Participation
This is a short text about an evening in Brussels on AI hosted and organized by Edgeryders. I am not going to focus one what was said but on the process of participation. For me this begins with the invitation: “We would love to invite you as a speaker. If you think it would make sense we are happy to also invite for example one of the coauthors you mentioned in the post on the topic (Workshop on Inequalities in the age of AI, what they are, how they work and what we can do about them - 19/11 - Brussels - #40 by anon82932460).” This is a clever invitation. It flatters the invitee a bit, I am invited as a speaker and it is clear that some homework was done. I am being invited because of some content I co-wrote, so it also attempts to bring in significant others as well as pointing me to the fact that I am invited not because of work that I wrote alone but that I co-wrote, in participation. Very hard to resist. So I say yes and I plan my trip to The Netherlands around it. Would I have done this if I was not invited as a speaker? I don’t think so.
So when afterwards it turns out that there are no speakers at all, ‘just’ participants, I have to realize and reflect on this fact that I probably would have missed out on this evening if I had not been invited to speak. Being used to being invited as a speaker I think back to all these meetings I have not joined not being invited as one and so I am left with having to reflect on my own behavior and patterns.
As it turned out, everybody was to be a speaker. Two groups were formed. In the middle of each five chairs are placed. A larger circle is around them. The organizers have invited four people in each group to sort of kick off the discussion. T he fifth chair is for a participant. Interestingly as a personal reflection I was not even invited to ’speak’ as on of the first four, which I found again quite well done and a good lesson in ego management. I actually wonder now if not everyone was invited as a speaker? Two rounds of an hour. The format sparks people bringing ideas and content, not so much hard personal opinions. I decide to listen. Recently I bring pen and paper to Conferences and meetings like this, so I listen better. Otherwise mails keep popping up or I start to Twitter. I hear a lot of good things. After the break into the second round @alberto to taps me on the knee and tells he he is going to call me in. I whisper ‘No’ at first as I am happy ‘just’ listening, but Ok I think I am here and I have story so why not. I go the chair in the middle and after a while I slip out again. Discussion. Nice. Then I make a quick remark from my outer seat chair. Two people grumble a bit. After all the rule is: if you want to talk you have to go the middle chair. I am thinking I am not going to that chair just to say this one line. So I do it again. This time there is an angry reaction and muffled shout: Go to the middle! I am not doing that, but I realize another very significant part of the process. A part that I always knew existed and even plan for, but now the obviousness is palpable as is the tension.
I realize that for me the rule of speak in middle chair is quite arbitrary and actually has been conjured up with all of us in plain view. Yet even if that ‘rule’, that ‘format’ is arbitrary and in existence as temporary as the ‘group’ exists, some people - some intelligence with particular characteristics - is taking this so serious that is has become the next normal and must be adhered to. That is a very logical and normal position. I am not right in my view to immediately subvert an attempt to arbitrary format making. I am entitled to it. I do it. But the right of another not to do that is just as logical sound and morally just. So I am living, being very embodied in this ‘process’ as there is real tension (for a while) a very important participatory design process lesson: ‘design’ the format and design unraveling the format while taking into account the opposition against that and make this realization part of the process for all.
This evening was able to bring it very significant and important questions for my own practice that is very relevant to the co-creation, participation and community management that I do daily. As such the process does reflect on the contents of what was discussed; how can we bring about a greater sense of co design of citizens in the new technologies that seem to emerge quite distinct from other human needs and longings?