3 AM

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"If you did not do what you did today, for example, the entire world would be in some way different.

Your acts ripple outward in ways that you do not understand, interacting with the experience of others, and hence, forming world events. The most famous and the most anonymous person are connected through such a fabric, and an action seemingly small and innocuous can end up changing history."
Jane Roberts, The Nature of the Psyche: It's Human Expression, 1979

Michael Ventura wrote a book about the 60's and 70's called Shadow Dancing in the USA. One of the concepts that fascinated me is his believing that many of us are awake at 3 AM in the morning ... wondering, worrying, playing with ideas, intuiting and creating our future.  At a gathering with some of my friends in Point Arena and Gualala, I shared this thought and from here an idea took form. Anne Kessler took the lead and has organized a really fun event. On April 1, 2007 we are hosting the first of what we think might be many...

WHAT DREAMS KEEP YOU UP AT 3 AM? 

Do you have an idea, a dream, a project, a vision? Our dynamic community is filled with brilliant and creative people whose ideas and projects will totally amaze you! Do you have a project that is community minded, or a plan for a business, or just a really wacky idea? Could you use some help? Would you like to let people know what you are thinking?  

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Creating A Cultural Shift

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"People don't resist change. They resist being changed."
—Peter Senge

Since the premier of the WorkSpace at the World Economic Forum 2005 Annual Meeting, it has hosted well over 50 sessions and workshops, traveled from the Alps to Egypt and South Africa, and brought several thousand participants into an unprecedented depth of collaboration and co-design. From climate change to the creative imperative, ending chronic hunger to ending intellectual property rights, tribal dynamics to information epidemics, WorkSpace sessions have taken on issues that touch about every individual, community and society on the planet.

Individually, many of these sessions have been a highlight of participants' experience, and have done as much as any other session to shape the Forum's annual agenda. More importantly for the Forum, the cumulative impact of the WorkSpace has been a cultural shift within the Forum community.

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Communication

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O civili, si ergo,
Fortibus es in ero!
O nobili, deis trux.
Vatis enim, causan dux.

A very savvy communicator told me the following story. He was part of a 50 person group and they were in the 3rd of a five day process.  The group was divided into five ten person teams and each team was asked to select a word .... any word.  His group chose "love".  Once they chose their word they were asked to independently write ten words that expressed "love" for them ... synonyms  for love.  Then they were asked 1) to guess how many words they had in common and 2) to compare their words and discover how accurate their guess was.  The group guessed that out of 50 words they had at least 10 in common.  It turned out they had three!!! Three common words describing love!

I later tried this and the word our group settled on was "empowerment". We had two words in common!

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