How People Harness Their Collective Wisdom and Power to Create the Future

1. How People Harness Their Collective Wisdom and Power to Create the Future Alexander N. Christakis, PhD President, Institute for 21st Century Agoras www.GlobalAgoras.org

2. How People Harness Their Collective Wisdom and Power to Construct the Future in Co-Laboratories of Democracy Alexander N. Christakis Information Age / February 2006

3. The Historic Challenge "I would not give a whit for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the far side of complexity."  O. W. Holmes

4. Three Fundamental Premisesfor Participative Democracy • True dialogue is essential for participative democracy; • True dialogue is difficult in the Information Age – complexity demands that we address issues collaboratively, systematically, and systemically; and • To address Information Age issues systemically, we need the support of the processes developed through the Science of Dialogic Design.

5. Three Axioms of the Science of Dialogic Design • No single observer has the complete picture of complex problems; • Everyone has limits for the amount of information they can process at any one time; and • In order to make judgments, we need to compare similar things.

6. Milestone in the Evolution of theScience of Dialogic Design Consensus Methods _ 1972 through 1982 • Nominal Group Technique; • Interpretive Structural Modeling; • DELPHI; • Options Field; • Options Profile; and • Trade-off Analysis.

7. Milestone in the Evolution of theScience of Dialogic Design Language Patterns _ 1970 through 1989 • Elemental observation; • Problematique; • Influence tree pattern; • Options field pattern; • Options profile/scenario pattern; • Superposition pattern; and • Action plan pattern.

8. Milestone in the Evolution of theScience of Dialogic Design Application Time Phases _ 1989 through 2001 • Discovery; • Designing; and • Action.

9. Milestone in the Evolution of theScience of Dialogic Design Key Role Responsibilities _ 1982 through 2002 • Context – Inquiry Design Team; • Content – Stakeholder/Designers; and • Process – Facilitation Team

10. Milestone in the Evolution of theScience of Dialogic Design Stages of Interactive Inquiry _ 1989 through 1995 • Definition or Anticipation; • Design of Alternatives; • Decision; and • Action Planning.

11. Milestone in the Evolution of theScience of Dialogic Design Supportive Technology _ 1981 through 1995 • Collaborative Space • Collaborative Software

12. Milestone in the Evolution of theScience of Dialogic Design Dialogue Laws _ 2001 through 2003 • RequisiteVariety (Ashby); • Requisite Parsimony (Miller); • Requisite Saliency (Boulding); • Meaning and Wisdom (Peirce); • Authenticity and Autonomy (Tsivacou); and • Evolutionary Learning (Dye)

13. Requisite Evolutionary Learning and the Erroneous Priorities Effect Whenever observations made by stakeholders in the context of a complex designing situation are interdependent, assigning priorities for action on the basis of aggregating individual stakeholder “importance voting” leads to the erroneous priorities effect and to ineffective actions. The effective priorities for action emerge after an evolutionary inquiry of the interdependencies among the observations through a dialogue focusing on “influence voting.”

14. Evolutionary Learningand the Erroneous Priorities Effect

15. Components of the Science Operational in Designing Phase

16. Some Graphic Language Patterns of the Science

17. The Six Dialogue Laws Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety APPRECIATION OF THE DIVERSITY OF PERSPECTIVES OF OBSERVERS

18. The Six Dialogue Laws Miller's Law of Requisite Parsimony STRUCTUREDDIALOGUE IS REQUIRED TO AVOID THE COGNITIVE OVERLOAD OF OBSERVERS

19. The Six Dialogue Laws Boulding's Law of Requisite Saliency THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF OBSERVATIONS CAN ONLY BE UNDERSTOOD THROUGH COMPARISONS WITHIN AN ORGANIZED SET

20. The Six Dialogue Laws Peirce's Law of Requisite Meaning MEANING AND WISDOM ARE PRODUCED IN A DIALOGUE ONLY WHEN THE OBSERVERS SEARCH FOR RELATIONSHIPS OF SIMILARITY, PRIORITY, INFLUENCE, etc. WITHIN A SET OF OBSERVATIONS

21. The Six Dialogue Laws Tsivacou's Law of Requisite Autonomy in Distinction-Making DURING DIALOGUE IT IS NECESSARY TO PROTECT THE AUTONOMY AND AUTHENTICITY OF EACH OBSERVER IN DRAWING DISTINCTIONS

22. The Six Dialogue Laws Dye's Law of Requisite Evolutionary Learning LEARNING OCCURS IN A DIALOGUE AS THE OBSERVERS SEARCH FOR INFLUENCE RELATIONSHIPS AMONG THE MEMBERS OF A SET OF OBSERVATIONS

23. Influence Voting Question • “Supposing that in a dialogue on a complex Information Age issue the participants were able to implement: • (PRINCIPLE A: DIVERSITY OF PERSPECTIVES)  • Will this SIGNIFICANTLY enhance their capacity to implement: • (PRINCIPLE B: STRUCTURED DIALOGUE) • ?”

24. Influence Voting Question • “Supposing that in a dialogue on a complex Information Age issue the participants were able to implement: • (PRINCIPLE B: STRUCTURED DIALOGUE) • Will this SIGNIFICANTLY enhance their capacity to implement: • (PRINCIPLE A: DIVERSITY OF PERSPECTIVES) • ?”

25. A Tree of Meaning Effective Action Level I MEANING AND WISDOM UNDERSTANDING IMPORTANCE Level II APPRECIATION OF DIVERSITY Level III LEARNING Level IV AUTONOMY Level V STRUCTURED DIALOGUE Level VI

26. Community Co-laboratory of Democracy

27. Voting on Relative Importance

28. (2 - Intention) MAKE THE TRANSITION FROM OUR EARLY STAGE OF GROWTH (WITH REGARD TO THE PHYSICAL BG) TO ONE OF STEWARDSHIP (24 - Intention) ACCOMPLISH SOME DEFINITIVE RESOLUTION TO ISSUES THAT SURFACE REPEATEDLY (42 - Intention) REUNITE LESS ACTIVE MEMBERS OF OUR COMMUNITY WITH AN INVITATION TO PARTICIPATE ANEW (10 - Intention) LEARN TO HAVE FUN TOGETHER AS A COMMUNITY (29 - Intention) REEXPLORE IDEAS TO ALLOW ELDERLY MEMBERS TO REMAIN ON THE BG HOMESTEAD Level I (9 - Intention) DEVELOP EFFECTIVE WAYS OF RESOLVING DISPUTES SO THAT NO ONE FEELS LIKE A WINNER OR A LOSER (26 - Intention) LIVE IN AN ENVIRONMENTALLY SUSTAINABLE MANNER WITHIN THE SOCIETY (1 - Intention) RESTORE THE INTENTIONAL DIVERSITY OF THE COMMUNITY (21 - Intention) ENCOURAGE MEMBERS TO ACT ON THE SAYING "IT TAKES A VILLAGE TO RAISE A CHILD" (38 - Intention) IDENTIFY WAYS TO INVOLVE CHILDREN IN DECISION MAKING PROCESS Level II Level III (12 - Intention) IDENTIFY WAYS TO IMPROVE OUR DECISION MAKING PROCESS KEY Accomplishing Intention X SignificantlyHelps in Accomplishing Intention Y Y X (18 - Intention) USE OUR PAST KNOWLEDGE TO ENLIGHTEN OUR FUTURE PLANNING Level IV Generated by the participants at the Bryn Gweled Community Center – January 11, 2003 Influence Tree of Intentions of the Future of Our Community

29. Interpretation of Influence Map

30. What is the Institute for 21st Century Agoras? The Institute for 21st Century Agoras is a volunteer-driven organization dedicated to vigorous democracy on the model of that practiced in the agoras of ancient Greece. It employs Co-Laboratories of Democracy that enable civil dialogue in complex situations.

31. What does Agoras mean? The agoras were the vital centers of the Greek cities. Their outdoor markets and convention halls where gossip mixed with politics. The agora of Athens was the birthplace of democracy. Here the town's citizens discussed pressing issues and made decisions on the basis of popular vote.