Convergence VII Conversations

Full Conversation Listing: Times, Topics, and Questions

Monday, March 2, 2009

10:45 – 11:45 am                    Conversations – Set A

What’s the New Wave: Tracking Trends in Social Change

• What are the trends in social change? What are you noticing?
• How can we ride this wave?
• What do we need to enjoy the ride?
• What patterns in change can be universal?
• What is the prescription for our own use of these trends?

Platforms that Drive Traffic & Efficiencies

• At what point in venture lifecycles should creators consider growth, and why?
• Must leaders make tradeoffs to drive traffic?  If so, how?
• What factors determine efficiency?
• How does an organizational leader weigh what should be completed in-house versus outsourced / shared?
• What common mistakes do leaders make when faced with mandates to make their organizations more efficient?
• Are efficiency and mission at odds, complementary, neither or both?
• Is the impact that efficiency efforts have on marketing and branding positive or negative?  Why?

Arc of Innovation to the Next Idea

• Where is each of our ventures now? What is the current vision?
• Where is the discontent, edge, friction, slag, hope, that is leading me to think there is a “next” coming?
• How do you interpret the signs?
• How do I see the next arc?
• Where do I look? Inside? Outside?
• How do you plan if you do not yet know the next arc? What works?
• How do stakeholders (board, constituents, consumers, partners) serve in this process?
  

A Global Economic Storm:  What Does It Mean to “Act Locally”?

• The global economic meltdown is hitting all corners of the earth.  What effect does this have for those who “act locally”?
• Does it make more sense to “act globally” in the face of a global problem, or is the need to be local even greater?
• The economic crisis started in the United States, arguably one mortgage at a time, is the real lesson of this crisis the need to “act locally.”
• What global structures are needed to prevent the next global meltdown?
• What voices are not at the table in the current reform efforts and how do we invite them in?
  

The Age of Civic Discourse

• Are we entering a new golden age of discourse? How would we know?
• How have the styles of our conversations changed?
• What are the structures that sustain civic discourse?
• Our ability to connect has exploded with online social networking, but how do you manage that volume into meaningful conversations?

2:15 – 3:30 pm                        Conversations – Set B;

Collectiveness To Scaled Impact, Networks Spawn Innovation That No One Person Could Have Imagined.

• Sum of the parts, butterfly effect, collective action. How do we get to scale through collective action?
• What are the new strategies of movement building?
• Where do we see effective patterns of invitation?
• What are the structures that support this?
• What kind of leadership is necessary?
• How do we foster relationships that transcend the transactional so can foster serendipity and innovation?  OK, in the press of daily business, who has time for anything but the pressing transactions?

Serving Kids (Outside of Public Schools)

• What are the options for kids outside of public schools?
• What are the goals of these programs?
• What are these programs capable of that public schools are not?  Why not? 
• Should we spend more time and effort improving public schools or alternatives to them?
• Imagine the possibilities if we expanded our service to kids beyond public school.

What Is My Place?

• Where do I sit now? What is the full picture of the space, sectors, markets, networks, employers, boards?
• How comfortable are the seats?  Do you see other seats that seem more comfortable?
• How do I discern if I doing the right thing now?
• When and how do I call the question on my current set of choices?
• Do I change where I sit or can I work to change my lens, relationships from where I am sitting?

Where are Magical Openings?:  Practices of Personal Transformation         

• Creative exercise – What were your three favorite childhood activities and preoccupations before age 9?
• What is the role of travel in taking us beyond our ordinary lives? Why is this useful?
• What did you find as your gift? What was your wisdom? What was your surprise? What quality did you clear from your environment?
• What one child quality is most key for your inspiration at the moment?
• What one quality do you want to leave behind?
• What three aspects of your journey were most vital for you?

3:45 – 5:00 pm                        Conversations – Set C

Surviving (And Thriving?) In a Downturned Economy        

• How can organizations adapt to the downturned economy? 
• Is it a matter of soldiering on or are there opportunities to be seized? 
• Who is best positioned to come out of this downturn strong?
• How will the landscape be different when the economy turns around?

Recalibrating our Country’s Values   

• How do we use the unique time that we are in right now to create a whole new shift in our social change work?
• Is the country ready to make this shift? And should it?
• What systems could contribute to value recalibration?

Social Media: The Virtual Front Porch

• What relation of virtual to actual?
• Who is your porch?
• What is more powerful than the sofa and American idol to get social participation?
• How do you combine key unifying interests w/the appropriate platform?
• What is tension between organic/viral phenomena, and centrally-driven content strategies?
• Get connection cards out!!!

From Mystics to Medicine Men: What is the Relevance of Spiritual Formation for Social Change?

• Why do we need spiritual change, beyond social change? What would that look like?
• Where do you see burnout occurring? What do those people need?
• What natural features are most fabulous for restoring your sense of energy and centeredness? What is your gift?
• What is the perspective of those who would help you?
• What quality or challenge – not a person or thing, but what quality of that experience, would you like to wave away?

Reimagining Capitalism, Is Now the Time?

• What is, or was, capitalism?
• Are we talking about the market economy or other systems?
• Get our slice of the pie, or bake a new pie?
• What changes need to be made now?
• Do we need new ideas, or are traditional reforms just ready to go?
• Is it good or bad if America becomes less powerful on the global stage?
• Do we want to get back to “where we were?” Rebound vs. Reinvention
• How should bailout money be deployed? What would success look like?
• What if the trillion dollars for economic recovery doesn’t recover the economy?  Then what do we do?

Tuesday, March 3, 2009                                                                               

9:30 – 10:45 am                      Conversations – Set D

The Cash Market in Healthcare:  Fountain of Innovation or Just Bad.

• What is the Cash Market in Healthcare?
• What, if any, appropriate role is there for a cash market?
• Who would benefit from a well developed cash market?  Who would suffer?
• Are there overlooked innovations in the cash market?
• Who should be leading the way in forming (or abolishing) the cash market? 

Holistic Approaches to Systems Change

• What does a holistic approach mean to system change?
• How do we go from silos to cybernetics in system change design towards holistic design?
• How broad does it need to be to reach a holistic solution?
• What are the drawbacks to a holistic approach?
• What are some good examples of holistic approaches?  What makes them successful?  What tools and practices do they employ? 
• What incentives need to be aligned to scale holistic approaches to systems change?

Bringing Intellectual Property to Market

• Does IP need to be ready for the market, or does one need to prepare the market for such IP?  Why?
• What steps must a creator undertake to bring IP to market?
• What players are most important in this (these) process(es)?
• Much like a tree falling in the woods, does IP without a market have value?
• What advantages or opportunities might a market offer the creator?  What disadvantages or risks?
• Can the length of this process be measured in time?
• Is there more than one “market,” and, if so, what differentiates them?
• What alternatives to the market are available to the creator, and how do these compare?

How Do We Use Art as Alchemy?

• What is one creative preoccupation you have right now?
• Creative exercise: mutual sketching.  Debrief – what do you notice about drawings?
• What reactions did you have?
• What do you know about the role of art in ancient healing practices, and current ones?
• What role do you see, or not see, in the lives of young people today? What can we infer from their artistic exposure? What art would you prescribe for American culture?

Generational Service/Purpose Of Our Generations

• What kinds of service do different generations do?
• What is the purpose of our generation?
• Perhaps start by working through the stereotypes of the current generations.
• What successful inter-generational ventures have you seen?  What made them so?

11:00 – 12:15 pm                    Conversations – Set E

Oh, Avatar! What is the Unique Power of Storytelling & Archetype?

• What is your favorite childhood story?
• What story moves you to tell it again?
• Who needs your story, and do you have a megaphone?
• How do you define your avatar?
• What experiences or issues concern you that your avatar would speak to? Who needs to hear your story?

Leadership off the Map

• What’s pushing the boundaries of our leadership?
• When we are off-road, off the beaten path, on the bleeding edge, what are most intriguing challenges to leadership styles?
• What’s our own path to showing up as the leader we want to be?
• What’s your favorite innovative venture and which leadership style drove it? 
• Who are our role models?
• What are the best practices for supporting leaders off the map?

Real Estate Zoo

• Is this a good time or bad time to own or develop real estate?
• Does a lack of financing options make ownership and development more difficult or easier?  Why?
• What opportunities does the current climate offer?
• Are policymakers and zoning officials primed to assist or impede these opportunities?
• What other policies or reform efforts can real estate incorporate in this brave new world?
• Is multi-use space innovative, or an example of “Jack of all trades, master of none?”

Keep on Barackin’ in the Free World: The New Administration’s Risks & Opportunities

• What word association comes to mind when you hear “Obama?”  Why?
• How will his administration be judged in four years? In 20 years?
• Is it better for his team to reform existing frameworks, or to create / re-imagine entirely new systems?  Why?
• How does what you do mesh with what he is trying to accomplish?  Can his proposals impact you?  Alternatively, can your work impact his mission?
• What do you believe he cannot accomplish?
• Is there anything that you wish he did or understood better?

Thinking Seriously about Corporate Social Responsibility

• How do we balance the question of pressuring companies to do what is “right” but may not optimize profits and changing the business ecology to make right = profitable.
•  How do current legal structures define the possibilities of Corporate Social Responsibility?
• What alternative legal structures can/do exist that could open new doors to what corporations could be expected to do?
• Who should be leading the way?  Corporate boards?  Shareholders?  Activists?  Consumers?  Government?

Design for Social Change?

• Creative exercise: What does Social Change look like to you?
• Debrief and discussion: what touchstones did you find? What did you learn from others’ approach? How does technology serve, or not serve your ends?
• What do you think our society needs? What change do we want to produce?

1:30 – 2:45 pm                        Conversations – Set F

Taking Things To Scale

•  “My idea is so great, let’s take it to scale.”  Really?  Is more and bigger always desirable?  How to know when it should (or shouldn’t) go big?
• As you’ve exceeded your capacity to execute your entrepreneurial idea, how did you find people to build out what was your vision?
• “Your idea won’t work that way here because we’re so different, let’s do it our way.”  How can we listen for innovation on our own ideas while neither being defensive nor accepting nonsense?
• What experience do you have in scaling ideas into other existing organizations, as opposed to having to build from whole cloth to scale up?
• Whew, success finally came based on a certain structure and staff.  What skill sets and capacities are needed to scale it beyond the ones forged in that crucible called proof of concept?

Systems Design for Holistic Health

• How do we design sustainable systems that promote holistic health?
• Where are the failed systems? What’s our favorite?
• What are the trends emerging for what does work? What are the characteristics of the most effective systems?
• How will design principles be affected by current health care reform, changing economics of health care and shifts in systems of delivery?

Hot, Flat & Crowded

• Does Thomas Friedman have a point: does association imply causation?
• How do global warming, economic globalization and the growing middle class interact?
• What policies work for the US in the world?  What hurts us?
• If we were commissioned to solve this conundrum, which variable should we treat as independent, and which variables should we treat as dependent?
• Do solutions to these problems lie in the hands of the individual, private sector or government?  Why?
• Do improvements in one necessarily lead to improvements in all?  What tradeoffs or concessions might we have to make?

What’s My Smoke Signal?

• What are your values?
• What are three fields that you want to be associated with?
• What club do you want to be a member of?
• How can you message out so that the people you want to find will find me, and vice versa?
• Is there a match.com for my social needs?  Use connection cards!!!