Everybody’s Doing It

October 8, 2010 — Everybody’s doing it. I mean everybody!

That means, I better do it.

Your mom—or at least mine—might say something along the lines of, “if everyone else jumped off a cliff, then would you?”

In this case (sorry, mom), yes. See, I’m trying to talk to all those people jumping off the cliff, and, well, if I stay up here on this bridge, they can’t hear me anymore. So, yes, I’m jumping. Not without awareness. And a parachute. Not to mention a few Luna bars. (You never know what there’ll be for snacks at the bottom of a cliff.)

The it, in this case, is social media. For some arenas (say marketing companies), it’s an easy leap because they know there’s a trampoline and some really great cocktails at the bottom of their cliff.

For many others, it’s a bit scary.

For us nonprofits who practice dialogue—whose raison d’être is to model and encourage civil conversations—there is just no telling what that drop off holds.

Today’s conversations—whether it’s about the Cordoba House community center or the BP oil spill or tax cuts for the rich—are happening online. Can anyone say “issues on which people are divided?”

For an organization like us, that’s well-equipped and experienced in tackling some of the world’s most entrenched conflicts, there’s plenty of work to jump into. All we have to do is log in and choose a user name, right?

Not so fast.

The question is: Can the Public Conversations Project take it’s approach—one that points to the power of pausing before speaking—to a place where responses are rapid-fire? Can we help the nameless @NoDeathPanel and @GoObama see each other as human beings? What could we do in a string of 140 character comments that would encourage people to try to understand rather than persuade?

Can real dialogue be practiced online, modeled in a way that will shift online conversations from torrents to curiosity, from blame to understanding?

I’m asking you. Yes, YOU, the one reading this right now. What do you think? Can it be done? Should it be tried?

Write me a comment.

(By doing so, I must warn you, you’re jumping off that cliff with me. But don’t worry, I’m bringing extra Luna Bars.)

Susan Countryman
Director of Communications and Development
Public Conversations Project