Using Social Networks for Behavioral Change

If you’re trying to immunize people, or to implement a behavioral change, like safer sex, or reducing smoking, how do you apply the science of Social Networks if you don’t know what the network looks like?
The authors of “Connected” put it this way: It is often not possible to discern network ties in advance in a population when trying to figure out how best to immunize it. (pg. 133)
So they asked a number of random people to name their acquaintances – and then immunized those acquaintances. Turns out that the people who have many network links are more likely to be nominated as acquaintances, as opposed to those with few links. So the people who were nominated by the randomly selected people are more likely to be near the hub than the randomly selected people! Brilliant! Can’t wait for an opportunity to apply this (smile).

Citizen Engagement – Democracy arrives in the 21 Century!

I was delighted this week to receive an email from Rep. Mike Capuano. He’s asking his constituents for their opinion about health care reform, specifically in regards to the legislation proposed in the House this week. When Obama came into office, his administration initiated a call for Transparency and Open Government. They invited recommendations from professionals in the fields of deliberative democracy and civic engagement re. the principles and implementation of this initiative, focusing on how the federal government should go about including citizen input into public policy.

Obama’s initiative is still in its first stages and implementation hasn’t begun yet – so I was delighted to see Rep. Capuano’s email, as if he has caught the bug of civic engagement. I wonder if there are other Congress-people who have sent out similar letters asking for their constituents’ opinions….

As a facilitator of civic engagement and large-scale change, I strongly believe in the need to involve the public in government decisions, at every level: city, state and federal. “The public” includes the general public, who can express their values (what’s important to them), as well as stakeholders with related expertise, whose opinions might carry more weight in the decision-making process. There are several models of citizen engagement, from Study Circles to America Speaks, which are facilitated discussions for the purpose of creating action plans re. local, state, or federal policies or activities. My city, Somerville, used to host yearly Study Circle conversations, on Racism, Youth and Adults, Sept. 11, where every group developed recommendations for city officials to improve city governance. American Speaks created the “21st Century Town Meeting”, and they engaged 4,000 people in Manhattan after 9/11 in a discussion about the future of Ground Zero.

Music and Social Change!

We need inspiring stories to stoke our hearts, and these two fit the bill! These two conductors are using music to promote peace and understanding. Luis Szaran is a Paraguayan musician who is changing the lives of poor children by teaching them to play music. Daniel Barenboim is the famous pianist and conductor, who created an orchestra of Arab and Israeli young musicians, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. Their concert in Ramallah in 2006 was an achievement that confounded logistics and expectations. Some of us were lucky enough to hear the Orchestra when it performed in Providence in 2007.
from http://www.dailygood.org/more.php?n=3062

In “Sounds of Hope,” FRONTLINE/World reporter Monica Lam journeys to Paraguay to meet Luis Szaran, a famous musician and social entrepreneur who has dedicated himself to helping redeem the lives of poor and neglected children through music.

Accessing the Realm of Possibility

Bill Moyers recently hosted a conversation on his PBS program with Parker Palmer, author of “The Courage to Teach”, and “A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life.”  Palmer was describing how the Obama campaign engaged people, the electorate, in telling stories, and in thinking about the possibilities of his campaign. It was, Palmer said, the first campaign where he didn’t feel that the candidate was being “sold” to him.  “I was not asked, to buy a presidential candidate as a commodity in a consumer culture… It asked me to tell a story.”

I’m interested in the use of stories in organizations and communities to discuss values, visioning, and determining impact.  For example, employees’ stories that can tell us about the values of the company, and how they fit with the individual; stories that reveal people’s hopes and aspirations; client stories about the impact that an organization’s services have had on them. Stories about hopes and dreams take us beyond the “actual”, they give us access to the right-brain and to our emotions, and they generate energy for future actions. So I was struck by the Telling of Stories, and the Questions about Possibility, that the Obama campaign asked people.