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Guiding Step Two: Identifying Assumptions for a Planet of Cities

Posted in A. Contexting Intelligences, E. Evolutionary Intelligences, Master Intelligence, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 15, 2013 | 4 Comments »


Assumptions in the city arise not only from the four voices of the city – but from the worldviews being expressed in those voices.

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Worldviews emerge from the beliefs of what is important around here and how those values are translated by the city’s voices.

In the most basic ego-centric way, assumptions are implicit – how do I access the basics of life (food, shelter, clothing)? how do I fit into my family? how am I earn my living (or not)?

When these needs are met, more complex ethno-centric assumptions build upon them – what language do we use to communicate within our groups or clans (the one from our home country, our special dialect or the one(s) we learn in school)? how does our group or neighbourhood relate to other groups or neighbourhoods (in being entitled to schooling or healthcare) ? how do we practise and express our spiritual and religious assumptions? who are our leaders and who are the authorities we follow?

Smaller cities have traditionally been able to coalesce around shared ethno-centric assumptions.

But as a city grows in size, the multiplicity of ethno-centric assumptions can make the Tower of Babel seem like an apt metaphor for the mixture of voices and clashes of worldviews that vie for air-space and audience.

Large cities that mature create a city-centric worldview that embraces the multiple ethno-centric and ego-centric assumptions into a coherent perspective of how the city can be governed for the greatest benefit of all.  With a city-centric worldview we can make decisions about the infrastructure that supports Citi-Zens’ daily life; the relationships that Civil Society can bridge between ethno-centric groups; the resources needed for thriving Business; and the governance that City Hall, Education and Healthcare institutions require to coordinate city-centric functions.

The most mature cities go beyond even a city-centric set of assumptions and realize that they are part of a Planet of Cities – that their exchange of resources and commerce depends on assumptions about planetary economy; that their exchange of ideas produces assumptions contributing to planetary generativity; that their demands on the environment require assumptions about evolution, sustainability and resilience; and that their cultural embrace of the shared story about their city on the planet, emerges a world-centric set of assumptions that aligns ego-ethno-city-world-centric assumptions and connects cities together as a Planetary System of Cities.

When you consider this holarchy of worldviews – what assumptions do you hold about your city? How do your assumptions impact the way you practise the Master Code for the Human Hive?

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Navigating Intelligence Enables Course Corrections

Posted in D. Strategic Intelligences, Navigating - IVSM, tagged , , , , , , on August 23, 2012 |


Navigating intelligence allows us to scan the environment and make decisions about our course corrections using Integral Vital Signs Monitors (IVSM). An IVSM is a reporting system whose design is based on an integral framework. It utilizes life-sustaining indicators and communicates its results in a universal language.

An IVSM system mines existing databases, gathers new data and reports observations in a global graphic language that is accessible to all (in multiple versions and multiple translations). Its purpose is for providing life-giving data for making decisions that develop, maintain and emerge the health of local and global systems of interest, for the current generations and the generations to come.

IVSM’s can exist on any scale of the human system, and are designed so that they can scale up and down from the individual to the planet.

Navigating intelligence develops a vital signs monitor with indicators and benchmarks that recognize :

  • climate systems that affect natural and human sustainability (eg. rainfall, water tables)
  • the limits of carrying capacity for the basic resources of air, land and water
  • bio-psycho-cultural-social health indicators for individuals, families, workplaces, neighborhoods, and city systems
  • sustainable economies
  • sustainable infrastructures for transportation, health, education and commercial development
  • congruent and incongruent neighbours that affect the health of the natural and human systems (eg. air shed, water quality, transportation systems, human movement,communicable diseases, etc. )
  • physical, psychological, cultural and social boundaries

Navigating intelligence that uses IVSM adds value in four ways:

  1. The essential design elements of the IVSM provide a framework, indicator organizer and common language to communicate results across cultures. We can see the investment of resources that we have made in each quadrant and level; ie. we can track energy, matter and information.
  2. We can translate the investments into terms of traditional financial management; strategic financial investment; density of social networks; or sustainability vectors such as carbon-based resources (or all).
  3. By the use of hyper linking, we can see the linkage between realities (four quadrants); levels of complexity (eight plus levels); time (development/evolution); and scale.
  4. It allows us to compare results internally within urban systems and externally between urban systems.

From an Integral Vital Signs Monitor is designed, the Integral Scorecard can become the reporting vehicle for informing all the stakeholders of the city. It tells us whether we are achieving the purpose and objectives of the city in a sustainable way. It reveals to us if we are amassing the energy, matter and information that we need to sustain ourselves. It is a way of mapping capacity and potential and has the power to reveal imbalances that indicate unsustainable practices.

Navigating intelligence using IVSM works hand in hand with Meshworking intelligence to design new governance systems that research, plan and manage the city.

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This blog is a prologue to the Integral City webinar conference  City 2.0 Co-Creating the Future of the Human Hive . We are inventing a new operating system for the city.  Click to get more details re the Free Expo and eLaboratory membership  scheduled September 4-27  2012. You are invited to attend and participate.

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Navigating Intelligence Discloses Wellbeing of the City

Posted in D. Strategic Intelligences, Navigating - IVSM, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 22, 2012 |


Navigating intelligence monitors and discloses the wellbeing or general condition of the city.

Many city information officers are now developing versions of vital signs monitor for monitoring and reporting the health of the city. From an eco-regional perspective the indicators should track what Jared Diamond noted every society must pay attention to for long-term survival:

  • Climate change
  • Environmental health of the eco-region
  • The city’s responses to environmental problems
  • Positive economic relationships with other cities and/or eco-regions
  • Incongruent neighbouring cities and/or eco-regions

Vital Signs Monitors become Integrally (IVSM) framed when they serve as community indices to measure the quality of overall health and wellbeing.  This becomes owned by the whole community when community partners (like the education institutions, health care systems, justice system, economy, recreation facilities, city hall)  contribute core data so that a composite picture of the whole community emerges from the integral map.

As a result, each community partner has a stake in the success of the IVSM and together the community of partners gains insights how their interconnections contribute to the wellbeing of the whole city.

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This blog is a prologue to the Integral City webinar conference  City 2.0 Co-Creating the Future of the Human Hive . We are inventing a new operating system for the city.  Click to get more details re the Free Expo and eLaboratory membership  scheduled September 4-27  2012. You are invited to attend and participate.

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Cherry Blossom Happiness Factor of City-Centric Inner Intelligence

Posted in Inner, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on June 28, 2012 | 1 Comment »


The Inner intelligences of the human condition relates to a person’s subjective sense of wellbeing and happiness. The Subjective I is the psycho-emotional-spiritual way I experience the city. The Subjective I feels inspired and uplifted by the personal pleasure of walking down a street lined with cherry blooms, imagining the excitement of expressing ideas, with friends and colleagues, at the community coffee shop.

When I have done research into the subjective sense of happiness, people identify a trajectory of factors that contribute to happiness including: having the simple basics of life, being able to bond with their families, experiencing a sense of personal power or expression, living with others in a way that embraces respect and order, the opportunity to work and support themselves and their families, tolerating diversity while creating the conditions for inclusion in community.

Interestingly these happiness factors seem to emerge as a kind of personal contribution to the “wisdom of the crowd”, where individuals identify one or two of the factors being important to them. However, when we look at the full spectrum of factors we can see the hierarchy of values that emerge from the research of Clare Graves (which focused on how to describe a healthy human being) and has become the trajectory mapped by Beck and Cowan in Spiral Dynamics and by Ken Wilber in the Integral Model.

The value of examining the wellbeing and happiness aspects of the subjective experience of a single life, is that it gives us the container to appreciate the emergent qualities of consciousness. It seems to create a kind of container for me to consider my attention and intention – even my personal purpose – related to this trajectory of inner intelligence. In doing so I open the door into “the examined life” and I gain the capacity to make life worth living precisely because I choose to examine it.

In doing so I can discover that my happiness and wellbeing have ever-widening spheres of consideration. I start with the ego-centricity of focusing on my own happiness (delight at the cherry blossoms). Then I discover that happiness is embedded in the ethno-centric circle of my family, clan and neighbourhood (sharing cherry blossoms with others). When I cross the street away from the cherry blossoms, I experience a wider connection with the city, where happiness embraces the attention and intention I engage through the purpose of my work place, educational and healthcare systems and communities outside my own. Perhaps when I progress from ethno-centric to city-centric experience, I create the platform for an awareness of how my wellbeing and happiness also derives from an intuitive sense of the wellbeing of my city’s eco-region and the planet as a whole (opening into a world-centric sense of wellbeing)? When I contemplate this circle of happiness and wellbeing it often leads to an even more profound sense of happiness and purpose at a deep spiritual level (which has been called by Wilber a kosmo-centric sense of awareness) – where I experience my evolutionary unity with the cherry blossoms.

Ultimately all attention and intention in the city is experienced at the level of the individual. Almost magically, when the coordination of multiple individuals seeking happiness along the trajectory of values aligns, a political will or purpose emerges (the vestiges of hive mind?).

The challenge we now face as a species is not only to define how our individual bio-psycho-cultural-social purpose aligns with the purpose of our city, but how can my personal happiness be balanced in support of achieving my purposes at the same time that others are experiencing and unfolding happiness for themselves?

On the broadest scale, we need to create a life-long learning system that optimizes human potential with appropriate attention and intention. Developing our citizen intelligences will determine the extent to which our cities will be sustainable. To do this in an evolutionarily respectful way, we must design our education system(s) so that it allows individual, family and cultural variation. Such variation needs simple rules that allow

learners to experience learning unique to their potentials (ie. not one size fits all) while at the same time creating citizens able to contribute to the achievement of city, in ways that we can each and all enjoy the happiness that cherry blossoms bring.

References

Hamilton, M. (2008). Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligences for the Human Hive. Gabriola Island BC: New Society Publishers.(pp. 61-64)

Hoornweg, D., Ruiz Nunez, F., Freire, M., Palugyai, N., Villaveces, M., & Herrera, E. W. (2007). City Indicators: Now to Nanjing: World Bank  Policy Research Working Paper No. 4114.Wills, E. H., Hamilton, M., &

Islam, G. (2007). Subjective Wellbeing in Bogotá (B), Belo Horizonte (BH) and Toronto (T): A Subjective Indicator of Quality of Life for Cities. Bogotá: World Bank. Wills, E. H., Hamilton, M., & Islam, G. (2007). Subjective Well-being in Cities: Individual or Collective? A Cross Cultural Analysis. Paper presented at the Wellbeing in International Development Conference.

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This blog is a prologue to the Integral City webinar conference  City 2.0 Co-Creating the Future of the Human Hive . We are inventing a new operating system for the city.  Click to get more details re the Free Expo and eLaboratory membership  scheduled September 4-27  2012. You are invited to attend and participate.

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Education Creates Habitats for Learning What Works in City 2.0

Posted in D. Strategic Intelligences, Inner, Storytelling - Cultures, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 26, 2012 | 3 Comments »


How do we create an education system for the City 2.0 that the TED Prize 2012 imagines? How can we learn to integrate education with innovation, culture, and economic opportunity? When might we agree to reduce the carbon footprint of City 2.0 occupants, facilitate smaller families, and ease the environmental pressure on the world’s rural areas?  What will inspire us to create  a place of beauty, wonder, excitement, inclusion, diversity, life? In short how do we learn to grow the city that works?

Integral City 2.0 knows education happens both informally and formally. Homo sapiens sapiens as a species conscious of its consciousness is a natural learning collective. Educations’ job in City 2.0 is to inquire on purpose – what makes our city work on purpose? How do we create learning capacity in, with and as citizens,  at the same time as we create learning capacity on, with and as a learning city of the planet?

City Education 2.0 embraces the cycle of life (as it emerges in individuals, in families, in cultures and neighbourhoods, the city as whole and its eco-region) to create a habitat for learning what works - as a never ending developmental journey for, with and as citizens of City 2.0.

The seeds for such an Integral Education System are emerging through the exploration of a community of learning practise. These pioneers have identified core practices for an Integral Education:

  • explore multiple perspectives – this means honouring multiple realities (as true but partial)
  • include multiple ways of learning – allow for the contributions of me, you, we and they
  • weave together the domains of self, culture and nature – respect the interconnection of people, place and planet
  • recognize the value of both critical thinking and the power of personal experience – honour logic and feeling
  • recognize learners and teachers both progress through developmental stages – create a habitat where they are aligned to take the next natural step that transforms them both
  • model and encourage personal practise – step out beyond the theory and “walk the talk” by experimenting, testing and coaching
  • embrace multiple intelligences - recognize the genius of relating as well as the genius of kinesthetics, art, math, music, spatiality ++++
  • take advantage of different types of learners and teachers – ensure learning is delivered with “different strokes for different folks”
  • don’t hide the shadows – but create the conditions for teachers and students to face and resolve dark histories, personal barriers and cultural trauma
  • honour differing approaches to education - invite in the strengths and accept the limits of traditional, wholistic, transformative, conventional and alternative approaches to learning

Read more about the history, approaches, case studies and future of Education Systems for Integral City 2.0 through the books Igniting Brilliance: Integral Education for the 21st Century and Integral Education: New Directions for Higher Learning.

References

Dea, W. (Ed.). (2010). Igniting Brilliance: Integral Education for the 21st Century. Tuscon, Arizona: Integral Publishers, LLC.

Esbjörn-Hargens, S., Reams, J., & Gunnlaugson (Eds.). (2010). Integral Education: New Directions for Higher Learning. Albany, NY: State University of New York.

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Occupy the Voice of the Civic Manager

Posted in Building - Structures, C. Collective Intelligences, city, tagged , , , , , on December 12, 2011 | 4 Comments »


Who #occupies the Voice of the Civic Manager?  When everyone else is speaking at #occupy city square, who’s ears are occupied by the Civic Manager’s words? The voice of the Civic Manager speaks for senior leaders in city hall, the healthcare system, the justice system, the school system, and the library system. The Civic Manager calls forth conditions for the Integral City to run effectively across all sectors. The voice calls for civic order and safety. Sometimes it sounds as systematic as an air traffic controller, others as logical as an engineer and yet others as strategic as a designer. The voice of the Civic Manager is trained to coordinate the orchestra of city planning, engineering, economic development, transportation, waste and water management, energy distribution, street maintenance, cultural and social planning, emergency and medical services, animal/human interface management and ecological/sustainability strategy. The voice of the Civic Manager recites building standards, maintenance schedules, official agendas and town hall calendars. The Civic Manager’s voice persuades responsibility and accountability across multiple disciplines, sectors and stakeholders.

Occupy the Voice of the Civic Manager and you may be speechless when senior governments downsize and off-load, wondering how to deliver increasing results with declining resources. At the same time the Voice of the Civic Manager occupies a ferris-wheel of accelerating change as city populations have become Global Villages.

Often caught between the opposing expectations of citizens and senior politicos, the Voice of the Civic Manager transposes more keys, translates more lyrics and spans more octaves than any other voice in the Integral City .

The Voice of the Civic Manager occupies the channels we depend on for our daily existence in the Integral City.

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Sense in the City News Update June 2011 – Cycles of Life in the City

Posted in Classroom course, Lifecycle, tagged , , , on June 22, 2011 |


June Solstice Greetings, Integral City-zens and Friends of Integral City  

 Today’s Integral City Sparkie for the City Body :

 Cultural cohesion can be measured through metrics tracking energetic noise and resonance.

Hamilton, M., 2008, Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligences for the Human Hive, p.299

 The generational wave is a supra-wave of human life patterns that embraces many of the waves in the Integral City. Embracing the waves of consciousness, values and capacity development in holons and social holons, four age cohorts are currently connecting on the Integral City dance floors of the world. These generational cohorts Grok, Talk, Walk and Rock the life conditions and mindsets that influence the emergence of evolutions and revolutions for succeeding generations. We are surmising that the news stories that masquerade as gender differences, cultural clashes and political uprisings may be rooted in unique city cultures differentiated by generational demographics and value sets. (From upcoming article, Generational Cycles, Saecula and Cities: How Do Integral Artists, Boomers, Gen X and Millennial Generations Impact City Values and Policy Development?by Marilyn Hamilton & Cherie Beck.)

Here are some quick updates on the cycle of life flowing through Integral City activities in the season ahead.

  1. Our first Integral City/You Tube Video gives an Introduction to “What is an Integral City?”.  It’s a quick 10 minutes and you can watch it with a click here.
  2. Globe Forum announced the winner of the Sustainable City Awards 2010 . Songpa Korea received this award at the Globe Forum in Stockholm May 11 & 12, 2011.
  3. Join Integral City at Summer 2011 Learning Events:
    1. July 9, 2011 World Future Society’s Annual Conference in Vancouver, Canada. Integral City is joined by Barbara Marx-Hubbard, Cherie Beck and Vanessa Fisher in the Generational Exploration of Grok, Talk, Walk, Rock: Choreographing Four Generations in the City. Click here for details and registration.
    2. July 8, 2011 World Future Society’s Annual Conference in Vancouver, Canada. Integral City welcomes Dr. Don Beck, Elza Maalouf and Said Dawlabani as they get up front and personal about the Bridging Great Divides and Multiple Futures the Middle East. Click here for details and registration.
    3. July 14-17, 2011, Center for Human Emergence Canada is sponsoring, Spiral Dynamics integral Foundations course in Edmonton, Alberta. Our Focus is Connect to the Simplicity Within the Complexity of Our Times. Click here for details and registration.
    4. July 25-27, 2011, Royal Roads University Sustainable Community Development Graduate Certificate concludes with the Capstone Residency Presentation to Colwood’s Climate Action Plan.
    5. August 22, 2011, University of Oslo, Norway welcomes Integral City to present a workshop on “Meshworking Resilience in the Human Hive: Aligning Excellence, Releasing Leadership”. Email us for details.
    6.  August 24-28, Experience Integral, Venwoude, Netherlands, faculty with Barrett Brown, Irini Rockwell, Willow Dea, Anouk Brack and others for Embodying Integral Sustainability. Click here for details and registration.
    7.  August 29-30, University of Wageningen, Netherlands. Lecture and Workshop: “Meshworking Urban and Rural Community Interests”. Email us for details.

 

      4. Recent Blog Postings from marilyn.integralcity.com include:

Spiritual Practices for Dealing with the News

Systems and Resilience Cycles for Sendai Restoration

Crisis of Decision Making: What Underlies Our Inability to Respond to Climate Change

Are Diasporas Potential Meshworkable Cultural Accelerators?

12 Intelligence Principles for Integral City to Celebrate on Earth Day

Almere Principles Guide City Growth

3 Research Studies Revealing Integral City Patterns for Leaders & Policy Makers

…meshful blessings for this season of body energy … 

 Marilyn

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Connect to the Simplicity Within the Complexity of Our Times

Posted in Classroom course, F. Training, tagged , , , , , on June 20, 2011 | 1 Comment »


The Values That Move us Through Conflict to Understanding -
Discover the Foundations of Spiral Dynamics integral* in Edmonton, July 14-17, 2011.

Why do people make such different decisions, given the same information and opportunities? How do
values develop and spread among people? How can we bring our diverse ways of thinking to create a
community that feels good to all of us? How can we make our way through conflict constructively in the
workplace and in our communities?

Over the years I have found that, Spiral Dynamics integral (SDi) is a model for people who think about complex systems –
neighbourhoods, communities, corporations and organizations. It is a way of understanding the
different values or “world views” that people use to make their decisions. Using SDi, leaders can
reduce the tensions in those differences, and create positive change in social and business
systems.

Based on the research of Clare Graves, Don Beck and Ken Wilber, this 3 day course reveals a
complex adaptive model for leadership, team, organizational and community development. You will
explore value conflicts with the intention of seeing opportunities move forward concretely.
SDi offers you tools to:
• Communicate with, and motivate, people in ways that matter to them.
• Construct organizations and relationships that align with the work to be done, the people
who will be doing it, the management that fits those people and the technologies that apply
naturally.
• Weave people, purpose, priorities, profits, programs and processes to bring about change
that is ecologically informed and operationally integrated.
• Discover the origins, foundations and common tributaries that generate human value
systems over time.
• Learn how human values show up and connect individuals, teams, organizations,
communities, regions, countries and the globe.
• Explore the themes generated by value systems in human history and current affairs, and
how they inform our choices in todayʼs complexities.
• See how value systems contribute to the quality and health of our communities,
governments, health institutions, education systems, economic agreements, financial
institutions, production processes, and leadership codes.
• Explore how value systems affect our perceptions, choices, decisions and relationships.

Who attends SDi learning events?
• environmental leaders
• change managers
• city managers
• technology leaders
• health care leaders
• social service leaders
• community leaders
• HR and OD practitioners
• community developers
• entrepreneurs for the 21st C
• university presidents, faculty and admin
• senior leaders in finance, economics
• senior government leaders
• manufacturers
• coaches, mentors
• young president organizations
• resource management leaders
• community planners
• analysts, strategists
• education and learning leaders
• board members

Instructors
Marilyn Hamilton PhD CGA, is the founder of Integral City Meshworks Inc. She supports teams,
projects, and organizations across Canada to chart new directions and strategies for themselves
and their communities. Marilyn is a researcher, facilitator, teacher, writer and blogger. Marilyn
serves as faculty at Royal Roads University, the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser
University, JFK University, The Banff Centre, California Institute of Integral Studies and the Adizes
Graduate School.
Marilyn applies Spiral Dynamics and Integral tools across Canada and internationally by serving
executives of multinational companies, as community foundation president, chamber of commerce
president, designer of sustainable community development programs and as the developer of
Integral Vital Signs Monitor for City Wellbeing. Marilyn is the Canadian leader of Spiral Dynamics in
the Integral Age, a charter member of the Integral Institute, and represents Canada at the Center for
Human Emergence International. She is author of Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligences for the
Human Hive, and a jury member of the Globe Sustainable City Awards. Marilyn is a co-founder of
the Center for Human Emergence: Canada

Beth Sanders BA MCP MCIP RPP, is the founder and President of POPULUS Community
Planning Inc., where she is engaged by individuals, communities, corporations and organizations
seeking to align people, purpose, priorities, profits, programs and processes. As a city planner,
Beth is regularly in the heart of conflict and political wrangling, ranging from siting hog farms or
homeless shelters, to the chaos of building North Americaʼs fastest growing city: Fort McMurray.
Beth applies Spiral Dynamics and Integral tools across Canada with elected officials and municipal
administrators, public and private corporations, a universityʼs board of governors, numerous
community boards, as faculty at the University of Alberta and Brandon University, on the board of
the Community Planning Association of Alberta, and as a convener of tough conversations that lead
to wise action. She received the Mayorʼs Medal in Urban Issues (Winnipeg) for her work in public
engagement. Beth is president of the Alberta Professional Planners Institute and a co-founder of
the Center for Human Emergence: Canada.

For Details and Registration
Full course details and online registration:
http://integralcity.com/discovery-zone/workshops-and-training_current%20trainings.html

*Accredited by Dr. Don Beck, Founder of the Center for Human Emergence and The Spiral Dynamics Group

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Integral City Intelligences for Sustainable City Class

Posted in A. Contexting Intelligences, B. Individual Intelligences, Building - Structures, C. Collective Intelligences, city, climate, D. Strategic Intelligences, E. Evolutionary Intelligences, Ecosphere, Emergence, Inner, Inquiry, Integral Maps, Lifecycle, Master Intelligence, Meshworking, Navigating - IVSM, Outer, Storytelling - Cultures, tagged , , , , , , on February 14, 2011 | 2 Comments »


I spent last week at Royal Roads University delivering the first Residency of the Sustainability Graduate Certificate. Ten students from across Canada provided a rigorous proving ground for the Integral City approach to sustainability.

Using the Integral City Compass to prove the design with three leverage points, here is what we did.

Integral City Compass  

Starting from the centre, we took an Evolutionary perspective on sustainability, change and transformation for the city. What makes a city sustainable changes over time.

In the second circle of the compass, we painted the floor with the Integral quadrants: I, We, It, Its. We used the quadrants to situate our exploration of all the selves in the room: for example using MBTI for the Upper Left Inner I and the Eco-Footprints for the Upper Right Outer It. We used the Integral City MeshScanLite to explore the Cultural We and the Social/Structural Its quadrants, creating a virtual “pseudo-community” called SCDVille (pronounced “seedville”). In this way we discovered who was in the room from the perspectives of our personality profiles, what actions we were taking that contributed to sustainability (or not) and what quality of life our cultures and systems afforded us – and how did they affect our mental models.

In the third circle of the compass, we experimented with a number of Strategies that contributed to our Inquiry (such as Open Space and Interview Matrix), Navigation (examining the Climate Action Plan data for our Community of Interest, Colwood) and Meshworking (Conversation Cafe).

In the outer circle of the compass, we explored the Contexting frames for examining sustainability for the City of Colwood, BC. How its Stakeholders and its Official Community Plan mapped into the Integral Framework. How the Living cycles of generations were changing the experience of the city – including the Mayor whose own family had experienced change as fishers, loggers and car sales retailers. How the Ecology of Colwood - being located on the Esquimalt Lagoon with an urban forest heat-synch in its very midst on the Royal Roads University campus. And how Emergent conditions were creating opportunities for Colwood to become solar through a federally supported initiative called Solar Colwood - a project where human structures (solar roofs) will contribute to positive energy production and reduction of GHG.

The classroom test of any approach to studying an issue, discipline or reality is to see if students, instructors and in Case Studies ( like the city of Colwood) can reveal a platform that enables learning, creativity, integration and practise.  When the Mayor of Colwood pointed to the I/We/It inclusiveness of the stakeholders of Colwood as an indication of an effective plan – that seemed to be a seminal moment when the Integral City approach translated from theory to classroom to city, key concepts for both the study of sustainability and the growth of sustainability practices.

I must say it was a deeply moving experience where I saw the Integral City Master Intelligence in practice: Students, Instructors and Community taking care of themselves, taking care of each other and taking care of a particular place, Colwood – that represents the value of all precious world places. I am deeply grateful.

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October 2010 Sense in the City News Update

Posted in A. Contexting Intelligences, B. Individual Intelligences, C. Collective Intelligences, D. Strategic Intelligences, Storytelling - Cultures, tagged , , , , , on October 14, 2010 |


October Greetings, Integral City-zens and Friends of Integral City  

Today’s Integral City Sparkie for the City Heart:

 When the energy from battles [in the city] has transformed relationships, and inquiry has born fruit, the cadence shifts to one of creativity. A creative rhythm is characterized by the flex and flow of cool jazz, where the performance of individuals intertwines with the team work of the group. The container is full of potential and brimming over with innovative proactivity. 

Hamilton, M., 2008, Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligences for the Human Hive, p.268

 It is a propitious time of harvest in the North, and planting in the South. And with the joyous celebration of the miners from the deep immersion in Chile’s gateway to Gaia’s depths, it is amazing to see how the focus of sustaining and saving LIFE has opened the doorways of collaboration across sectors, disciplines, cultures, nations and continents. What potential does such an apparent catastrophe reveal in the heart of homo sapiens sapiens??  

 We share hopeful news, announcements and invitations from around the world …  

  1. Nominate your City for Globe Forum, Sustainable City Awards 2010 (in Stockholm in May, 2011). Find the details and invitation links here http://marilyn.integralcity.com/2010/10/13/sustainbale-city-awards-2010/
  2. Attend Business Innovation for Sustainable Growth. Globe Forum Dublin in November 17-18, 2010. Marilyn Hamilton, Keynote Speaker on Integral City Innovation, Evolution & Resilience http://www.globeforum.com/
  3. Register for Royal Roads University, Victoria, BC, Nov. 22, 2010 The Human Hive: Creating Intelligent Livable Cities  http://www.royalroads.ca/continuing-studies/CYGLEL2241-Y10.htm
  4. Download PDF of Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Community Development Grad Certificate at Royal Roads University, January 2011– July, 2011  – http://integralcity.com/discovery-zone/workshops-and-training_RRU.html
  5. Join Barrett Brown for a Course in Conscious Leadership for Sustainability starting in October in Amsterdam. Details and brochure can be found here: http://www.schoolofsynnervation.nl/en/news_201007_Conscious_Sust.php
  6. What if we aren’t planning to survive?  Join Alberta Professional Planners Institute at their annual conference, Lake Louise AB, October 17-19, 2010. Join us.  http://www.spoken-herd.ca/index.php
  7. Kudos to Steve Cottrell, Town Manager, Windsor Vermont for posting an RFP for an Integral Sustainability initiative. If you have capacities in Sustainability, Permaculture and Corrections/Inmate Rehabilitation and are open to creative engagement/collaboration check out the RFP here:  http://www.bgs.state.vt.us/pca/bids/pdf/RFP%20-%20Windsor%20Sustainability%20Initiatives.pdf .    For informal inquires email Steve Cottrell [stcottrell@gmail.com]
  8. Attend Renaissance2, Oct. 21-25, 2010, Thrive! Gathering: Real Challenges, Inspired Innovators, Transformative Outcomes http://www.renaissance2.eu/events/event-detail.php?id=498975449
  9. Join the Dialogue with Terry Patten and 27 spiritual leaders at Beyond Awakening Free Teleseminar Series http://beyondawakeningseries.com/
  10. Pre-Register for the workshop Jan. 2011:  Grok, Talk, Walk and Rock Spiral Change Agendas for All the Generations in Integral City  Pre-Register rockchange@integralcity.com
  11. Ongoing Integral City Resources:

…meshful blessings for new potentials south, east, west … 

Marilyn Hamilton PhD CGA

Founder & President, Integral City Meshworks Inc.

www.integralcity.com 

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