Monthly Archives: August 2005

OBS, SNAKEDANCER & THE TEAM

Congressperson Sherrod Brown’s GrowOhio.org featuresThinker of the Week: Jim O’Bryan and Ken Warren, the dynamic duo spearheading The Lakewood Observer. Great article with good pictures that do both the project and these two fine guys justice.

This is a “post-professional newspaper driven by the passion and intelligence of residents,” [Warren] says. “If a person is passionate about [a subject] and has a depth of knowledge,” it will produce a better article and a more interesting read.

This also is producing a very distinctive and unique community newspaper that is either completely unique or is among the very few ‘smart-mob’ intelligent publications on earth!

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SUNNY IF IT WERE SUNNIER

The Centre for Confidence (Glasgow) doesn’t have much in front of its online door, except for an amusing and often thought evoking line-up of articles. What is really amusing are the articles about the psychological consequences of the Scots aesthetic; (proudly disbelieving, depressive in the Kleinian sense; expecting the worst). If you’re interested, check ’em out. The work I’d like to highlight is linked to off the site, a fine paper by Ed Diener and Marvin Seligman, (2004). Beyond money: Toward an economy of well-being.. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 5, 1-31.

At the individual level, the economic model allows people to structure their time in the pursuit of concrete goals, and to readily track progress toward specific goals. It is possible that people derive considerable well-being from goal pursuits related to earning income, and from the activities of consumption, and therefore even a well-being economy will include these activities. Thus, although laments about how economic activity can interfere with family and religion are often heard, it is likely that the economic model will remain dominant for many decades to come. We do not contest this fact of life. Well-being is not a panacea that will in itself solve all of the world’s problems. Even if well-being one day becomes the dominant paradigm, it must be supplemented by other values of societies, and people must be socialized for humane values for the well-being economy to be a desirable concept.

One challenge for a society based on well-being is that individuals do not have ready and concrete models of how to pursue the goal of greater well-being, other than following the economic model. When people are asked what would improve the quality of their lives, the most frequent response is higher income (Campbell, 1981). It is not clear to people how they would achieve greater positive emotions and life satisfaction. Until there are concrete and proven steps toward these noneconomic aims, people are unlikely to abandon the dominant economic paradigm. Thus, psychologists need to demonstrate compellingly the malleable factors that can increase well-being before the well-being paradigm can replace the economic one. In addition, it should not be forgotten that the theoretical models on which the economic model is based are in many cases more sophisticated than current scientific models of well-being. (2004: Diener/Seligman)

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I AND EYE

Tony Felice (Cronosys.com), Ken Warren (Lakewood Observer/dir. Lakewood Public library), Ed Morrison, and me, met for 3+ hours on August 15th. The purpose was to learn about Morrison’s I Open paradigm for collaborative, open source economic development.

(Notwithstanding my intuitive and inchoate pontificating about Morrison’s move outside of ‘the academy,’ the meetup was my first encounter with Ed and I Open.)

Ken is working on a full report for the Observer. Ed generously shared a lot of material with us about his own background, the I Open model, and, in the second half of the discussion, provided a rich response to a number of questions aimed to drill down into the human element (and touch) found in the I Open model.

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FIVESOME

…believe but be scientific; be mystical without mystification…

Krassner. “My only sacred cow is I have no sacred cows.”

Lilly. “My beliefs are unbelievable.”

Tolle. “I’ve met several Zen masters, all of them are cats”

unknown. Everything we think we know only serves to obscure our unknown ignorance. (Found as part of the constructivist ‘prayer’)

Alice O. Howell Keep and open mind and carry a good crap detector.

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HAVE YOU BEEN SHOULDING ON YOURSELF TODAY?

Albert Ellis figures prominently in my own take. It always is interesting to learn people haven’t thought about the difference between experiencing the objective problem and experiencing the rationales and interpretations and emotions that comprise the subjective problem.

Albert Ellis. “When I started to get disillusioned with psychoanalysis I reread philosophy and was reminded of the constructivist notion that Epictetus had proposed 2,000 years ago: ‘People are disturbed not by events that happen to them, but by their view of them.'”

interview
Psychology Today

interview two w. Aaron Beck

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OUTSIDE THE COMFORT ZONE

Mark Lund, Experiential learning. A small exploration, supplies an okay overview of experiential learning’s intellectual roots. No doubt its concision came at a cost of completeness. I guess I’m not much of a judge of this, because there is an equally pithy list of items taken from the work of Bill Proudman. I’m don’t know Proudman’s work, but his list is aces.

Bill Proudman (1992 p 21) in reviewing experiential education suggests the following principles for the delivery of any experiential learning program, that there must be:

1. mixture of content and process.

2. absence of excessive teacher judgement.

3. engage(ment) in purposeful endeavors.

4. encourag(ment of) the big picture perspective.

5. teaching (for) multiple learning styles.

6. … reflection.

7. … emotional investment.

8. … re-examination of values.

9. the presence of meaningful relationships.

10. learning outside of one’s perceived comfort zone.

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DANCE TO LEARN

Kate Kuper, a friend of mine for over 35 years, finally has a beautiful web site up featuring her innovative labor of love, using movement, music, and dance to teach subjects such as history and science. KATEKUPER.COM

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ALL ABOUT THE DOING

Ed Morrison, whom I have never met, yet is a glowing spot on my radar screen, will be presenting a program in the land of The Lakewood Observer July 26.

I-Open Tuesday July 26, Lakewood Public Library, 6:00PM – 8:00PM
“Reviewing Initiatives & Making Networks Work: Designing Process”

His blog: EdPro

I-Open:

To move toward our vision, I-Open will develop tools to assist civic leaders in implementing Open Source Economic Development practices within neighborhoods, communities, and regions.

We will use Northeast Ohio as our test bed, our laboratory. To accomplish our vision, we want I-Open, I-Open Partners and Northeast Ohio to establish a global reputation for regional innovation.

We invite any person or organizataion to join us as we acccelerate the economic transformation that is now underway in Northeast Ohio.
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