August 2016
This issue presents news on three planetariums dealing with social issues. Social Planetariums or Observatoriums were envisioned by Harold Lasswell and described by John Warfield. Planetariums surround observers with depictions of planetary systems. At social planetariums, citizens walk in to post their concerns and suggestions. They comment on other's posts, and carry on conversations. These conversations are posted on the walls and surround the citizens who enter. Further posts will document dialogical efforts that define and graphically portray the root causes of identified problems.
A social planetarium can receive different names. In Crete, it is a Demoskopio. In Boise Idaho, it is called the Boise Commons. In Cyprus, it has taken a global/local, "glocal", research turn and is called the "Futuriser."
Heraklion Demoskopio
The municipality of Heraklion in Crete, Greece has now opened the Heraklion Demoskopio, a new institution that will engage the stakeholders of the city in open and focused dialogues. It will be a public space for eliciting citizen concerns, hosting their dialogues, and posting those concerns and results on its walls and windows of the town's citizens.
It will host open and structured dialogues to cooperatively define and resolve complex issues. The concerns, on account of the deliberations, the definitions, and the selected course of action are posted on its wall and are open for examination by all citizens.
It is expected that citizens, researchers, entrepreneurs, scientists, educational institutions, collective bodies, the opportunity to collaborate effectively in designing innovative solutions to a variety of challenges facing the city leadership. (See also the decision of the City Council here:
Read also the original idea as formulated and submitted to the Municipality of Heraklion by the Social Systems Design Professor, Dr. Alexander N. Christakis, and the independent journalist Maria Kakoulaki here:
More specifically, the Demoscopio, as indicated in the decision of the City Council, aims at listening to citizens and entrepreneurs, whose voices are never heard on issues that concern them, so that they will be able to converse on equal terms with other actors in society, and to share opinions, proposals, visions for the future of the city. Also groups of students who have creative ideas and want to turn them into viable businesses or products, or to improve the social environment, can display and promote their plans through the Demoskopio capability and facility. Furthermore, it will provide support to volunteer groups, educational and research institutions wishing to codesign practices and innovations, as well as exhibits and museum spaces.
According to officials of the municipality, the economic crisis Greece is experiencing today, is affecting Greek cities dramatically, reducing the available financial resources and manpower, and increasing social security and support needs. This crisis has particularly affected young people, with unemployment rates have soared sharply from 2007 onwards.
The Municipality of Heraklion intends to contribute to addressing this reality through the institution of the Demoskopio, which encourages and develops a culture of social dialogue, cooperation, development, innovation, and entrepreneurship, particularly among young people. It has been observed that in recent years a wave of young people with talents and skills, that exploit new technologies for services and products, need support in translating their ideas into viable businesses. The Demoskopio will act as a node in a social network for generating ideas, innovation, and entrepreneurship.
The Demoskopio will provide three main types of services. The first category concerns the application of Structured Democratic Dialogue (SDD) for the design and promotion of social and business cooperation, consensus and networking with the wide involvement and participation of all perspectives. The second category concerns the business interconnection services, which include the participation of young people in innovation competitions, entrepreneurship and mentoring workshop. The third category concerns business acceleration consulting and support services.
Protopio Futuriser Cyprus 2016
Yiannis Laouris and the Future Worlds Center have taken the Observatorium concept to the Internet, to work on educational reform. The following paragraphs were submitted by Yiannis.
Future Worlds Center has partnered with the Global Education Futures (GEF) to launch Protopia Labs, a global initiative that aims to bring together pioneers and innovative educational laboratories in an effort to collaborate towards envisioning, designing and facilitating implementation of world-wide educational reforms.
GEF is an international collaborative platform that brings pioneers of global education to discuss and implement the necessary transformations of educational ecosystems for the thrivable future. GEF has started by developing a strategic tool for planning, operating and decision-making in Russia and several emerging economies. GEF and FWC leaders have met in Washington DC ISSS 2014 and decided to join powers in an effort to create an international network of educational innovators, strategists and entrepreneurs who share the vision of a complete, bottom-up reform of our educational systems. They co-organised a forum in in Moscow (29 February - 2 March 2016), one on Prague (26 - 29 April, 2016). The 3rd one, taking place in Pyla Cyprus (29 August - 6 sep, 2016) will engage more than 100 participants from across the world and is expected to put in place the seeds for creating a global movement.
The Cyprus meeting will be the first in which participants will be engage more authentically using structured democratic dialogues.
Boise Commons
The Boise Commons is a non-profit aimed at helping people learn about and improve their communities. It provides a system of projects, spaces, events, processes, tools, and campaigns through which people of all ages can learn about their community and society, explore issues, and work together to develop solutions in the context of desired futures.
Serving as both a mirror and a canvas for the community, The Commons will be a catalyst for community building, civic development, and participatory governance, helping to bring about and maintain a true public sphere, from the local level upwards.
The Need
The world is more interconnected than ever before. Issues are more complex than ever before. More information is coming at us than ever before. Yet our ability to make sense of things, to deal with issues, to stay ahead of change, has hardly kept pace. To make matters worse, the level of civil discourse in our society is perhaps at an all-time low. Polarization is the theme of the day in our political sphere, with any semblance of public conversation monopolized by a small number of people and interest groups. And in spite of the promise of richer connections through technology, in some sense the opposite has happened. The "public sphere" is barely hanging on as a reality. It is arguably the most urgent need of our times that we find ways to restore and sustain a public sphere, so that people can make choices about the present and future lives of their community and their society, intentionally and consciously, and with the creativity and wisdom that comes from working together. Our communities, and our citizens, need new and meaningful opportunities to become engaged with each other and with the issues affecting their lives and future generations. The Commons is dedicated to meeting this need.
Current Activity
As The Boise Commons processes results from earlier surveys of the city's neighborhood association presidents and board members, it is conducting another, broader survey. This one is an anonymous, online questionnaire designed to gauge things like Boise residents' familiarity, trust and cooperation with neighbors; awareness of and participation in neighborhood associations; how much people value neighborhood associations; what they think the associations should do; and ways the city government should help the associations. The survey will be open until at least May 15. Boise Commons will provide findings from the survey to city government, the news media and neighborhood associations, according to a news release.
The Boise Commons was originally formed in 2014 under the name "Social Planetarium of Boise/Treasure Valley," said Matt Shapiro, who formed the organization along with former Boise City Councilman Jerome Mapp and urban design expert Dean Gunderson.
ANNOUNCEMENT
Back Stories for Robust Postmodern Living is now published. It will be the focus off the next eBuzz, coming soon.
