​​1/25 OS Call: A Supersaturated Theory of Change — Ben Roberts — Room #15
​​for "DandDTrans," a "community of inquiry and action" regarding the role that Dialogue & Deiberation can play in addressing the mega-crises of our time
​​Image courtesy of www.NewStories.org
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​Participants:
  • ​​ Heinz
  • ​​ Anita
  • ​​Shams
  • ​​David
  • ​​Mark Dubois
  • ​​Bruce Schuman
  • ​​Tom Atlee
  • ​​Jock McClellan
  • ​​Others?
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​SCROLL DOWN FOR COLLABORATIVE NOTE SPACE
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​Context: Supersaturated Solutions as a Metaphor for Systemic Transformation

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​​What is a super-saturated solution? 
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  • ​​Supersaturation is a state of a solution that contains more of the dissolved material than could be dissolved by the solvent under normal circumstances... Very small particles (seeds) can trigger the separation of the dissolved material from the solvent... Supersaturated solutions are prepared or result when some condition of a saturated solution is changed, for example decreasing (or, rarely, increasing) temperature, decreasing volume of the saturated solvent (as by liquid evaporation), or increasing pressure [from wikipedia].
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​What if we think of this as a metaphor for systemic transformation through "conversations that matter?"
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​​The containers we create hold a "solution" of participants, and the conversations that happen within them "dissolve the solids" of their ideas, relationships, intentions, and energy. If we do our job well as designers, conveners, and hosts, the conversation causes the space to become "supersaturated" as more of those solids are added to the solution. Note that heat, pressure, and/or evaporation are also required to move beyond "normal" saturation levels (now there's a rich field for making some metaphoric meaning!). Once supersaturation is achieved, seed crystals (ideas, small groups with a shared intention, commitments, exchanges of requests and offers, etc.) can quickly lead to a phase shift and the emergence of a "transformational" outcome for group itself, as well as one that serves transformation in the wider world.
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​​Also, there are already containers "out there" that offer prime opportunities for convening supersaturating conversations. ​+ So many initiatives, groups, networks, alliances, etc. exist that are in powerful motion right now​. Within those "containers," the right conversation can create supersaturation, produce seed crystals, and lead to a phase shift. This is juicy work that is available all around us as D&D practitioners. 
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​​What does NOT appear to be the case right now is that there is global supersaturation such that the macro-scale changes we desire can be brought about. The current system works to prevent such supersaturation from occurring through a wide variety of negative feedback loops that support what appears to be homeostasis. That said, I do believe those feedback loops are losing their efficacy, and the global solution is becoming more and more saturated by the day. Thus the appearance of homeostasis is a fallacy, even thought the global solution is not yet ready for a complete phase shift. The metaphor suggests this would be tru, since a highly saturated solution does not look any different that an unsaturated one, even though it may be very close to a state that will support a phase shift. 
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​​I get frustrated with conversations that seem like complaints about this "fact" of homeostasis, as well as conversations that involve highly detailed visioning and planning for actions that would require a globally "supersaturated" state to exist when it apparently does not. Both these conversations, I believe, draw our energy down, and keep us from focusing on the "​+good, true, and beautiful​" work that is available to us right here and now.
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​​Also also, as conditions in the larger system shift, moments of supersaturation will emerge suddenly, as a large group of people sees something urgent and begins discussing it. Sometimes, these moments are local, and sometimes they are global. Think of the Occupy movement, for example. Or the 2008 financial collapse. Or global moments of near-universal grieving when something shocking and tragic occurs. At these "supersaturated" times, there is a window of opportunity for playing at a higher level if the right conversations can be convened. This may indeed require some advance planning and capacity building. However, I doubt that planning will involve the actual content of the conversations that will be effective. Rather, I am drawn to the work that will build our capacity for such convenings. And the best way I can see to do that work is to prototype it at the smaller scales that are currently possible. Indeed, one can think about the purpose of these smaller scale conversations as being the creation of "seed crystals" that can be dropped into larger scale supersaturated solutions if and when they emerge. In that fractal way, our "local" action has the potential for global impact.
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​What might we do right now within DandDTrans, and going forward as part of a much larger community of practice, if we acted as if this theory was "true?"

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​​Ben Roberts, 1/22 
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​​I'm looking for opportunities to convene supersaturating conversations in the near future. I'm especially interested in prototyping three approaches, each of which has a significant virtual component:
  • ​​A "trans-local" (or "glocal") model. Examples of existing "containers" that might be primed for a "supersaturating trans-local conversation" include:
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  • ​​A "collaborative action festival." Examples of existing "containers" that might be primed for a "supersaturating collaborative action festival" include:
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  • ​​"Virtual bookending" of a large in-person gathering. Examples of upcoming gatherings that might be primed for "supersaturating virtual bookending" include:
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​Replies Online So Far

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​We Are Transforming Ourselves, Each Other, and Others Part 2
​​Chris Smerald 1/24
​​Continuing on from my part 1 post, if we see ourselves as seed crystals we need to come up with a structure for being and interacting which works and is helpful to others in order to be grown upon. Helping others grow larger so we might too. For me, this is about developing skills and models for action which work better in our complex times and showing how they are so. This whole enquiry is an example of an attempt to do this but it may prove that we are not ready and still forming in which patience is needed amongst the fumbling. However, we each need to take risk and also help each other pick up and move forward. Is it the killer model/method for change needed or the killer skills? I vote for skills but specific models/methods can help us develop these (like those listed above)
​​1/25 thinking about my post shifts in values and accountability are also wrapped up in this. These things drive the why we change and their evolution is part of the how we change. Not one of us is immune from a need to constantly reset these in response to our environment.
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​Puzzlement
​​​@Laura Chasin​, 1.24 
​​I love the metaphor of supersaturation but can't tell if and how it relates to how I think, perhaps because it is so abstract. Context. Context. My colleagues and I usually work in bounded contexts where conflict is experienced as dysfunctional by those involved. You could describe them as supersaturated with stereotypes, misunderstanding, divisive differences, anger etc although we have not. (You could describe our work as lowering the saturation level.)
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​​I would guess that the supersaturation theory is more suitable in less bounded situations in which the identified problem is too little of something desirable, eg knowledge, connection. 
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​Notes from Live Discussion on 1/25

  • ​​What might we do right now within DandDTrans, and going forward as part of a much larger community of practice, if we acted as if this theory was "true?"
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​​It's not just a theory--it's in motion. Rosa Parks example. Training and practicing. W're addicted to being small. Find our voices. Speak truth to power. Conversation containers with supersaturation possibilities can be designed now in anticipation of future moments of possibility.
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​​What was the nature of the environment that made it possible for Rosa Parks to take those steps? Not just the training but the very idea that change was possible. What makes new Rosa Parks possible? Heroes are too often individuals, conversations brings in the tribe. How to change the environment, and be the change.
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​​What I'm doing isn't just speaking and having conversations, not just activism, but world-building, e.g permaculture. Connecting with many people to actually change a system. Food, governance, etc.
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​​Struck by the apparent assumption of an orderly and graceful process. And then there's the image of all hell breaking loose. E.g. climate.
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​​Everyday Democracy: conversation and action must be linked. A lot of people want to have deliberation about climate, and it needs to be linked to action.
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​​Networking is part of the saturating. Not "what can I do?" but "what 'we' can I become a part of?"
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​​World Cafe illustrated that conversations exist throughout all action steps.
​​Action framing can be seen as part of "the solids" we wish to be dissolved in the solution.
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​​Inequality as a context for supersaturation. 
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​​Not progressing and moving things forward If contributing to more polarity and not contributing to solutions.
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​​What about climate as a wedge issue for the Dems?
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​​Democrats in California versus Democrats in Kentucky.
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​​How do we frame the issues to speak to our deepest heart, guts, in the blood understanding, get to the DNA common among life. Learn to listen from love instead of fear to find the 'through-line' to take us down the river. 
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​Next Steps

​​Ben will convene a live conversation Mon, Tue or Wed. Jock and Brian want to participate. [This happened, and the notes are here: ​+Conversation with Brian and Jock​]
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​Post Call Reflections

​​{Ben, 1/26] Having posted the "conversation as a core process" diagram above, I'm thinking that this DandDTrans started at "noon" and has gotten to about  "3 o'clock." We're talking about harvesting discoveries, doing some of that here and there, and wishing we were down at 6 o'clock doing action planning.  I'm curious what this might imply about a) how we feel about the work thus far and b) what we choose to do (or not) in the final stages of this inquiry and beyond. For example... 
  • ​​Is it wise to leap over harvesting into action planning?
  • ​​How important is it that the harvesting process be a conversation of the whole? Can harvesting be done individually or by smaller groups, who then move on to action?
  • ​​If "evaporation" is one way to achieve supersaturation, perhaps it is to be encouraged that a smaller group do the harvesting work, since participants are analogous to the solvent. We have many ideas and experiences to distill, and the hackpad records allow a smaller group to access much of that, and even to reach out for more information from key participants, if desired.
  • ​​Also, more than one small group could play this game, and the resulting multiple harvests could be compared. 
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  • ​​[Comment from Ben Levi] I am feeling the impulse to model the harvest as a dialogue... where there are numerous views of the harvest (like crowdsourcing), put into the center where those harvests themselves can be harvested... iteration is a powerful feedback loop (it's a basis of fractals). I think a couple iterations of the harvest would likely surface patterns, a meta-harvest if you will. And it invites any and all to do whatever kind of harvest they want... there's so much data to harvest, I think this seems like a "natural design" that taps into the energy that's there.
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​​[Brian D, 1/27] The question being asked is, “What might we do right now within DandDTrans, and going forward as part of a much larger community of practice, if we acted as if this theory was “true?" The theory in question being “Supersaturation as a metaphor for systemic transformation through conversations.”
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​​After having reviewed the material more closely, I believe it to be a reasonable metaphor but not a metaphor geared towards intention but rather reality as we are likely to find it.  It is only reasonable in limited use though. I find it difficult and this case is no different in maintaining the parallel the metaphorical idea and the reality that it is supposed to mimic.
​​There are two aspects to the empirical reality of supersaturation that I accept as true, that I see as being applicable in our efforts here but don’t necessarily fit with the intentions that I am perceiving.  First is that supersaturation solutions are very unstable. There seems to be a hope to go to permanent phase shift transformation but that is not what happens in the video. It goes back to a normal solution with the previously supersaturated particles now released. Now perhaps they went through a phase shift and became a solid but that metaphor does not sit all that well with me as it reminds me of Star Trek Borg and brings me to the second aspect. Supersaturation occurs with solutions that are a homogeneous mixture composed of only one phase. Our communities and at the ground level, our democracy is a heterogeneous mixture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homogeneity_and_heterogeneity. I also suspect that such transformations imposed upon communities, even if by some of the members of the community itself, could, if not accounted for, produce significant heat else where creating then unintended consequences.
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​​There is not only a breakdown in the relationship between abstract idea and the ‘concrete’ idea (purposely place concrete in quotes as I have little faith in the concept) but also a breakdown in the through-line of the development of the metaphorical concept. It seems different and I would assert conflicting interpretations can be made. At certain points participants are particles and at others they seem to be solution, which could happen but it adds complexity to the interpretation. 
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​​This is a complex metaphor being used to communicate a complex idea which has pitfalls already. I also suspect that it is using what Warren Weaver termed ‘disorganized complexity’ as a stand in for ‘organized complexity.  There is also a mixing of chemical based and inorganic at that metaphor with physiological, organic based metaphor. Even a new and beautiful world will need to achieve some level of homeostasis to be sustainable. 
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​​This doesn’t mean that the metaphor cannot be applied in the proper circumstances. I don’t see it working if we are speaking of climate change, especially at larger scopes. Yes, you might get some agreement within California on coal fire plants and some agreement in Kentucky but I doubt you would get supersaturation at a higher level. What you might be able to get is supersaturation for the idea of greater participatory combined with deliberative democracy at the local level.  
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​​That could create a more permanent phase shift and then in that phase shift a third phase change could be sought.  The metaphorical elements that could bring this around in the real world might include Open Data laws and more open government.  
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​​My metaphor for intentional exponential phase shift within a politcal/economic/environmental/civl society space would be Clay Christensen’s Disruptive Innovation.  This idea though is still under development for transmittal within this space.
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​​[Brian D, 1/28] After a bit more reflection, I can envision circumstances under which the supersaturation metaphor may be seen as working. In my version of the metaphor participants are particles and the solution is community. DDST practioners are a  catalytic agent as with  vapor–liquid–solid method (VLS) is a mechanism for the growth of one-dimensional structures, such as nanowires. The
​​ is a two phase process. There is a supersaturation of previously separate individuals into a larger, more cohesive community, hopefully enough to reach a tipping point but at least enough to begin making structural changes. Those structural changes may not be substantial but they can still be significant if as with nanowires they can be used in systemic ways as means of communication. That would be working at a close to DNA level and as with DNA the actual implementation could take on many forms. One the one hand it takes tremendous energy to create small changes but on the other hand with the creation of the right conditions the normal path of change is very slow and a VLS method circumvents that. It also allow for  crystal growth to occur from nucleated seeds which may be what Ben was getting at in the first place. I suppose the difference is that I don't see any rapture like transcendence occuring but rather a long brick by brick in the road haul. 
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