SocialChange

A wonderful dinner with great food, meeting lots of inspiring and interesting people, and great conversations. What more could you want in an evening?

This evening was the third #samehuman dinner, a concept that Steve Hopkins, Ned Dwyer and I started towards the end of last year.

This evening was a diverse crowd – with Ross Hill, Richard Fleming , Edward Harran, Joanne Spain, Nic Mackay, Dawn Mlshotwa, Andy Lee, Amir Nissen and others!

So what’s the concept?

For me it sprung out of the idea of “space“.

Within what I’ll broadly call the “social” sector – being those broadly involved in some sort of social good – I think there’s a real tendency towards silo-ism.

We stick to our established causes, organisations, colleagues, peers, friendship groups, thinking paradigms and rarely venture outside of them. There doesn’t seem to be many structured opportunities for collaboration or innovation. In fact often we instinctively mistrust people who can be seen as competing for a slice of the same pie.

But when I think about what it takes to truly collaborate and innovate, what is required is the space in which to do so. The space for conversations to occur, ideas to be shared and stories to be told. The space to meet new, interesting, different, inspiring people from outside your silo.

That is ultimately what #samehuman is about, our little attempt to create that space. It’s a monthly dinner in Melbourne, hosted at Lentil as Anything. Those who come share a passion for social causes, an interest in meeting others and a willingness to share ideas.

Who knows what will come from it? That’s not really the point.

Via @rosshill