By Peggy Holman
What does it take to change a social system--and an industry like journalism?
A new story of journalism is being born as the old story is dying. At its heart, that new story stays true--and enlarges on--a purpose many journalists hold dear: "to provide people with the information they need to be free and self-governing" (Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel).
For nine years, Journalism That Matters (JTM) has:
- Engaged people from all aspects of journalism: print, broadcast, and new media; editors, reporters, bloggers, audience, reformers, educators, and others;
- Created space for conversations about what matters most;
- Worked with what's emerging for news and information in a democracy.
In Seattle this January, JTM hosted 240+ people from mass media and hyperlocal media, entrepreneurs, technologists, academics, students, nonprofit organizers, artists, activists, and others to consider the question:
What's possible for our region when journalists and the public come together?
The 3 1/2-day conference began with a "News and Information Commons," in which Northwest media organizations shared their work through informal displays and conversation. The evening program featured three "conversation catalysts." Each spoke for 10 minutes on journalism and civic engagement. Norman Rice, former Seattle mayor and president of the Seattle Foundation, spoke for the people. Tracy Record, former newspaper reporter and now publisher and editor of the West Seattle Blog, spoke for the press. Chris Jordan, a visual artist, provided a systems-oriented twist to storytelling that engaged the heart as well as the mind.
Attendees then participated in several rounds of World Café conversations, moving between groups of four, cross-pollinating ideas, and discovering new insights into the questions or issues that are important to them.
The rest of the conference used Open Space Technology, a process through which participants self-organize, setting the agenda based on individual passions and interests. Each day began with a plenary to organize the agenda. The day also ended with a plenary, to reflect on emerging themes. Captured eloquently by student participant Amy Rainey, the themes included:
- Passion. "At this time of transformation, we all need to connect with our feelings and care, and put that caring into our work," artist Chris Jordan told the audience during an opening night speech. "It's time to take the templates off and speak authentic human being to authentic human being." This idea of showing passion in our work--and showing love for the communities we cover--came up repeatedly.
- Community. We quickly learned that generations define communities differently. For younger people, our communities are online, not necessarily based on geography.
- Collaboration. On Saturday, I tweeted that the word of the day was "collaboratory." By Sunday, a group was working on plans for a JTMPNW collaboratory, a learning lab for entrepreneurial projects and nourishing connections, and tying the idea to the creation of a civic commons.
- Engagement. Journalists need to stop talking to their audience and instead engage in a conversation with them.
- Media Literacy. In an information-packed world in which everyone is a journalist, the public needs better training about evaluating news sources and information for accuracy and credibility.
- Hyperlocal. Several discussions focused on the need for collaboration between hyperlocal neighborhood bloggers and mass media. On the final day, a large group worked on building a roadmap for mass media and hyperlocal journalists to work together and find financial sustainability.
- Government Coverage. Many participants were concerned about the effect that cutbacks at traditional media outlets have had on state and local government coverage. But we also learned about new projects to solve this problem. One attendee, Trevor Griffey, is starting a nonprofit site called Olympia Newswire to cover this year's legislative session and revitalize statehouse reporting.
- Business Models. Creating new business models was, of course, a big part of the conversation. "It doesn't have to be one model. It can be lots of small revenue streams," I overheard someone say. Those revenue streams include memberships, foundations, grants, advertising, holding events, subscriptions, and so on.
If there's one thing we all learned, it's that the opportunities for collaboration and experimentation are endless in our new news ecology.
JTM did a great job using social media and aggregating that information. You can read notes from the various sessions on the JTM wiki, catch up on the tweets, view photos, and watch videos. If you're interested in joining this conversation and attending future events, join the LinkedIn group.
Moving Forward
On the final morning, the group identified its next steps. Session notes are posted, and the work continues.
Peggy Holman hosts conversations that matter, inviting people to gather around the issues most important to them and move their dreams into action. Her book, The Change Handbook, co-edited with Tom Devane and Steven Cady, has been warmly received by people wishing to increase resilience, connection, collaboration, and aliveness in their organizations and communities.
By Vicky Schubert
In his opening remarks to a 2002 gathering of school reform advocates, Dr. Theodore Sizer expressed with characteristic clarity the challenge they faced: "We stand behind an old, but enduring idea, a conservative idea in the best sense, that the American dream of a democracy driven by informed and committed citizens is both an aspiration and a necessity. We believe that we are currently falling short in meeting this end, and that we must think anew about how to achieve it."
Sizer, who died last week, was a role model to many systems thinkers and one of the most influential voices in the movement to find and apply new educational approaches in the U.S. A former dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Sizer founded the Annenberg Institute for School Reform and the Coalition of Essential Schools, a national network of schools and individuals devoted to "creating and sustaining personalized, equitable, and intellectually challenging schools."
Throughout his career, Sizer challenged traditional notions of what constitutes excellence in education. He rejected large systems and a reliance on excessive standardization as mere "crowd control." Time and again, Sizer stressed the importance of personalization and rigorous academic engagement for both students and teachers.
Schools, Sizer believed, should be most concerned with igniting students' passion for learning and helping them develop the habits of mind necessary to respond to real-world challenges. "The real world is not a series of set, pre-digested answers," he said in an interview with John Merrow, "the real world is a set of questions. One of the most important things kids can learn in school is that there aren't always nice clean answers to good questions."
Key to engaging students' deepest interests, Sizer believed, was the principle that "less is more," and that curricular decisions should be guided by the aim of thorough student mastery and achievement rather than by an effort to merely cover content. In other words, as Howard Gardner explains, "Rather than try to cram thousands of facts into a kid's head, decide what's really important and spend more time on it, on powerful concepts, rather than trivia that they forget after the test is over." This idea, along with nine others central to the philosophy of the Coalition of Essential Schools (CES), are captured in a list of "common principles," a set of shared beliefs about the purpose and practice of schooling.
In the fall 2009 issue of the CES journal, Horace--named for the composite high school teacher Sizer had created for a series of influential books he published in the '80s and '90s--author Kathleen Cushman shared her thoughts about the impact of Ted Sizer's life and work: "His lucid words, which changed the way people all over the world now think and speak of school, cut through the rhetoric of 'reform' and trained our gaze acutely on the students at the center. What are these interesting young people doing, what are they thinking, what can we learn from each other? I can see him now, belief and expectation lighting his face as he went right to the kids in the room, to commence another conversation that could change the world." The many important conversations initiated by Sizer will be only part of his lasting personal and professional legacy.
Vicky Schubert is marketing director of Pegasus Communications.
By Janice Molloy
The recent incident between Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cambridge, Massachusetts, police sergeant James Crowley has sparked a lively--and sometimes ugly--debate on the state of race relations in the U.S. Even President Obama entered the fray, making an ill-advised comment about the matter and then wisely backtracking. The case illustrates how easily a routine encounter can deteriorate when it involves two people who, because of history and experience, hold vastly different worldviews.
In case you missed it, on July 16, a passerby noticed two men struggling to enter a residence on a leafy street near Harvard University and called 911 to report a possible break-in. It turns out that the men--Professor Gates and his driver--were forcing open a jammed door in the esteemed scholar's home. When Sgt. Crowley arrived to investigate, he asked for Gates's identification to verify that he lived in the house; Gates in turn demanded Crowley's name and badge number. The situation escalated, and the officer ended up arresting Gates for disorderly conduct; the charges were later dropped.
The details of what ensued are still under debate; depending on which perspective you hear, it's either a matter of a white police officer racially profiling a black man, or a black man overreacting to a request by a white cop. What is clear is that each man reacted based on his own preconceived mental framework. In an excellent analysis, "What They Saw During the Gates Arrest," Associated Press columnist Jesse Washington summed up the situation: "Crowley asks Gates to prove he lives there. . . . Gates sees a racist. . . . Crowley sees someone who should be grateful, but instead is yelling and falsely accusing him of being a racist. . . . Neither man understood what the other one saw." And each man felt disrespected by the other.
The "ladder of inference," pioneered by business theorist Chris Argyris, illustrates how and why we leap to knee-jerk conclusions in our encounters with others--and gives guidance 
for climbing back down. In a nutshell, from our observations, we unconsciously and instantaneously select data, based on our cultural norms, background, and other factors. We then add meaning, make assumptions, and draw conclusions--often incomplete or erroneous--about why other people are behaving the way they are. Finally, we take action. From our interpretations of the data, our actions make perfect sense to us, but they may not correspond to the other person's "reality." When two emotionally charged perspectives conflict, the situation can easily spin out of control.
When Crowley and Gates meet over beer at the White House this evening, perhaps they will chat about the recent trades by the Red Sox or commiserate about the steamy weather we've had in Massachusetts this week. But I hope they'll also engage in a respectful exchange about the contradictory worldviews that led each to act the way he did. Maybe by calmly listening to one other and stating their own truths, they'll be able to change the filters with they approach the world. And maybe by witnessing this instance of "beer diplomacy," the rest of us will take lessons for looking before we leap up the ladder in our own encounters.
Janice Molloy is content director of Pegasus Communications and managing editor of The Systems Thinker.
by Janice Molloy
"Look, there's a blue jay!" I pointed toward a towering evergreen tree.
"Where? Where?" my daughter asked, eyes sca
nning for a glimpse. Just that morning, we had been talking about birds. My son had spotted a male cardinal in the yard and commented favorably on his colorful plumage. P mentioned her admiration for blue jays, and, coincidence of coincidence, one was waiting to greet us on our afternoon walk.
But despite my best efforts, P couldn't pick out the bird. I pointed, I described where in the tree it was, I even put my hands on either side of her head to point her in the right direction. Not until the bird flew away was she finally able to spot it, drawn by the movement.
This small vignette made me wonder how often I try to get others to see my point of view--and walk away frustrated when they fail to "get it." It doesn't happen too frequently, but when it does, the communication barriers feel deeper than the Mariana Trench. How can something that is so clear to me--a product idea, a new way of looking at problem, a previous agreement, a bird in a tree--be so murky to someone else?
I know about the concept of mental models, and that our experiences, biology, and culture all contribute to our vision of the world. These structures filter and affect what we perceive. For this reason, your reality can be quite different from mine, even when we're experiencing the same thing.
Wouldn't it be nice if, in those moments of utter disconnection, we could find a way to plug into each other? Short of having USB ports installed in our brains, we have to use the tools we have--our words, our ability to listen, our desire to connect, our empathy.
In thinking back to the afternoon walk, I wondered what I could have done differently. How could I have helped my daughter to see the bird? The answer came to me: Rather than just asking her to look through my eyes, I could have tried to look through hers, too. I could have asked, "Tell me what you see" or "Where are you looking?" By taking her point of view, I might have been able to guide her to mine.
In organizational learning lingo, that's called "inquiry." But I may just start thinking of it as "ornithological learning."
Janice Molloy is content director of Pegasus Communications and managing editor of The Systems Thinker newsletter.
blue jay photo: Cody Hough