Planetary Dialogue SDDP on Rescuing the Enlightment

SDDP ObamaVision Report Title Flinders International Asia Pacific Institute Project Flinders Triggering Question "What factors will help significantly in rescuing the enlightenment from its failings?" Dates July 14-21, 2006 Lead Facilitator(s) Aleco Christakis Yiannis Laouris Author(s) Aleco Christakis Yiannis Laouris Editor(s) Janet McIntyre Total Duration 1 week

Triggering Question

What factors will help significantly in rescuing the enlightenment from its failings?

11 participants

World history was made in a synchronous global interactive WebScope Dialogue facilitated by Alexander N. Christakis on the island of Crete on July 21, 2006 (www.loversofdemocracy.org). For the first time, the actual structuring phase of SDDP was implemented using virtual technologies with participants being geographically separated. A group of nine students of “Democracy and The Enlightenment” brought on from the Flinders International Asia Pacific Institute, in Adelaide, Australia, with other members of the Knowledge Management Team (KMT) spread over various locations in the USA (Kenneth K. Bausch, an expert in systems sciences and Marie Kane, an expert in corporate marketing, located at Fayetteville, Georgia, Diane Conway, computer software and internet conference system operator, located at Paoli, Pennsylvania and Vigdor Schreibman, reporter/observer from FINS in Washington DC). As Schreibman (2007) reports, “A Global Boundary-Spanning Dialogue, all together in the world of Cyberspace, at different local times and places. Distant participants were able to view the same screen of the Cogniscope as those present in the room using Claripoint, special software that allows broadcasting of a computer screen through the internet. Their virtual presence in the room was made possible using traditional telephone conferencing.” During the week of WebScope Dialogue, between July 14 and July 21, 2006, the KMT guided the student participants in their asynchronous response to a triggering question: “What factors will help significantly in rescuing the enlightenment from its failings?” During the first six days, the students generated a set of 49 factors. They subsequently carefully clarified these factors, so that everyone had a good understanding of the meaning of each other’s ideas, using only their e-mail facilities. The set of factors were then classified into nine clusters and prioritised subjectively by relative importance. The KMT organised all the information efficiently and periodically returned pertinent KMT Reports6 to the student-participants, who were the ‘content-experts’ of the group dialogue, so that they could concentrate their attention on producing the content of the dialogue. Then, on the seventh day, the whole group engaged in a synchronous focused and open dialogue via the WebScope for approximately three hours. At this session the student group at Adelaide, Australia guided by lead facilitator in Crete, with the KMT in Georgia, Pennsylvania and Washington DC produced a rcm, RCM7, disclosing the influence tree among factors of higher relevant importance. The production of the RCM enabled the group to discover the root causes of the failures of “Democracy and The Enlightenment”, which could guide future collective collaborative action. The RCM disclosed three factors that must be addressed before a recovery of “Democracy and The Enlightenment” could be realised. These are considered to be the true drivers in the very complex issues addressed by the group. The first of these root causes, pointed to the extremes of either optimism or pessimism that guides public administration and political economy. This, contrasts with research that shows the large benefits of policy guidance, not by experts, but by the ordinary people (see for example, Yankelovich and Harman, 1988). The second root cause disclosed the need for improving local governance by using local knowledge. And the third root cause disclosed the need to make room for the exercise of power by minorities. Overcoming these three root causes is the key to generating mutual respect and greater trust, which are essential elements of success of any community or society. According to the final report, the global dialogue communications via telephone conferencing and internet connectivity was subject to local weather disturbances and power outages. These interruptions will require careful monitoring in future applications of the WebScope model to assure best practices. In sum, the virtual co-laboratory produced results that were considered by the experts to be of highest quality and comparable to those that would have been produced in the context of a longer session taking place in a face-to-face physical setting.

Clusters

Cluster 1: CLARIFICATION OF TERMS
Cluster 2: AUTHENTICITY
Cluster 3: SENSITIVITY
Cluster 4: ACCOUNTABILITY
Cluster 5: HOSPITALITY
Cluster 6: METHODOLOGY
Cluster 7: INCLUSIVITY
Cluster 8: HUMAN NATURE
Cluster 9: MARGINALIZATION

List of Ideas

• Idea 1: IDENTIFY SUCCESS (Denise)
• Idea 2: TRUST (Denise)
• Idea 3: USE PATTERNS OF FAILURE AND SUCCESS (Denise)
• Idea 4: CONTACT WITH THOSE IN NEED (Geoff)
• Idea 5: TRANSPARENCY TO BUILD TRUST (Geoff)
• Idea 6: PROMISE KEEPING (Geoff)
• Idea 7: RELINQUISHING POWER (Geoff)
• Idea 8: HOSPITALITY (Geoff)
• Idea 9: EXPANDED NOTION OF ACCOUNTABILITY (Janet)
• Idea 10: RESPECTFUL COMMUNICATION (Janet)
• Idea 11: EXPANDING CONSCIOUNESS TO SEE CONNECTIONS ACROSS CONCEPTUAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL AND SPATIAL BOUNDARIES (Janet)
• Idea 12: IMPROVING THE PROCESS OF RESEARCH AND MAKINGIT MORE DISCURSIVE AND ACCESSIBLE AND OPEN TO THE IDEAS OF OTHERS (Janet)
• Idea 13: IMPROVING THE CAPACITY OF POLICY MAKERS AND POLITICIANS TO BE INCLUSIVE (Janet)
• Idea 14: IMPROVING LOCAL GOVERNANCE USING LOCAL KNOWLEDGE (Jim)
• Idea 15: OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM (Jim)
• Idea 16: HUMAN NATURE (Jim)
• Idea 17: METHODOLOGY (Jon)
• Idea 18: COMMUNICATION (Jon)
• Idea 19: CAPACITY (Jon)
• Idea 20: PARTNERSHIPS (Jon)
• Idea 21: RESPONSIBILITY (Jon)
• Idea 22: MIND OPENING (Paisal)
• Idea 23: BRAIN TRIGGERING (Paisal)
• Idea 24: LOOKING INSIDE (Paisal)
• Idea 25: ENABLING PEOPLE'S CAPACITY (Paisal)
• Idea 26: CORRECTING THE FAILINGS (Paisal)
• Idea 27: ENABLING STREET TRADERS TO HAVE MORE INFORMATION ON THE POLICY PERTAINING TO GOVERNANCE OF INFORMAL STREET TRADERS (Sudarmo)
• Idea 28: CORRUPTION AND LACK OF TRANSPARENCY IN MANAGING THE DAILY TOLLS COLLECTED BY THE OFFICIAL FROM THE STREET TRADERS (Sudarmo)
• Idea 29: ADVOCACY TO SUPPORT THE STREET TRADERS (Sudarmo)
• Idea 30: MARGINALIZATION OF SOME TRADERS BECAUSE OF COMPETITION FOR SCARCE RESOURCES (Sudarmo)
• Idea 31: TOP DOWN PLANNING BY THE GOVERNMENT THAT FOCUSES ON CITY AESTHETICS OR BEAUTY AND NOT ON THE WELFARE OF THE STREET VENDORS (Sudarmo)
• Idea 32: USING RELEVANT LANGUAGE TO STAKEHOLDERS (Vu)
• Idea 33: PARTICIPATING STAKEHOLDERS (Vu)
• Idea 34: BEING RESPONSIVE TO STAKEHOLDERS TO AVOID FORMALISM CONSULTATIONS (Vu)
• Idea 35: LEAVING OUT 'POWER ABUSED' ON THE DIALOGUE (Vu)
• Idea 36: CONDUCTING PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH (Vu)
• Idea 37: WE MUST BETTER DEFINE WHAT WE MEAN BY TWO KEY WORDS: 'ENLIGHTENMENT' and 'ITS FAILINGS' (John)
• Idea 38: WE WANT TO REFER TO THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND ITS FAILINGS (John)
• Idea 39: SETTING AND OBSERVANCE OF RULES OF MUTUAL RESPECT, FOR OTHERS, OTHER VIEWS, NON-HUMAN CONSIDERATIONS AND FUTURE GENERATIONS (Rob)
• Idea 40: MORE INFORMED UNDERSTANDING OF AND COMMITMENT TO CIVIL SOCIETY, IE IN THIS CASE, THE NOTION THAT AS AN INDIVDUAL, ONE HAS BOTH RIGHTS TO BE HEARD AND OBLIGATIONS TO LISTEN AND ACCEPT THE VIEWS OF OTHERS, AND TO ACCEPT THAT SOME POLICY DECISIONS CANNOT FULFILL EVERY INDIVIDUAL'S NEEDS OR WANTS (Rob)
• Idea 41: AN OBLIGATION ON ACTIVE PARTICIPANTS IN CONSULTATIVE PROCESSES TO BE FULLY (OR MORE) INFORMED, RATHER THAN 'COME AS YOU ARE' (Rob)
• Idea 42: FOCUS PARTICIPATIVE PROCESSES AROUND DIRECTIONS AND PRIORITIES IN RELATION TO 'CONUNDRUMS', RATHER THAN 'POPULAR VOTE ON SPECIFIC PROPOSITIONS' (Rob)
• Idea 43: DEMONSTRATE ATTITUDES AND PROCESSES THAT REBUILD OR COUNTER-ACT THE (PERCEIVED) DECLINING TRUST IN GOVERNMENTS AS REPRESENTATIVE DECISION-MAKERS, AND ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO ACTIVELY CONTRIBUTE DESPITE THEIR CYNICISM (Rob)
• Idea 44: NEED TO CHANGE ATTITUDE BOTH MEN AND WOMEN'S PART (Nadira)
• Idea 45: NEED TO AMEND THE EXISTING LAW (Nadira)
• Idea 46: COMPENSATION SHOULD BE MADE TO THE VICTIM (Nadira)
• Idea 47: A SUPPORT CENTRE SHOULD BE INTRODUCED TO DISTRIBUTE PROPERTY (Nadira)
• Idea 48: ENSURE SUCCESSFUL IMPLEMENTATION OF EXISTING LAW (Nadira)
• Idea 49: GENERAL COMMENTS FROM PARTICIPANTS