The longest blogpost ever on Metafari, Begeistring Community and the power of networking.

A background

The Metafari is to 100% a product of networking. Five years ago I was asked by Sven Sandström from Kebbe Sandström to join a meeting in Vinkeveen, Netherlands. The invitation came from Kees Ahaus of TNO Management Consultants "on behalf of" Anne Radford, founder of AI Practitioner.

Svens wife and partner Lisen Kebbe could not join so he asked me to keep company. The original purpose for the meeting was to discuss about the possibility to arrange a world conference around Appreciative Inquiry in Europe 2008. We soon found out that the timing was not right to arrange such a conference but that we would very much like to continue to meet to start building a momentum for a possible network in the future. We who came from Sweden agreed to invite the network to Stockholm in October 2006. This started a tradition that has led to a network with meetings in Hungary, Greece, Norway, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Slovenia. The last meeting was in Loutraki, Greece October 2010.

From the first meeting I started to take notes, capture flipcharts and post on a website. It then developed to a responsibility to support in organizing the network meetings who has always been arranged by volunteers who does not get paid, and with no fee for the meetings.

The network now has close to 600 members from all over Europe - and the world

How I view it now

Most of my worklife I have spent in the IT business although I started out my career as a pre school teacher. Working with IT project I have often struggled with the question why it is so hard to make people change the way they work when the potential of improvement from the use of technology is so great. To me it has been clear for a long time that although the tremendous change in societies in the world is powered by machines connected to the internet, these are machines that enable us from freeing ourselves of the constraints of the traditional way of looking at organisations and companies - As machines!

Getting in touch with systemic ideas, with Appreciative Inquiry, Open Space technology and other similar thoughts in 1999 gave me a framework in which to think, and it connected to my experiences in the use of technology.

Internet technology is an enabler that allows us to create organisations that are based on images of living systems!

This might feel a bit scary as we now are leaving the comfortable domains of control, right and wrong, finding "the best" solution etc and are entering the domains of simply looking for what brings life, and what works. Instead of finding unity we celebrate diversity. Instead of trying to kill the competition we are inspired by them.

How the Metafari came into being

I was working in a project at a Swedish public agency where we were to create a website around

strategies for public property. Not a very "sexy" topic although much more interesting that one thinks. We were talking about how to talk about the website. What should it be like?

Maybe it should be like a waterhole?

This idea created a big leap of energy. We talked about why you come to the waterhole, about what happens at the waterhole, about the dangers at the waterhole. Hours of interesting discussion.

I had been in South Africa on vacation in 2004 and remembered the great safari guide we had in Hluhluwe Imfulozi National park. I found a phone number on a picture of his car and called Jeff again.

-Jeff, this is Leif from Sweden. Do you remember me? It was the day it had rained so much and we watched a group of elephants that almost drowned?

-Oh yes! I remember! And you sent me the pictures

-Well, I am working with a website here in Sweden and we talked about using the waterhole as a Metaphor. Now I wonder, do you have any good waterhole pictures?

-I am going out over the weekend to do some Safari. I will look for good shots!

-Thank you. Would it also be possible for you to write something personal about the meaning of the waterhole.

-OK

One week later I got pictures and a wonderful story that I made into a presentation that was very succesful.

LOOK HERE AT THE ORIGINAL WATERHOLE PRESENTATION

And then, there in 2006 the idea popped up. There are more places of strong symbolic value. The termite mound, the coral reef, etc. Would it be possible to arrange a journey into the images of living systems, a Metaphor Safari?

I should never have told the idea to Ruth Nesje who was one of the participants in the meeting in Vinkeveen in May 2006. I told her about my idea when we met in Stockholm October 2006.

-I think its a great idea! I am building a Conference Center in Tanzania. So lets do it.

In the original group I also reconnected with Lena Holmberg who was a consultant with a genuine interest for new ideas and a true international outlook.

-I think this is a great idea! Let's partner in doing this!

We planned the first Metafari was to November 2007 and we got four test pilots to join us. The design of the Metafari week was created by Ruth and me on a ferry from Pireaus to Santorini after the network meeting in Athens, September 2007.

And the journey took place, and was a great succes. You can view the blogposts here

But as usual with great ideas, the main work is still yet ahead.

-To do this, you need a local partner. I know a guy, Rafael ole Moono. He is the best Maasai in Tanzania for this purpose

So I went back to Tanzania and Tanga in March 2008 to meet with Rafael, and after that we are partners.

Together with Elisabeth Wollsén we did a second "prototype Metafari" that we called Narrative Metafari or Metafari Ya Pili in October 2008.

We learned even more about this, but as the financial crisis hit the world we postponed our plans of arranging Metafaris until conditions had improved.

During this time we also found another opportunity connected to the fact that almost everyone in Tanzania now has a phone but less then 15% have access to electricity. This means that there is a huge need for "off grid technology". So in Sept-Oct 2010 we traveled Tanzania with HiNation in HiLightin Tanzania - a Market feasability study and test journey for the first batch of production units. But that is another story and you can follow that in the blogposts

Welcome to join the Metafari

We are inviting you to a journey of hope in a space of many voices. You will leave the idea of Africa as a place for problems and poverty behind and find opportunies and new perspectives.

You will be able to explore ideas, issues and challenges using the inspiring places, your journey partners, people you meet along the way, and your Metafari guides; me and Rafael.

In Metafari you will find a generative space, where you will exit as another person then you were when you came.

Welcome to join the Metafari.

And as a text like this probably creates more questions than answers, please use the comment function below, ask questions on Facebook, or email us directly.

leif.josefsson@gmail.com

olemoono@gmail.com