Keeping it human

I found myself in Snug Cove today, the village centre of our island, and it was like night and day from this past weekend. As everyone who lives in a place that is overrun by visitors knows, the day after Labour Day is like the dawn of a new era. I knew almost everyone in the Village Square, and had enough time to have actual conversations with friends. I saw people I haven’t seen since the wet months, who finally ventured into the Cove for supplies. It has been a busy summer with people visiting the Island from near and far. Lots of folks coming from Vancouver and environs and even further afield in Canada, because people are avoiding travel to the USA these days.

Bowen Island is not an easy place to learn how to get around. We have an arcane ferry marshalling system that runs on a secret code of etiquette that not even islanders agree upon. Many maps and navigations apps don’t work on Bowen, and many people don’t know how to read paper maps, so it’s common to find folks far from where they want to go. E-biking is all the rage but we don’t have great bike infrastructure, and so the roads can get clogged. Restaurants are good, but they are slower than what you expect on the mainland, and folks that are already frustrated with their inability to have Bowen makes sense to them sometimes take it out on our servers and shop keepers. There is an energy of confusion, self-interest (“Influencers.” Please.) and speed in the summer that causes many of us to stay away from the village unless absolutely necessary.

But then Labour Day passes. Suddenly school has started, people have returned home, the only visitors are seniors who are slow enough to begin with that they have no trouble fitting into the island’s pace. And it feels like ours again.

On Sunday I led an impromptu group of Islanders in an annual ritual to sing off our visitors for another year. It was offered in good fun and received that way I think.

Today was a sweet relief.

My friend Amy Mervak, a great facilitator in Kalamazoo, Michigan, shares a bit about using Critical Uncertainties, a Liberating Structures method, that helps a group quickly design and discuss future scenarios.

Chris Mowles takes aim at the ratings culture that is creating yet one more way for folks to experience precarity in the world. 5/5 for the post!

I’ve just unsubscribed from a blog – well, a substack – which had some promise but let me down in two ways. It had promise becasue it was devoted to facilitation. Where it let me down is that I suspect the posts were mostly ChatGPT generated. The posts were shallow, used emojis liberally, and, the kicker, only allowed paid members to comment. Sorry, but no. The last post I read there, from today was entitled “When Your Virtual Co-Host Gets Smarter Than You” and I suspect that the AI wrote it unironically. I wouldn’t normally make a big deal about unsubscribing from a blog, but when you prompt a comment with “What helps you stay human, while tech manages the rest?” on an AI-generated post and then only allow paid subscribers to discuss, then you’re not really “facilitating” are you? We need to do better.