Metaphors of meetings

In a complex gathering people need to have some image through which to make sense of the event as a whole and of where it is going, and to help them to decide on how to participate in it. Whatever the images used they are needed to give a sense of continuity and context. Different people prefer one or more different images. It is easy to get locked into a conventional pattern of reflection about meetings. This blocks the opportunity offered by many metaphors and analogies to highlight alternative or complementary perspectives. These can be useful in suggesting more fruitful approaches, if only under special circumstances. Focus emerges as a consequence of an appropriate configuration of perspectives, people or groups within a meeting. To assist the exploration of the possibilities associated with configuration, it is also appropriate to note different kinds of configuration in use in other domains in the hope that they may offer clues to its significance in meetings.

It is useful to look at these as a kind of pattern language for participants. "Pattern" is a suggestive general term to describe any particular (and usually familiar) way of organizing the flow of energies in a gathering. Patterns can be combined into a network within a "pattern language". Some of the resulting arrangements are "better" than others, and the challenge is to find arrangements which enhance the hidden quality which makes them "feel right" in a given set of circumstances.

[1. Macro-patterns include:]

Conference, fair, market/bazaar, agora/forum, symposium, workshop, demonstration, drama show, reception, exhibition, court, festival, lecture, pilgrimage, passion play, ceremony/ritual, panel session, sharing, brainstorming, songfest, games, holiday camp, contest, public blessing, celebration, discussion, group meditation, carnival, show/music hall, majlis, dance, happening, procession, retreat, audio-visual.

[2. Micro-patterns include:]

Talking to speaker, speaking to group, sharing with another, protesting, learning, coffee table discussion, swapping information, lobbying/persuading, having fun, changing, distributing papers, receiving documents, show and tell, meeting new people, non- verbal experience.

[3. Role patterns:]

Many of the above patterns are "activated" only by the presence of people playing appropriate roles. People may take up these roles irrespective of the formal reason for their participation in the gathering and their performance may be more significant for the gathering than their concerns. These roles may in fact be considered as sub-patterns in their own right. They include: Speaker, listener, jester, facilitator, writer, therapist, devil's advocate, priest, sympathizer, strategist, rapporteur, interpreter, musician, creative artist, performer, "accompanying person", game organizer, child, ego stroker, agent provocateur, improviser, note-taker, critic, organizer, lobbyist, caterer, adviser, old person, fixer, presenter, animator, super-star, wise person, networker, mediator, handicapped, fan, appreciator, material arranger, discussant, ritualist, chairperson, security person, helper.

[4. Pattern concerns:]

People participate in events because of "concerns" which they wish in some way to advance or promote. These concerns colour the energy content of the patterns through which they are expressed:< (a) Theoretical concerns, as represented by the intellectual disciplines of which, ungrouped, there are some 1,800.

(b) Substantive concerns, namely societal problems and conditions, typically including: population, inflation, unemployment, refugees, energy, environment, illiteracy, human rights.

(c) Aesthetic concerns, especially their expression and involving others in that expression: music, song, poetry, art, theatre, dance, textures, perfumes.

(d) Intangible experiential concerns: prayer, meditation, power, humour, risk, renewal, ego trip, other negative values, other positive values.