Registration for Charles Holmes’ innovative Dec. 8 conversation is free, and is available here.

Charles Holmes to Host New Economy Teleconference With Otto Scharmer, David Korten
Free participatory event on Dec. 8 will use MaestroConference for small-group discussions

Master convenor Charles Holmes is inviting wide participation in a free interactive teleconference with two New Economy thought leaders on Dec. 8.

The provocateurs whose conversation will begin the call are Otto Scharmer and David Korten — whose recent books challenge the foundational assumptions of established economic thought and call for a dramatic restructuring of our economic narrative and institutions, Charles says.

Participants will then have an opportunity for dialogue in small groups.

Otto is the author of Leading from the Emerging Future: From Ego-System to Eco-System Economics. He is also senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Business, founding chair of the Presencing Institute, and author of earlier books including Theory U: Leading from the Future as it Emerges.

David is the co-founder and chair of YES! Magazine, co-chair of the New Economy Working Group, founder and president of the Living Economies Forum, and a former Harvard Business School professor. His earlier books include The Great Turning, When Corporations Rule the World, and Agenda for a New Economy.

This event is of interest to Axiom News for its form as well as its theme. It will use MaestroConference, a teleconference tool designed for many-to-many communication in small-group breakout sessions. The format allows guest speakers to be provocateurs rather than simply lecturers. The hope is that their opening remarks will spark deep conversations among a group already engaged in a calling question.

Many change-making organizations and facilitators are hungering for the possibility of deeper and more lasting connections and more participatory, grassroots interaction in their ‘virtual’ gatherings. A number of members of the Art of Hosting community will be participating in the call. Ben Roberts, a co-founder of The Conversation Collaborative, recently described his experiments with beta versions of the technology, for groups such as The Charter for Compassion, as the first such experiences “that I felt truly lived up to the potential for ‘Open Space’ in virtual form” —  though an online or phone gathering will always be something different than a face-to-face one.

MaestroConference, one of a number of players in this emerging field, has stated that it is interested in enabling large group “conversations that could change the world,” and that calls connecting up to 1,000 people in fully participatory small group conversations will soon be possible.

The guiding questions for the Dec. 8 call are: “What role does narrative play in shaping economic life? How must the current narrative change if we are to have a viable human future and an economy that works for all, including the living earth, our home and source of nurture? What will it take to discover and establish a new narrative in the public mind?”

A telephone is all that is needed to participate. Pre-registration is required for access to the call, and is available here.

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