​​R-Z Intros for the DandDTrans Inquiry
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​​A "community of inquiry and action" regarding the role that dialogue and deliberation can play in addressing the mega-crises of our time.
​​Image courtesy of www.NewStories.org
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​​Please share a bit about yourself using a blank template below. Make sure the first line is just your name, in bold.  
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​​Note: this entire page is editable! Please be careful to only make new entries and not delete what is here. To edit, you must sign into hackpad, using either Facebook, Google, or an email and password you set up. ​+More on how to use hackpad here.​

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​Ben Roberts
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​​203 426-1039 
​​​+About Ben Roberts​
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​​What would you like to share about your work?
​​The subject of this inquiry IS my work, and has been for the past five years. I prefer to operate as part of a core team within organizations/initiatives/movements, both strategizing and offering facilitation support, and as a host for large group dialogue (both in-person and virtually) that engages the wider world around various strands of The Movement for systemic change. 
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​​What motivates you to be a part of this inquiry?
​​As a co-convener and host of this "community of inquiry and action," I am honored and delighted to be holding space for, doing this work with all of you. That opportunity is its own reward. I am also looking for collaborators who are ready to take a leap into action in 2015, based on a gift economy model, trusting in the power of the convergent energy that is co-arising all around us. I see this gathering as a model or prototype for things we might do together "out there" at the intersection of Power and Love. I'm not particularly optimistic, but I am committed to acting as if this convergent energy will unleash something that can, as my New Stories colleague Bob Stilger likes to put it, "make enough of a difference to make a difference."
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​​Please also see my ​+Personal Invitation to DandDTrans Participants​.

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​Ted Sarvata
​​Ted@TedSarvata.col
​​PurposePodcast.com
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​​What would you like to share about your work?
​​I help businesses maximize impact by aligning their actions with their purpose.  Around me, people get to be who they really are. 
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​​What motivates you to be a part of this inquiry?
​​After years as more of an activist, I've spent more recent years working with our existing structures rather than thinking about replacing them, much more local than global recently. It's time to open up my thinking again. 
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​Bruce Schuman
​​Contact info (plus a pic if you wish--you can cut and past or use the + insert tool above)
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​​What would you like to share about your work?
​​I am a web systems and database programmer, with an interest in interspirituality and "all things integral".  As a simple generalization, I'd say that "oneness" is probably the containing and guiding meme for "the shift" ("great turning", "great transition") .  For me, the primary driver in our entire context is the force of globalization, which creates transformative intercultural encounters across all boundaries, and is tending to universalize categories (religion, sustainability values, sense of community, principles of governance and democracy)  that were formerly culture-specific.  
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​​"Everything is interdependent, everything is interconnected".  The Capra book emphasizes this.  It seems to me we are all finding our natural place within this context of interconnection, and my own natural tendency is to approach the issue through a vision of wholeness or oneness.  Religion, spirituality, governance, science -- as I see it, all these elements can and should be intimately interconnected in ways that are guided through this "one" -- which then becomes a core value and a basis for a shared global ethic.  For me, seeing all of this... [to be continued?] 
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​​What motivates you to be a part of this inquiry?
​​It seem the call to "systemic transformation" is resonating in many quarters and across many sectors.  I am interested in the broad questions of "connecting the dots".  At the moment, I am reading Fritjof Capra's new book "The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision" -- and also going through "This Changes Everything", by Naomi Klein.  I like Ben's sense of urgency and "emergence".  
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​​My broad general appraisal is -- we are gathering energies that must somehow integrate and become a transformative force.  Is dialogue alone a transformative activity?  The answer is certainly yes; dialogue transforms all who engage in it.
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​​Additional thoughts re "initiatives and alliances"
​​I am mostly in a "quiet mode" right now, listening.  I have put a lot on the table, but it's all highly hypothetical and theoretical.  I see this potential all around me.  How does all this energy move?  So, yes, there is a great potential for alliances out there, but we need to see clearly how to handle our "diversity-in-unity" issues in ways that are collaborative and effective -- thus the need for the D&D skills.  Thus far, it seems to me, this has been difficult to do.  If "the movement is going to move", something will have to come along to accelerate and integrate and inspire it.  Naomi Klein goes over these issues in "This Changes Everything".  
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​​The way I see it, we are now past the age of linearly-directed movements.  We can't all "rush in a common direction" -- because they world is too complex, there are too many issues, and there are too many significant points of disagreement.  Flash mobs are charming, but they can't solve complex political problems.  On this very challenging theme, I like the ideas of Teilhard deChardin, who speaks of "one center" -- shared by everything -- including all people.
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​​How do Teilhard's ideas reconcile with the ideas of Fritjof Capra, who argues in his book that the world is composed of networks, not hierarchies -- which he tends to pit against one another ("nature is networks, hierarchies are creations of the human mind")?  I think there is a great conceptual reconciliation going on now, at a profound philosophical level, in part defined by the tension between network and hierarchy -- or as some others have put it, between network and tree.
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​​This tension is intimately related to the "top down versus bottom up" question.  My inclination on alliance-building would be to say -- what we need is a bottom-up listening process that can hear everybody and assimilate everything people are saying -- and then parse the entire process through a top-down tree-structured process that creates order and agreements where in a sheer network context there could be no sense of global integrity or wholeness, since everything is simply local, noisy, conflicting and incommensurate.  As I see it, finding a balance between these forces is the great tension that shift activists must reconcile.  We don't need bottom-up only, and we certainly don't need top-down only.  We need the two in cooperative/collaborative co-creative constructive transformative balance, the tree forming the broad framework of agreement, and the network -- the teeming profusion of details from the local level where life is most vital --  exerting a constant transformative influence on the macro-containing tree that is our shared global understanding and common agreement.
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​​There are some additional comments on these themes, in response to Ben's questions, here: ​+Bruce Schuman's Possibility Conversation​

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​Heather Tischbein
​​htischbein@wa-net.com
​​360-944-2390 (landline)
​​970-210-8302 (cell)
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​​What would you like to share about your work?
​​I was raised in an "activist" family and "came of age" in the 1960s.  Social justice, especially for children, wise stewardship  of "nature", and protecting the commons for the common good has been a lifelong work...an inescapable calling.  I am now "retired" from community organizing as a profession and spend almost half my time in granny nanny duties in support of my eldest son and his young family.  In retrospect, nurturing and nourishing The Children, my own and others, has been my  first priority...both consciously and unconsciously.  Protecting "their future", in a variety of ways, has been my second priority.  I am also now focused on deep inner work, partly in response to a near death experience in 2010 and partly in response to the deep grief I experience in being alive on Planet Earth at this moment of apparent life-threatening/life changing circumstance.  At times it looks and feels like I'm headed towards becoming (or defaulting to) a renunciate.  And when I'm not in granny nanny or renunciate mode, I am engaged in community as a democracy advocate and local food systems change agent, with a fondness for movies.  
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​​What motivates you to be a part of this inquiry?
​​I am an NCDD member,  as one result of coming to know Tom Atlee and trying to support his work as a board member of the Co-Intelligence Institute  over the last decade or so.  I have also come to know Ben Roberts through his work bringing forward Occupy Cafe and the Conversation Collaborative.  The conversation experience I have when Tom and/or Ben are "'in the room" always leave me feeling uplifted and inspired, even in the face of harsh realities.  I am quite certain that participating in this inquiry will nourish my Being and Doing in the world and I hope to contribute to the nourishment of all on the call and to our collective stewardship of the human community.

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​​@Stuart Taylor​ 
​​+44 (0)7586 320 168
​​taylorman75@hotmail.com
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​​What would you like to share about your work?
​​I am the Founder (2010) of Kyosei_Lab (Kl) a social enterprise based in London, UK. Kl provides small group rural retreat-based social learning programmes focused on: Wellbeing, Resilience and Creative development; Embodied Collaborative Leadership & Ecoliteracy. Aside from my ongoing work with Kl I also work for Macmillan Cancer Support (a UK wide progressive charity) as a Development Manager; I am also an Aikido Sensei, Group Facilitator and Writer.
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​​What motivates you to be a part of this inquiry?
​​I consider myself to be a socially engaged Buddhist - inspired by the likes of Joanna Macy, Margaret Wheatley and Donella Meadows. In addition to this project I will also be participating in the Otto Scharmer / David Korten led programme - A New Narrative for a New Economy see: https://www.edx.org/course/transforming-business-and-society-mitx-15-s23x#.VIBNMrRybIU. As an individual, Artist, Entrepreneur and Activist I am motivated to engage in this programme to connect with, learn from and contribute to the emergent global community of progressive change makers that appreciate the impact of human 'progress' on our other-than-human co-inabitees of this wonderful planet.  A community of diverse cultural and geographic locations that shares a desire and sense of urgency to influence human development towards a more realistic, measured, localised 'degrowth' economy living in balance with Gaia and fostering much greater equity between the southern and northern hemispheres of human population in terms of political, economic, cultural and environmental settlement.

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​Mark Spain
​​mark@globallearning.com.au
​​http://globallearning.com.au - Facilitating change, leadership and innovation
​​http://imeet.com.au - Australia's premier collaborative meeting technology
​​Bringing humanity and nature back into balance and harmony
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​​What would you like to share about your work?
​​I'm a also co-designer and collaborator in action learning projects like the Canberra City Farm, SEE Change (Society, Environment, Economy) , Way of Nature Australia, Beyond Zero Emmissions, Pachamama Global Game Changer
​​I design innovative approaches to leadership development and culture change for business, government and community.  My work is focussed on transforming business, society and self by building capacity for deep innovation.
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​​What motivates you to be a part of this inquiry?
​​I love collaborating with people to build capacity for self organised positive transformation that regenerates life.
​​I am patient and urgent in standing for collective ways to bring about
​​        • 100% renewable energy, 
​​        • safe healthy water and food systems, 
​​        • democracy that is open and transparent in putting the health and regeneration of communities ahead of corporate profits, 
​​        • re-creating and transitioning to a new finance system based on positive money (http://www.positivemoney.org) and internalising all costs
​​        • building the citizenship and capacity for a resilient and thriving local economy
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​​I would like to learn to use more collaboration tools to build capacity for more transparent open democracy with citizens engaging in decision making e.g. SEE Change - Kitchen Table Conversations Voices of the People Project http://www.see-change.org.au/voicesofthepeople

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​Jim Rough
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​​Jim Rough
​​jim@WiseDemocracy.org
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​​What would you like to share about your work?
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​​Twenty-two years ago I was struck by an epiphany about how to transform society … how we talk, think, and make collective choices as a nation. It’s a strategy for transforming both politics and economics. In 2002 I published a book on this strategy called “Society’s Breakthrough! Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People.” Since then we’ve formed a nonprofit organization to experiment with the process. See www.WiseDemocracy.org, the Center for Wise Democracy. 
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​​These experiments have been successful and now the “Wisdom Council” has been picked up and is being used in various areas of Central Europe. New experiments have started in North Carolina ... see www.WiseDemocracyNC.org.
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​​What motivates you to be a part of this inquiry?
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​​I’m interested to dialog with people concerned about the deep problems in our society and who recognize that these problems are largely caused by our System. And especially with people looking for deep systemic solutions that involve our quality of talking and thinking.

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​Anjula Ram
​​anjula.ram@gmail.com
​​anjularam.com
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​​What would you like to share about your work?
​​I am passionate about conscious evolution. As the inner and outer go hand in hand, I believe how we bring about transformation is as important as the transformation itself. I currently offer spiritual guidance (with a focus on wholeness and conscious partnership) and I am developing a travel-talk show (with an emphasis on our connection to both heaven and earth). I have a BA in Psychology and Criminology and certificates in Public Relations and Media Producing. I have self-studied Ken Wilber’s Integral theory and I am becoming more familiar with David Bohm. I am new to this type of collaboration, but I am willing, with an open heart and an open mind. 
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​​What motivates you to be a part of this inquiry?
​​I am here to connect with like-minded individuals, to learn and contribute, and to be part of something that hopefully makes a difference. We have a planet to serve and future generations are counting on us (no pressure). In deep gratitude. 

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​Robert David Steele
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​​robertdavidsteele.com  (Bio, Production)
​​phibetaiota.net  (Curated Blog)
​​bigbatusa.org  (Four Political Reform Ideas)
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​​What would you like to share about your work?
​​The first twenty years were educational -- son of an oil man learning about multi-cultural society and the pervasive largely negative effects of empire on the rest of the world; the second twenty years were as a dues-paying foot-soldier of empire -- a Marine Corps Infantry Officer, CIA Clandestine Operations Officer (spy), and the senior civilian responsible for creating the Marine Corps Intelligence Activity. My "wake-up" occurred in the latter position after I spent $20M on a Top Secret Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) system with access to all possible secret information, only to find my analysts standing in line for a single PC with access to the Internet (in 1988, "The Source." That opened my eyes to the insanity of the (then $40B a year, today $100B a year) secret intelligence world. I started the Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) revolution. The third twenty years have been a largely unsuccessful effort to teach governments how to do ethical evidence-based OSINT for Whole of Government. Fourteen years ago I discovered Tom Atlee who has been a mentor to me ever since, and have embraced the concepts of collective intelligence and deliberative dialog. I now start my final twenty years with my latest book as the first stone (The Open Source Everything Manifesto: Transparency, Truth, & Trust ), and a commitment to two great goals: electoral reform restoring voice and vote for all; and the creation of an open source everything toolkit for citizens and activist organizations that enables wide open conversations creating choices (Jim Rough's term), information-sharing across all boundaries, and sense-making in the public interest in the context of future-oriented hybrid governance. Learn more at http://tinyurl.com/Steele-Reform.
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​​What motivates you to be a part of this inquiry?
​​Tom Atlee pointed me in this direction. I am a professional intelligence officer -- perhaps the first 21st Century professional intelligence officer dedicated to the proposition that only public intelligence (decision-support) will serve the public interest. My concern, and this goes back to over a decade of observing MoveOn, NextGen, Occupy, and all other forms of activist organization, is that these organizations do not know how to "do" intelligence, they are all fragmented in their selfish little stove-pipes (Mich Sifry boils it down when he talks about how each insists on using "its" hashtag, in his superb book, The Big Disconnect: Why the Internet Hasn't Fixed Politics (Yet) , and they lack the maturity to devise a common strategy to focus on the one thing that could bring us all together and restore the integrity of our electoral process, our government, and hence our economy and society: the Electoral Reform Act of 2015. This inquiry is one small step in the right direction -- but I already see the fragmentation, people talking past one another, and so I continue to be dismayed.

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​​​@Chris Smerald​  
​​I am easy to find on linked-in
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​​What would you like to share about your work?
​​I am on a journey seeing I can use my business skills for the purpose of social good following an awakening at the giant insurance company I work for at the heart of the financial crisis. It started with the question “Now that this has happened, is there anything that we should do differently?” and a colleagues answer “No. it was not our fault. It was another area of the company.” I was an actuary and had all the skills and experience to understand and warn, and I did understand a lot about impending crisis, but did not. The answer really bugged me. The next day, I passed by St. Ethelburga’s Centre for Peace and Reconciliation (non-secular, but religious inclusive) https://www.stethelburgas.org on Bishopsgate in the heart of the London’s financial district and went inside to check it out. This began a love affair with dialog and facilitation (they do a lot of dialog research and works there). Problem-solving, empathy, and understanding are my gift. My work has many fronts all interconnected. 
​​·         The thing closest to my heart is developing a story based dialog website as I do not think the online tools available are adequate for non-experts (I want to help anyone be able to engage constructively on complex issues they are passionate about). I am reaching a crossroads there, however, as there is only so much that can be done alone due to complexity. I am trying to complete a pilot and then solicit partnerships.
​​·         I have been researching and developing ideas around dialog, knowledge management, social complexity theory, and storytelling philosophy around developing problem solving strategies supporting my website interest.
​​·         I am helping St Ethelburga’s with an initiative, City Forum https://www.stethelburgas.org/city-forum seeking to heal the interior of financial services companies and building a community of practice between organizations with related goals of sustainability.
​​·         I solve some of the most complex problems in commercial insurance in ways that depend on dialog as much as statistics and am currently working in analytics, understanding complex relationships between loosely connected types of information. 
​​·         I am keenly interested in operational risk management which if applied well has a lot of interesting parallels with this discussion. Think of listening and action processes around problems that affect goals. Problems can be caused or exacerbated by human error, strategic decisions and environmental conditions. Things that go wrong contain a gift of illuminating relationships that otherwise were hidden in plain sight (a little Wittgenstein reference)
​​·         I am leading a research working party which is developing a practice and philosophy of experts’ communication (not just writing things clearly, but bringing in listening, empathy and service to others needs, and making ones work transparent enough so non experts can challenge it);
​​·         I have unfortunately experienced the worst of what government and related institutions can deliver when problems span boundaries and extended time periods. causal conditions, event, mishandling and lack of learning all institutionalized in mutually reinforcing ways and am taking stock of what to do when the issues are systemic in additional to personal. This is where a keen focus on accountability comes from.
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​​What motivates you to be a part of this inquiry?
​​I want to support others with similar interests and thought to muck in as this group seemed to need help. A pleasant surprise is the approach being taken. It affords me an opportunity to benchmark the structure and culture of my web dialog approaches with this open space inquiry. I want to see what emerges. It would be good to help build networks for the benefit of all. 
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​​Bruce Schuman: Thank you -- this is a great link: https://www.stethelburgas.org/   I would love to see something like their broadly inclusive (and yet precise) framework be adopted here.  I am interested in the "sacred secular" -- and how these supposedly distinct or incommensurate facets of human thinking can (and should) be brought together.  Religion can provide a vision of the wholeness or oneness that contains the world, and offer suggestions as to the ethics that should guide it.  If we could secularize that broad framework, coupled with analytic precision, we would be opening the doors to significant new options.
​​Re ""connecting with the sacred", this is a screenshot from  https://www.stethelburgas.org/
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