I have gone through all of your registration responses so far, looking for themes and takes which can provide ground for discussion.
One recurring theme regard how participatory culture can extend into and enrich default culture.
@Sampsa, @Oki and @Klande are looking at ways of extending knowledge from BM/ participatory culture into their professional lives. PC appears to be a fertile ground for innovative leadership. How come? What have you learnt?
Apropos leadership, the uniqueness and value of PC organisation and collaboration styles appear to be central interest and are certainly inexhaustible topics of discussion.
Questions of organisation and leadership tie into motivation and meaningfulness:
Participatory culture appears to fullfil needs unsatisfied in default culture.
Why are those needs not met outside of PC? And, as @Jami inquired above, can BM/PC knowledge be extended and applied in default culture?
There are also several comments on the antagonism between PC and capitalism / default culture. Some of you raise the concern of how to maintain and preserve PC and its values in an economy which is very different too it. Coexistence is a frequent term
Additionally, @frank and @GMan both mentioned religious and ritual aspects of BM. @frank did so in a context of organisation while @GMan has done ethnographical work and have looked at the proliferation and popularisation of burner rites and mythology:
What are your thoughts on these themes? Does anything resonate with you in particular? Do you disagree? Please elaborate!
Keeping the title of the seminar in mind, which other themes are worthy of mention? What is missing?
This is really interesting because it links PC to the most core need all humans have: to feel like a participant in the ongoings of daily life. Furthermore, it highlights the importance of fostering values that help cultivate experiencing meaning and belongingness, as well as personal responsibility for building spaces that foster this. One thing that spoke to me at BM in 2019 was the value or code of radical self-reliance.
What seems to plaque the world in many of its corners is a certain kind of passivity (as opposed to observing a challenge and taking action to seek to change the situation instead of just complaining about it - something that obviously is universal but seems to be a national hobby in my native Finland). Participation in the social domain begins with showing up to ourselves, then to the people and systems around us and finally, infusing it with radical self-reliance that transforms our âshowing-upnessâ (this too can still be passive) to true engagement.
When this happens, boom, weâre off to building the kind of new world structure and culture of an active citizenry that we need, and frankly, that will most likely define the quality of the future of our species.
âHow can you promote a brand called burning Man in order to go-exist with the markets and without selling out itâs culture?â
Just thinking out loud here and my thoughts are by no means fully matured. However, here it goes⌠As the Burning Man got (and is getting) bigger, it is facing a challenge to hold its most core principles intact (I am a new Burner so correct me if I am wrong). For reasons that have piqued the minds of social scientists for ages (not sure if the âlowest common denominatorâ is an idea fit to be mentioned here as well), with large masses seems to come some sort of âa dilutionâ of the originally envisioned standards of intentions. Not saying this is good or bad per se because it seems to be part of the behavior of large groups and is weaved into human behavior. However, through observing the evolution of BM I am interested in 1.) understanding whether it has to be so and, 2.) what are the tools we can use (in addition to individual-dependent practices such as a commitment to perpetual self-development) that may help communities and groups of all sorts navigate the landscape of mass culture-building more successfully.
Hi! Thanks to @SebastianStlind for making this thread! Really inspiring and practical to see all the answers like this!
To my special interest are, and some further questions for elaboration:
The leadership -topic: What can default world business leaders learn from participatory cultures and their management?
a. What is the core of participatory cultures? How can we tap on to that core outside of the PC context - or can we? What is there to transfer to default world leadership?
b. What are the reasons for which we cannot transfer PC ways of working into the default world business organizations? Are these reasons real? Can we go around them some how?
And a bit larger in scale ;), following @artemis: The economy must become based on more sustainable businesses and investing. What can we learn from participatory cultures about managing change?
a. How to build momentum, how to âfacilitate the unfacilitatable self-organizationâ to create larger movement for a better world?
b. Could we influence world business leaders in any way to make faster progress in switching from short term profit-making into transforming their businesses into sustainable ones in the long run? Even one company at a time? What could be windows of opportunity for this kind of a change? What could be relevant arguments? What kind of help would they need? And when companies make these kind of transformations, could we make the world more aware of them somehow? How could we help business leaders to have the courage to take the leap?
