RE: Community Studio Project - Steven Fearing
Fearing,Steven
Live United With Authentic Engagement
"A Project of Community Diagnosis"
A project to diagnosis and answer the questions:
- Is the United Way Mission, Strategy, and Philosophy of Engagement internally coherent and accountable?
- Is the
inter-relationship of Harwood Institute's Community
Diagnosis and Civic Engagement Elements a clear and coherent prescription for action?
- Does it make sense to apply the Harwood Community Diagnosis and civic engagement model to the 3 focus areas of United Way? (Or to individual Public Innovator/Community Studio projects?)
- Do the civic
engagement methodologies advocated and practiced by the National Coalition of
Dialogue and Deliberation community both enhance and inform the Harwood model
of authentic engagement and the strategies of engagement of United Way?
This project will be executed by convening the interested members of the Public Innovator Lab in a series of class presentations, discussions, and field work and result in recommendations to United Way.
(Or, these ideas, especially the components of Public Capital and Public Knowledge ala' Harwood will be explored with other Lab participants as needed to enhance and inform their projects.)
Another Project with More Juice
Telling the Stories of Center Texas
The shortest distance to the truth is a story. A community without stories is like Elvis without hips.
This project will collect the voices of the people of Central Texas in their own words. We will document on film a compelling auditory and visual record of personal stories and parables of hope and change in our community. We will collect the authentic reflections of people's journey around barriers to change, their personal failures and triumphs-- stories of resiliency and community spirit, of bridge building and the narratives and scenarios they see for the future of our region. We will capture diverse voices from every sector of our community. We will listen for a thread of common aspirations, events of positive deviance, and also truthfully report boundary lines of division. We seek to invite people into public life and to have them contribute to the larger civic story with their language, frames of reference, and a description of what they hold valuable. We seek to feed 30-60 minutes of documented public knowledge back into the community by a multitude of communication outlets and thus investigate this truth: it is harder to take offense from someone whose story you know and easier to create the next chapter of community together.
Another Project With Even More Juice
Draft statement:
Gender conflict, sex and power, are not passé considerations, they are just underground in a new integration of marginally declared or undeclared expectations and confusion. Families and children are in trouble. Roles and rites of passage are lost or up for grabs. Many women are overworked (having it all means doing it all) and many men are lost in knowing how to personify a powerful masculinity that ensures basic economic survival for self and family in more fragile economic conditions (and within many competitive systems) and yet also operates cooperatively in (or anticipates) the new economics of a sustainable planet.
Dialogic processes to uncover and address gender identity related conflict or issues between men and women of Central Texas.
This topic refers to the complexity and tension around roles and power sharing in business and personal life and the leadership demands for a sustainable planet in the 21st century. This topic relates to factors of "accepting the other" with understanding and compassion, factors of individual and family health, domestic violence, the legacy of values and roles left to our children, economic stability, fresh perspectives on "nature and nurture", and forms of community life. This topic potentially runs the gamut of processes for gender reconciliation (most commonly related to and executed in instances/places of extreme women's oppression, primarily in the third world) to processes that address the "undiscussibles" of mate selection and expectations in romantic/sexual relationships.
This topic would be explored with a variety of (mostly) exploratory dialogue methods, and structured processes for homogeneous and heterogeneous groups. Using innovative forms of engagement (e.g. one version of this could be a Future Search Conference model), this project would begin to shape and uncover new conversations and new understanding between men and women of Central Texas.
(Yikes!)
From: centraltexascom...@googlegroups.com [mailto:centraltexascom...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Vermillion, Carissa B
Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 9:57 AM
To: centraltexascom...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Community Studio Project
As requested, here is the brief description of my rough concept for my project:
My plan is to start a new kind of networking event for young professionals to help them collaborate and engage more effectively, thus building public capital. I hope to engage several "confederates," existing leaders and mentors in the Austin area, to reach into their own networks and tap the rising stars for this cool, invitation only (?) happy hour event. The event itself will be fun and engaging with lots of interesting people, and will aim to have some sort of innovative experiential element that will help create buzz and also give the attendees a shared experience that could help them maintain their new connections. Ideally there will be a series of events, perhaps two or four a year, and they will gain a reputation for being funky and unique, but also a great place to meet a diverse group of similarly community-focused individuals who want to bridge the gaps and invigorate change in our communities.
Carissa B. Vermillion
PBS&J
4616 Howard Lane, Suite 850
Austin, TX 78728
Direct 512.874.9716
Fax 512.874.9799