A few months ago the core Beams team was contacted and asked if we wanted to host one of the monthly meetings of the Vancouver Integral Salon. These salons- where people get together to learn about, discuss (and if lucky, enact) integral theory and practice- have been happening in many parts of the world in the last decade or so, and the Vancouver version has been going the whole six years I've been here. The salon has been taken over by new leadership, and is embarking on some creative new territory, but the salon as it existed previously had too much monological 'talking headness' for myself and others on the team. So when we were asked to host the salon we knew we wanted to do something different. But what? Well, we've decided to do a real time experiment in the salon setting with one of the key collectives intelligence processes we've developed at the site. (for more on that in general, see TJ's TEDx talk). Will it work? Will it be of value? Will it go over like a lead balloon? I guess we'll find out!!
I can't say much more about what precisely we're going to do, as we want those who attend to come to the process fresh and without any forethought that might gum up some valuable spontaneity. But for those who don't live here in Vancouver (most of the readers), we'll try and have one of us to come back on to this post after tomorrow nights salon, and give an update on what we did and how it all went. In the meantime, here's the blurb we sent to the folks at Vancouver Integral for promotion of the evening:
VANCOUVER INTEGRAL CAFE HOSTS
Beams & struts
May 7, 2012, 7:00pm - 10:00pm
Gathering & Tea: 7:00pm; Cafe: 7:30-9:30pm; Gathering & goodbye - until 10:00pm
either ignorance, greed and intolerance will bring us to a near or total collapse,
or we’ll somehow bring about a better world.
So focusing on that second option, how can we make that happen?
What can we do, as individuals and as a group, that goes beyond discussion?
At our evening at the Integral Cafe, we’d like to present and enact a microcosm of that process with all attendees to mine the collective intelligence of those present. Let’s come up with options and practical solutions for the future. Let’s share them and commit to realizing them in the world.
