Barack Obama and the New Spirit of Empathy A ProgressiveSpirit.com Video Project

2009-04-11 - Obama Empathy Meeting
Brainstorming Notes
El Cerrito, Ca
http://progressivespirit.com/Empathy
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In Attendance

Edwin, Leon, Chris, Patricia, Wendy, Joanie, Bill,
 

Combining Empathy Group Projects
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We decided to use the 'East Bay Stories of Empathy Project' as the framework and timeline for the group. We will try to combine all the projects and ideas that people come up with into this basic framework and timeline. 
 

Next Steps
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1. List of Bay Area Organizations
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http://progressivespirit.com/Empathy/StoriesGrant/Organizations.htm
keep looking for more organizations to contact.

Joanie with check with digitalartsclub.com if there's some way to do a project with them.
 

2. Create an Empathy Presentation to take to Organizations
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 Chris, Wendy, Bill,  Edwin will work on this.

Create a presentation that we can take to organizations to introduce the Stories of Empathy project.
 

To Do:
- Each person look at Obama Video and select the best 2-3 clips.
- Think about and post an outline via email out what the presentation could look like

Format for presentation
( a scaleable presentation 3 min to 20 min)
    as an email
    as a flyer
    a phone pitch
    a presentation
    power point
    a web page

Some initial brainstorming

• include Obama - best clips
• what we're doing?
• About us:
  • who are they involved with?
  • who are we?
  • what are our motivations
• what do we want from them?
• why should they care?
• options for their involvement?
  • 30 slots - qualities of interviewees
  • etc.
• articulate the connection?
• what do we have to offer them
• what do we mean by empathy?
  • what is empathy and why bother talking about it 
  • what is empathy?
  • raise the topic of empathy
  • how can it be used to solve a problem?
• friends around feeling the empathy gap
• how to be a better citizen?
• You can help build more empathy.
• Obama and the empathy gap
• Articulate the connection?
• what do we have to offer them?
• for group discussion
• people try to plug in 'how can you be useful"
• empathy and practical - responsibility, accountability, etc,
• theme questions

Lay out the Steps for interacting with Organizations.

Email Volume
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Patricia felt there was too much volume of email. some ideas that came up.
Progressive Values Yahoo list:  With the Progressive Values Yahoo list you can set your email options:
1. No emails - web view only - only receive special announcements
2. Daily digest - receive one email a day as a digest.
3. Receive all emails.
Also, trim your posts when sending to the list. That means don't include the previous email when you do a reply.
Empathy group Yahoo list: With the smaller Empathy group Yahoo list,  you can set your email options and can try using headers to rank the importance of your email.
 for example.
Subject:  [URGENT]
Subject:  [MEETING]
Subject:  [PROJECT]
Subject:  [IDEAS]

 

Clarify what is empathy and who we are?
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 Patricia,  Wants to clarify what is empathy (our definition) and who we are?
(Patrica, can you come up with some ideas on this a lead a discussion on it? edwin)
 

Interviewing each other on Empathy
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Leon would like for us to interview each other about empathy to for practice and exploration for video taping empathic interviews
He is willing to listen and could practice - in an empathy booth.