WHY IS THIS IDEA IMPORTANT?
ORBITS OF INFLUENCE Social Innovation Initiative was designed to provide a co-creative space and proven master process through which diverse leaders may come together in dialogue to address and co-create sustainable solutions for the pivotal issues and ideas of our lives, work and world.
Using this model for public/civic dialogue, we have successfully addressed - and generated co-created visions and collaborative action plans for - such potentially divisive issues as illegal immigration, race relations/ multicultural/ multi-faith differences, crime/violence, governance (multi-function, multi-level, multi-departmental), same-sex marriage, homelessness/poverty and other critical social justice issues ... in forums which bring together diverse civic leaders, concerned citizens and individuals/representatives of those affected.
EQUAL VOICE - Every voice is respected as valid - and valuable - in co-creating our lives, our work, our communities, and our world. The Orbits of Influence model is designed to be shared - and is totally replicable and scalable for multi-size and multi-age dialogues.
ORBITS OF INFLUENCE Social Innovation Initiative/Global Leadership Dialogue Key Points:
● The ORBITS OF INFLUENCE social innovation initiative was designed to provide a space and a process through which diverse leaders may come together in dialogue to address the pivotal issues and ideas of our lives, work and world.
● ORBITS OF INFLUENCE embraces, and constantly seeks to expand, its diversity in all aspects – such as ethnicity, gender, age, experience, interest and belief system, as well as drawing from both public and private, business and community, realms - as the most critical issues we face clearly affect us all.
● ORBITS OF INFLUENCE is based on the belief that "Everyone has a valid - and valuable - voice in creating community," and the innovative ORBITS process encourages leaders of every level, title, position to assume their own leadership voice, in the belief that each one has something unique and valuable to share with the whole.
● The ORBITS dialogue process is especially effective where individuals with diverse interests and perspectives need a way to address sensitive issues - often pivotal issues these groups had previously been unable to address successfully, as they had not had an
appropriate forum or process to enable them to do so, prior to their use of the ORBITS OF INFLUENCE model.
● The ORBITS OF INFLUENCE model creates safe and open space in which diverse individuals may address these sensitive issues, as the process enables participants to self-select topics of interest to them (and, since topics can be submitted in advance, no one need feel "on the spot" to propose a sensitive topic), while ensuring that everyone's viewpoint is heard and respected.
● The ORBITS OF INFLUENCE model transforms potential conflict into creative potential, providing a unique system and set of materials to facilitate an open and creative communication process, to ensure that everyone has an equal voice and contribution in the exchange.
● ORBITS OF INFLUENCE is attracting diverse leaders from across the community - CEOs, small business owners, students, volunteers, educators, nonprofit executives, entrepreneurs, public officials and civic leaders alike - and many who have not previously found a safe forum to express their views among other influencers are discovering tremendous power and greater potential for collective influence through the space and process ORBITS OF INFLUENCE creates.
● Rather than have only one set topic or agenda for each gathering (as it the norm in virtually all leadership gatherings), diverse leaders are invited to choose among a range of intriguing topics proposed in advance (in our "UNIVERSE OF IDEAS") , or to propose for themselves, the issues and ideas of most importance to them.
● ORBITS participants may either choose to discuss a topic already proposed in various spheres of influence - from education to economic development, from healthcare to philosophy, from arts to technology, from diversity, religion and spirituality, to science and discovery.
In this way, each ORBITS dialogue circle is formed in real time, based on the interests, energy and passion of the diverse leaders who attend.
● The ORBITS dialogue process, based on principles of the latest organizational and systems theory, consciously and intentionally creates the space and process for diverse leaders to expand their interaction with other influencers, and therefore increase the opportunity for systems-level thinking, collaboration and creativity - across traditionally separate spheres of thought.
This type of systems-level thinking - that spans artificial boundaries of our thinking - is essential for leaders who wish to address the complex issues our communities and world now face (such as inner-city education, which requires thinking across all spheres of influence - education, economic development, health/human services, arts/culture, information/technology, and more). Silo thinking is not sufficient.
As Einstein said, "The problems we have created cannot be solved at the level we created them." We must rise to a higher level Of collaborative thinking to address these issues, and dialogue is the forgotten leadership competency that enables us to begin this systems thinking process.
ORBITS OF INFLUENCE Model & Licensing
● ORBITS OF INFLUENCE provides a powerful, proven, patent-pending leadership dialogue system that was designed specifically to enable diverse leaders from across all spheres of influence to engage in meaningful dialogue organized around the current issues of interest in their community, work and world. The ORBITS OF INFLUENCE model has been tested with leaders across North Texas in gatherings of up to 150 at a time, has produced consistent, successful results, and has sustained an ongoing, dynamic dialogue series among a growing, diverse community of participants (the ORBITS OF INFLUENCE system can scale up to 200 leader-participants per session).
● Cities, universities, corporations, schools and nonprofits are now able to license this leadership dialogue system, to create this leadership dialogue for their own constituencies, where the scope of the dialogue topics (our "UNIVERSE OF IDEAS") is customized to encompass, and enable the participants to address, the specific universe of issues most important and critical to that particular group.
Because the UNIVERSE OF IDEAs or scope of discussion for each ORBITS event is “scalable” – in other words, the scope of dialogue for each gathering maybe selected by the organization or group of participants holding the event – the ORBITS OF INFLUENCE model may be customized to enable diverse groups of any size to address critical issues within the safe and open space that dialogue creates.
● ORBITS OF INFLUENCE provides a complete system to enable the convening organization to progressively guide those diverse leadership conversations from dialogue to visioning, and on to shared, collective action, as the participants assume leadership for positive change. It does this through a sophisticated, cohesive system of equipment, innovative components, facilitation kits, materials, training, on-site facilitation, and an online community with collaborative spaces and tools, accessible to all participants.
● The ORBITS OF INFLUENCE dialogue model was designed to be shared - for other cities and organizations to be able to easily adopt and/or license the ORBITS process and its turn-key package of innovative dialogue tools, to create their own space for transformational dialogue wherever diverse groups need to better understand different perspectives, and then move collectively into shared action.
The ORBITS OF INFLUENCE MODEL (USPTO Patent Pending) JULIE ANN TURNER & COMPANY • www.orbitsofinfluence.com • For ORBITS OF INFLUENCE Information, contact 972.612.2131 • © 2009 JULIE ANN TURNER & COMPANY
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