RSD13: Rivers of Conversations
Taking the Scenic Route into Just and Regenerative Futures
designed and facilitated for Relating Systems Thinking and Design: RSD13
2024
2024
The Challenge
Just as many rivers have been directed and controlled over time, humans have also been expected to work in more industrious and trackable ways. This virtual session explores how slowing down and creating space for our minds to wander can allow for deeper and lasting work.
Only by taking time to observe a bit longer, ask a few more questions, and follow overlooked paths, will we be able to shift towards just and regenerative futures.
Only by taking time to observe a bit longer, ask a few more questions, and follow overlooked paths, will we be able to shift towards just and regenerative futures.
The Solution
In this workshop, participants had space to remember the wonderings and wanderings in their lives that have led to deeper connections and stronger insights and consider how to create and cultivate more time for it in their work.
From there, we zoomed out to explore how we could foster these ways of being and working at larger scales in service of systemic change and what those futures might look like through the use of a futures wheel.
From there, we zoomed out to explore how we could foster these ways of being and working at larger scales in service of systemic change and what those futures might look like through the use of a futures wheel.
The Challenge
Just as many rivers have been directed and controlled over time, humans have also been expected to work in more industrious and trackable ways. This virtual session explores how slowing down and creating space for our minds to wander can allow for deeper and lasting work.
Only by taking time to observe a bit longer, ask a few more questions, and follow overlooked paths, will we be able to shift towards just and regenerative futures.
Only by taking time to observe a bit longer, ask a few more questions, and follow overlooked paths, will we be able to shift towards just and regenerative futures.
The Solution
In this workshop, participants had space to remember the wonderings and wanderings in their lives that have led to deeper connections and stronger insights and consider how to create and cultivate more time for it in their work.
From there, we zoomed out to explore how we could foster these ways of being and working at larger scales in service of systemic change and what those futures might look like through the use of a futures wheel.
From there, we zoomed out to explore how we could foster these ways of being and working at larger scales in service of systemic change and what those futures might look like through the use of a futures wheel.
- AgendaWelcome and Introduction
- Land acknowledgement with a brief history of the Duwamish, my local river
- Overview of the concept of productivity, flow, and slow productivity
- Participants introduce themselves and share either a river or waterway that is nearby or holds meaning to them
- Brainstorm and reflect on times, places, and activities where we lose track of time or feel the flow in our lives
- Share-out
- Shift focus from individuals to communities and societies
- Explore the topic through the futures wheel
- Discuss conditions and constraints to realising those futures
- AgendaWelcome and Introduction
- Land acknowledgement with a brief history of the Duwamish, my local river
- Overview of the concept of productivity, flow, and slow productivity
- Participants introduce themselves and share either a river or waterway that is nearby or holds meaning to them
- Brainstorm and reflect on times, places, and activities where we lose track of time or feel the flow in our lives
- Share-out
- Shift focus from individuals to communities and societies
- Explore the topic through the futures wheel
- Discuss conditions and constraints to realising those futures
“
How can we solve the world’s most urgent problems if we’ve downgraded our attention spans, downgraded our capacity for complexity and nuance, downgraded our shared truth, downgraded our beliefs into conspiracy-theory thinking, where we can’t construct shared agendas to solve our problems?
“
How can we solve the world’s most urgent problems if we’ve downgraded our attention spans, downgraded our capacity for complexity and nuance, downgraded our shared truth, downgraded our beliefs into conspiracy-theory thinking, where we can’t construct shared agendas to solve our problems?
- Part 1: IndividualParticipants recalled times when wandering and wondering led to deeper connections and stronger insights, and considered how to make more room for them in their work.
- Part 1: IndividualParticipants recalled times when wandering and wondering led to deeper connections and stronger insights, and considered how to make more room for them in their work.
dancing
loud music
playing soccer
shower
sailing in bad weather
reading (uninterrupted)
- Part 2: CollectiveUsing a futures wheel, the group zoomed out to explore how valuing these ways of working at larger scales might support systemic change, and what those futures could look like.
- Part 2: CollectiveUsing a futures wheel, the group zoomed out to explore how valuing these ways of working at larger scales might support systemic change, and what those futures could look like.
enhanced ability to connect to the environment
more engaged in own learning
decoupling time = money
reject productivity culture
reciprocity in social welfare
greater democratic engagement
- The ResultsDespite the irony of this workshop being time-bound, participants expressed feeling a sense of flow during the final share-out, bringing the topic full circle.
Selected and presented for RSD13 and published in the symposium proceedings: https://rsdsymposium.org/individual-and-collective-meandering/.
- The ResultsDespite the irony of this workshop being time-bound, participants expressed feeling a sense of flow during the final share-out, bringing the topic full circle.
Selected and presented for RSD13 and published in the symposium proceedings: https://rsdsymposium.org/individual-and-collective-meandering/.
Thanks
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AcknowledgementThis workshop was inspired by the Duwamish River, which meanders through mountains, forests, and communities to the Salish Sea. I acknowledge that I live on the traditional land and water of the Duwamish People, and honor the Duwamish Tribe, the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition, and all who care for our shared world. -
Inspiration- Stolen Focus, Johann Hari, 2022
- The River That Made Seattle, BJ Cummings, 2020
- From What Is to What If, Rob Hopkins, 2019
- Slow Productivity, Cal Newport, 2024