Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Cohousing and Sociocracy

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On Jan 7, 2007, at 2:10 PM, maggiedutton wrote:

> Hi Sharon...the workshop/study group sounds exciting...will there be 
> any way
> that those of us at a distance who are interested can participate in 
> some
> way?  What about video taping the workshop?  Could we be included in 
> the
> discussion group by email.  Would you consider some teleconferencing?  
> We
> are going to get a video camera soon and are thinking about videoing
> meetings to be able to let people who have not experienced a 
> sociocratic
> meeting to see how it goes.

Personally, I have reached the point of being technologically 
exhausted. Each new technology promises wonders and just presents more 
complexity and confusion, requires a lot of money to do well, and 
requires a lot of time.

I'm reminded of the response from a computer lab director when I asked 
what it meant that the college had just put a digital phone on my desk. 
She said, "It means you are going to be very unhappy for a very long 
time and then you won't notice." She was right -- it took months to get 
the phones working with the building and then no one noticed. We not 
only didn't notice that we had digital phones, we didn't notice any 
improvement in service either!

Inclusion is a problem since geographic location is limiting. I'm doing 
the face to face workshop and study group here so I can work with 
diagrams and charts with real people from established communities -- 
this one is very focused sociocracy in residential communities. BUT I 
have set up an email discussion group specifically to discuss this 
issue and it is open to everyone who is interested in applying 
sociocracy in residential communities including condos, coops, 
cohousing, ecovillages, homeowner associations, etc.

buildingcommunityinfo-subscribe [at] yahoogroups.com

I will help maintain an ongoing very focused discussion there.

> .  H.O.M.E.S. has
> been operating Sociocratically since 2004 with mainly theory to guide 
> us.
> That is good news that your book will be published soon...we really 
> need the
> exposure and the text book tool.

The writing for the book is complete! I had no idea how long a project 
like this would take but I'm planning on an April publication.

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
Coauthor with John Buck of the forthcoming
We the People: Consenting to a Deeper Democracy
The Complete Guide to Sociocratic Principles and Methods
http://www.sociocracy.info