The 2015 International Conference on the Science of Dialogic Design: Symposia for Scientists and Practitioners

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Conference Dates: May 2-7, 2015
Post Conference School: May 8-10 May, 2015

Place: Limassol, Cyprus

Venue: Cyprus University of Technology[1], Amphitheater 2, and Workshop Rooms 1 & 2 at the Tasos Papadopoulos Building

Format: Mixed; Most sessions will use the Structured Dialogic Design Process (SDDP) Methodology; some presentations; very short presentations for specific tasks; contributions to be sent before the actual symposion.

Participation Fees:

  • International participants €200 (€175 if prepaid)
  • Students €25/day
  • SDDP School €45/session (€35 if prepaid)

Payment:
Name of Account Holder: Cyprus Neuroscience & Technology Institute
Address of Account Holder: 5 Promitheos, 1065 Nicosia, CYPRUS
Account Details
IBAN CY09 0020 0128 0000 0001 0186 1900
SWIFT CODE: BCYPCY2N010
Name of Bank: Bank of Cyprus, Branch 128
56 Corner Makariou and 1 Demofontos , Nicosia
Tel. 22127500
Fax 22750590


Organizers: The conference is co-organized by:


Aims:

  1. Create an opportunity for scientists and practitioners of the Science of Dialogic Design (SDD) from across the world to get together for a whole week and engage in structured democratic dialogues that would help us all not only advance the science and plan its future, but also to get to know each other and become friends.
  2. Offer a unique opportunity for younger colleagues and people interested to learn more about the Structured Dialogic Design Process (SDDP) to engage in the science and/or the practice, to meet and interact with world pioneers, as well as to attend specially designed summer school trainings that lead to Certification.
  3. Combine international efforts to achieve global consensus towards conscious evolution of the required social transformations.

Accommodation

Participants should take care of their own accommodation. The conference will take place in conference rooms that belong to the Cyprus University of Technology located that the center of the Limassol Old City. Limassol is a culturally rich city that offers visitors and tourists quality and plentifulness of options. Prices in the beginning of May are lower than the hot season. There are many Hotels inside the city and also along the shore for up to 10-15 Km East of the city. There are easy-to-get buses connecting the tourist zones with the centre.

You may opt for a Hotel close to the City Centre (using the filter in Booking.com) or an apartment even outside the city (much cheaper) to combine business with some vacations. The organisers will try to assign whenever possible Local Assistants to international visitors to help them with their transportation and moving around.

Financial Support and Student scholarships

Fees will be used to support students and a small number of visiting scientists and practitioners who need financial support.


Justification of the Need

The need for far-reaching social transformations in our world is now widely accepted. All stakeholders also accept the fact that changes can also be implemented using participatory, democratic processes. The [[Structured Dialogic Design Process] is positioned as a powerful tool in this context. The purpose of this very timely symposion in Cyprus is not to revisit the history of the past 40 plus year but to create the history of the future. The community of practitioners of the science of dialogic design has now expanded to include people from all parts of the world and a variety of languages and cultures. This dedicated community of scientists will gather for this symposion for a week and will deliberate formally and informally on how to evolve the process and retain its scientific credibility together with its cultural sensitivity.

Furthermore, we recognise the fact that our third millennium world needs new tools that can protect its sustainability and foster up harmony into its evolution. The Symposion will include sessions dedicated to identifying needs, recognising challenges and exploring options for new features and new solutions.

The Symposion is furthermore very relevant to our present state of the world, since it could convey a possible extension of our SDD practices to include the birth of a Global Observatory. This could be managed by a group of us and give a relevant service to governments and companies and NGO's during the whole 21st century. The Global Observatory could be providing information of the results of applications of collaborative action plans in different parts of the world, as well as data, and series of data regarding the main variables that we could establish for a follow-up policy by civilians all around the planet.

In sum, no claim is being made abour the superiority of the Structured Dialogic Design Process, even though there is substantial empirical evidence, from more than 1,000 applications in the arena, to this effect when dealing with the management of complexity. SDDP belongs to the Third Phase of science, and as a consequence it is meant to be complementary to other methodologies originating from First and Second phases of science.


A Glimpse into the Design Aims of the Program

1. Get to know each other and what everyone is doing We intend to invite participants to their 5 minutes of fame by making a short, TEDx-style, presentation. The presentation will be videotaped using quality systems. To present, one should submit a video 3 months ahead of time: to ensure that people are truly preparing for such a short, but very rich presentation. At the launch of ever day's program, a few people will be presenting. To support the preparation people will be asked to offer answers to questions like who s/he is, what s/he is doing, interests, dreams etc...

2. Define future features of Wisdom harnessing tools We plan to use the Structured Dialogic Design Process Methodology to and Cognicope analogous software. An analogous virtual SDDP was organised more than 4 years ago and has driven developments since then. The vision is for a new process to kindle developments for the next 3-4 years using the authentic needs, ideas, and wishes of the community of scientists and practitioners.

3. Scaling-up the dialogue to engage millions The next frontier. An SDDP on the challenges of scaling up and engaging thousands ormillions is structured democratic dialogue.

4. Coordinating and Aligning our Efforts Challenge: How do we coordinate our efforts in organising dozens, if not hundreds, of SDDPs around the globe, letting people world wide know about the potentials of SDD.

Positioning SDD within the framework of other systems science methodologies and approaches Important questions:
questions such as the following:

  • Is SDD the appropriate response at this time and necessarily the preferred over others?
  • Can SDD contribute towards reaching a global consensus?
  • When and how is SDD complementary to other approaches offering other insights?
  • How can we best interrelate complementary approaches, each with a tendency to consider that it is of primary value -- especially in seeking to reinforce that perspective through the gathering

-- supposing that significant support for SDD emerged as a consequence of the exercise, how is it assumed that the cases for marginalizing other approaches (considered to be of lesser relevance) would be undertaken

-- how best to deal with advocacy of competing approaches and their constituencies

-- if it is possible that "different strokes are required for different folks", how is this consideration to be recognized and integrated, especially if those marginalized by SDD strenuously object in some way

-- what questions remain unasked in framing the SDD initiative -- as they are in the framing of initiatives by others -- and how do such questions constrain the wider appreciation of the outcome

The deliberations at the gathering will address all four domains of the DOSM, i.e., the Foundation, Theory, Methodology, and Applications, in order to ensure the evolution of the science in accordance to the tenants of this model, as described in the referential transparency paper posted at the link: www.dialogicdesignscience.wikispaces.com

Preliminary Program

Day 1 Saturday May 2

8: 30 - 9:00 Networking over coffee

9:00 - 9:30 5 Minutes of Fame

  1. Person 1
  2. Person 2
  3. Person 3
  4. Person 4
  5. Person 5

9:30 - 10:00 Keynote TBA

10:00 - 10:30 Interactive Session with Coffee Break

10:30 - 11:00 Networking Time

Parallel Session
11:00 - 13.00 Symposion 1: Contemporary Global Challenges

11:00 - 13.00 Subject: Contemporary Global Challenges

  • Reserved for members of the Global Agoras Group
  • Open to all participants
11:00 - 12.00 Three presentations (Conference style)
12:00 - 13.00 Training in the SDD Methodology

13:00 - 14.00 Free Light Lunch

14:00 - 18.00 Co-Laboratory of Democracy: Contemporary Global Challenges

Evening Lecture: Memories and Reflections from an event related to Contemporary Global Challenges (By a senior member of Global Agoras)

Day 2 Sunday May 3

8: 30 - 9:00 Networking over coffee

9:00 - 9:30 5 Minutes of Fame

  1. Person 1
  2. Person 2
  3. Person 3
  4. Person 4
  5. Person 5

9:30 - 10:00 Keynote TBA

10:00 - 10:30 Interactive Session with Coffee Break

10:30 - 11:00 Networking Time

11:00 - 13.00 Symposion 2: TBA

13:00 - 14.00 Free Light Lunch

14:00 - 18.00 Co-Laboratory of Democracy: TBA

Evening Lecture: TBA

Day 3 Monday May 4

8: 30 - 9:00 Networking over coffee

9:00 - 9:30 5 Minutes of Fame

  1. Person 1
  2. Person 2
  3. Person 3
  4. Person 4
  5. Person 5

9:30 - 10:00 Keynote TBA

10:00 - 10:30

10:30 - 11:00 Networking Time

11:00 - 13.00 Symposion 3: The Challenges of Scaling up

13:00 - 14.00 Free Light Lunch

14:00 - 18.00 Co-Laboratory of Democracy: TBA

Evening Lecture: TBA

Day 4 Tuesday May 5

8: 30 - 9:00 Networking over coffee

9:00 - 9:30 5 Minutes of Fame

  1. Person 1
  2. Person 2
  3. Person 3
  4. Person 4
  5. Person 5

9:30 - 10:00 Keynote TBA

10:00 - 10:30 Interactive Session with Coffee Break

10:30 - 11:00 Networking Time

11:00 - 13.00 Symposion 4: Defining Features of Idea Prism

13:00 - 14.00 Free Light Lunch

14:00 - 18.00 Co-Laboratory of Democracy: TBA

Evening Lecture: TBA


Day 5 Wednesday May 6

8: 30 - 9:00 Networking over coffee

9:00 - 9:30 5 Minutes of Fame

  1. Person 1
  2. Person 2
  3. Person 3
  4. Person 4
  5. Person 5

9:30 - 10:00 Keynote TBA

10:00 - 10:30 Interactive Session with Coffee Break

10:30 - 11:00 Networking Time

11:00 - 13.00 Symposion 5: TBA

13:00 - 14.00 Free Light Lunch

14:00 - 18.00 Co-Laboratory of Democracy: TBA

Evening Lecture: TBA


Day 6 Thursday May 7

8: 30 - 9:00 Networking over coffee

9:00 - 9:30 5 Minutes of Fame

  1. Person 1
  2. Person 2
  3. Person 3
  4. Person 4
  5. Person 5

9:30 - 10:00 Keynote TBA

10:00 - 10:30 Interactive Session with Coffee Break

10:30 - 11:00 Networking Time

11:00 - 13.00 Symposion 6: TBA

13:00 - 14.00 Free Light Lunch

14:00 - 18.00 Co-Laboratory of Democracy: TBA

Evening Lecture: TBA

Day 7 Friday May 8

8: 30 - 9:00 Networking over coffee

9:00 - 9:30 5 Minutes of Fame

  1. Person 1
  2. Person 2
  3. Person 3
  4. Person 4
  5. Person 5

9:30 - 10:00 Keynote TBA

10:00 - 10:30 Interactive Session with Coffee Break

10:30 - 11:00 Networking Time

11:00 - 13.00 Symposion 7: TBA

13:00 - 14.00 Free Light Lunch

14:00 - 18.00 Co-Laboratory of Democracy: TBA

Evening Lecture: TBA


Day 8 Saturday May 9

SDDP School

Day 9 Sunday May 10

SDDP School

From the Club of Rome to the Digital Era

For the last 40 plus years there have been probably more than 1,000 applications of SDDP in Co-Laboratories of Democracy staged in a variety of settings around the world. For example in Cyprus, the location of this Symposion (it is a Greek word meaning drinking together), we have a history of more than 15 years of applications and more than 100 colaboratories with government agencies, such as the Ministries of Finance, Transportation, Interior, and many others, as well as bi-communal colabs involving Greek and Turkish Cypriots addressing issues of conflict resolution and peace building on the island of Aphrodite.

The first test of the Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) algorithm, developed by John Warfield[2] in 1971, was conducted by Dave Malone and Aleco Christakis on the table top of Warfield’s office at the Battelle Columbus Laboratories in Ohio, USA. The first application of ISM with real people was conducted by Brother Raymond Fitz, who later on became the President of the University of Dayton, with the City Council of Dayton in 1973. There is a video of this ISM session with the members of the city council deliberating on setting budget priorities for allocating the city revenue. The first Center for Interactive Management was established by Warfield and Christakis at the University of Virginia in 1982, and was moved to George Mason University in 1984. The first consultancy employing the Interactive Management methodology, a predecessor of SDD, was established by Christakis in Philadelphia in 1989, and it worked for 25 years with more than 50 clients in government agencies, corporations, foundations, and NGOs. The Institute for 21st Century Agoras was founded by Dr. Ken Bausch and Aleco Christakis in 2002, in preparation for the 2003 International conference of ISSS (www.ISSS.org) in Crete, when Christakis was serving as President of the systems society met Yiannis Laouris for the first time. Soon there after Laouris established the Future Worlds Center who emerged as a leader in the evolution of SDD.

The purpose of this very timely symposion in Cyprus is not to revisit the history of the past 40 plus years, but to create the history of the future on the foundation of past history. The community of scientists and practitioners of the Science of Dialogic Design has now expanded to include people from all parts of the world and a variety of languages and cultures. This dedicated community of scientists will gather for the first time in this symposion for a whole week, and will deliberate formally and informally on how to evolve the process and retain its scientific credibility together with its cultural sensitivity.

The Framework of their deliberations will be the Domain of Science Model (DOSM) developed by Warfield and shown graphically here.


Examples of analogous efforts=

Currently consideration is being given to the process of argumentation on the web and the only too evident weaknesses of current methodologies. Examples are documented below.


Confirmed International Pioneers (alphabetically)

  1. Alexander (Aleco) Christakis
  2. Tom Flanagan
  3. Nenad Rava
  4. Nikitas Assimakopoulos
  5. Kenneth Bausch
  6. Jeff Diedrich
  7. Norma Romm
  8. Paul Hays
  9. Heiner Benking
  10. Gayle Underwood
  11. Julie Freeman
  12. Afonso Ferreira


Citations

  1. ↑ http://www.cut.ac.cy Home Page of Cyprus University of Technology
  2. ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_N._Warfield John Warfield in Wikipedia


Useful Links

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