Design with Dialogue Sessions 2010

January 2010

The first session of 2010 was presented by Daniel Rose of Omakase Group and Mark Kuznicki of ChangeCamp.

The session presented approaches and the opportunity for creating positive social change through civic engagement in community.  The session featured Peter Block’s work in relation to the 2010 ChangeCamp vision.

What is the question that brings us together?

The 2010 Toronto municipal election is a chance for Torontonians to have a collective conversation about the city we want, and to make the election one instrument in creating that desired future. In keeping with the spirit of the Designing with Dialogue group of encouraging positive change, Daniel and Mark guided the group through some of the theory and techniques espoused by Peter Block, the renowned organizational consultant and change maker from Cincinnati, Ohio.

Among Peter Block’s recent books is the profound Community: The Structure of Belonging where he joins his own rich experience with techniques for conversations that we can explore for civic engagement. The session will inquire into Block’s practices through discussion and group exercise.

Get the session presentation

February Session

At January’s Design with Dialogue Mark Kuznicki and Daniel Rose shared the essential principles and spirit of Peter Block’s book, Community – The Structure of Belonging.  Community presents Block’s theory and practices of neighbourhood development and provides guidelines for organizers to facilitate more effective community gatherings.

We invited members of the DwD community to participate in the design and facilitation of a community gathering called ChangeCamp, taking place in Toronto on February 16th. A dedicated (Interim) practice and planning session is being held at the Centre for Social Innovation January 28th, 7-10, if members of the community are interested.

The Feb 1oth DwD session was a continued preparation for the ChangeCamp event and everyone will participate to refine the core questions that will drive the process. This is a chance to experience some of the practical advice that Block offers in Community and how it can work in the “real world”.   This session assisted in the design of the ChangeCamp on Feb 16th.

March Session

March Design with Dialogue explored the purposes and styles of conversation in organized planning and design situations. Ryan Coleman presented concepts from the Focused Conversation method, a process formulated and taught by Institute of Cultural Affairs.

We convened a whole group conversation using the method, and explored the extension of FC with visual reflection. Peter Jones presented Conversational Performance of Design, based on Winograd and Flores’ Language Action Perspective and in line with the recent Interactions article. Complementing Ryan’s exploration of FC, Jones presents an opportunity to model the meaning and intent of conversation as expressed and received. The session closed with reflection (visual and verbal) on the purposes and practices of conversation as intentional communication.

June Session

June’s Design with Dialogue went in-depth with Appreciative Inquiry, a technique for affirmative conversations that lead to shared understanding about situations or goals. The session was led by Dr. Douglas Reid, a strategy professor at Queen’s University School of Business and graduate student in OCAD’s Strategic Foresight and Innovation MDes program. Appreciative Inquiry,, developed at Case Western Reserve University in the 1980s by David Cooperrider, was originated as a practice for coordinating positive dialogues in organizations, and it has emerged as a social design approach over the last few years.

AI built on earlier work conducted by action research theorists and is intended to expand a system’s capacity for cooperation and change potential by aligning members through shared affirmations of what is best, desirable, or cherished in a jointly-faced situation. After briefly outlining the rationale and background of AI, Doug led the group through an exploration of a sample problem (created and confirmed by the group) so as to demonstrate the AI technique and show how it expands the potential for cooperation through definition of shared aims or goals.

Doug provides a brief article discussing Appreciative Inquiry to gain an orientation to the practice and its power in design, organizational inquiry, and social action.

Doug Reid brings AI to Design with Dialogue from Peter Jones on Vimeo.

July Session

Framing Reality and Scenarios of Social Meaning, hosted by Greg Judelman and Peter Jones.

In each session this year we have explored a pressing issue or question from the group’s experience, or brought to the sessions as a concern for dialogue. Reality just landed a good question on our table after the G20 events.

We explored ways of framing the concerns we sometimes call “problems.”  Impelled by the urgent and messy mix of issues we saw emerging following the G20 security event in Toronto, we inquired into the framing of the situation. What are the opportunities inherent in the problem as constructed? How do we establish and pierce through a problem frame so that the true concerns we share in common might emerge?

A visual reflection from Patricia Kambitsch reveals impressions of the dialogue leading into scenario formation.