There will be no community without first communing. At present, communities are divided and polarized. The possibilities for people to respond to events of the polycrisis depend upon their ability to improvise and learn together within their complexity. One way to tend to this ability to commune is through the Warm Data Practices.

Join us to be trained and certified by Nora Bateson and the International Bateson Institute as a Warm Data Host.

What Is Warm Data?

Warm Data is the relational information that describes the many parts of a system. For example, to understand a family, one must understand not only the family members but also the relationships between them, the context they reside in, the ecosystem that shapes them and that is, in turn, shaped by them –that is, the warm data.

Complex, systemic challenges are shaped by the interaction of multiple contexts—the economy, nature, politics, culture, technology, etc. —and to effectively address such challenges, we have to understand the transcontextual interdependence. With this awareness, we can shape responses to meet the complexity around us effectively. Without it, we often enact simple responses to complex challenges which in turn create their own problems. Warm Data is the relational and transcontextual information about and within the interrelationships that integrate elements of a complex system

Warm Data familiarizes groups of people with the ways in which the contexts of their lives marinate and overlap into each other, and it offers an introduction to the complexity of their own lives so that they may better see the complexity of others. Through this discovery, people begin to see how vital it is to tend to their families, communities, and the land, and they are able to respond to emergencies with warmth.

Hope lies in the very fact that, as living beings, we are made for relationship. It is only possible to express our humanity in relationship to other human beings. We exude warm data in our eyes, our smiles, our verbal and non-verbal conversations, and the importance we attune to relationships with others at the personal, family, and community levels and in local, national, and global contexts. We also can reach into ancient wisdom to add to our store of warm data and the capabilities unleashed when ‘I see you in me and me in you’. Our well-being and that of our planet is possible only if we permit ourselves to perceive and embrace the rich expressions of who we are as living human communities and to find a way in relationship. This will require warmth and rigorous attention to relational integrity above the anxiety to control.

At times Warm Data is also described more simply as: Information that is alive.

Is it possible to respond to the living world without information that is also alive?

What are the Warm Data Practices?

Grounded in over a century of deep theoretical roots and a lineage of systems thinking, the Warm Data practices transform complexity science into an experiential approach of profound mutual learning and relationship building.

There are two warm data practices made for today’s fragmented and broken world—Warm Data Labs and People Need People (PNP) Online.

The Warm Data Lab is created to help release and revitalize sensitivity to the sacred processes of life that have been fragmented by the last several hundred years of history.

People Need People Online adapts this practice to offer uniquely rich and storied online communication, in contrast to the common experience of polarized and divisive digital communication patterns.

 By shifting perspectives through a transcontextual conversational structure, the Warm Data practices: 

• addresses the fractures that have entered into the way contexts of day-to-day life are presented as separate.

• allows people with no previous exposure to complex systems theory to perceive the systemic relational patterns, interactions, and interdependencies in their communities, generating a nuanced systemic understanding of their circumstances. 

• strengthens the collective ability within families and communities to perceive, discuss, and articulate the complexity of the issues they face. 

• inspires unimagined possibilities opening new ways of seeing, living and communing.

 There is no goal in a PNP session or a Warm Data Lab as they are not about solving identified problems. Instead, they allow movement through many aspects of memory and perception that can alter the underlying assumptions about who I am, who you are, and what life is about.

These sessions have been designed to deepen the collective perception of complexity through personal stories, and professional expertise. Together these groups of people are building relationships that build relationships that build relationships— a vital ingredient of how systems change happens.

One of the most profound experiences of Warm Data is the observation that ‘Your story changed my story’, The joy of Warm data is that the how this change shows up are both completely unpredictable and profound. There is no way to know what will change, when, or with whom.

This is fundamental to the theory and the practice of Warm Data.

More about the host training:

Whatever your occupation, whatever you do in life, whoever you are, seeing complexity and trans-contextuality, looking for ‘symmathesy’ and warm data, embracing ambiguity and paradox (such as double binds), will stand you and those you touch in good stead to tackle the ‘wicked problems’ we now face as a society. Because of our conditioning, we are too often unwittingly part of the problem, despite our best intentions.

Diving deeply into the practices of being a Warm Data host, we are more likely to tend to the possibilities of ‘readying’ for change to meet the brokenness of the existing structures and systems. It’s not just how we are able to ‘act’ it’s looking at what and how it is possible to ‘act’.

Being a Warm Data Host offers the possibilities to see, feel, think and know differently.

This training is challenging. It is a rich blend of theory and practice, both of which are essential to a deep grounding and upskilling to run the warm data practices. (People Need People sessions and Warm Data Labs).

As a certified host you’ll come away with the tools and knowledge to set up and facilitate groups going through the practices. This includes the structure, timing, and form of the sessions, troubleshooting, guidelines of what not to etc.

We will also guide you through the theoretical underpinnings of the Warm Data Lab & PNP practices. The theories that will be discussed and explored include:

• Patterns that connect

• Bertrand Russel’s Logical Levels

• Difference that makes a difference

• Multiple description

• Mutual learning and calibration (Symmathesy)

• Iterative multi-modal learning

• Aphanipoiesis

• Mind (G. Bateson)

• Systems and complexity theory

• Ecology of communication

• Double bind

• Conscious purpose

• Epistemological frames

• Abductive process

• Change in complex systems

• Interdependency

• Requisite variety

• Schismogenisis

• Transcontextual processes

• Integrity,

• Improvisation/sense-making.

As a certified Warm Data Host, you will also:

• Join an international community of Warm Data hosts.

• Gain access to an online Warm Data platform to share insights.

• Meet online monthly with other Warm Data hosts from around the world for practice session, organizing projects, contributing and have an open invitation to attend regular theory booster session, reading salons on Bateson and other materials.

Where and When:

In-Person Training, Berkeley, CA

23-29th September

Monday - Sunday, 9am -5 pm

Course Fee for the In-person Training:

The course fee is $2,800 for a Corporate/Supporter registration. or $2,300 for an individual/ Non-profit registration.

Amounts are in USD.

Note: A limited number of partial Scholarships ($1,150) will be made available at the discretion of the organizing team. If you intend to apply for a scholarship, please provide information to support your scholarship in your application

Who?

Nora Bateson is an award-winning filmmaker, writer and educator, Founder and President of the International Bateson Institute, based in Sweden, and has run over one hundred Warm Data Labs around the world. Building on the legacy of her renowned father, Gregory Bateson, her work integrates the sciences, the arts and professional knowledge. Nora’s purpose is neither to promote an ideology nor to offer a solution to personal and world problems. Instead, she helps us look at our world anew, so that we discover fresh patterns of connection and information, previously invisible to us. She calls this information ‘warm data’. In 2019 Nora was the recipient of the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity.

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