I recently joined in with a gathering of people who have identified themselves within the Dialogue & Deliberation community. It marked the fourth community coming-together I've been involved in with Tomorrow Makers this year—each of a very distinct nature and intent. From each and from the collection as a whole, I'm left with a clear recognition of the growing interest in and sophistication of organizing structures and processes used to compliment the content and body of knowledge.

Beyond the wealth of good "process tools" that are capable of adding significant value, there is a growing willingness and, in many cases, eagerness among organizers, speakers and participants to not only use these process tools, but innovate how they can fit together to amplified effect as a whole. Community gathering is on the verge of finding meta-structures and meta-processes which can transform or fundamentally reframe the community's awareness of itself and the world.

Successful design on this level utilizes and leverages the complexity and relationships created in the discrete modules. The whole becomes not only 'greater' than the sum of the parts, it emerges a different, deeper quality of experience. The system escapes to a higher order.

These escapes – or phase transitions – are the fascination and the essence of Tomorrow Makers' raison d'être. It is precisely these situations for which the system and method that we have been practicing and coming toward knowing since 1979 was invented...