wrythings

Just wanted to report in from the 2005 Summit: The Strategic Use Of Information and Communication Technologies for Community being held in Vancouver.

The participants are primarily Canadian, but there is a significant contingent from Latin America, thanks to the Telecentres of the Americas Project (TAP).

AFCN Board, Advisors and Friends formed a sizable USA delegation.

As with most conferences, a great deal of the dynamic interaction takes place in the informal settings, between sessions, over meals, and at ad hoc meetings you put together. It certainly reinforces the rational for Open Space and LAP practices.

I think it gave an extra charge to our decision today to make conscious commitment to Open Space for the forthcoming Austin conference (or convergence, as I say).

One lesson learned, or reinforced has to do with the diversity of the “international” context. Frequently there is a presentation of a view of there being a US perspective or experience and an International one. However, the diversity of situations around the world belie that concept.

If there are groups in the US that grasp a problem from a global vantage, oftentimes their efforts to instigate an international effort or form an international organization is viewed with hesitation or meets with a bit of negativity.

As President of the AFCN (Association For Community Networking) I struggle to emphasize that though we are based in the USA, and the bulk of our members are in the States, we are open and welcoming to others.

I’m here in Vancouver on behalf of AFCN to demonstrate our commitment to our friends in Canada and throughout the hemisphere.

The culture and understanding of Civic Society in Canada appears stronger than in the USA. I’m concerned with identifying strategies to reclaim and advance the civic culture and discourse. Needless to say, the reception here has been tremendous, and it did seem to me that they were well pleased that we took the trouble to attend, and that it became evident that we are still confronting a great many of the same issues.

This is all aside from the fact that Vancouver is a beautiful setting, in the limited moments I’ve had outside of the conference space!

Chicago boasts a great place known as the heartland cafe, up in Rogers Park.

Today several community-minded folk gathered there from around Chicago and as far as Seattle to LAP in and around the telecom rewrite that is going forward in Illinois.

LAP is, among other things, a way of engaging with others, in a spirit of open space processes.

LAP is Max Gail’s formulation, and I have now participated in about three formal LAP’s, but I too think it is a mode of approach, and something I felt great kinship with to begin with, and indeed it feels like one can practice it without circling up. I am deliberately avoiding giving a definition of LAP, out of respect to the depth and subtlety of the concept.

We’re hoping to convene future and further LAPs where we can explore possibilities to illuminate, release, support and create potential.

http://www.lap.org/

Although the specific issue raised was the pending telecom legislation in Illinois, the meeting was much more that that. (Needless to say.)