Colleagues, I saw this message from the Appreciative Inquiry list which gave a link to a new survey of dialog tools conducted in South Africa. Some of the usual suspects are there and there are a number of other ones, too, which I have not heard of before.
I am still on the look out for more attempts at a family tree of large group intervention tools. Martin Leith had one such family tree up at one point. It is no longer on the net. Also, just a small number of lgit's were represented in his family tree. Best, Raffi Message: 1 Date: Thu, 04 May 2006 15:22:20 -0700 From: Bruce Schuman <originresea...@cox.net> Subject: Re: [Ailist] Appreciative Inquiry and Theology/Spirituality To: ail...@lists.business.utah.edu Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20060504101117.03d4b...@cox.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Thanks for these interesting and constructive replies. I did receive a few private comments that were also very encouraging, suggesting that I do continue with some kind of "formal research" into the correlations or affinities between specific religions or spiritual practices and the methods of AI. While giving this some thought, earlier this week I attended a computer conference in Silicon Valley -- mostly highly technical, but bringing together some very interesting social activists. Somebody there gave me a link to a fascinating new document (April 2006) entitled "Mapping Dialogue", that reviews many approaches to "group process" (AI, Circles, Open Space, Future Search, Deep Democracy, World Cafe, etc). This study was conducted by a group called Pioneers of Change (http://pioneersofchange.net/), in conjunction with some other groups, including the Nelson Mandela Foundation. This 86 page .pdf (3195 kb) is now online at http://globalresonance.net/documents/poc/mapping_dialogue.pdf The document discusses 10 major approaches to dialogue, and briefly reviews 14 others. The first technique discussed is AI. * My friends and associates in our "Resonance" projects have been taking the view that the "fruit" or desired consequences of AI and any related practice can be described as "resonance" -- ie, that "resonance is something highly desirable that happens between people when -- "something" occurs.... AI research, and various suggestions received here, do very much point in the direction of "what" this mysterious something is (if, indeed, it is any one thing) -- and "how" it can be induced or created -- and seem to strongly suggest that this something often appears to be the intended fruit of many spiritual and religious practices, as found in widely varying traditions. This new "Mapping Dialogue" document provides some "attribute matrices" that compare the various methods, showing what specific techniques are used in each methods, and what kinds of results can be expected. These are very helpful and clarifying. But even in this excellent and well-organized document, the direct link to "spirit" remains somewhat obscure and implicit. It would be interesting to define a formal method for reviewing the teachings and principles of various religions -- exploring how it is that these teaching involve "doing AI-like things" -- and how it is that the practice of these methods seem to provide ways to bring diverse groups into harmony. One exciting thing about the computer conference this week was the instinct shared by many people that internet processes can play a powerful role in bringing diverse groups together around deep commonalities. The publication of this "Mapping Dialogue" is a very encouraging sign that we are making dramatic progress. A few more bridge-building exercises like this, and we will have created some solid connections across the deepest and most mysterious elements in diverse group psychology.... - Bruce Schuman Santa Barbara http://globalresonance.net http://resonanceproject.org PS - for those interested in "Mapping Dialogue" but who may have trouble with large documents, I will send links to some smaller files in a following email * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
