Interesting stuff popping out today around the net on social tools and face to face. On the OSLIST, there was a little discussion on using twitter and facebook and the pros and cons. I posted these thoughts:
I love the social tools because they allow me to connect with and get to know people in far flung areas who are closer to me in thought and spirit than those who are nearby. For me, twitter, facebook, skype and blogging are a means to an end, and that end os sharing open face to face conversations with folks that are in disperate places, but with whom I learn a lot.
And something to think about intergenerationally is that there are teenagers now who have lived their entire lives in a world with blogging, skype, and facebook. Think about that for a minute. These people don’t consider these technologies to be old at all. They consider them the default setting.
In a time when intergenerational conversation is becoming more important (how do we talk to the people with whom we have saddled with a trillion dollar debt, to explain to them to follies of our excess?) knowing a little about how these technologies enable self-organizing behaviour among digital natives is very important. And learning to use them I think is as important as employing other powerful social technologies like, say, Open Space.
So I don’t begrudge the unwillingness to particiapte in the collective monkey mind (thanks Karen!) or the pining for real contact, but I do encourage people to learn about and play with these tools, just like we have with OST and see what happens…
And then today, a couple of posts in the feed. Wendy Farmer-O’Neil dives back into blogging with a piece on “Web 3.0” and my neighbour and friend Emily van Lidthe de Jeude offers a lovely reflection on working with real world intimacy and global connectivity.
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Micheal Herman posted a cool cafe design to the OSLIST today. It marries the best of Cafe and Open Space:
i just facilitated an afternoon program with 120 “high potential” high school seniors as part of a final selection process for full-ride scholarships to two excellent universities. it was a cafe format, but the first session was used to write questions that these young leaders thought they and other young people should be addressing. then we did three rounds in which table hosts picked the questions and raised them with whoever rotated to their table for one session. after the first question-making session, the 20 tables went in 20 different directions, like an open space with so many small stakes in the ground. and i went around picking up cups and the last bits of box-lunch trash in cafe-style, with a small tray and quiet “can i take that out of your way?”
UPDATE: Michael has posted an excellent detailed write up of this design at his blog.
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We’ve explored very interesting, extremely challenging conversations using amazing tools, related to climate change and what we are to do about it. But the most engaging and mind blowing of all conversations was in a small circle, with the right people, sharing in an intimate and trustful environment, our dreams and expectations of this journey, sharing stories (Oh! The power of stories); and preparing ourselves, yet once again, this time as a collective, on what awaits us, an experience which will significantly have an impact in all of us as individuals, in our collective consciousness. And while connecting with words such as generosity, love, wisdom, and native ancestral knowledge, possibility is what emerges.
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I am not talking about the bailout here. I am talking about a serious rescue.
Abousifian Abdelrazik is a Canadian who has found himself in a big pickle. He returned to his birthplace in Sudan in 2003 to visit is ailing mother. While there, the CSIS, our spy agency, apparently had him arrested. He was later allegedly interrogated by CSIS, the FBI and Sudanese intelligence officials about ties to Osama bin Laden. He was in and out of detention for years in Sudanese jails, where he alleges he was also tortured. In the meantime, his passport expired and his wife divorced him.
In April of 2008, he took refuge in the Canadian embassy in Khartoum but the Department of Foreign Affairs refused to prepare travel documents for him because he was on the US and the UN no fly lists. After much effort and a huge amount of opposition here in Canada, the federal government finally relented and said he would be allowed to return if he could produce a pre-paid airline ticket. By this time Mr. Abdelrazik was destitute and had no means to pay for a ticket. Instead 115 Canadians defied the federal government’s threat to charge them under anti-terrorism legislation and raised money to buy him a ticket and bring him home.
The ticket was paid for and the clearences offered, but yesterday the federal government reneged on its commitment and claimed that unless Mr. Abdelrazik got himself off teh UN no-fly list he could not return home. I can’t imagine how it is possible that one individual could do such a thing without the help of his own government.
Mr. Abdelrazik has not been charged with any crime. Both the RCMP and CSIS have cleared him of any wrongdoing, and in fact CSIS has even launched and internal probe to see what happened in this case. In short, Mr. Abdelrazik is no different from any other Canadian citizen travelling the world. He is in a bind not of his doing and his own government refuses to help him come home.
This is highly alarming for me and it should be for the thousands of other Canadians who leave our country every day. If you are wrongly arrested in a foreign country, does your Canadian passport mean anything? Will your government come to your rescue or will you be abandonned to rely on your own wits and resources? Do you know under what conditions the federal government will come to your aid?
With this concern in mind, today I sen the following letter to my Member of Parliament, John Weston:
Dear Mr. Weston:
As you are aware, the case of Abousfian Abdelrazik is ongoing. After creating near impossible conditions for his return to Canada, his country of citizenship, and then clearing him of any wrong doing, the federal government has now said that he must clear himself from the UN no-fly list before he can return home. It seems clear that this could be a simple matter for the Canadian government, as a UN member, to speak for the integrity of its citizens and have Mr. Abdelrazik removed from the list and not have that act subject to the veto of any other country. Surely a government can be expected to come to the aid of its citizens in such a predicament.
I am an international traveller who does business in the United States and Europe. Like Mr. AbdelrazikI I work legally and am not involved in any criminal activity. I am very concerned with this case and with the government’s intransigence in bringing this man home even after he has been cleared of any wrongdoing by our own intellegence services.
As a citizen of your riding, I would like to know that if I was ever caught in a similar situation, that my family could rely on you to do everything you can to bring me home. I would like to know, for my own peace of mind and as a citizen, what Mr. Abdelrazik has done to deserve this treatment from his own government. I know you have also travelled extensively around the world, and I would strongly request that you place yourself in Mr. Abdelrazik’s shoes and do everything you can to bring him home without any further delay.
I would like to know under what conditions I would be assured of help from the federal government should I be wrongly arrested while travelling in another country. I think legions of other business travellers and tourists would like to have the same assurances.
Mr. Weston has never responded to any of my emailed requests for information, but perhaps this time will be different. I will post his response here. I am very concerned that something is changing about Canadian citizenship and that our own government no longer has the final say in what happens to our own citizens.
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A light week of blogging as I have been in a deep Art of Hosting, but here are some things that grabbed my eye this week from the newsfeeds in my life:
- Nancy White on why Sharepoint is NOT the solution you’ve been looking for (and I agree).
- Ria Baeck on Collective sourcing for living wholeness.