‘Dine-Around’ Guide
We warmly invite you to bring your best practices and perspective in as well. If you have suggestions for how we could improve this guide, please don’t hesitate to tell us.
Thank you so much for joining the first movement!
#1 Goals: To hear what is moving you and your guests, to tune into insights and actions from around the world on social innovation as it is happening now, to listen for harmony or dissonance in actions around the world and to come together to grasp shared meaning and shape mutual action in these urgent times.
#2 Guests: Friends, family, colleagues, neighbours, partners, allies or accomplices of up to nine people. You might consider inviting only half the number of people and asking each of them to invite another person.
#3 Note-taking: Please capture key reflections for your dine-around (note the confidentiality guideline below). You may wish to be present as a host and facilitator of this conversation, so feel free to invite someone to help you take notes. Whether handwritten or typed, notes can be submitted using this Notes Submission Doc. The form mirrors the questions below. Please decide if you want to take digital or physical notes, who will be a notetaker, if the dine-around will be recorded (only with consent of all parties!). Bullet points, drawings, full sentences etc. are all welcome! We ask notes be submitted in English if possible. If not, kindly just let us know (events@socialinnovationexchange.org).
#4 Format: Design a gathering that best suits the budgets and preferences of your group, with the goal of a comfortable, safe and casual atmosphere for deep conversation. Three suggestions we have:
Invite everyone to cook a meal at home and then sit down together to eat virtually;
Invite everyone to prepare a hot beverage of their choice to sip and share virtually;
Invite everyone to bring a favourite beverage — wine, beer, cocktail, champagne, non-alcoholic drinks — and have an evening cocktail style conversation.
#5 Platform: Connect via an online video platform of your choice (Google hangouts, Zoom, FaceTime, GoToMeeting); please consider the security of your guests by password protecting the gathering. If it is safe, legal and convenient for you and your guests, perhaps you might meet outside in a park, while physical distancing, to host your conversation.
#6 Accessibility: Kindly consider the accessibility needs of all your guests and any accommodations that would embolden their participation, including but not limited to considering what language the session will be in, whether videos are on or off, whether chat or translation is used, whether the dialogue is recorded and by paying attention to time zones if you are in different places.
If you or other guests would benefit from an honorarium for your time — to remove or reduce additional financial barriers for participating — please let us know via events@socialinnovationexchange.org and we will work together to facilitate your or your guests’ participation.
#7 Confidentiality: As a group, set the norms and terms of your conversation in advance. Will you be using Chatham House rules and all content will be anonymous? Or does each guest consent to being identified for their reflections? Does each guest consent to recording the conversation? Or would they rather capture only trends, patterns etc — NO identifying information? If one person does not consent, respect their wishes and only proceed with the approach that has unanimous consent before the dine-around starts.
#8 Invite any other norms important to your group, for example:
Only use “I” statements or define the “we”
Ouch/Oops: Say ouch if someone says something that hurts — provide the space to own your feelings. Say oops and genuinely apologize for the ways your intention did not match your impact; follow up your apology with a conversation after or with some research. The person you hurt might not feel like explaining why in that moment, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t learn more and act on your learning.
You are now gathered virtually or in person with a small group of awesome people, with warm or refreshing beverages or nourishing food, comfortable and ready to chat together. You have the Notes Submission Doc open or printed. Time to start!
The outline below offers a flow and questions to support your dialogue. The times are just guides based on our experience of these types of conversations. We earmark about 2 hours but feel free to adjust the time as it serves you and your guests.
20-30 minutes: Introductions/grounding
You might want to open the session with music. Here’s a tool for how to do this on Zoom.
Inform people of accessibility requests as appropriate or invite people to introduce new ones.
Tell your guests a little about why you wanted to host a dine-around during Wayfinder 2020.
Introduce yourselves. We suggest inviting people to introduce themselves outside of their role/org/job. Start with names, pronouns, what they are enjoying (food or drink) and why, what they are curious or hesitant about, what a symphony metaphor can offer the field of social innovation etc.
Acknowledge the land and territories you are calling in from or gathered on.
Decide on a confidentiality approach and how notes will be taken — with unanimous consent.
Invite any other norms important for the group.
Plan and introduce breaks/bathroom breaks etc. Pay attention to people’s needs and energy.
Take a grounding breath together or invite anyone to lead a short energizing or connecting activity.
10 minutes: Focus the conversation
Let’s focus on how we are, and need to be, renewing our relationships with each other and the earth:
in how we work
in how we consume and producing
in our social imagination
in care infrastructure
in our learning
in how we organize and govern
in how we live together
Let’s choose collectively what feels most pressing and meaningful for us from this list— this might be one, two or more of list above.
30 minutes: Scan and share what you are hearing, doing, seeing
Given what we chose to focus on above:
What social innovation is happening now?
What are examples of social innovation that move us — Why? Why now?
What are examples that concern us (blindspots, shadows, misinformed) — Why? Why now?
30 minutes: What is our capacity to act now as agents?
What must we be doing now that we have not done before?
What can we be doing now that did not feel possible before?
20 MINutes: Checking-Out
(Added July 29) Reflecting on your dialogue together, how might you each summarize this moment as as sound (ie. rain, a bicycle, a song, a bird) etc?
Finally, invite each other to share any final reflections, check-out word or feeling, a moment of gratitude — follow the flow of energy in the room to conclude in a good way.
Some Helpful tidbits
Social innovation??
SIX talks about social innovation as the processes and projects that seek to shift how we think, behave, and relate in society and through societal change, driving towards social and environmental justice. These dine-arounds will contrast the positive values of the field and its greatest initiatives alongside the shadow sides and blindspots of some social innovations.
Keep it going…invite another person to host.
Please forward the sign-up link to one other person anywhere in the world who you think would love to host a dine-around. We can follow-up with them if they have questions!
How we will celebrate our hosts
We want to recognise all the individuals who are tuning with us! We would love to say a thank you on social media and on our website. We will ask for your permission to name and celebrate the contributions of the people in your Dine-Around on the Notes Submission Doc.
Once you submit your notes, we will also follow-up with a thank you email and, in August, email you again with an update on the Wayfinder to share with your guests on how the first movement shaped the second and how to engage with the second movements.
We hope you will move with us from Tuning to Ensembling!
What happens next?
The Dine-Around notes will be woven together to find patterns and responses to:
What are we hearing that moves us?
What tone are different communities taking in the work they are doing around the globe?
What activities and messages are we tuning into?
What is resonating?
What seems out of tune right now?
And where are we in harmony?
The results will be synthesized, shared and will shape the Second Movement.