Monthly Archive for May, 2009

Good On Ya Rushkoff, You’ve Caught Up With Abundance League Thinking Circa 2005

Published on May 31, 2009 in Abundance by Neal Gorenflo. 0 Comments

Life Inc. Dispatch 01: Crisis as Opportunity from Douglas Rushkoff on Vimeo.

Seriously though, it’s nice confirmation of our little community where we have been practicing and celebrating “engaging one another in small ways” for four years as a way of opening a new life affirming cultural space that gives our humanity some oxygen amidst a suffocating corporatist vacuum.

Rushkoff also points out the opportunity our f’d up economy presents us which is also familiar Abundance League terrain, “we’re actually forced to start to look towards one another and ourselves to what value we can create.”  Maybe Rushkoff’s book catalyzes a shift which leads to more breathing space for all of us.  Great if so.  In the mean time, we”ll just keep doing what Rushkoff describes so well right here where we live with friends and family.  

I can’t help but note that despite his wise words, he’s contradicting himself more than a little bit.  While he articulates the dangers of corporatism, his book tour, promotion, and web site completely embody it.  His is a very slick warning, but probably useful nonetheless.

  • Share/Bookmark

Reminder: SF May 21st Meeting, Lessons from The Global Creative Community

Published on May 12, 2009 in San Francisco Events by Neal Gorenflo. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Just a quick reminder about our meeting with Eric Poettschacher who is coming to Abundance League San Francisco from Vienna, Austria to share his learnings from a two-year odyssey through the global creative community to found Shapeshifters.net.

Learn more about the Thursday, May 21st meeting at the original invite here.

  • Share/Bookmark

Free Screening of Food, Inc. Monday, May 18th

Published on May 12, 2009 in San Francisco Events by Neal Gorenflo. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

I hear tell from our friends at Roots for Change, who are working towards a sustainable food system in California by 2030, that there’s a free screening at the Landmark Embarcadero in San Francisco of the documentary, Food, Inc., about the negative health and environmental health impacts of industrial agriculture. I’m going to check it out and hopefully further radicalize myself, if that’s possible. If that fails, I’m sure I’ll enjoy what appears to be a well made documentary.

  • Share/Bookmark

Think Like a Genius Everyday Using Your 5D Symbolic Models

Published on May 12, 2009 in Abundance and Denver Events by tsiler. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

By Todd Siler, PhD: Founder of Think Like A Genius

A Denver tALer presents her ME Model

A Denver tALer presents her ME Model

Here are some essential questions for further exploring the meanings of your ME Models models you created in the Think Like a Genius Workshop. These questions will help you get the most out of your symbolic models and apply them in practical ways everyday.  There’s a PDF available with even more than the 20 questions and some common-sense suggestions for mining the models for more meanings and other actionable next-steps. If you’re interested, simply contact tsiler@thinklikeagenius.com.

[editor's note: Todd Siler, PhD presented his Metaphorming® process to the Denver chapter of the Abundance League in April 2009. Attendees created three-dimensional symbolic models to describe themselves called ME Models.]


Questions To Help You Make, Understand, and Share Your ME Model™

The following questions can either help you think about what to make in creating your ME Model, or they can help you better understand what you’ve made. Either way, they can be useful for putting more meaning into your model, or getting more meaning out of it. Continue reading ‘Think Like a Genius Everyday Using Your 5D Symbolic Models’

  • Share/Bookmark

Leading Change Through Tribes: Seth Godin on TED

Published on May 11, 2009 in Abundance by Taj Moore. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , .

By Taj Moore of the Denver Abundance League

I just finished watching a wonderful TED Talk by Seth Godin about making change in the world. It was stirring to hear this because it felt like he was speaking right to me about our very own Abundance League.

Seth Godin: Why tribes, not money or factories, will change the world

The idea Godin proffers about making change is not the old model of “build a big factory and make change,” or “get a big enough mouthpiece in media and make change”; the model he describes is “leading and connecting people with ideas” through something he calls “tribes.” You don’t have to invent the idea, just organize the people around it. You don’t need everyone, just the few people who believe and are passionate.

“Find something worth changing and assemble tribes that assemble tribes that spread the idea … and it becomes something bigger than ourselves: it becomes a movement.” Continue reading ‘Leading Change Through Tribes: Seth Godin on TED’

  • Share/Bookmark

Denver: Abundance League gathering – “Spring Renewal” Tuesday, May 12th

Published on May 7, 2009 in Denver Events by Susan C. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

The Abundance League meets this coming Tuesday, May 12th at Hooked on Colfax coffee house. Join us as we celebrate Spring’s renewal! Sow the seeds for your 2009 passions/projects, express what you need to enrichen your passions/projects, and offer your gifts to support the fruition of each other’s passions/projects. Of course, please bring some finger food to share and support Hooked on Colfax with a refreshing beverage purchase!

We start at 6:30 pm, and end by 9:30 pm, but you are always welcome to come and go at any time.

WHERE
Hooked on Colfax
(lower level meeting area)
3215 E Colfax Ave
Denver, CO 80206

AGENDA
6:30–7:00 pm — Mingle, eat, drink
7:00–8:00 pm — Member Announcements: Your passions, needs, and gifts
8:00 – 9:15 pm — Break, eat, mingle, exchange eupport and swap clothing!
9:15 – 9:30 pm — Final wrap up, clean up, clear out!

BRING

Yourself, friends, and food! This is a potluck, so please bring finger food to share if you can.

Business cards, handouts, flyers

Share: books, CDs, DVDs, seeds, or anything that you’d like to loan or gift at the meeting.  

QUESTIONS? Call Susan at 303-455-0852.

  • Share/Bookmark

Recipe For Street Corner Bliss

Published on May 6, 2009 in Abundance by Neal Gorenflo. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Social, food and culture adventurer Rachel Weidinger posted a recipe for a “happening,” for lack of a better term, she calls “Forty Margaritas on a taco safari.” I think this easily qualifies as grassroots social innovation. The video is such a tease, despite the weird angle (couldn’t fix it). I want to be there now!

  • Share/Bookmark

Is Abundance Right Thinking?

Published on May 5, 2009 in Abundance by Taj Moore. 2 Comments Tags: , , , .

If the right hemisphere of our brains is all about the here-and-now, the “we,” and the unity that is all of us, is this where abundant thinking comes from? If the left hemisphere is about linearality, and the past and the future, what can we learn … or unlearn?

Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor is a neural anatomist who “got a research opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: She had a massive stroke, and watched as her brain functions — motion, speech, self-awareness — shut down one by one.” In this uplifting talk, she describes the process, including a feeling of oneness with the universe as the left hemisphere in her brain shut down. Listen to her talk at the  TED conference…

Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight

  • Share/Bookmark

SF April Meeting Notes

Published on May 4, 2009 in San Francisco Events by Neal Gorenflo. 0 Comments

Our April meeting brought gardeners and food lovers together to help each other. Olin Anderson spoke about native plants that work well in our climate. Tarka Sanchez spoke about the power of community gardening. And Jen Dalton shared 10 ways to support a sustainable urban food system. Read Jen’s excellent tips here:

10 Ways to Support a Sustainable Food System 

Below are member announcements from the April meeting. Please lend a hand to those that ask for help. And be open to receiving help from those offering.  Also included is a list of food and gardening resources created by meeting participants.

Our next meeting Thursday, May 21 features Eric Poettschacher of Shapeshifters.net. He’ll share his two year journey linking creatives from across the globe. This is a chance for SF artists of all stripes jack into a global network of creatives and patrons. Learn more about the meeting here:

Lessons from the Global Creative Community
Continue reading ‘SF April Meeting Notes’

  • Share/Bookmark

SF May Meeting: Lessons from the Global Creative Community

Published on March 1, 2009 in Meetings+Events Calendar and San Francisco Events by Neal Gorenflo. 0 Comments

Eric Poettschacher is coming to Abundance League San Francisco from Vienna, Austria to share his learnings from a two-year odyssey through the global creative community to found Shapeshifters.net.

Eric’s Shapeshifters world tour put him in touch with hundreds of  grassroots innovators on five continents and lead to one simple conclusion – we don´t know what we don´t know. There is an abundance of amazing ideas hidden in the cultural blindspots of our minds.  As a result, some of the most powerful innovations on this planet remain invisible to those who really need them.  

Shapeshifters is a new kind of innovation agency made to transform creative resources into practical opportunities. Eric´s talk and the discussion that follows will explore how Shapeshifters has been building bridges between different worlds of perception, why it pays to explore mindsets that exist beyond our own horizon of experience, what it takes to establish a working relationship between a Sri Lankan monk and a stage designer in L.A., and how you can use Eric’s learnings in your everyday work.

Eric will also explore his quest to make cultural exchange more sustainable and his vision of a new social hardware to take social software to the next level.  This vision includes the concept of “Local Worlds” i.e. physical spaces where creative entrepreneurs in remote places like Tajikistan, Vietnam and Nepal can connect with each other and the wider world.

We hope you’ll bring your experience and something for the potluck to share as well. 

MEETING
When: Thursday, May 21th 2009, 6:30-9:30pm
Where: Citizen Space , 425 Second St., #100, San Francisco

AGENDA
6:30 – 7:00   Arrive, mingle, nosh
7:00 – 7:30   Member announcements lightening round: share your passions, needs & gifts quickly
7:30 – 8:00   Break – exchange support, mingle, nosh
8:00 – 9:15    Panel discussion
9:15 – 9:30    Clean up, take the discussion to the 21st Amendment

  • Share/Bookmark