- Conceptual screen development
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The Platonic approach asks what is true about this situation generally; what does it have to do with life universally. It is out to create a model which can be applied everywhere. It is often helpful here to begin with a basis of outside research. The Aristotelian approach begins with the particular encounters that the group has with an issue. Research is done into the specific dynamics of known cases. Case-study type research is helpful here. It then seeks to look at the idea from the inside, and see what things are consistently a part of it and what things are apparently incidental. Out of this review of the data, an integration emerges.
Screen creation is doing both of these things with the same material, up to such a point that the screen seems to emerge. It then gets checked back against its inductive and deductive origins, and gets looked at for its own sake from as many perspectives as possible. The next step in screen development is to create occasions, such as pre-conference local gatherings, or publications, which force the originators to articulate the screen to a larger audience and to alter it or not in response to feedback.
For the most part the development of screens for a conference is done before the event but for those events that create screens during the programme the decision making process is the key point of feedback. The tension between the Platonic and Aristotelian approaches is most evident in this feedback. Usually the participants best play the role of the grounded, Aristotelian pole of the tension, and the facilitators and procedures team play the Platonic pole of the tension.
The participants hold the local experiential pole of the tension. They create out of their own experience the practical aspect of the model. They can, through brainstorming and organizing data and experience, give a sense of reality to the screen. As the screen develops in the process of the conference they test the reality of the screen.
The facilitators and the procedures group test the development of the screen over against the ideal. They might use a series of sets of extremely abstract images like knowing, doing and being or foundational, social and universal for a theoretical model, or the past, the future, the inclusive and the profound for a social model as partial tests for the screen that is emerging. The choice of these abstract images depends upon the abstract rationale that is being used to develop the screen. These abstract images must be in actual dialogue with the experience of the participants and not dictate the meaning of the experience if a creative screen is to emerge.
One of the most interesting points of feedback is between the conference spirit and the screens. When these are in creative dialogue then quite unexpected break throughs can result. There have been break throughs in individual and group creativity when the limits of social care and interior awareness are being explored at the same time.
One of the merits of the development of screens is that they are usable by many people. This does require simplicity, profundity, and realism. These screens, while not necessarily acceptable in some circles, are very much what is required by development efforts across the world. < Another merit in the development of screens is developing complex and lasting screens during the process of the conference itself. Most screens developed during a conference are usable only for the event and are very simple. This process would require new technologies of making decisions and of developing a corporate understanding that are beyond current capacities.