Launch of Universe City in Toronto / World Creativity Week events

We will be celebrating Leonardo's birthday at the Columbus Centre, the Italian community's cultural centre, during our World Creativity Week celebrations April 16 - 23, 2015.

This will mark the launch of the Social Creator network's Universe City in Toronto on April 15.  Universe City is where you go to get the skills and experience you need for today's economy of creativity and learning.  It is organized in seven movements.

World Creativity Week

Be sure to join us.

Leslie Ann Coles will be presenting and also holding a draw for more passes to the Women's Eye Film Festival.  She will show some short films before leading a workshop on developing a script.  Its fun and also no previous experience is necessary.  This creative and practical event will be held on April 16 at 7pm in the Columbus Centre boardroom on the ground floor to the right of the main restaurant.  $10.

She will also be giving away more free passes to screenings at the Women's Eye Film Festival that starts in June.

Cosmological Gardens

Spring is in the air so think flowers and garden.  As part of World Creativity Week, Andrew Owens will be presenting on Cosmological Gardens - and how to get the garden of your dreams by working holistically.

We will discuss holistic thinking that uses the whole brain and cosmological thinking (fore brain).  This creative and practical event will be held on April 23 at 7pm in Room 303 of the Columbus Centre at Lawrence and Dufferin.  $10.

Columbus Centre is convenient for Highway 401, and the Spadina subway (a short walk or bus ride from Lawrence West station).

Leonardo was born on April 15, 1452 in Vinci, Italy.  (For those cosmologist / psychologist participants - Leonardo had Sun and Venus in Taurus - very grounded, with Moon and Jupiter conjunct in Pisces - very socially aware.)

Universe City

Fulfilling deeply held longings

My sense is that, in Toronto, we are transitioning away from meaning and becoming more in touch with our core values.  

First I want to explore the effects and conditions of this transition to soulfulness as individuals.  Then I want to look at how to adjust socially to a new mood that’s rising up in the city.

We can identify our unique values by what we do on a Saturday afternoon - family, community, or hobbies.  Though we may have a sense of what our values are, we don’t necessarily give them the importance they deserve as indicating what we have to contribute to society.

However, fewer of us are willing to live based on meaning alone – like getting a salary, getting ahead of coworkers, or waiting for our boss’ job.  Meaning was an important motivator from the ‘60’s – ‘90’s.  Now we want work activity that fulfills our deeply held values and longings.  

People in the arts and self-expression are in touch with, and must express their values each and every day.  We express our values when we decide what is important, gracious, lovely and essential to a course of action.  

We attempt to glimpse the wholeness in situations.  Our values are what indicate the way forward after taking any number of factors into account.  

Decisions made based on values, wholeness and inclusion are not logical or about taste.  They are decisions made based on love and a higher pragmatism.  Pragmatism beats what’s achieved with logic and thinking about a limited number of things we’re able to measure.  Pragmatic action is based on a realistic big picture.

Our values are our means to the things that we live for.  Our values are like gas in the tank, and a map.  We need a course of action or some idea of a destination that will fulfill an inner longing. But values and a course of action without engaging in community limit what we can achieve to express love. 

We know there is strength in numbers. Working in organizations goes further.  It is powerful.  In fact corporations and the military are incredibly powerful.  They’ve become the most powerful things on the planet.  

However we leave many of your values at the door or in the office lobby before starting work each day.  We limit the number of factors we consider.  We think in polarizing, competitive and disheartening ways.  We can be working to pull the social fabric apart.  We must adopt policies and an agenda set by someone else.

My second point is about society and our complete empowerment as individuals.  Complete empowerment comes when we combine our values and our direction on a map with the resources for moving forward.  We readily find help and resources to use in an organization.

However, once you are in touch with your core values the last thing that you want is someone else telling you what to do or setting a course for you.  That is why so many of us who have gone inwards and found our souls stayed away from corporations and group activities.  We want to be proactive in response to inner promptings and be free to do our own thing.

What’s been missing is a form of organizing that allows us to respond to whatever values we have registered in our souls.  That is partly why the Markham Street MuSE is very significant to you at this time.  It’s a form of organizing able to support the new mood in the city.  

A muse is defined as ‘the function of deciding among ourselves through ongoing distributed decision-making across a network of developing or emerging connections’.  

Compared to what’s produced when people get together and assume power after politicking among themselves, a muse leads soulful people to full empowerment with shared roles that make things more fluid and practical.

The function of a muse in organizing does not consider only one location.  It is meant as a source of inspiration for organizing across neighbourhoods and organizing in any local area, no matter how small.  I recommend that you check it out and look at the degree to which we are free to do what we want once we’re connected with our values.  

It allows for all our multiple, diverse visions.  These are the courses we chose individually on a map of a creative era.  

If you are in touch with your core values and aim for full empowerment, then you don’t have to wait for society to change completely.  Find out more about how to use a muse to get from where society is now to where you want to be.

Meeting with City Councillor, Mike Layton

Here is a quick update on the development of collaborative villages.  Hope you find it inspiring for what you are up to in your neighbourhood.  Let me know if you and your neighbourhood would like to collaborate with the Bathurst and Bloor area of Toronto.

Councillor Mike Layton and I met January 6, 2014, regarding the Markham Street MuSE for living in a more creative Toronto.  It is also a community-led innovation and social response to today’s creative and learning economies.  We noted the fact that the Canadian economy is now less reliant on manufacturing, and that the City of Toronto wants to encourage citizen's to be leaders in today’s economies.

Mutual Support Enterprises are proactive member-owned associations that develop and advance a neighbourhood vision of urban living, or a ‘hyper-local’ vision for a street.  A MuSE is an association and hybrid of a social agency and a business.  It makes money to reinvest in social and economic development.

It encourages fulfillment of each person’s preferred roles, values, and vision for their life.  As member-owners we become more of who we are, both individually and collectively.  We develop further understanding, creativity, and increased capacity for health, vitality and well-being.

A MuSE is also uniquely positioned to be first-in-the-marketplace for helping corporations look at the wholeness in situations so as to benefit their return on investment.

There is an opportunity for the City of Toronto to supply arts groups with reusable material such as wood, metal, ceramics, fabric, etc., that would otherwise be sold or put in landfill.  The councillor is currently looking at options, say, when contracts with existing service suppliers are up for renewal.
We live in an urban forest.  Neighbours could use felled local trees to make structures, such as gazebos and arbors, that could be sold for beautification of local gardens and parks.  This kind of logging would be more enterprising and locally advantageous compared to the noisy practice of reducing trees to wood chips.

The future of society depends to great extent on encouraging our entrepreneurs.  We had a conversation about establishing creative economy hubs, and the need for neighbours to support entrepreneurial start-ups.  Practices of supplying office space and services to entrepreneurs that support neighbourhoods (‘social innovators’) remain part of the solution.

The councillor is a board member of Artscape YOUNGplace which is an example of a new, multi-tenant arts & cultural centre in the ward – at 180 Shaw Street, just west of Trinity-Bellwoods park.

We also touched on how Waterfront renewal as an opportunity to demonstrate the advancement of larger scale creative and learning economy hubs.  Exhibition Place has always tried to showcase innovations, such as wind turbine technology.  Councillor Layton pointed out how governments are now limited in what they can responsibly invest in, in terms of supplying basic services such as sewage and drinking water, when there is no immediate return on taxpayer investment.

We discussed the possibility of making Waterfront development ‘more organic’, more responsive to community needs, more economically sustainable, and less reliant on investment through financial institutions.

China is building 1,000 new universities over ten years (source: Roger Martin, past dean of the Rotman School of Management, U of Toronto,) as a strategy for adapting to the learning economy.  However, ‘developed countries’ in North America and Europe are making little or no investment in new learning institutions.

This led to a discussion of our proposal for neighbourhood campuses and the possibility of using underutilized local spaces.  Ideas for gathering and streamlining existing learning opportunities into curriculum streams that develop new skill-sets necessary for today’s economies could have been discussed further.  However, we had talked for over an hour and it was time to adjourn.

Our appreciation goes to the councillor and his staff for their kind cooperation.

Andrew Owens.

Neighbourhood Campuses update

We had the first of our pre-launch parties for the Neighbourhood Campuses on October 18. 

It was a special salon with socializing, food, fun, sharing of ideas and news of gestating the trillion-dollar holistic framework I developed for neighbourhoods over the years - starting at Yonge-Wellesley in downtown Toronto.  I presented a comparison of old-style business based on project management, and business that includes flow - Ecstatic Business Practices - or EBP.

Fellow originators of the Yonge-Wellesley campus, Miss Suzette and Ava Goodman gave us a taste of what a more creative and fulfilling neighbourhoods will be like. 
There were very soulful live musical numbers by the incomparable Ethelrida Zabala-Laxa of WISER International.

An enthusiastic, Norman Waite of the local neighbourhood association (Bay Cloverhill Community Association, or BCCA) welcomed everyone and shared some local news of breakthroughs regarding a local park on publicly-held land.  He promised to be our biggest fan and to promote awareness of the Neighbourhood Campus Norman also offered us a table at the neighbourhood's annual general meeting on November 14, 2012.  This event, held at the YMCA, will attract over 100 of our local movers-and-shakers.

A huge thank you to our gracious volunteers, Adam, Alfredo, Diane, Marie, and Paul for video, greeting, registration, dishes, food service, photography, clean-up.  You name it, and they were able to deliver.

Thank you to 6 St. Joseph House for providing the venue and refreshments.  Our other local business partners, Biryani House and Freshslice Pizza, received a rousing applause when we thanked them for the food. 

Outcomes:
We now have proposals for courses for children and adults, in computer assembly kits (Arduino,) and robotics, stop-motion animation for cinema, plus offers for sessions in creative writing, drawing and sculpture.

We announced offers by participants that evening who wanted to supply venues for upcoming courses free of charge.  In this way we can present the salon in new neighbourhoods - Yorkville-St Jamestown, and Lawrence-Dufferin. 

We have been referred to someone at the University of Toronto who may book us into additional venues for upcoming courses. 

And representatives from other neighbourhoods who attended are excited and will be getting back to us with opportunities in their areas.

We don't know how things could have gone any better, but we will try at our upcoming salons in November and December.

Leadership for Innovation in Society

For the first time in a Social Creator network event the discussion focused mostly on developments in neighbourhoods, on June 12, 2012.

The Toronto neighbourhood of Roncesvalles has become a great example of, "If the grassroots leads, then organizations will follow." 

A simple thing, like dealing with cigarette butts left on the sidewalk outside of bars, can be too controversial for a local business organization to handle. 

Perhaps it is the diverse membership of organizations that makes directors more conservative, not wanting to do things that may conceivably upset the membership.  Sometimes directors have to get member consensus.  

Hence we see little in the way of innovation coming from organizations.

The subject of this post is not ciggy butts.  It's about organizations holding up innovation.  It's also about no-one's vision being too big or too small to be taken into account and acted on.

Don't think that big visions are all that count in this world. 

If one person has a vision of a butt-free neighbourhood, then let's support them in that.
A grassroots group put in place a solution for the cigarette butts situation in Roncesvalles. Next they will be conducting a questionnaire about the solution, listening to the business owners in the area, anticipating a positive response.  This grassroots action will 'make it safe' for the local business organizations in the area to act, without 'ruffling feathers'.

Check out: Butting in to butt out

Often business owners do not live in the neighbourhoods where their stores are located.  They worry about anything that may interfere with sales during the times when their stores are open.  Once the store closes for the evening the owners can be in another part of town or another part of the world.

Local business organizations tend to focus on their main street.  There is much less interest in residential side streets, or the rest of the neighbourhood.

We really need innovation in society.  We need to respond to huge changes in the economy.  I believe it probably won't come from existing institutions.  It usually comes as a result of collaboration at the grassroots, and coordination with existing organizations.

As we look after the smaller changes, the bigger changes will also eventually come about.

Update on Social Creator network in Toronto

We had a Social Creator gathering at the Italian cultural centre in Toronto on Wednesday February 8th, 2012.

As promised we took a look at the income model.  We are redesigning business as a fine art form, called Biz Nouveau.  Using the methodology of 'expressive movements' rather than work with a preconceived agenda, other than the income model we let topics for discussion emerge.

One focus that emerged quickly was on the group supplying physical products and systems for land developers who are putting up condos, theme parks etc. 

A second focus was an agency to represent, or sell the ideas and services of our arts-based professionals. We also saw a market for accreditation of land developers as agreeing to work by certain standards that the agency will develop.  People interested in participating in the agency shared an interest in collaborative villages.  We are witnessing and keeping track of these gradually spreading across various neighbourhoods and coming together as a social ecology. 

Another focus was on services such as theatre productions that put across subtle ideas about the role of the interrelationships and the technology in our lives.  

The agency's income as a percentage of the ideas, services and goods sold will allow us to establish an acting troupe for storytelling, skits and theatre productions.  These events will prepare people for new ideas, our products and services, as well as outright 'selling' to interested prospects.  We also see a promotional role for video production and film.

Contribute within TODAY`s Economy

In the USA, Obama's annual State of The Nation address continued the illusion that life in ‘developed nations’ is all about manufacturing.  

At least citizens of the US get a regular pep talk.  In Canada we have no idea where we are heading, either as an economy, or as a society.  You'd think that somebody in government would do something to rectify that.   

When you walk up to the door into a public washroom you notice that someone has been thoughtful enough put a little phrase or graphic on the door.  It’s something that everyone knows indicates a public washroom.  The reason it’s placed there is to indicate what to expect next.  

There needed to be something placed on the door to the future, decades ago.  The word for that little phrase or graphic that everyone understands is a sign.  

We achieve new kinds of society.  It's something we all agree to strive towards.  Together we put our life blood into making it happen.  All we need is a little sign.

Many of us distrust, or simply don’t know what kind of society we’re supposed to be moving towards let alone know what we`re contributing towards achieving.  The last time we heard a politician describe a vision of where we are going as a society was during the 1970’s when John F Kennedy told us we were going to the moon. 

As it turns out it was not a vision for society but a message to calm the military-industrial complexes of the US and USSR.  Kennedy was thoughtful enough to place a sign on the door to the future to indicate what the military and war industries of the two superpowers could expect next.  

Talk about the moon was a sign to indicate to the military-industrial complexes that they had a future in a world that was relatively peaceful.


Maybe that's why people are looking for signs of the times.  The sign we need is TODAY when we look around us.

Maybe that's why people talk about signs of the times.

Hello, Occupy! What you doin'?

To better understand how the Occupy Movement is so different, here is an email a devout Christian land developer friend of mine sent.  It's about a seminar that was being offered to North Americans about opportunities to legally evade paying national taxes by using tax havens in the Caribbean.  


My friend wrote:

These tax schemes are only one way that the 1% have legal ways to get further ahead of the rest of us. This is an actual example. If you were an accountant, you would know lots of other examples. The point is that the high net worth of the 1% does not come from just being industrious. If they paid their fair share of taxes, this would be a start in moving all of us towards equity.

This was great fuel for the Occupy conversation that the mainstream media has now engaged the broader population in.  


In response to my friend's request to pass forward something ‘that might be of interest to Occupy’ I sent the following email: 

Thanks for pointing out a real way in which the 1% gets ahead of the 99% with little effort.  This is a great idea that could turn into an action that Occupy takes, or at least enter the general discussion within the movement.  However, I've since discovered that there are no means for me to forward this suggestion on your behalf to, say the Action Committee for consideration.  


You are part of Occupy.  Sorry to have to say this... it’s either of interest to the individual or not.  It can't be 'of interest to Occupy'. 

Expressive movements fly in the face of everything we're taught about organizing.  They start with trust.  Trust is earned through experiences of working together.  'Organizing ourselves' as a corporation doesn't give us options, like choosing to only work with, or under people we trust.  Instead we pay ourselves to show up, and when we show up, we work.  That's part of what's usually called the 'command and control' model.


However an expressive movement bases collaboration on trust, sharing, caring, kindness, respect... and even more advanced values.  Together we become an embodiment of ideals, and compassion.  Delegation is out the window, and it’s more about freedom or expression, not imposing our individual ideas or ideology on someone else, or suggesting our ideas are things that others could be attending to.  It's about freeing ourselves from chains of command.  

The combination of community, creativity, and compassion results in something that no--one can command and control.  All this is relatively new and something I am still struggling to get my head around.  So far, I know this way of doing things is life affirming.  Both life and light are allowed in.  It's an enlightened development that goes beyond 'organizing ourselves' as a corporation.  Perhaps we're allowing God to step into the middle.  

An 'expressive movement' is special and very different from a single-issue movement or a corporation. The culture in Occupy is that something happens when someone decides to move it forward and it gains wider support.  Otherwise it languishes by the wayside.

To move forward with this valuable idea of doing something about tax haven seminars, you'd either take it as a proposal to a General Assembly, or, more effectively, join the Action Committee by signing on to their Googlegroup.  The info is given under the 'Committees' tab on  the main OccupyTO.org web site.

All the best to you, and heaven help us all.

Understanding How Occupy Works

To even better understand how the Occupy Movement is organized, here is an email another friend sent me.  He is retired from the US army and is quite philosophical.  He attached a link to an article from a magazine and said, “Please pass this along to the organizer of Occupy Toronto.”

I replied, “As you know, there are no Occupy organizers.  Whoever shows up can voice their opinion.” 

He replied:  'As to no "organizers," someone or a few must hold the centre and focus.  Therefore the concept of "No Organizers" is flawed logic'.

Wow.  For the logical part of the brain, all this seems flawed.   But I suggest that, for people who think cosmo-logically, or in terms of the wholeness of a system, this idea of ‘no organizers’ is not flawed at all. 

A cosmos is a whole system.  It is naturally occurring and therefore self-organizing.  The basic challenge that society faces is that we are moving from looking for logical solutions to becoming cosmo-logical adaptations.  And I like the idea that we need to 'become the change we are looking for'.  

My friend liked my email response so I want to share it with you.

At Occupy I believe we are talking about self-directed action in an expressive movement, rather than managed action in a one issue movement.  

That requires self-organization, and coordination of emergent solutions that arise from the grassroots and gradually catch on.  

True, not everyone is sufficiently self-aware all of the time, to know what we want to express or do next.  So at times we may decide to follow someone else's lead rather than taking initiative, being enthused, following ideas and impulses that derive from our own centre.  (En = inside, centre.  Theo = god.  These are the roots of 'enthused').

Nature is all about self-organization.  Unless we think that only fairies and devas make flowers and pumpkins grow we have to open up to the idea that everything that surrounds us that is not hand made or technological has self-organized.  

If you wanna peek at who or what's organizing Nature or the Occupy movement I believe that to some degree it’s the Self, an archetypal pattern that the psychologist, Carl Jung writes about.  Some call it the Great Spirit, the Shakina or the feminine aspect of God.  Or it could be the goddesses Shakti, or Quan Yin.  These may be very real individuals or merely terms that were intuitively arrived at to account for the fluidity and beauty that happening all around us as a result of self-organization.

The Self is the pattern about which things organize. You self-organized in your mother's womb for sure.  You didn't come from on high by Federal Express.

As a chemist I've studied those simplest of self-organizing systems called atoms for years.  Each atom has a centre (nucleus) that arises naturally.  Social movements are similar, just way more complex.  

What makes human life weird is that when we choose to collaborate we soon begin to 'organize ourselves' rather than self-organize.  Organizations are not really organized at all.  They are orderly structures that we build from the top, down.  We impose order from the top, down.  This orderly approach defies life.  

When we get busy and 'organize ourselves' we instill our ideas and values on the outcomes which is terribly limiting.  Whatever regime we choose contains tyranny and oppression within the structure.  This limited approach is how we've managed to produce so much misery and tedium.  Darkness and distrust are dispelled from how we collaborate because fluidity and beauty come included with self-organization.

At Occupy we are not in corporate America or in the army.  In fact we're not trying to be life destroying and self-oppressive at all.  Delegation is 'out' and values-based action is definitely on the increase.  Think 'creative, responsive and lively'.

It’s a funny way to run a universe, I know.  But I actually prefer to align with life and the self-organizing principles that run the show. The pattern we call the 'self' is what's at centre.  

Hoping this makes the idea of "No organizers" clearer and easier to live with.

Andrew.

What does the Omni-dimensional Alliance I'm hearing about refer to?

It refers to working together towards revitalization of society within a place.

Revitalization means more than putting up new buildings or working together to sell new products and services.

To understand revitalization requires learning to work creatively in ways that embrace all aspects of life.

Discovering how DNA works was not the key to understanding life, or revitalization, no matter what you've heard about in documentaries. Life is partly physical - something based on light energy, nerve impulses, and molecules that include DNA. Life also includes places for everyone and everything to grow and mature.

Life is about a shared vitality amongst people, animals, and plants, both locally and throughout the ecology of lands and oceans. Life includes our minds, emotions, the unique individuality of our creative expressions, and the unifying influence of a team spirit.

To revitalize our neighbourhoods requires us to develop and bring forward an omni-dimensional approach that embraces all visible and invisible dimensions within life.

With a mission of international renewal, why focus on revitalization of our neighbourhoods and rural areas?

Large scale renewal is the result of small responses. We respond or adapt how we do things in order to adjust to changes in our surroundings. The neighbourhoods and rural areas that immediately surround us are places where we are most able to respond, encourage learning and creativity, plus enjoy a shared vitality and team spirit.

Commuting to a factory or head office has become less important in what's new and creative about society. Entrepreneurs live, work and collaborate in neighbourhoods. Local collaborations and less commuting becomes important for a clean and healthy ecology.

Who do we partner with if we are to help local entrepreneurs?

The alliance is for people in the learning and creative field, organizations that bring people together in order for us to prosper and become all we can be -

schools, libraries, theatres, galleries,

land and building developers who want to stand out,

movie, television and web content producers who work with neighbourhoods

associations committed to professional development of their members,

hotel and resort operators that need our neighbourhoods and rural areas to thrive and be renewed if visitors are to enjoy greater experiences while working and relaxing.

The alliance is a way for organizations to enter into healthy working relationships with neighbourhoods. There will be one number to call, and one invoice to process, whenever leaders in an organization want to respond to opportunities in their working environment, and adapt how things get done. As neighbours we're partnering with organizations in an easy way so that we all benefit from the brilliance present within our local networks of entrepreneurs.

As neighbours we're facilitating how organizations link together to derive greater benefit from one another.

What's next?

Click at the end of the page to become a friend of this social creator network blog. Contact biznouveau @ gmail.com to enquire about upcoming events. Take some courses in news ways to work more creatively and effectively.

If you're with an organization, association, or a media producer, contact confercentre @ gmail.com, and find out more about alliance membership.

There's more to life and revitalization than we've considered to date. There are better ways to express ideas about vitality, spirit, revitalization, cultural renaissance, health and wellness. We're anchoring these ideas within a place. We've started where we are.

That is what the social creator network is about - starting conversations, having more rewarding collaborations, and introducing smarter ways to get things done.