George Pór's Posts - The Downing Street Project / network2024-03-28T10:24:10ZGeorge Pórhttp://thedowningstreetproject.ning.com/profile/GeorgePorhttp://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2197448562?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1http://thedowningstreetproject.ning.com/profiles/blog/feed?user=Technoshaman&xn_auth=nocelebrating you!tag:thedowningstreetproject.ning.com,2010-03-08:2715135:BlogPost:51012010-03-08T15:00:00.000ZGeorge Pórhttp://thedowningstreetproject.ning.com/profile/GeorgePor
<h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message"><span class="UIStory_Message">Celebrating the 100th International Women's Day, here's to you, female friends, a bouquet of fantasy flowers: <a href="http://www.worldcitizenpanels.org/profiles/blogs/celebrating-women-and">http://www.worldcitizenpanels.org/profiles/blogs/celebrating-women-and</a> .<a href="http://bit.ly/9TmKsO" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"></a></span></h3>
<h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message"><span class="UIStory_Message">Celebrating the 100th International Women's Day, here's to you, female friends, a bouquet of fantasy flowers: <a href="http://www.worldcitizenpanels.org/profiles/blogs/celebrating-women-and">http://www.worldcitizenpanels.org/profiles/blogs/celebrating-women-and</a> .<a href="http://bit.ly/9TmKsO" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"></a></span></h3>Women and men, we are better togethertag:thedowningstreetproject.ning.com,2009-09-13:2715135:BlogPost:45822009-09-13T08:30:00.000ZGeorge Pórhttp://thedowningstreetproject.ning.com/profile/GeorgePor
BBC's Caludine Parrishn produced a great program on why we need more women in leadership. I've just caught the last couple of minutes of it on BBC World News. It was a beautifully crafted show. I don't know what was its title but someone with links to BBC could get in touch with them and try to get a copy of the program. It would be great to re-use in various actions and contexts of DSP.<br />
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The program featured students of the London Business School, organized into a male-only and a mixed team,…
BBC's Caludine Parrishn produced a great program on why we need more women in leadership. I've just caught the last couple of minutes of it on BBC World News. It was a beautifully crafted show. I don't know what was its title but someone with links to BBC could get in touch with them and try to get a copy of the program. It would be great to re-use in various actions and contexts of DSP.<br />
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The program featured students of the London Business School, organized into a male-only and a mixed team, both with the same task of brainstorming on the design of a new office environment. We saw the footage of both teams and some striking differences between them. The mixed team had less holding back, more attention to the holistic, relational aspect of the design, while the male-only team got lost in the minutiae.<br />
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There were also statistics about % of women in the board rooms:<br />
Norway - 44.2%<br />
UK - 11.5%<br />
Italy 2.1 %<br />
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The high percentage in Norway explained by the fat that it is enforced by the law. The MP who introduced it was a male, a member of a conservative party, who argued or the bill not on equality basis, but on good business grounds.<br />
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The head of the European Professional Women's Network was interviewed, who said very wise things. I loved, "women and men, we are better together."<br />
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If somebody can find out from the BBC how we can get hold of the tape, I woiuld love to watch it again because I missed the beginning; so please let me know.Power, Powerlessness, and the Myth of Oppressiontag:thedowningstreetproject.ning.com,2009-08-14:2715135:BlogPost:42412009-08-14T18:01:40.000ZGeorge Pórhttp://thedowningstreetproject.ning.com/profile/GeorgePor
Interesting integral essay on <a href="http://coreywdevos.com/2009/08/13/power-powerlessness-and-the-myth-of-oppression/" target="_blank">Power, Powerlessness, and the Myth of Oppression</a> by Corey W. deVos.
Interesting integral essay on <a href="http://coreywdevos.com/2009/08/13/power-powerlessness-and-the-myth-of-oppression/" target="_blank">Power, Powerlessness, and the Myth of Oppression</a> by Corey W. deVos.Androgyny, nowtag:thedowningstreetproject.ning.com,2009-07-20:2715135:BlogPost:36232009-07-20T15:30:00.000ZGeorge Pórhttp://thedowningstreetproject.ning.com/profile/GeorgePor
Inspired by the conversations here, I've just posted "Androgyny, now", a new entry in <a href="http://technoshaman.gaia.com/blog/2009/7/androgyny-now" target="_blank">my other blog</a>.<br />
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If you feel that exploration is relevant to the DSP work, and prefer to comment on it here, please Add Comment below.
Inspired by the conversations here, I've just posted "Androgyny, now", a new entry in <a href="http://technoshaman.gaia.com/blog/2009/7/androgyny-now" target="_blank">my other blog</a>.<br />
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If you feel that exploration is relevant to the DSP work, and prefer to comment on it here, please Add Comment below.Vision, strategy, structure of engagementtag:thedowningstreetproject.ning.com,2009-07-18:2715135:BlogPost:35642009-07-18T21:30:00.000ZGeorge Pórhttp://thedowningstreetproject.ning.com/profile/GeorgePor
Indra <a href="http://thedowningstreetproject.ning.com/xn/detail/2715135:Comment:3297?" target="_blank">wrote</a>:<br />
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> That we should even separate our days into Work and Life is symptomatic of our inability to recognise and integrate the many diverse ways we create value.<br />
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I feel lucky to be alive in a time when there are fast-growing number of women and men who don’t want to bow anymore to the tyranny of the multi-millennial division of work and play.<br />
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I am also lucky because my work and…
Indra <a href="http://thedowningstreetproject.ning.com/xn/detail/2715135:Comment:3297?" target="_blank">wrote</a>:<br />
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> That we should even separate our days into Work and Life is symptomatic of our inability to recognise and integrate the many diverse ways we create value.<br />
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I feel lucky to be alive in a time when there are fast-growing number of women and men who don’t want to bow anymore to the tyranny of the multi-millennial division of work and play.<br />
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I am also lucky because my work and play/passion for facilitating evolutionary transformation in self, organisations and society are not different. It was not always like that. There were stretches of time in my life when I experienced how meaningless work can rob my life from its creative juices. Knowing the difference between then and now makes me an even more resolved advocate of a society guided by a dance of equals: Play and Care (Pat Kane), Reason and Instinct (Indra), or the forces of the feminine and masculine, from which the whole universe is built, not only the in stories about Shakti and Shiva but also what modern science is teaching us.<br />
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> We know that lasting political change only occurs when the people change, creating, in turn, a new context for the emergence of different structures and policy.<br />
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Yes, new principles and structures governance unfold from profound changes in the social relations of value creation and the socially mediated relations between women and men. Not only no man won't be free until all women are, but also vice versa. Socially defined gender roles that oppress both women and men, albeit differently, are the last bastion of our alienation from the wholeness of who we are. I joined DSP to declare my solidarity with my sisters (and brothers) who choose to go for destroying that bastion.<br />
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> However, what causes them to develop? To move from a passive yearning to an active self-development?<br />
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The moment of asking those questions feels to me the perfect moment to redirect our attention from “them,” and ask ourselves, what causes the questioners to develop? Self-reflection and the observation of the changes in life conditions that influence the transition to broader, more encompassing value systems are rich sources of an understanding that goes deeper than intellect.<br />
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> Consider the effect of Obama on global politics. He has given so many people a new vision of what is possible - not just for the US, but also within their own countries.<br />
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Yes, and during the campaign I rejoiced in visiting <a href="http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/hqblog" target="_blank">his site</a> and reading the inspiring message in the top banner, which he said, “I’m asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington… I’m asking in believing in yours.” We all knew that it was not just some empty, crowd-pleasing, political rhetoric. It was the collective intelligence and commitment of the millions who were involved with the campaign, which brought him to the White House. He galvanized the future-responsive capacity of the multitudes and it galvanized him.<br />
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Is there an engaging expression of the “Soft Power” vision that can attract a mass movement carrying it into the mainstream? Do we have a strategy and structure of engagement that opens the possibility for a large number of people to coordinate their action? Do those questions reflect too much a masculine way organising? I don’t know and want to find out. Please comment.(Soft) Power to the People! and the revolution starts within…tag:thedowningstreetproject.ning.com,2009-07-03:2715135:BlogPost:32812009-07-03T06:28:36.000ZGeorge Pórhttp://thedowningstreetproject.ning.com/profile/GeorgePor
Reading Indra’s question on my Comment Wall, “Would you like to write something for the site,” I felt a big “Yes!” and wanted to jump to write, right away, but tempered my boyish enthusiasm for two days, out of caring and loving the work that you all are doing here.<br />
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I am still new to this community and am here, mostly, in a listening mode. I feel I can’t contribute anything of much value before sensing more of the field and discovering the resonance between it and my own appreciation of an…
Reading Indra’s question on my Comment Wall, “Would you like to write something for the site,” I felt a big “Yes!” and wanted to jump to write, right away, but tempered my boyish enthusiasm for two days, out of caring and loving the work that you all are doing here.<br />
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I am still new to this community and am here, mostly, in a listening mode. I feel I can’t contribute anything of much value before sensing more of the field and discovering the resonance between it and my own appreciation of an integral politics. The kind of an integral politics I’m thinking of is the one that will be capable to harmonize and build with the synergy of not only the feminine/masculine qualities but other complementary polarities as well, e.g.: autonomy/community, conserving/rebooting, etc.<br />
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Reading the blogs and comment walls, and forums on this site made me curious of how my “internal Downing Street Project” is doing. How well I consumed the marriage of the internal feminine and masculine? Do they inspire each other and have a committed, playful, and always-evolving relationship? Those are questions that my attention keeps returning to, from time to time.<br />
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I also try to sense what are the essential forces present in the emergent social field of authentic conversations around gender relationship and their impact on our social systems. Indra’s blog at Huff Post on “<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/indra-adnan/do-women-need-their-own-s_b_203477.html" target="_blank">Do Women Need Their Own Space?</a>” was very eye-opening to some of those issues. I warmly recommend to read it if you have not yet done so. Unfortunately, at the time of this writing, its “comments” section was closed. It is unfortunately because the subject deserves a high profile public dialogue space even beyond the borders of Britain.<br />
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I believe that transforming our gender relations from competition and dominance to collaboration and partnership is the most foundational issue of our transition to a better world. They affect profoundly all social systems including governance, media, education, and finance, just to name a few.<br />
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What I am also present to in me, is a sense of urgency about increasing the influence in the world of such soft powers as “using intuition and emotional intelligence, making relationships, networking, mediating…” (<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/02/aftergenderneutrality" target="_blank">After Gender Neutrality</a>, in The Guardian)<br />
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That’s because there’s no way to meet the galloping complexity of our intertwined global crises without a massive increase of our collective intelligence and wisdom, which in turn is conditioned on a massive increase of soft power of/in women, men, and our communities.<br />
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How can we do that? Neither I, nor anybody I know has the complete answer. The only thing I know for sure is what’s not needed -- a grand plan and a top-down, “rolling out” approach to implement it. Instead, we may connect our conversations to grow wiser together. I wrote about that approach, <a href="http://www.kosmosjournal.org/kjo/backissue/s2008/connecting-our-conversations.shtml" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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I am fascinated by the possibility of creating a collaborative, participatory action-research, with widening circles of involvement, to discover what may become possible when a critical mass of women (and men) are in their best at using soft power for affecting social innovation and change. Observing what works well at small scale and why, then sensing the conditions necessary to scale it up could be some of the first steps. Appreciative Inquiry and the U Process could be natural allies in the research methodology. Does anybody know of any funding program that could make it possible?<br />
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Finally, just one more sentence about why I am so passionate about seeing and supporting women taking their place, in much larger number, in the leadership of our institutions. It’s a sentence borrowed from a 19th century Russian philosopher. “No one can be free until everybody is.” (Kropotkin). In the context of post-feminist liberation of the soft power, that sentence also means, no man can know what is freedom to realize his full social potential until we create a world where all human institutions are designed to benefit from the proportionate presence of women in guiding them.<br />
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If you are with me so far, then after all these long sentences of my prose you deserve a little <a href="http://technoshaman.gaia.com/blog/2007/2/in_our_every_breath" target="_blank">poetry</a>. :-)<br />
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I’d enjoy hearing from you.<br />
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george