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A Summary Guide to Open Conversations
Guided, open conversations build trust and offer starting points for entrepreneurs and large organizations to identify local creativity for collaboration and capacity building.
How conversations bring value to local economies are summarized below from an interview George Nemeth, Founder and Chief Blogging Officer, Brewed Fresh Daily contributed to The Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) January 2008, in Collinwood, Ohio. George is known for his natural talent to engage people in public discussion and dialogue.
Q: What are Open Conversations? What is the value of Open Conversations?
- Open conversations means an intention to be inclusive – not necessarily "open to the public" – but with people who want to participate.
- Contributors need to adhere to certain behaviors (not a free-for-all – if you choose to become a part of the conversation you need to behave in certain ways) and not intentionally steer the conversation toward your own agenda.
- Contributors need to use a method of inquiry that is appreciative.
- There needs to be a shared open mindedness and a sense to be inclusive.
- The value of openness is that it has to do with being participatory – they are here to engage with us and we are here to engage with them, too.
- People we have are dynamic and we need to be as energetic.
- What you give, you will learn, you have more of a deeper understanding (a more complex understanding – as information comes up, questions get asked) this is much more of an integrated approach to learning.
- A person needs to offer what they know – allowing the conversation to expand to the level of a quantum dialogue – an extended learning that goes beyond just giving explanations, which are fine upto a certain point, but beyond that it is the experiential and on-site aspects that are important for this kind of learning.
- The other people who are there have interests in common.
- These are the basic parameters we agree around and this is the value.
- The intersection between creative industries, technology, and energy appeals to a variety of backgrounds. This is only one perspective. I try to play up the diversity aspect.
- There is value in urban areas and their inherent diversity.
- Midtown Brews Open Conversations are a powerful way to engage a community-minded chain of businesses.
You can learn more about George at GeorgeNemeth.com, connect on LinkedIn, and follow George on Twitter.
A Summary Guide to Open Conversations is available for download at I-Open on Scribd.
Learn the wisdom of civic leaders across these I-Open communities:
Copyright 2011 Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License Betsey Merkel and The Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open), 2563 Kingston Road Cleveland OH 44118 Phone: 216-220-0172 Web: http://i-open.posterous.com/