Season 3 Episode 4 Part 3: Designing Gatherings for Belonging Using Ritual and Technology
Theodore (Teddy) Taptiklis and Angie Luo discuss gathering space and ritual design, roles and membership, and Zoom as a tool for developing presence
What do the rituals on the Marae teach us about designing gatherings and meetings for self-organizing groups? Can less structure and more connection with our senses be what’s needed to awaken us from the illusion of separation that has caused many of the societal and workplace challenges we face today?
Teddy Taptiklis is a researcher, facilitator, member of Enspiral, and founder of Between Us. Through his project Entangled Bodies, he has been researching the use of sound recordings to create a sense of relational awareness amongst groups. In 2019, he published the blog series Microattunement on Medium, building upon Richard Bartlett’s Microsolidarity framework, a community-building practice with the objectives of creating structures for belonging and meaningful work. Though Richard wasn’t able to join us for this recording, it is his voice you heard in Part 1 of this series.
This episode is Part 3 of 3 of our conversation, where we explore the importance of the role of host and ritual, as well as the design of the physical space, for creating conditions for belonging, membership, and responsiveness to the needs of the group.
Topics covered during the episode include:
Reimagining the role of hosting to share responsibilities with the group
Teddy’s experiences at the Marae and what these practices can teach us about designing gatherings, meetings, and teams to be self-organizing
Jim Burklo’s Musings: The Meaning of Membership
Designing spaces and rituals for inviting strangers to settle into an experience of belonging and membership where every role matters and where responsiveness to the needs of the room is possible
Richard Bartlett’s tweets (@RichDecibels)
The crew as the appropriate size for minimizing panic, achieving enough comfort to maximize stretch
Exploring how Zoom can be used for ritual and for developing presence without the need for identity labels
Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the utterance
Moving from appreciation and recognition to empathy with feedback
Teddy shares his website (betweenus.net) for listeners to connect with him. You can also find his Microattunement blog series on Medium. Two books coming this year.
Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and let us know your thoughts on Twitter!
