Coordinators Evaluations - New Knowing and Languaging roles

Summary of meeting held on 14-9-07
Present: Mathilda Tham, Anette Lundeybye, Batel Dinur

Main points discussed:

1. What are the explicit roles of 'Languaging' in relation to 'New Knowing'?
2. What tools did/would help us to elicit these roles?
3. Timing: When might it be most appropriate in a continuous, collaborative process to use the above roles?
4. What does the process of Languaging/New knowing mean in a collaborative process?
5. Is the 'chunking' of the synergy levels useful (i.e. data, information, etc.)?

Some conclusions and ideas:

• How can we facilitate the role of 'Languaging' or 'New knowing' in individuals and in teams? - These are two different ideas.
• The notion of 'play' can play a central role in the New knowing process, by asking "What if?" - projecting our ideas and desires into the future.
• Can also experiment with the idea of 'presence' (Peter Senge, 2005) - How can we sense the present? Anette's term of "senseness" may be useful here. It embodies three main concepts at once: sensuality, directionality and translation (the latter is more 'languaging' than 'New knowing').
• Languaging requires to be in an 'open-minded' space - where we try to find commonalities and connections between different ideas.
• Languaging also requires being able to "step back" , come in and out of a situation.
• New knowing as a first stage in a collaborative process (?)
• Languaging comes next and possibly comes back after each stage - Languaging as the interface between all roles.
• Languaging has a role in 'getting out of conflicts' and bridging gaps.
• Metaphors as a common tool for Languaging and New Knowing: Languaging uses them for a convergence process, while New Knowing uses them for a divergence process.
• Diagrams as a useful visualization tool for Languaging.
• We can use the objects that participants bring in to amplify weak signals (what exactly does this mean?)
• Chunking of Synergy levels may be confusing - it was done linearly but in fact these are much more interrelated and circular processes.

Possible future enquiries

• Observe points of conflict or awkwardness in the workshops - how did we manage to resolve/overcome them?
• How did we use the different roles to create synergies?
• How can we bridge the personal and the professional? (Hannah - 'Design Futures' tools may offer some ideas?)