Calling all our U.K. friends and allies!

We’re honored to be hosted by the venerable creative action, arts and campaigning organization PLATFORM for a brief presentation and interactive workshop about smartMeme’s tools and strategic approach as documented in our new book Re:Imagining Change.

How to win ‘the battle of the story’ in campaigning, movement organizing and changing the world!

An introduction to using story-based strategy

When: Saturday 31st of July, 3pm to 6pm

Where: The Stephen Lawrence Centre, 39 Brookmill Road, London, SE8 4HU

Cost: Suggested donation of £3 to cover the room hire. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Reserve a spot: Places are limited. To reserve your place, please email your confirmation to [email protected] with one sentence about what group/project/organisation you are involved with. We are trying to ensure that there is a diverse set of participants/groups represented on the day.

Workshop Description:
Storytelling has always been central to the work of activists, organizers and movement builders. Narrative is the lens through which humans process the information we encounter, be it cultural, emotional, experiential, or political. We make up stories about ourselves, our histories, our futures, and our hopes.
SmartMeme draws from many disciplines, integrating practices from organizing, broadcast media, advertising, strategic communications, education and systems thinking into their strategy and training work. Their experiments have evolved into a set of tools they call story-based strategy — a framework to link movement building with an analysis of narrative power by placing storytelling at the centre of social change strategy.

This workshop on the 31st of July, given by smartMeme co-founder Patrick Reinsborough will introduce some of the basic techniques in how to use story-based strategy as a tool in achieving social change. The workshop is aimed at people involved in social movements, community organizing, direct action groups, progressive NGOs and anyone who is interested in engaging with them.

Join smartMeme and 1,000+ other social justice organizations in Detroit for the US Social Forum June 22-26th…

The biggest, badest, boldest convergence of 2010!

SmartMeme’s Featured USSF Events both are slated for

THURSDAY JUNE 24:

smartMeme Workshop - Thurs. 6/24 10 am - 12 pm

Story-based Strategy: How Grassroots Organizers Can Win the Battle of the Story
Cobo Hall, room DO-03D

Book Release Party - Thurs. 6/24 6-8 pm

Free food & cash bar!

Celebrate smartMeme’s Re:Imagining Change @ the Majestic Cafe

4120 Woodward Ave between Mack & Warren, Detroit 48201

RSVP on Facebook

SmartMeme is also a collaborator on the Echo-Justice Project and the Narrative Peoples Movement Assembly!

** Join us by taking a quick framing strategies survey and participating in the peoples’ movement assembly:

Narrative Peoples Movement Assembly

Friday June 25 1:00pm - 5:00pm

Media Justice Dreamz/Echo Justice: Building Movement through Building Meaning

Cobo Hall: D2-08

With: Center for Media Justice, smartMeme, Praxis Project & Progressive Communicators Network

This PMA is about elevating framing and story-based strategies a key methods to advance media justice and build social justice movements!

More Great USSF Stuff From smartMeme’s Friends and Fam:

WEDNESDAY JUNE 23

Movement Generation - Eco-Justice 101: Ecological Crises, Impacts on Communities of Color, and Strategies for the Future

10 AM - 12 PM
AFL-CIO Canopy
Communities of color stand to be first and worst impacted by the multiple ecological crises that are developing today. These crises: of water scarcity and pollution, climate change, waste and toxic pollution, food and agriculture, and the loss of biological and cultural diversity, are a result of the same systems that have driven exploitation and oppression in our communities. They demand the urgent attention of our leaders and organizers as we build our resistance and fight for a better tomorrow. This workshop, which will feature audiovisual presentation, small group discussion, and interactive exercises, will explore: 1. What are these developing crises? 2. How will they impact low-income communities of color in the US and globally? 3. What are examples of community resistance that we can learn from? and 4. How can understanding these struggles create opportunities to advance our work on other issues like housing, jobs, immigration, community development, education, etc?

Eco-Justicia 101: Crisis Ecologica, Efectos sobre las Comunidades de Color y Estrategias para el Futuro

This workshop is also offered in Spanish 1-3 PM

Cobo Hall: DO-02A
LIMITED TO 50 PEOPLE

DS4Si: Social Interventions: An Approach to Creating Social Change
1 PM - 3 PM
Woodward Academy: 1436
with the Design Studio 4 Social Intervention
Social interventions are creative and often public ways to create social change. In this interactive workshop we will engage participants in designing powerful, fun and creative social interventions through: reviewing five diverse social interventions, looking for themes, addressing the S’s of intervention design (scale, structure, systems, symbols, and sensation), discussing the importance of increasing interventionist approaches to change, and inviting participants to be a part of a larger conversation and practice of designing social interventions.

THURSDAY JUNE 24

Movement Generation - Eco-Justice 101: Ecological Crises, Impacts on Communities of Color, and Strategies for the Future
10 AM - 12 PM
WSU Cohn: 224
Communities of color stand to be first and worst impacted by the multiple ecological crises that are developing today. These crises: of water scarcity and pollution, climate change, waste and toxic pollution, food and agriculture, and the loss of biological and cultural diversity, are a result of the same systems that have driven exploitation and oppression in our communities…

Global Justice Ecology Project - Climate Connections: Building the Movement for Social Change

10 AM -12 PM
Woodward Academy: 1436

Co-hosted with: Movement Generation, Indigenous Environmental Network, Women of Color United and others. Climate Change is at once a social and environmental justice issue, an ecological issue, and an issue of economic and political domination. As such, it must be addressed through broad and visionary alliances. To successfully address the climate crisis, we must also identify and address the deep root causes that link it to the myriad other crises we face…

Ruckus Society & Training 4 Change - No More Rallies, No More Marches: Direct Action Strategies for Climate Justice & Community Resiliency
1 PM - 530 PM
Cobo Hall: DO-03B
Tired of seeing the same old mass demonstrations? So are we! This workshop will explore creative innovative action design, to help push past marches and rallies into direct actions that are strategic, effective, and fun!

FRIDAY JUNE 25

Peoples Movement Assembly - Ecological Justice
Co-Convened by: Movement Generation, Ruckus Society, Southwest Workers Union, EJCC, Just Transition Alliance, and many others…
1:00pm - 5:00pm
Cobo Hall: D3-28
This is a BIG PMA that bringing folks together to advance proposals from the grassroots for shared work on climate and ecological justice rooted in an understanding of the need to transform the global systems that determine the ways each of us gets to live, work, and play.

Art is Change: Art & Creative Practice for Cultural and Political Transformation

1 - 3 PM

New World from Below Book Party
7-9pm
Spirit of Hope Church - 1519 Martin Luther King Dr, Detroit 48208

Celebrate recent radical publishing with AK Press, PM Press, Autonomedia, Institute of Anarchist Studies, Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative, Microcosm Publishing, Team Colors Collective, and others!

SATURDAY JUNE 26

MASS STREET ACTION for Clean Air, Good Jobs and Justice!

Rally at 9 am in front of Detroit Public Library, 5201 Woodward

Join the People of Detroit on Saturday, June 26 for a Rally, March & Mass Demonstration to End the World’s Biggest Waste Incinerator!

See You In DETROIT!!!!

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!

Join me and smartMeme board member Shana McDavis-Conway on March 27th for a special pre-conference intensive - RE:Framing Feminism: Narrative, Strategy, and Social Change - at the Women, Action & Media (WAM!) conference in Cambridge, Mass.

Welfare Queen. Baby Mama. Red Neck Woman. Soccer Mom. Having It All. This workshop will engage you in a process of “Narrative Power Analysis” to surface and analyze the stories and stereotypes about gender that we confront in our lives and work, and the sexist assumptions that often underpin them. The intersecting narratives of gender, race, and class create a complex mine-field of messages in the dominant culture that all of our work must struggle to re-frame and transform. The session will use images, media, theater techniques, and small group work to envision feminist interventions in the contemporary media environment…

Register now to join us for this Friday Intensive! Stick around and see Jen Angel’s sessions on Covering Climate Change and Publicity on a Shoestring: Promoting Your Own Book or Project on a Tight Budget…

The full list of WAM! 2009 workshops is here. With co-sponsors like Alternet, Bitch Magazine, Femministing, and the Women & Gender Studies Program @ MIT we are bound to be in good company!

See you at WAM!

Join smartMeme December 3rd at Third Sector New England in Boston for the Be the Media! Mini-Conference, and our workshop, “Narrative & Power: Story-based Strategies for Social Change.”

From bethemediaevent.org :

The annual Be the Media! Mini-Conference helps participants understand the link between strategic communications and organizing strategies as well as learn essential communications tools and techniques.

The theme of the third annual Be the Media! Mini-Conference is: Challenges and Opportunities in the Age of New Media for Grassroots Organizations.

Communications and media work are powerful tools for organizers and non-profits working on community and social issues, but they can also present challenges, particularly for under-resourced groups. In recent years, the development of new media tools such as social networking sites, blogs with multi-media content, YouTube, and cell phones as mass communication devices have both given groups more options and raised questions about where to focus already limited staff and volunteer time. At this year’s conference, we will explore not only how to implement these tools, but identify what are their best and most impactful uses for grassroots organizations.

The conference is designed to serve change makers at levels of communication experience including those who are doing communications work as part of their current positions, such as organizers, executive directors, or policy advocates.

Sponsored by: Progressive Communicators Network, Third Sector New England and Project Think Different
Co-sponsored by: Boston Women’s Fund, Resist, and Press Pass TV.

Join me and the Progressive Communicators Network in Boston for:

Winning the Battle of the Story PART II ~ Working with the battle of the story tool

Wednesday, October 1, 2008
6:00 pm - 7:30 pm
at United for a Fair Economy
29 Winter St., Boston, 2nd Floor
(Light Refreshment will be served)

RSVP to Tom Louie! Please let us know what kind of social change work you do, as we will be applying the tool to your campaigns!

This workshop is a follow-up to the July PCN-Boston workshop on the Battle of the Story, but you do not need to have attended that one to attend this one!

The Progressive Communicators Network-Boston/New England is the regional chapter of the national Progressive Communicators Network (PCN). PCN exists to strengthen and amplify the power, voices, and vision of grassroots movements that are working for social, economic, and environmental justice. Our 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.

Growing Food and Justice for All Initiative (GFJI) held their inaugural gathering in Wisconsin last weekend and welcomed over 100 people into a conversation about dismantling racism and growing food justice. Food Justice is the meme of the movement to build a fair and ecological food system that nourishes soils, feeds all people, and builds communities of self-determination.

SmartMeme was there to participate and offer a story-based
strategy workshop titled Re-Framing Food: Changing the Story for
Justice. Thanks to all of you who attended! You can check out the
presentation here….