Join us to Celebrate the Release of smartMeme’s New Book!

Re:Imagining Change — How to Use Story-based Strategy to Win Campaigns, Build Movements and Change the World 2010 PM Press

With co-author Patrick Reinsborough and Special Guests Sharon Lungo of the Ruckus Society/IP3 and Gopal Dayaneni of Movement Generation Justice & Ecology Project

Book Release: Reception & Panel Discussion
Tuesday May 4th 7-9pm
Women’s Building, Audre Lorde Room
3543 18th St. San Francisco, CA 94110

7:00 pm Reception with light snacks & wine
7:30 pm Presentation & Panel Discussion

Re:Imagining Change (published by PM Press) is an inspiring and accessible resource guide to smartMeme’s innovative story-based strategy tools and methodology. The book grows out of smartMeme’s work since 2002 training over 3,000 activists and collaborating with over 100 social change organizations on a wide range of critical environmental and social justice issues. Re:Imagining Change outlines how to apply narrative power analysis to effectively frame issues, provides intriguing case studies, and issues a passionate call for more creative movement building to face the intersecting crises of the 21st century.

SmartMeme co-founder Patrick Reinsborough will briefly share some of the insights from the book, and will be joined in a panel discussion on strategy and innovation in the emerging movements for fundamental social change by visionary local organizers and smartMeme collaborators Gopal Dayaneni of the Movement Generation Justice & Ecology Project and Sharon Lungo of the Ruckus Society and Indigenous People’s Power Project.

Don’t miss this evening of celebration, strategy, and storytelling!

PS. If you can’t make it but want to check out the book you can order it online at http://www.smartMeme.org/book

NOTE: Major discount for bulk purchases are available (10 or more copies) for grassroots organizations.

I landed in Cochabamba this morning to attend the World Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, called by Bolivian President Evo Morales in the wake of the failed (and underwhelming) Copenhagen Climate talks last December.

From the cmpcc.org website:

• “On April 19-22, 2010, over 15,000 people and up to 70 governments from all over the world will gather to attend the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia. The event is in response to the failed COP15 in Copenhagen and aims to highlight the central role of peoples movements and social movements in the climate struggle and the critical alliance that must be forged between movements and progressive governments.”

I flew overnight from Miami with a delegation organized by the Bolivian UN Mission in NY. The flight was full of Climate Justice leaders. I had the opportunity to connect with new folks and touch base with peeps that I’d been with in Copenhagen. We joked that we were flying “Activist Air”!

I spent a groggy but gorgeous morning with friends from the Southwest Workers Union and the Indigenous Environmental Network, as I am also here to support the Grassroots Global Justice/IEN/Movement Generation delegation.

We traveled to the village of Tiquipaya where the meeting is taking place, and passed through older and newer neighborhoods. Our driver insisted that Cochabamba is “Tranquillo” (mellow/relaxed) and the most beautiful of all cities in Bolivia. I noticed graffiti resisting racism, women selling produce and prepared foods on the street, and many students hanging out (school is out for this summit!). I looked up and was awed by the beautiful mountains jutting up from the mesa.

We took some time getting our accreditations and getting oriented to what’s happening with the meetings. With over 15,000 people and 100 countries in attendance, there are hundreds of workshops and side events and a slew of high profile panels on issues such as the Structural Causes of Climate Change, Carbon Markets and Climate Debt. President Evo Morales Ayma will officially open the gathering tomorrow morning with a speech at the stadium!

There are also self organized side events I want to attend on behalf of smartMeme, such as a session on geoengineering with our friends from the ETC group, and a strategy discussion with members of Climate Justice Action on the next steps for street protest and climate justice strategy post COP 15. There are also meetings of the Climate Justice Now! Network and other formations.

The heart of the conference is really the “working groups.” I am in the Strategies for Action working group, and listening to people from across the world make proposals about how to move forward together: Mass demonstrations, media campaigns, international networks, and supporting Mexican organizations confronting COP 16 in Cancun later this year…This is one of 18 working groups that will develop a proposal to bring to the larger assembly of the conference. Other groups are focused on topics such as Forests, Water, Indigenous Peoples, a Climate Tribunal, A Global Referendum, and how to advance the Rights of Mother Earth.

There are many critical pieces to the Cochabamba conversation:

What is the role of the COP process in addressing climate change? How can advancing the idea of ‘climate debt’ serve to build more resiliencies in the face of climate crisis for the global south? What does a climate debt agenda mean for impacted Northern communities, such as Indigenous Alaskan Nations? Can a “Rights” framework for Mother Earth create a more robust legal recourse for big carbon polluters? Where are things going to land with REDDs? The fate of our worlds remaining forests and the homelands of Indigenous Peoples are hanging in the balance of carbon-offset schemes…Can we build a robust program to protect our climate commons as opposed to a privatization plan for the atmosphere? What about Kyoto, and what can be done to resist the Copenhagen Accord Agenda to kill it? What would Evo Morales’s Climate Criminal Tribunal look like? And what would happen next?

And I guess, the big question…Are we going to make it?

For all of you out there in Internet land, you can keep up with proceedings by tuning into http://www.oneclimate.net/bolivia

There are also community gatherings to participate virtually in the conference if you are in New York, Chicago, and Boston!

This is from the May First folks who are organizing this:

On April 20, 2010, at 7:00 pm Eastern time people in various cities of the United States will gather for a direct interaction via the Internet with participants in the Conferencia Mundial de los Pueblos sobre Cambio Climático y Derechos de la Madre Tierra. This multi-city event will be one of the first fully interactive convergences of its type, moving our hemispheric movement forward a step. Many events throughout the next year, including the US Social Forum in Detroit, World Education Forum in Palestine, and World Social Forum in Dakar all plan to use similar organizing strategy and technology.

People in several cities in the US will be able to speak directly with Conference participants and discuss what’s going on in Cochabamba, the issues being raised, the concerns we have, questions, and discussion. A group of people in Bolivia (including many from the US delegation to the conference) will make a short report about what’s going on. The US-based rooms and our participants in Bolivia will then begin a conversation: we will pose questions, suggestions, clarifications, opinions, etc. and discuss the ongoing conference with them Bolivia and between U.S. cities.

A New York-based delegation from the Bolivian Mission to the US is in attendance in Bolivia, which allows US-bound participants a direct link through which to raise issues or questions we might have with the rest of the Conference participants: they can bring us back those responses when they get back home. People from the US will also be joined by delegates from other countries, including Bolivia, to broaden the exchanges and discussions.

Please follow mayfirst.org for additional national locations as they are confirmed. The event will take place in all locations on:

April 20, 2010
7:00 pm

Boston:
encuentro 5 (encuentro5.org)
33 Harrison Ave, 5th floor
Boston, MA 02111

New York City:
The Brecht Forum (brechtforum.org)
451 West Street (between Bank and Bethune Streets)
April 20, 2010

Chicago:
Casa Michoacan
1638 S. Blue Island
Chicago IL 60608

SmartMeme’s new book from PM Press Re:Imagining Change — How to Use Story-based Strategy to Win Campaigns, Build Movements and Change the World is out and the co-authors will be doing events in three different cities over the next few weeks. First up is Minneapolis on Sunday April 18th at May Day Books!

Minneapolis

Book Reading & Celebration
Sunday April 18th 7-9 pm
May Day Books
301 Cedar Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55454

The book Re:Imagining Change — How to Use Story-based Strategy to Win Campaigns, Build Movements and Change the World is an interactive and accessible resource guide to smartMeme’s story-based strategy tools and methodology.

The book outlines how to apply narrative power analysis to effectively frame issues and offers plenty of juicy case studies and analysis. In addition to it’s hands-on skills approach the book includes a passionate call for our movements to innovate our storytelling techniques in the face of the looming ecological crisis.

Order a copy of this great resource now at www.smartMeme.org/book or contact smartMeme directly at info [at] smartmeme.org to get a major discount on bulk orders of 10 or more copies.

May 4th smartMeme coast to coast!

We’ll be doing simultaneous book release events in Boston and San Francisco!

San Francisco

Book Release: Reception & Panel Discussion
Tuesday May 4th 7-9pm
Women’s Building, Audre Lorde Room
3543 18th St. San Francisco, CA 94110

Co-author Patrick Reinsborough will be joined by Special Guests for a panel discussion on Innovation and Strategy in our Movements for Change

Sharon Lungo of the Ruckus Society/Indigenous People’s Power Project

Gopal Dayaneni of Movement Generation Justice & Ecology Project

Boston

Tuesday May 4th 6-9pm
Bella Luna-Milky Way Lounge
284 Amory Street, Jamaica Plain

[Drum Roll Please....]

smartMeme’s first book, co-authored by Patrick Reinsborough and Doyle Canning, is being published this week by PM Press - and we’re headed to New York City to celebrate!

Join Patrick & Doyle (plus smartMeme Board leaders) for two exciting community events in New York City:

Manhattan

Sunday 3/28 7:00 pm
Bluestockings Bookstore & Activists Center
www.bluestockings.com
172 Allen St (1 block south of Houston & 1rst Ave.)
NY, NY 10002

Williamsburg

Monday 3/29 7:30 pm
The Change You Want To See Gallery
www.thechangeyouwanttosee.org
84 Havemeyer St @ Metropolitan Ave

Brooklyn, NY 11211

Come out to hear some of the insights from Re:Imagining Change, chat with the co-authors and pick up your very own copy of the book! We’d love to see you!

The book Re:Imagining Change — How to Use Story-based Strategy to Win Campaigns, Build Movements and Change the World is an interactive and accessible resource guide to smartMeme’s story-based strategy tools and methodology. The book outlines how to apply narrative power analysis to effectively frame issues and offers plenty of juicy case studies and analysis, including a call for our movements to innovate our storytelling techniques in the face of the looming ecological crisis.

And, If you can’t make it — you can now order a copy of it at www.smartMeme.org/book

ALSO: Major discounts for bulk purchases are available (10 or more copies)
for groups that want to distribute the book to their staff or members - email info (at) smartmeme dot org for details!

Dearest friends, family, and community,

As you read this, an army of energy lobbyists are preparing to descend on the global negotiations for a new climate change treaty. Their objective is not to build a more just or sustainable future, but to profiteer from the climate crisis and pass the buck to the next generation.

But across town and around the world, everyday people like you are taking a stand and telling another story of local food, renew

able energy, and social equality. Educators, farmers, young people, mothers, and community leaders are telling a new story of just transition away from fossil fuels—gathered in church basements, demonstrating in public squares, and speaking truth in the halls of power. This is the story that affirms life and respects the rights of people. This is the story of ecological justice. And this is the story you chose when you support smartMeme with your donation.

With your support, smartMeme has built a gifted team of thinkers, doers, and dreamers who are on the ground, doing the honest work of social change day in and day out, from coast to coast. We are a lean, diverse network with creative methods that reframe public debates and get results for economic justice and environmental protection. And we’re counting on your donation to shift the story for progressive causes in 2010.

SmartMeme delivers powerful impact on a shoestring budget, directly training over 500 frontline activists and collaborating with over 75 diverse groups in 2009 alone, including:

• Developing a cross-cutting alliance of grassroots groups across California to defend the human right to water and protect watersheds that are threatened by global climate destabilization and water-greedy industrial agriculture companies

• Designing and teaching an innovative curriculum for leading economic justice organizations blending framing and storytelling with online video and social media tools

• Gathering the nation’s next generation of climate change leaders for a retreat on framing social justice strategies for the Copenhagen climate talks, and beyond.

SmartMeme makes all of this (and more) happen for cents on the dollar of the corporate PR machines we fight.

As a mission driven non-profit, smartMeme does not receive funding from corporations, or even large foundations. We are powered by YOU, the everyday people who believe in change put your dollars where your dreams are: with the courageous spirit of innovation and social progress, one footstep at a time.

Now is the time to walk with us. Our goal is to raise $30,000 this holiday season. $5000, $500, $100, $50…or a smaller amount each month as a smartMeme sustainer will directly support critical campaigns, training grassroots leaders, and wide-scale distribution of the 2010 edition of our strategy manual. Your donation is an essential step to build the movement for ecological justice and progressive social change in 2010.

Supporting smartMeme is an act of strategy. SmartMeme is dedicated to innovating social change methods to build a more effective movement and advancing a larger vision of systemic social change. Your gift to smartMeme is a force-multiplier with rippling impacts.

Ask your self, what would you give for ecological justice? Can you put a price on empowerment, ecology, and equality? What can you put aside each month for a better future?

The ecological footprints we leave behind are the choices we make everyday: the way we live, what we buy, and what we give. Together, our footprints create the courageous march of progress that defines (and redefines) history.

Please join us on this journey today by making a generous gift to support smartMeme’s important mission, and change the story for a better future. Thank you for your support, and for all you do…step by courageous step.

With one foot in front of the other,

Doyle Canning & Patrick Reinsborough, smartMeme Co-Directors

PS: Have you seen our new online video, Changing the Story of Climate Crisis?! Meet some amazing ecological justice leaders and give secure online today: smartmeme.org/climate

PPS: A special welcome & shout out to incoming smartMeme board members Autumn Brown, Maryrose Dolezal, Myla Ablog, Nupur Modi, and Shana Mc-Davis Conway! Support their leadership! Become a smartMeme sustainer for 2010: smartmeme.org/give

THANK YOU, AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!

As the seasons turn and the geese take flight, we are inspired to offer this invitation for participation!

FACT: As each goose flaps its wings, it creates uplift for the bird following. By flying in a “V” formation, the whole flock adds 71% greater flying range than if the bird flew alone.

LESSON: Those who share a common direction and sense of unity can get where they are going quicker and easier, because they are traveling on the thrust of one another…

SmartMeme is seeking a few special individuals to join our Board of Directors, and we’re issuing this invitation to our community. The Board’s primary function is to support the organizational mission and participate in making that mission manifest. As part of our commitment to inclusive movement building, the Board is majority people of color and women. Attention is made to diversity in sexual orientation, area of work, geography, ability, etc. Young people are welcome and the current group is all under 40 years old.

2009 board members start with a seaside board retreat in Northern California November 5-8, 2009. We are currently redefining and building this leadership team, and it’s an exciting time in smartMeme! Interested?

Apply today! [DOWNLOAD APPLICATION AS PDF]

Want to fly with our flock?

Read and return this application [DOWNLOAD AS PDF] and return via email by 5 pm PST on OCTOBER 14, 2009.

{More lessons from Geese}

Enjoy some scenes from the 2009 REVerb Summer Camp with the Progressive Technology Project, somewhere in Minnesota!

This 4 day training was 2 days on framing/story-based strategy w/ smartMeme, and 2 days of fun w/ the Flip Cams and Tweet-decks making mock campaign videos and online campaigns, with Jen Caltrider.

Groups at the camp included SCOPE from Los Angeles, Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP) from Albuquerque, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, Data Center, POWER from the San Francisco Bay Area, NY City AIDS Housing Network, and TN Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition from Nashville.

I took the opportunity to learn more about using final cut pro, an made this video blog about the summer camp!

I had a wonderful time working with all these beautiful, incredible, bold and brilliant organizers - and innovating the story-based strategy curriculum to mesh with viral video production and online campaigning. It was tons of fun, and I learned a ton too.

THANKS to PTP and all who made this amazing training possible!

See also — Pics from the week via Flickr…

A quick reflection on our 2009 convening on climate change, creative actions, social justice and the “Copenhagen Moment”…

I am so thrilled about the “Pause,” a restorative and rigorous retreat we convened last week. I am deeply grateful for all who attended, supported, and donated to make this event possible. It was truly a special occasion, gathering some amazing climate activists who are approaching the crisis from a justice perspective, and working to build movements at the intersections of ecology and social justice. We were also joined by our amazing video team (justinfrancese.com) and kitchen magicians (delicata catering). The beautiful Bluewater Farm in Andover, NH (traditional Pennacook Territory) was generously donated for this event. Check out pics…

The sessions involved narrative power analysis and discussions of the dominant frames on the climate crisis; climate justice principles; the UNFCCC negotiations in Copenhagen later this year; and creative ideas for how to spread memes for climate justice.

We also had a celebration on Tuesday evening, and were blessed with local special guests from the Winter Center for Indigenous Traditions (dedicated to environmental justice, Abinaki indigenous rights and cultural practices), and local CSA organic farmer Katherine Darling, of Two Mountain Farm.

Fireside chats and formal sessions included discussions of the upcoming G20 meeting in Pittsburg, stories from past UNFCCC talks in Bali and Poznan, reflections on race and racism in the environmental field, and visioning for how to build an inclusive movement that addresses the root causes of the climate crisis.

As I write this blog, I am recalling this experience and simultanously struck by the stakes. Listening to this mornings news from the G8 Summit in Italy, I hear the voice of Phil Radford, executive director of Greenpeace USA:

“It’s almost diagnosing your child with cancer but not taking the kid to the doctor. It just doesn’t seem like good leadership, and I think people expect better of President Obama and other world leaders.”

Then, the sobering words of Ken Lieberthal of the Brookings Institution (?):

“I think it’s going to be very, very hard to avoid a catastrophe, so I think anyone who looks very seriously at this issue has to say that the future looks very, very sobering.”

Indeed.

The Road to Copenhagen is hot, long, and treacherous. But we make the road by walking…

Below is an excerpt of a report-back on the retreat by some of the participants…

Here is a report-back from a strategy retreat convened by smartMeme that I attended last week (called “The Pause”) to discuss climate justice issues & messaging. There were about 15 or so folks in attendance, all invited by smartMeme or other attendees. The folks who came were connected with various orgs with a major focus on either climate justice or environmental justice: Environmental Justice Climate Change Initiative (EJCC), Indigenous Environmental Network, Action Mill, Avaaz.org Climate Action, Katrina to Copenhagen, Global Justice Ecology Project, Rainforest Action Network, The Ruckus Society, Movement Generation, DS4SI and Northeast Action.

The retreat intended to focus on how to do more effective framing and messaging around climate justice, following the smartMeme model of challenging underlying cultural assumptions (you can download their new manual for free at smartmeme.org). On the first day we heard some presentations about smartMeme’s messaging strategy and ‘narrative power analysis’ (see the manual for a more in-depth explanation of this), as well as some strategies that have been used by Action Mill and Design Studio for Social Intervention, a community organizing group in Boston. There were some brainstorming sessions to “get the creative juices flowing,” and some short presentations about Environmental Justice/Climate Justice principles, the COP-15 process, the Mobilization for Climate Justice and other organizing underway.

The second day the group wanted to get deeper into concerns of numerous people present on the watering down of the term “climate justice” and its conflation with climate action, which is not necessarily based in justice (carbon offsetting, for example)…

All in all, while the retreat was not exactly what I expected, it was the unexpected conversations that I found most valuable and thought-provoking. And the facilitators did an excellent job of being flexible and serving the many changing needs of the group. Oh, and I forgot to mention the food was AMAZING. Mainly, it was great just to connect with so many awesome folks, and be able to have some of the hard (but
so necessary) conversations around how to build a movement across boundaries of race, class, and culture. Only by hearing each other and working through this stuff will we ever stand a chance of building the sort of broad-based movement that actually has the power to bring about systemic changes…

I was so pleased to attend the 2009 national gathering of the Progressive Communicators Network (PCN), held in Chicago at the end of May. The conversations were rich, the connections were deep, and the insights were exquisite. What an amazing network!

Along with the great discussions (and party!), one of the highlights for me was the workshop on the story-based strategy model. We hadn’t done anything quite like this before. Patrick and I, with support from Anasa Troutman of the Movement Strategy Center, designed this session for this special group of skilled practitioners. It was such a wonderful challenge, and I felt myself growing into the moment. I was so humbled and honored to be in the space and share some of our “edge thinking.” And now you we can share it with you too!

Thanks to Nell Greenberg from Rainforest Action Network (who I recruited on-the-fly to shoot this low-fi video on our Flip Cam), the world can watch the workshop on smartmeme.blip.tv! Its about 45 minutes, and we go into some detail about the strategy model presented in RE:Imagining Change with examples to show each stage in the process….enjoy!

*You can download the slideshow from this presentation (its higher res than this video) at slideshare.net/smartmeme

* You can download the Story-based Strategy Campagin Model “Chart” handout HERE.

Pics from the workshop….

What PCN is all about:

PCN exists to strengthen and amplify the power, voices, and vision of grassroots movements that are working for racial, social, economic, and environmental justice. Network members use communication strategy, framing and messaging, and media tools to: 1) enhance the influence of social change movements on public policy and opinion; and 2) realize a world without poverty, racism, and other forms of oppression. The Network is a project of Spirit in Action, a movement-building support organization located in western Massachusetts.

A thousand THANK YOUs to the Progressive Communicators Network for bringing this amazing group together!

MAKE A DONATION TO PCN TODAY!

It has taken me far too long to post this, but I feel strongly that smartMeme community will enjoy this important conversation.

On Febuary 25th, the Boston Chapter of the Progressive Communicators Network convened a panel discussion called “Talking About Racial & Economic Justice in Obama’s America.” After some fairly crude sound editing, I managed to upload the recordings of the panelists for your listening enjoyment!

Amaad Rivera [LISTEN] is the director of the racial wealth divide program at United for a Fair Economy, and lead author on their 2009 State of the Dream Report: The Silent Depression. He discusses Racism without Racists, patterns of school segregation in Boston, and building racial justice frameworks.

Tarso Luís Ramos [LISTEN] is the director of research at the right-wing watchdog group Political Research Associates. He discusses the work of Ian F. Haney Lopez’s on “colorblind white dominance,” Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s work on White Supremacy and Racism in the Post-Civil Rights Era, and the “Color Blind Ideology.”

Color-Blindness:

“views racism at the individual level (e.g. Lines of reasoning such as “I don’t own slaves” or “I have very close black friends” to defend oneself) without looking at the larger social mechanisms in which racism operates.”

Ramos presents a facsinating discussion of Bonilla-Silva’s frames of color blind ideology, and how these play out in affirmative action fights: Minimization (“Yes, there is some racism but its no big deal”); Cultural Failings (“Mexicans have too many babies; Blacks don’t value education,” etc.); Naturalization (“Its natural for people to flock together. Its not segregation.”); and Meritocracy (“Its unfair for government to advance one race over another; treaty rights/civil rights are special rights.”)

Ramos says that these four frames reinforce each other and hold racism in place, and he points to the work of the Center for Social Inclusion to suggest that audiences need an alternative frame of “Structural Racism” to buck the colorblind mythology.

Doyle Canning [LISTEN] (that’s me), discusses some of the stories in the popular culture on racism and “post racism,” and how story-based strategies can work to challenge some of the underlying assumptions of white supremacy in the dominant culture.

The most potent meme of the moment was the “Nation of Cowards” from Eric Holder’s speech on systemic racism.

I strongly recommend watching this amazing roundtable on the topic on Laura Flander’s GRITtv:

Manning Marable’s comments (10 minutes into the video) are particularly powerful in terms of thinking about the power of narrative and history. He speaks about the stories we carry in our head as we’re walking through the world depending on our history: Marable sees lower Manhattan as a slave trading port, while others (whites) see Wall Street’s glittering façade.

This gets to the heart of the internalization of racism. The Peoples’ Institute for Survival and Beyond discusses the interconnected principles of learning from history and addressing the inter-generational processes of internalized racial superiority and inferiority.

I believe that story-based strategies can help us build movements for racial justice, but it really is about movement building. If only it were as easy as coming up with a pat sound-byte to address these deep seeded cultural currents! It still takes struggle, as it always has.

One piece of work I want to point to specifically is work on unmasking and undoing White Privilege, such as the first annual White Privilege Awareness Week!

Also, in terms of racial justice communications specifically, check out the guide “Talking The Walk,” edited by Hunter Cutting and Makani Themba-Nixon (download the toolkit!); and the Center for Media Justice toolkit, Communicate Justice 101. See also: A Three-Ring Circus On Race This Week by Paul Rosenburg.

And one more thing…

Maureen Dowd wrote in her NY Times OP-Ed on Holder’s speech,

“In the middle of all the Heimlich maneuvers required now — for the economy, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, health care, the environment and education — we don’t need a Jackson/Sharpton-style lecture on race. Barack Obama’s election was supposed to get us past that.”

My observation is that this is the line of reasoning often used in white-led liberal organizations (“We’ve got a crisis and so much work to do…we can’t deal with this now…and besides, we have some people of color involved.”) about why we can’t talk honestly about racism and work to address racism within our movements…Just a thought.