5. Creating intentions, extending invitations

Why do we engage, and why should people care to come?

A “situation model” — an intuitive representation of one person’s current complexity. (Image: Marc Rettig)

During the previous step in your project, you listened to people who are living the particular slice of life you’ve chosen to engage. Now let’s use what you’ve learned to practice making an invitation that will actually matter to those people.

What are the characteristics of a compelling question?
What are the key ingredients of a good invitation?
And how are these principles applied in real situations?

Lecture and activities

• Warm-ups: experiencing yet another way for groups of people to quickly get into conversation or get into creative flow
• Lecture: how convening is applied in different real-world approaches; the characteristics of an invitation to gather around a question that matters
• Project work session: preparing the invitation you’ll make to your chosen slice of life

Key concepts

• Invitation as a replacement for mandate, policy, or being a “research subject”
• Invitations to engage vs. persuading to attend
• Why engagement often matters more than content