species (see Charles Darwin and my post “The Group Effect," shouldn’t we all be striving to be fully exposed and (wireless) card carrying members of Generation G?
In the final chapter of What Would Google Do?, Jeff Jarvis makes a provocative statement about the future and promise of a networked world. Many of the points Jarvis makes appear to turn things on their head, at least compared to the way that many of us might first react to developments in our ever more densely connected and information-rich world.
A few things to ponder:
1. This current generation is growing up with an ability to stay in touch with nearly everyone they meet throughout their entire lives. Whereas those of us who grew up pre-Facebook may have lost track of old childhood friends and college buddies, this generation has the possibility of always being more directly in touch with the different chapters of their lives. Scary? This seems profound to me, and yet I don’t really know exactly how. What might this do to the very nature of relationship?
2. The flip side of TMI (too much information) is greater transparency. Young people are putting so much more of themselves and their lives out for public consideration. Often this gets construed as risky and/or a kind of exhibitionism. However, if more people are playing the same game, then perhaps the rules will enforce greater overall acceptance and safety of full and liberating self-expression. Jarvis quotes author David Weinberger (who was quoted by blogger Lisa Williams - and so it goes in a twitterific world) - “An age of transparency must be an age of forgiveness.” Wow.
3. And what about all of that apparently inane information that people share about their bunions or the mold growing on the bathroom tile? Well, how about the benefit of “ambient intimacy” (Jarvis quoting blogger Leisa Reichelt, swapping the small details of our daily lives? This may just help us to develop stronger relationships as we come to know more about people who would otherwise be just acquaintances, or grease the wheels for the next time we physically see one another or talk by phone (less catch up time).
Throughout these and multiple other points, Jarvis seems to be suggesting that more integrated lives and more widespread trust are a result of living in the Google age. Given that collaboration thrives on trust, and that collaboration may be our saving grace as a species (see Charles Darwin and my post “The Group Effect," shouldn’t we all be striving to be fully exposed and (wireless) card carrying members of Generation G?
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