Integral City 2.0 Online Conference 2012 Harvests: Weeks 1-4, Days 1-12

Integral City 2.
0 Online Conference
September 4-27, 2012
A Radically Optimistic Inquiry into Operating System 2.0

Harvests: Weeks 1-4, Days 1-12 Appendix A13 To Proceedings Report
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................................................................. ii The Conference Harvest ............................................................................................................ 3 Week 1 Overview: Planet of Cities Mother Earth @ Motherboard ........................................... 4 Ecosphere Intelligence and the Letter 'P' ................................................................................ 5 The Island Stances of Emergence Intelligence ....................................................................... 7 Assemble the Citizen Observatory.......................................................................................... 9 Week 2 Overview: Gaias Reflective Organ: Integral Intel Inside ...............................................11 Unfolding Integral, Evolutionary Antennae .............................................................................12 The Journey of Generations ..................................................................................................14 An Evolutionary Expedition ....................................................................................................16 Week 3 Overview: Aligning Strategies to Prosper Logic Processors Connecting the Dots....18 The Alliteration of Inquiry .......................................................................................................19 Meshworks Manifest ..............................................................................................................21 Navigating the City Playground..............................................................................................23 Week 4: Amplifying Intelligence Accessing Our Evolutionary Power Source ........................25 Beauty, Truth and Goodness with Practice ............................................................................26 Inquiry is Figuring Us Out ......................................................................................................28 Mastering the Master Code ...................................................................................................30 Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................32
Integral City Meshworks Inc. Integral City 2.0 Operating System Inquiry: HARVESTS
September, 2012
ii
The Conference Harvest

The Conference was harvested daily with a summary that captured the essence of each days set of three interviews in a narrative or poem, crafted by Beth Sanders.
The Conference was harvested weekly with a painted image, created by graphic artist Erin Stewart.
Read Full Proceedings here. Read Full Interview Appendices here.
September, 2012
Week 1 Overview: Planet of Cities Mother Earth @ Motherboard
Holons, Week 1: Planet of Cities by Erin Stewart Elliott
Week 1 learning objectives were:
Shift your perspective and begin viewing cities as living systems Identify ways to amplify our resilience and drive innovation Consider the life cycles of and within the city, its inhabitants, and its eco-region Determine ways to shore up our resilience amidst shifting factors.
September, 2012
Day 1 - September 4: What and where are we implementing ecosphere intelligence?
Ecosphere Intelligence and the Letter 'P'

(Click here for detailed information about topics and speakers.) As I reflect on Marilyn Hamilton and Brett Thomas' opening remarks, and a busy day of interviews with Bill Rees, Brian Eddy, Michael Zimmerman, Ina Horlings and Karen O'Brien, these words are front and center: planet, patterns, pendulum, pivot, place, power and people.
Marilyn Hamilton, conference producer, named our challenge: to build a new operating system for cities. Bill Rees, co-developer of ecological footprint analysis, puts it this way: it's time for a new cultural narrative. Both are articulating a world where we contemplate the well-being of our planet, notice the patterns in our behaviour that add value to the planet, sense the time to swing the pendulum from a focus on the hot Memes of I/me/mine to the cold Memes of we/us/our, and choose to pivot to a new way of being. We have the power to shift from a rogue race to one that exercises its power to take care of self, others and our place. A people of and for people.
The theme of this first week of The City 2.0 Conference is "Planet of Cities". Today's interviews brought that home. Urban inhabitants consist of more than half of the planet's human population. The reach of our cities is well beyond what appears to be what are now very blurry boundaries of urban areas. We are now drawing down our planet's natural capital to the point where we are risking our survival. But this is not a pessimistic view, for crisis is necessary for transformation. This is the source of radical optimism.
There are patterns in the chaos of the hive mind. There are patterns now visible to us that are seeds for a new operating system for cities, a new cultural narrative. Here is what emerged today, on day 1: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. A city's well-being depends on its relationship with its ecological context A city has blurry boundaries A city self-organizes City systems are interwoven, interconnected and non-linear Knowledge in the city is multi-scalar, from the individual to the species Knowledge in the city comes from multiple perspectives
The new cultural narrative is a higher order of complexity. Thinking of the word pendulum, we heard today about the need for a swing from a focus on structures, evidence, expertise and the
September, 2012
individual, to a stronger emphasis on culture, emotion, local knowledge and the collective. A swing from the short term to longer term views. A swing from the scientific to the arts. A swing from the cognitive to the heart. A swing from the exterior to the interior.
The pendulum serves as a contrast, articulating what we wish to put our attention to in response to today's life conditions. It articulates what we are missing in our world today: a culture where we work on both 'sides' of the pendulum. Where we make room for both and integrate all that we know. This is where the word pivot comes in.
We build our cities (both the exterior and interior). They are made by no-one else but us. They are also ours to change. The are ours to create and recreate. They are ours to co-create and co-re-create. We can choose to turn and face the hard truth of the challenges we face. We can choose to ask and explore hard questions.
To pivot is also to place a fulcrum. We do not have to choose either end of the pendulum, but where to put the fulcrum to meet the life conditions for each city in its place. For it is in acknowledging each place, at each scale, where integration comes in. And the source, and purpose, of such integration rests with people and the qualities that make us human. Rees and Hamilton put this clearly. The source of our radical optimism lies in our distinct ability to use logic, to seek evidence and analyze our world. It also lies in our ability to think into the future, discerning patterns and trends. We also exercise moral intelligence, recognizing right and wrong. Last, we have compassion; we endeavor to take care of self, other and place, the Integral City master code. We use these powers to make places, our cities, that work for us.
Cities are places of confluence. Many are settled at the confluence of transportation routes. Today, our cities are where we find the confluence of hard-to-resolve issues and opportunities. Our hive minds bring us together, in ever increasing quantities, to create problems and resolve them. We naturally do this as part of Earth's natural systems. This is a piece of the new cultural narrative.
We are growing our capacity to self-evolve at the scales of self and species, and to do so fully in relationship with Mother Earth and her operating system. This is the ultimate ecosphere intelligence.
The new cultural narrative is an unfolding journey, an integral journey, inside and out.
by Beth Sanders
September, 2012
Day 2 - September 5: What and where are we implementing emergence, complexity & resilience intelligence?
The Island Stances of Emergence Intelligence

(Click here for detailed information about topics and speakers.)
Day 2 of Integral City 2.0 was a quest to find the language to describe what is emerging on our planet of cities. Buzz Holling, Emeritus Eminent Scholar at the University of Florida, evoked the spirit of experiments and islands. Jan de Dood and Harrie Vollaard of Rabobank, planted seeds for self-organizing to face the 5 big crises that face our planet, and Will Varey, a consultant specializing in social generativity, and Ian Wight, professor of city planning at the University of Manitoba, teased out the notion of the archipelago, a series of interconnected islands.
At the heart of Emergence Intelligence is resilience. At the heart of resilience is creativity, and the artist's determination to make impossible possible as s/he plays with ideas and explores. This experimentation is about noticing what is happening, not about what is working or not working. Emergence comes to pass when we create the conditions to explore, for exploring leads to more exploring. Experiments lead to more experiments. Emergence leads to more emergence.
Our relationships create the social habitat that dictates the quality of our experimentation, and our reaction to experimentation. We have choices to make about the feedback we receive: reject or integrate. These choices accumulate as our culture. Individually and collectively we have the power, in our relationships, to create a habitat where adaptability and regeneration thrive or stagnate. The choice is ours.
Experimentation is not easy, and from time to time it is useful to sequester ourselves with people who share a common goal, or purpose, on an 'island'. For Holling, it is important to share a goal with people you actually want to spend time with. This is a crucial feature of experimentation: creating a habitat for the possibility of the impossible coming to pass. A 'snively whiplash', intent on destroying opportunity, won't do. Be with people who believe in experimentation.
But is a city an island? For Varey, only if the metaphor of the island is expanded to the archipelago, where islands are interconnected by land, water currents, reefs, swirls, and the artifacts that come ashore. Connecting islands is like connecting communities of thought. For Wight, an island can be a base to take off from. But if islands are closed systems, as a member of the audience asked, is this a useful metaphor? Let me experiment.
Integral City Meshworks Inc. Integral City 2.0 Operating System Inquiry: HARVESTS September, 2012 7
Our planet is an island, alive with whole, interrelated systems, such as cities, that make up our planet island. (And our planet island is a whole with other, larger wholes.) Perhaps each of those wholes are islands themselves. We can see them both open and closed, for both are partially true. Both truths lend a different perspective to the situation.
At times it makes sense to squirrel up away from the world. This is where we can create the conditions for experimentation and gently move back into the open world when ready. Other times, when we wish to tackle de Dood's five big crises that face the world (water, food, energy, finance, climate change), we must take in the open and interconnectedness of the living system of which we are a part. Our choice, then is about choosing an island stance appropriate to context and complexity at a given time.
This understanding of open and closed poles of island stance have a critical relationship with the role of experimentation in emergence. We need closed system islands to create the conditions for experimentation and we need open system islands to foster wider connections and nodes of understanding.
We need to reach both in and out.
Our cities reach both in and out.
by Beth Sanders
September, 2012
Day 3 - September 6: What and where are we implementing living systems intelligence?
Assemble the Citizen Observatory

Assemble the citizens awakening the city with open invitations for feedback, for dialogue, for seeding a journey from contamination to pollination proving the impossible possible is possibility pleasantly transparent for all to see
for planetary survival is in inquiry as cultural intelligence moves the edge of collective orchestrating synchronicities in learning commons where the conversations that matter reveal all of us exposed
imagine citizens sensing city systems sensing potential enthusiasm with momentum mobilizing collaboration and transformation with transparency and trust life unfolds and grows intelligence for resilience as we learn and cities learn to realize the full potential
as whole (s)
our power lies in our collective vulnerable strength in opening unto ourselves our parts, perspectives co-creating, co-awakening everyone in this momentness
September, 2012
of interconnectedness
that build the story the city weaves
a new operating system for a planet of cities is alive to cycles of radical optimism in a living, conscious universe that replenishes every second profoundly conservative with what works well profoundly experimental with what works not cheering adolescent excellence cheering new narratives of passage and transition that build the story of inner life
about ourselves celebrating the power of diverse voices diverse questions connecting and articulating leading and linking vulnerable voices
assemble the citizens awakening the city with open invitations
by Beth Sanders
September, 2012
10
Week 2 Overview: Gaias Reflective Organ: Integral Intel Inside
Integral Theory, Week 2: Gaias Reflective Organ by Erin Stewart Elliott
Week 2 learning objectives were: Explore the value of individual leadership, cultural storytelling, and developmental infrastructure Develop your capacities for integrity and integral leadership Discover why relationships are the prime currency for the Integral City Identify ways you can support and sustain the well-being of your city.
September, 2012
11
Day 4 - September 11: What is an Integral Map and where are we implementing Integral Maps for individual leadership?
Unfolding Integral, Evolutionary Antennae

(Click here for detailed information about topics and speakers).
Change is changing us. Our hive mind is evolving into a hive being, where the mind, heart and spirit are all engaged and intertwined. Day 4 of Integral City 2.0 articulates the first wee, tiny steps of an emerging conscious collective: Gaias reflective organ.
Graham Boyd, Managing Partner of TetraLD, advised us that we each hold smaller and smaller pieces of knowledge of the worlds complexity. He estimates that knowledge workers (managers and leaders) now only have 1% of what they need to know in their head. No one person is able to have enough knowledge to get a job done s/he must work with others to gain a more full picture of the world.
It is evident that any one perspective holds only a partial truth. Ken Wilber, the world's leading integral philosopher, reminded us that each integral voice of the city citizens, city managers, city developers/builders and civil society is full of additional lines of development, each with their own levels and stages of values and understanding.
This is a world full of diversity and complexity. It is a world that is full of increasing uncertainty and our antennae know what we need to do in response. Our antennae are inviting new ways of collaborating to ensure that our collective work is relevant and helpful as we face known and unknown challenges. Yene Assegid assured us that these challenges and crises we face are purposeful: in the face of crisis, as human beings we become what we need to become to overcome the crisis.
So what are our antennae telling us about what we are becoming, our evolutionary unfolding?
The crisis we face, in its simplest explanation, is a separation between our interior and exterior worlds. Integral City thinking and doing can help. The four integral maps offer ways for us to explore and create habitats that will allow for the prosperity of all in the human hive. (For Integral Map 1, go to Appendix F.) They remind us to think and be whole at all scales, from self to city and beyond.
Reuniting interior and exterior, energy and matter, consciousness and culture, takes place by
putting attention to our emotions and feelings. For Graham Boyd, this is where we can turn the hive mind into the hive being, fully integrating everything this metaphor has to offer cities by joining the hive mind with heart and spirit. David Fabers conversation with Jan Inglis, a public deliberation specialist, and Graham Boyd revealed that this means we need to create habitats where we support each other and struggle with each other. This means growing our capacities, at the scales of self, city and beyond to: Welcome and explore vulnerability Dialogue with presence and authenticity Connect with feelings of self and other Lead as practice, rather than position Distribute and share leadership Recognize our work as spiritual practice Follow our niggles To pull this off, we are learning to fully access our passions, our intuitive insights, and the deep, emerging purposes for our work. Barrett Brown, a specialist in leadership and sustainability, describes our emerging abilities to manage our personal energy, where we thoughtfully place our attention, and the role of our intentions. For Brown, this is transpersonal work, connecting the rational mind with deep intuitive insights. These are a whole range of inner antennae that allow us to, in Browns words, grow up, wake up, hone up and clean up.

At the heart of this work, both inner and outer, is our ability to lead from purpose. Yene Assegid, a Transformative Leadership Coach, confirmed this with her interviews of African leaders. In circumstances seemingly impossible to exercise leadership, leaders thrive with a belief in purpose, or deep intention. Knowing why we do something is what compels us to step into leadership roles as required.
Our unfolding antennae are the beginning of a new story in human consciousness, where we are exploring the depths of the inner purpose of Self, the City and a Planet of Cities. We are sensing a new "why" in our very being in the universe our inner work scales up to Gaias inner work as we grow our antennae to be her reflective organ.
We are growing antennae, and corresponding behaviors and structures in response, that serve our own, and Gaia's, evolutionary unfolding.
by Beth Sanders
September, 2012
13
Day 5 - September 12: What and where are we implementing cultural / storytelling intelligence?
The Journey of Generations

(Click here for detailed information about topics and speakers) .
The ring of fire is cooking a new species is looking for stories of the second generation of the human race merging marriages mingling muchness in the world mind
city culture co-creating response to co-creation crossing the divide of otherness to see the city we havent seen a city of stories growing themselves
dream vividly evolution is evocation catalyzing cultures tantalizing tongues traveling activating the spirit of cities an architecture of meaning and form at the beginning a cycle in time celebrating radical renewal in story the infinite genius of to voices to messages to stories
archaeologists of the mind lets take a walk with our self lets talk with our self lets be the superpower of people telling the story of the universe a world child a kosmic renaissance we are the universe in miniature
waking
fairness, justice to the margin on the edge of seeing, smelling feeling, hearing a human system living the city sacred embodied, congregated fun-damentally listening for seeds of social discourse universally and specifically more than imagined we choose what will ricochet in the journey of generations for we all make the soup for we all make the codes in story in stories with lives of their own we choose what will ricochet in the journey of generations we choose what to whisper of our olympic possibilities
cities full of decathlete athletes energy bursting forth
by Beth Sanders
September, 2012
15
Day 6 - September 13: What and where are we implementing structural / infrastructural intelligence?
An Evolutionary Expedition
Imagine an expedition.
It always starts with a purpose: to get somewhere, to solve a problem, to see new territory, to reach a dream. The journey is not easy, so having a clear purpose, believed in deeply, is essential. Day 6 of The Integral City 2.0 Conference leaves us with a wonderful conclusion to a week contemplating our expedition: to be Gaias reflective organ.
We are not heading out on an expedition for traditional scientific or military purposes, but for evolutionary purposes. We are building structures, infrastructures and systems to support this expedition. This is an intelligence that supports our journey. As Mark DeKay of the College of Architecture and Design at the University of Tennessee put it, we are designing for flow.
There is always structure around flow: our thinking patterns, our buildings, our rivers, our banking systems. Structure is both naturally occurring in our environment (the habitat we are given) as well as the naturally occurring structures we construct (the habitat we make). At the heart of our exploration of Structural Intelligence is the search for a blend of our structures and natures structures. For DeKay, what we build tells part of the citys story; our structures both conceal and reveal our relationships with nature.
Marleen Kaptein, catalyst for EVA Lanxmeer, and Alex Von Oost, co-developer of the Almere Principles, are on wonderful city expeditions as they live structural intelligence for an Integral City. They see whole new futures for how we organize and design our cities in ways that DeKay would describe as regenerative: ways that produce greater ecological health and well-being.
Kaptein and Von Oost are living the spirit of expedition by heading out into new territory and note that they always head out with a crew that shares the dream. Their respective crews are diverse and transdisciplinary, flexible and adaptable, travel with open hearts and minds and spirits, and share principles to guide them on their journey. They, and their crews, are master designers that find ways to balance the necessary structure to support their expeditions as well as create the conditions for self-organizing.
September, 2012
16
What compels us to embark on expeditions? Brian Robertson, known for his work developing Holacracy, would say tension. We desire to resolve the tension between where we are and where we see we could be. This tension is full of energy, and we can design how to organize our social structures to take advantage of this energy by having a clear purpose (a necessary condition for expedition!), integrating knowledge and distributing authority and leadership. Integrating all we know, as it pertains to a specific purpose, is imminently practical and achievable, even with diverse values and worldviews. Especially on an expedition.
On our evolutionary expedition we will encounter a variety of perspectives, each with their own interpretation of where we are and where we could be. Brett Thomas, co-founder of Stagen, a consulting firm that specializes in Integral Leadership, describes four worldviews, each of which define the purpose and progress of a given expedition differently. Each of which will offer different forms of leadership for our expedition. The purpose of the Integral City Collective hints at the Latin root of the word expedition, which means to get ready, to prepare. This aptly underscores our work in these times. Understanding the four world views described by Thomas and how they show up is critical, social structural preparation for becoming Gaias reflective organ.
As our planet of cities begins to contemplate the purpose of cities, our expedition is taking place at every scale. We are paying attention to life-sustaining energy patterns in our personal practices, organizations, cities and the Kosmos. We are also paying attention to the expedition out in the world as well as our inner expeditions, our personal journeys along the way.
Thank you to all crew as you share stories of all the complexities in your journeys. Thank you for the evolutionary trail markers. by Beth Sanders
September, 2012
17
Week 3 Overview: Aligning Strategies to Prosper Logic Processors Connecting the Dots
Centralized Coordination, Week 3: Aligning Strategies to Prosper by Erin Stewart Elliott
Week 3 learning objectives were: Explore the interplay between individual inquiry, meta-wisdom, and hierarchical systems Carve a path through the barriers and co-create a natural flow of resources Experience how meshworking aligns various partners to achieve a common purpose Discover ways to monitor the health of our cities -- and how to make them even more effective.
September, 2012
18
Day 7 - September 18: What and where are we implementing inquiry intelligence?
The Alliteration of Inquiry

(Click here for more detailed information about topics and speakers.) Ill start and end this harvest with three words that form the formula to create a habitat for Inquiry Intelligence: kindness, humor and joy. These qualities are at the heart of this intelligence that allows us access to our in-tuition, as individuals and as collectives, a key strategy to prosper. A key strategy to prosper in cities.
Inquiry intelligence allows us to connect the dots of Appreciative Inquiry, articulated by Ann Perodeau, faculty at Royal Roads University in Canada, as discover, dream, design and deliver. It is essential to settle into our stories and values before we dream. It is essential to dream before we design, and it is important to design before delivering. Within all these dots, we inquire endlessly about the future we are co-creating together. JoAnne de Vries story of the Building SustainAble Communities Conferences, hosted by her organization, the Fresh Outlook Foundation, offers another collection of words. While she works, her mantra is educate and engage and inspire. But those are not the only words that describe how she works. She aims to involve everyone, even the people she hasnt thought of yet. She aims to include all topics. She aims to connect anything and everything that needs connecting. She aims to bring the best out of everyone, and as she evaluates her work, she sees results. Her results are because of her passion to inquire with self and others. There is a bit more to de Vries mantra, educate and engage to inspire. Ian Wight, of the University of Manitobas school of city planning, would throw the word enact into the mix. Adding de Vries purposeful evaluation, the mantra evolves to these words that frame the structure of Inquiry Intelligence: educate, engage, enact and evaluate.
The approach we take to inquiry is changing. For Ann Dale, Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Community Development, Inquiry Intelligence means working beyond a multidisciplinary approach. She also moves beyond the integration of interdisciplinary teams to transdisciplinary teams. This involves working with diverse people, even in conflict, to inquire together and create research questions before research takes place. Through inquiry, big questions are asked and explored, and the results are much more than what any person or perspective could accomplish alone.
The habitat in which Inquiry Intelligence thrives is not easy to create and infinitely worth the
effort. With sufficient trust we share our diversity. With safety, we enable courage to suggest crazy ideas. With collective purpose the borders of individual ego soften for connections and synergies to emerge.
The space for these qualities emerges when we put our attention to it, when we put our intention to it. Choosing the route of inquiry over answers is not automatic. It is a capacity that Tam Lundy has been exploring with her organization, Communities That Can! She describes the shift from doing capacities to becoming capacities. Inquiry Intelligence allows us to meet the complexity of the times by allowing us to hone in on another collection of words: purpose, principles, practices and perspectives. For Lundy, Inquiry Intelligence is what allows us to develop our capacity to be response-able: positively face wicked problems and see the potentials.
Inquiry Intelligence allows breakthroughs, rather than breakdowns, to emerge at any scale. For Wight, inquiry plays a significant role in his personal life, in self for his self. He beckons transprofessional life as he creates places for students and professional planners to develop their capacities to be response-able, and integrate their values with their work. He invites the cocreation of places where the whole person emerges: body, mind, soul and spirit.
Choose your alliteration:

Discover, dream, design, deliver Educate, engage, enact, evaluate Purpose, principles, practices, perspectives
Whatever your choice, remember that they are inspired with our kindness, humor and joy.
by Beth Sanders
September, 2012
20
Day 8 - September 19: What and where are we implementing meshworking intelligence?
Meshworks Manifest
(Click here for detailed information about topics and speakers.) Hard truths are hard to call out in fragmentation so lets connect what matters to design what works with memetic competence natural structures aligned with what we need with landing lights for leaders held by one sky wild and woolly learning on the ground with memetic competence we connect what matters to design what works with organizing principles that align function with people with tools, maps, intelligences designing city organisms memetically full of diversity with open hearts supporting structures catalyzing connections with heartful energetic architecture genetic architecture inviting deep space mesh weavers affirming I we its we are looking for invisible natural patterns structure gives life replicating what works we are releasing with hierarchy of intent
September, 2012 21
scaffolds
quickening fortuitous connections quickening synchronicity good things happening with powerful joy contributing to the superordinate doing what I, we do best sense into circle of Selves settling inviting space for the planet as a whole measurement is the metabolism of human life in nature a pulse pause
the city sends signals to itself for speed, agility, vitality using any channel to connect
full of gratitude encircling fertility stepping into longing
sharing love civilization to nature making sense together using all means to manifest connectivity by Beth Sanders for life
September, 2012
22
Day 9 - September 20: What and where are we implementing navigating intelligence?
Navigating the City Playground

(Click here for detailed information about topics and speakers.) A city is like a big playground. It is full of fun, smiles, and laughter. It has snacks on hand. It also has some form of basic structure on which, and around, the fun takes place. Sometimes the play turns to conflict and feelings get hurt. Sometimes bodies get hurt, too.
It can be a big decision for a neighborhood to decide what a playground should be and whether it meets expectations. Navigating intelligence monitors and discloses the wellbeing or general condition of the playground, the city, telling us if it is a healthy or unhealthy place. Navigating intelligence also tells us if we are moving in the direction of our vision. The best way to ensure a playground serves people well is if the playgrounds users determine what matters. Day 9 of the Integral City 2.0 Conference revealed that cities are no different; the best way to ensure a city figures out and reaches its desired sustainability outcomes is if citizens have a hand in creating both the citys vision (what they want) and how to get there (what matters). A playground is a success if what is built aligns with what matters to the public.
Hazel Henderson, founder of Ethical Markets Media, LLC and numerous quality of life indicators, started learning the ropes as a mom at a playground. She learned to think laterally, connect organizations and create the conditions new relationships. In playground language, Henderson introduced kids who normally played separately and helped them find a whole new game together. In the playground of the city, she spent years gaining experience, learning how to navigate the relationships and networks, helping them connect to serve community interests.
Henderson reminds us that in the city playground, what is important is not what we think it is. The value of a playground is not the price tag on the equipment, for we mistake money for value. The value is in the quality of life generated by/within/around the playground. There is even value in the avoided costs of a happy playground, such as drops in violent crime.
As we make efforts to track quality of life indicators, we are able to connect the dots and see what makes our city playgrounds fun and healthy. In fact, having fun while creating city scorecards is important. Gaetan Royer, with Metro Vancouver Regional Parks, and John Purkis, with The Natural Step Canada, have figured this out. They enjoy their work, in their work
"playgrounds".
Royer and Purkis have also figured out that when establishing the vision for a city, its inhabitants must see their role in the vision if they are going to make the vision a reality. No one plays in a park if its design and amenities are not suitable. Involving the citizens in the discussion and decision making about the city ensures that the city will be relevant. The people who play in the playground must have a hand in its creation or it isnt a satisfying place to be.
Our work together in cities involves figuring out what we want (vision), how to implement it and how to recognize, or measure success. This means crawling into the playground together. To look at the indicators themselves, Christa Rust, with the Canadian Sustainability Indicator Network, advocates that the community choose the indicators. In her work in Winnipeg, Canada, the community built the indicator framework. The community chose to monitor and disclose what mattered.
Gil Friend, CEO of Natural Logic Inc., supports the strong role of community. For him, people have to find their own way. It is essential that the community explore patterns themselves, figure out what matters themselves, measure what matters. That way, collectively, we are navigating to what matters to us.
Friend conjured the difference between a press release or a dashboard. Imagine these in the playground where a multi-stakeholder group is sorting out how well we are doing in relation to its vision. The press release is ignored, for there is nothing to play with. The dashboard is what draws your attention because you decided what to put there. It also matters because its information keeps changing, allowing you to adjust your course along the way. For Friend, a good dashboard is also additive and multiplicative.
Navigating intelligence gets to the numbers and the stories in our cities. And when effective, it is playground equipment that will be used. And to get the result we want, we have to play together.
by Beth Sanders
September, 2012
24
Week 4: Amplifying Intelligence Accessing Our Evolutionary Power Source
Emerging Systems, Week 4:Amplifying Intelligence by Erin Stewart Elliott
Week 4 learning objectives were: Work with the Master Code of creating a more sustainable, thriving future Find ways to monitor and manage your personal energy and well-being Explore learning systems that promote individual, cultural, and holistic contribution Identify ways to more skillfully care for self, others, and place.
September, 2012
25
Day 10 - September 25: What and where are we implementing evolutionary intelligence for outer wellbeing?
Beauty, Truth and Goodness with Practice

(Click here for detailed information about topics and speakers.) It takes practice for the biological outer intelligence where the body acts, behaves and evolves to embody the intention of our inner intelligence. It takes practice because what we view as beauty, truth and goodness is always changing.
For Steve McIntosh, a leader in the integral philosophy movement, the meaning of beauty, truth and goodness comes from our notion of what improvement means. What we declare improvement, of course, depends on our worldview, our values. The result we are endlessly pulled into evolutionary achievements. We recognize these as stages of development, or levels of consciousness, or unfolding value systems.
So, how we see beauty, truth and goodness to be depends upon our view. What we see as improvement depends on our view. McIntosh conjures the voice of Clare Graves: higher stages are better, and perhaps the way to go is for higher stages to better include the lower, particularly the healthy aspects of lower stages.
For Leo Burke, Director of Integral Leadership at the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame, the challenge for todays leaders is in the polarization of private and public paradigms. He proposes a third view, that of the commons (air, ocean, forest, open source software, languages). When looking at the commons, we see issues that are interdependent, with no clear path. For todays leaders, the time frames to create the life conditions we want are a challenge. They are long, and as a result, we need to reframe how we look at our context and how we insert ourselves into our context.
Outer intelligence means embodiment of right action. Peter Merry, founder and chair of the Center for Human Emergence, Netherlands, and Deirdre Goudriaan, an organizational, leadership and community development consultant, remind us that aligning behavior with inner intention takes practice. Life practices, where our inner and outer work meet, are essential to ensure we live intention. This means recognizing the energy patterns in our bodies. It means exploring our shadow and light. It means living from heart space, forever curious.
Both Merry and Goudriaan notice that people are yearning for face-to-face connections within
September, 2012
26
and between our communities. We recognize that we yearn for collectives that embody right action that feeds our hearts. Merry leaves us with this thought: Anyone can be an evolutionary activist. The life process is flowing through you. Help people see who they are, where they are at, who they are for now. Help them find their place in the collective context, to find their peace/piece. The evolutionary spirit will flow through them. Right action is in both individual and collective. It means creating collective habitats conducive to people living their highest potential, allowing them to take their next natural step. It also means alignment of personal inner intention with action. The more coherent the self, the more coherent I can take in the world and create appropriate conditions for others. Our individual practices are key. For Goudriaan, the value of personal practices is that when engrained, we show up differently in the world, better able to serve the world.
The ultimate practice: discerning and valuing the various forms of beauty, truth and goodness.
by Beth Sanders
September, 2012
27
Day 11 - September 26: What and where are we implementing evolutionary intelligence for activating city spirit?
Inquiry is Figuring Us Out

(Click here for detailed information about topics and speaker.) 1. Inquiry always asks for more aliveness weve never been before something new is always coming into being patterns carry forward creativity, novelty notice, trust, deepen choose show up explicitly uncomfortable in silence simple and complex amplifying evolutionary power raw, whole honor well 3. The way we connect will bring 2. Inquiry is figuring us out intelligence spiritual weightlifting radically optimistic unifying and making whole the scale of the city of peace fully sacred evolutionary impulse itself suffering provocations to new intelligence what happens is in our hands, is flesh and blood awakening, expanding citizens identity whole city deeply optimistic that we can handle anything
September, 2012
28
discerning practices welcome the golden shadow welcome the light of Self step in
to the gift of suffering as an optimist by choice
by Beth Sanders
September, 2012
29
Day 12 - September 27: What & where are we living the master evolutionary code?
Mastering the Master Code

(Click here for detailed information about topics and speakers.) As many stories do, this one started many decades ago with a small voice inside someones head. This small voice lead to a series of questions, research projects and the metaphor of the honey bees hive as a stand-in to understand human systems and the human hive: the city.
Bees generate 40 pounds of honey a year, exactly what they need to survive, and contribute to the health of their habitat. Marilyn Hamilton asked herself this: what is the human equivalent of 40 pounds of honey and what could we do to add value to our cities eco-regions? Eventually a book emerged and here we are, at the end of the Integral City 2.0 Online Conference, having explored:

Earth as a planet of cities, growing our understanding of our biosphere, living systems and emergence, complexity and resilience. Humans and cities as Gaias reflective organ, full of storytelling/cultural intelligence and the intelligence to build the structures we need to survive and thrive. All with integral intelligence. Strategies to align our efforts to prosper, drawing on our inquiry, meshworking and navigating intelligences. Amplification of our intelligence through our outer and inner intelligences, embodying right action aligned with intention, and the master code (look after self, look after other, look after this place).
Brett Thomas, co-founder of Stagan, a consulting firm that specializes in Integral Leadership, supports Hamilton in this endeavor because he believes that in todays world there are many different ideas of improvement. Subsequently, many types of leadership are also required. This conference is about beginning to create the interrelationships that are necessary to face humanitys challenges. For Hamilton and Thomas, it is time to bring the wholeness of humanity together to expand our consciousness. Hamiltons invitation to us is to create a new operating system for the city. This will involve four kinds of awareness. We are learning to be clear about our transaction with the planet. Our ecological footprint, for example. And the understanding that life is adaptive and fully within us. Second, we are learning to translate effectively from, between and into different cultures, values, levels of world view. Third, our cities transform along with us. What we build changes us, and our consciousness changes what we choose to build over time as well. Last, our egoand ethnic-centered view of the world is being transduced to a planet-centric view. Our collective consciousness is connecting us.
September, 2012
30
Day 12 of the conference brought several voices together to reflect on the conference: Cherie Beck, George Por, Alia Aurami, and Amy Oliver. Four people embodied four different voices of the city, four different generations, four different integral quadrants and 4 different cities. Together, they see that the new operating system for the city is in each of us and between each of us. Working at the scale of the city is where we will have the ability to meet the challenges that face humanity. It is time for a new narrative for the city.
The 12 intelligences explored over the conference give us a frame with which to look at the stories of our cities. And the stories themselves are acts of citizenship. Even more citizenship surfaces when we ask ourselves, endlessly, how we work in, of and as the city.
This is the conundrum I see in cities: they have a hand in creating us and they are created by us. We are our own creators. We are on an evolutionary trajectory of our own creation. This is where the master code plays its crucial role: look after self, look after other, look after this place. We dont know where we are going, but we have realized that we need to prepare. We are getting a number of base camps ready as we see uncharted territory ahead. We are connecting with each other like never before. We are searching for learning experiences, creating learning laboratories. We are exploring the very design process we need to create habitats that serve us well. We are cultivating relationships between generations to draw on their motivations and gifts.
The four voices you heard regularly throughout the conference (host Eric Troth and interviewers Marilyn Hamilton, Beth Sanders and David Faber), gathered at the end of the conference to reflect on how the master code revealed itself. We noticed that the three principles of the master code are alive and well:

Expect the unexpected. We practiced the radical humility of not knowing what each interview would bring, let alone the whole conference. Pay attention to the rules. We noticed that the new currency is relationships, particularly within and between different worldviews or levels of consciousness. Enable emergence and resilience. We noticed the narrative of the citys emerging story. A new depth to our understanding of the city is emerging. It is our story to stretch up.
The master code is simple and complex, as is the future of the Integral City 2.0 Online Conference community. We dont know yet what it will bring. We trust that by inviting inquiry we are inviting our minds, bodies and spirits to stretch up to new possibilities. In that we trust. Fully. by Beth Sanders
Acknowledgements
Report Production Team:
Marilyn Hamilton Beth Sanders
Harvest Author: Beth Sanders
Harvest Graphics: Erin Stewart Elliott
September, 2012
32

Integral City 2.0 Online Conference 2012 Harvests: Weeks 1-4, Days 1-12

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Integral City 2.0 Online Conference 2012 Harvests: Weeks 1-4, Days 1-12

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Integral City 2.0 Online Conference 2012 Harvests: Weeks 1-4, Days 1-12

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Integral City 2.

A Radically Optimistic Inquiry into Operating System 2.0

The Conference Harvest

Read Full Proceedings here. Read Full Interview Appendices here.

Week 1 Overview: Planet of Cities Mother Earth @ Motherboard

Holons, Week 1: Planet of Cities by Erin Stewart Elliott

Week 1 learning objectives were:

Day 1 - September 4: What and where are we implementing ecosphere intelligence?

Ecosphere Intelligence and the Letter 'P'

The Island Stances of Emergence Intelligence

We need to reach both in and out.

Our cities reach both in and out.

Assemble the Citizen Observatory

that build the story the city weaves

assemble the citizens awakening the city with open invitations

Week 2 Overview: Gaias Reflective Organ: Integral Intel Inside

Integral Theory, Week 2: Gaias Reflective Organ by Erin Stewart Elliott

Unfolding Integral, Evolutionary Antennae

The Journey of Generations

cities full of decathlete athletes energy bursting forth

Centralized Coordination, Week 3: Aligning Strategies to Prosper by Erin Stewart Elliott

The Alliteration of Inquiry

Choose your alliteration:

full of gratitude encircling fertility stepping into longing

Navigating the City Playground

Week 4: Amplifying Intelligence Accessing Our Evolutionary Power Source

Emerging Systems, Week 4:Amplifying Intelligence by Erin Stewart Elliott

Beauty, Truth and Goodness with Practice

Inquiry is Figuring Us Out

to the gift of suffering as an optimist by choice

Mastering the Master Code

Harvest Author: Beth Sanders

Harvest Graphics: Erin Stewart Elliott

You might also like