What can we do about this “Sustainability Thing”?

"There are no prizes for predicting the rain, only prizes for building the ark."

• Don Beck

What connections are there between Knowledge, Communities, Innovation and Sustainability? In this session, Jenni Goricanec will describe her "project" dream in its current form, while noting that almost all aspects are emerging! Her dream is that she can support people to become actors in their own lives, dealing with this "Sustainability Thing". She imagines that she can help by supporting over time an emerging conversation which draws on participants' energy, emerging from their own interests.

The dream - Jenni says: "I conceive this as a process: which begins by connecting with a theme that is of general concern. This has the potential to draw people together: my current thoughts are 'Managing the Home', which returns us to the early roots of the word 'economy', and in this way people can connect very locally and personally or quite expansively - systemically or globally."

Jenni's process starts with a structured conversation, identifying actions and potential actors. For each of possible many groups involved in the process (from different parts of society - eg, urban, regional) a number of these face-to-face sessions will be run, with the conversations in-between supported via online collaborative tools.

From this starting point, the aim is to develop individual and collective projects, create communities of practice and put together a body of knowledge using these collaborative tools. It is envisaged that a not-for-profit organisation will be needed to support this project, providing the promotion, recruitment of participants, online tools and the mediation of the whole process.

This session will be conducted as a facilitated conversation, where Jenni will start the conversation with her dream as described above - plus more - and then pose and answer questions to and from the audience.

Participating in this event will enable you to:
Engage with ideas about what we, collectively, can do about this sustainability thing.

Agenda: Wednesday 27 July 2011
6:00-6:30 Networking with other thinking collaborators (over drinks and nibbles).
6:30-7:30 Presentation interspersed with questions posed and conversation.
7:30-8:00 Informal conversation amongst the group to explore the ideas and concepts.

Venue:
RMIT Graduate School of Business & Law, Corner of Russell & Victoria Streets, Melbourne
Room 13.4.003.
(Metered street parking available nearby in Lygon or Cardigan Streets.)

Please RSVP via this MeetUp site. (You can also get here at http://melbournekmlf.org/ .)

About our Guest Speaker
Dr. Jenni Goricanec is interested in working with others to enhance the sustainability of human systems. Her practice is to engage with people by drawing on their own ways of knowing and understanding. She orients people toward the "pull" of future intentions, rather than the blind "push" of past habits and "best practice". She encourages people to break out of their cognitive silos, to think laterally and to focus on the whole problem systemically in all its inter-disciplinary complexity. Her practice works through the essential processes of innovation – mobilising resources, enrolling peers, engaging allies and building public support. This form of engineering practice is about manoeuvring, dissolving boundaries, always being in action, and recognising that function, congruence and transformation are emergent properties generated through active learning by doing. (See more at her LinkedIn profile (http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=91968831&trk=tab_pro) and at The Sustainability Thing (http://thesustainabilitything.com.au/). )

View Future KMLF Events on this MeetUp site at http://melbournekmlf.org/ .