Monthly Archive for November, 2009

January Abundance League: Real Places for Real Lives

Published on November 17, 2009 in Meetings+Events Calendar and San Francisco Events by Neal Gorenflo. 0 Comments Tags: , .

There’s a swift invasion underway of our cafes, bars, restaurants, and public spaces all over America. In the last few years, you may have showed up to your favorite neighborhood hangout one morning to suddenly find there’s a flat screen behind the cash register broadcasting advertisements at you. Or you may have taken a date to what used to be a quiet, intimate bistro, only to find that every visible wall is now occupied by giant, blinding TV screens.

When did force-fed TV and “hot media” become de rigeur in our places of dining, conversation, and community? It’s now so commonplace that speaking up or complaining about it will earn you blank looks or confused reactions.

What can we do? Especially when the hospitality industry is barely holding on in a brutal economy, and will do anything to draw more customers?  Might there be another way?

The Real Places Campaign has a plan. Join Jen Burke Anderson and Neal Gorenflo as the Abundance League shares a plan to positively define what we need from our public places, and reward those who deliver.  Come learn about and help shape a grassroots experiment to create real places for real lives.

Event cohost: Shareable, an online magazine about sharing. Join Shareable’s Facebook page here to get ideas for creating a shareable world and chime in with your ideas.

MEETING:
When: WEDNESDAY, January 20th, 2010, 6:30-9:30pm
Where: Cafe Royale, 800 Post St.  San Francisco
(415) 441-4099

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 – nosh, make connections based on announcements
8:00 – 9:15  Presentation and discussion
9:15 – 9:30  Clean up, clear out.

BRING
-Willingness to help others and receive help. Yourself, friends. Note: no potluck this time. Reasonably price fare available at the Cafe Royale.

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Re:Invention, October Meeting Notes

Published on November 1, 2009 in Abundance by Neal Gorenflo. 0 Comments

For October’s meeting, we screened RE:Invention, a documentary short by Catherine Goerz and crew about how some are using the economic crisis for personal transformation. The discussion that followed covered a lot of ground, but a couple interesting themes emerged for me including the difficulty of leaving a career that pays for one that has meaning, how transformation is a privileged experience when for some just surviving is an accomplishment, how important it is to see others making changes as inspiration.  Also, many people shared their own stories of transformation with lessons learned.

Later Catherine and I brainstormed the below tips for those who want to Re:Invent. The below is by no means a comprehensive. Feel free to add to these ideas in comments.

Catherine:
 -Let go of your thoughts and beliefs around who you think you are. Be willing to release your past identity and open to new ways of living and working.

-Let the old structures of your life that may not serve you any more – your job, income, living situation, relationships, etc.- dissolve so that you make space for the new structures to be seeded.

-Create a powerful vision for what you want to manifest in your life. Set a clear and aligned intention to move towards it and allow in the people and situations that will bring it into form. Then let it go.

-If you have lost your job and are living on a reduced income, reassess what you need to be happy and provided for. You may not need a high-paying job, a car or material items to live an inspired and meaningful life.

-Trust the process of transformation and remind yourself that everything is temporary. What may seem like a big impossible situation will shift over time and reveal totally new situations and opportunities for reinvention.

-Be curious about what’s next. Approach the changes in your life with a sense of openness and curiosity. Don’t take anything too seriously.

-When dealing with a crisis, don’t resist the changes that are being foisted upon you. Embrace the challenges and notice your capacity for resiliency and how well you can adapt to new situations when you don’t fight them.

-Observe how you are evolving as time goes by and stay committed to transformation to see it through.

Neal:

-Don’t RE:Invent alone. Form a peer group for the changes you want to make. Or enlist your friends’ support. Let them know what you’re doing. Good friends will get behind you.

-If you don’t know what you want in life, then begin an exploration. Go outside your circle of friends to discover new ideas and people.

-Assess what’s truly interesting to you. Focus in on your passion or passions. Sometimes reflecting on past experience can help you understand what turns you on. Sometimes new experiences are needed.

-When you have an idea of what interests you, then immediately find the community around your interest. Do not wait. Become a part of it. The best way to become part of a community is to contribute something that’s needed. Volunteer. No job is too small to start. Small things lead to big things.

-Be patient. Be persistent. Big changes take time.

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From Participation to Power: The Dark Side of Web 2.0 & What To Do About It

Published on October 20, 2009 in Abundance, Meetings+Events Calendar and San Francisco Events by Neal Gorenflo. 0 Comments

On November 19th, pioneer social change strategist Harald Katzmair, Ph.D will lead us in an exploration of the media environment and cultural moment in which we live, and point the way to from mere participation to power.

Harald’s talk will begin with an exploration of the dark side of Web 2.0. How it can overload us with messages, shrink attention spans, erode focus, and thus disrupt our ability to find common ground and take common action. Through Web 2.0 we may be, as in the title of cultural critic Neil Postman’s influential book, amusing ourselves to death.

We must recognize that individual participation does not necessarily equate to power.  Power is the ability to act. And collective action is what enables citizens to be powerful politically.  Being hyperconnected can overload us and cripple our ability to act as individuals and groups at a time when we need to be really good at taking common action in order to avoid a climate disaster.

In Harald’s view, what’s needed to survive are new tools that can help us do just that. We have to go beyond mere individual participation to collective action. And realize that it’s not the size of your network that counts, but how it’s patterned to achieve a clear goal.

Harald will share cutting edge tools he’s developed to help groups set agendas, act collectively, and mobilize networks for change. What sets Harald’s approach apart is that it’s based on social network analysis and complexity theory, which are especially useful for modeling complex systems, harnessing collective intelligence, and identifying actions that have maximum impact with minimal blow back.

Harald is CEO and Founder of FAS.research, a pioneer in applying social network analysis and complexity theory to solving complex problems in multi-stakeholder environments.   His passion is helping people come together to solve “wicked” problems.   One of his current projects is helping tribal leaders in Jordan develop a water sharing system.  If Jordan does not succeed in this, they’ll run out of water in 20 years.

It should be an eye opening night. I hope you’ll join us.

Event cohost: Shareable Magazine.  Join Shareable’s Facebook page here to get ideas for creating a shareable world and chime in with your ideas.

MEETING:
When: Thursday, November 19th, 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 – nosh, make connections based on announcements
8:00 – 9:15  Presentation and discussion
9:15 – 9:30  Clean up, take the discussion to the 21st Amendment

BRING
-Willingness to help others and receive help
-Healthy stuff for the potluck
-Yourself, friends

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