We have convened a Virtual Learning Community (tm) for self-development education using computer-mediated communications. It’s an island of safety for personal growth and creative action in a sea of turbulent cultural change.

Computer-mediated meetings are potential islands of safety, but safety is created by people, not technology. It occurs when people take the risk to express themselves, trust, and respect each other. However, while technology cannot create safety, it can support it. Groupware can join human potential and supportive technology into a creative whole.

Communicating in writing also supports safety. Participants clarify their thoughts and feelings by composing their responses in private, taking all the time they need. Then they share with the group only what they wish to disclose.

The unifying concept of this paper is the joining of polar opposites into creative wholes. We focus on three wholes (the individual, culture, and groupware) and several polarities they share which are central to unlocking human potential.

To create modern culture we had to forget or discount our essential connections with each other, nature, and the Mystery. To survive as a species now we need to remember these connections -- to become creatively whole, individually and collectively. For this we need safe places where we can remember and explore our potential and learn to use our differences creatively.

Based on these principles, we have designed and developed our own tailorable groupware and have used it to support on-line personal and spiritual growth workshops -- islands of safety for unlocking human potential.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful for Charles Johnston’s seminal work on purpose-centered psychotherapy and education and for Murray Turoff’s pioneering work in structured human communication via computer. Together these represent the left and right hands of the creative whole on which our work stands. We are also grateful for Robert Theobald’s consistent and inspiring vision over the past twenty years, anticipating the creative interaction between self-development and computer technology.

This paper is dedicated to a vital and sustainable future for all of us and to everyone who is working toward its realization.

Wholeness is Bigger Than Oneness

Unlocking human potential means accessing all of who we are. It is becoming whole as individuals and as a species.

People often mistake oneness (agreement, unity, and light) with wholeness, but wholeness is bigger than that. It necessarily includes everything -- agreement and disagreement, unity and diversity, light and dark, the known and the unknown.

Whole people are big enough for all the parts of themselves, even the parts they disagree with. They know such disagreement is creative power. Whole relationships, groups, and even societies are big enough to use the disagreements of their members in creative ways. Disagreement is the stuff of which social intelligence is made.

Wholeness is developmental. We are growing into it, individually and collectively.

Our Forgotten Potential

Until recently, we have not had the capacity as individuals nor as a species to use more than a fraction of our potential. Moreover, it was necessary to forget much of that potential in order to build industrial culture (Johnston, 1986).

During the Age of Reason, Western culture discounted subjective ways of knowing and spirituality in order to develop the capacity for logic. In order to gain objective knowledge we forgot our essential connection with ourselves, each other, nature, and the Mystery (Bateson, 1972, 1979; Berman, 1981). During the Industrial Era we lived by gender and class roles, "splitting off" to others the parts of ourselves that did not fit those roles. Thus we have had male breadwinners, "women’s intuition," "women’s work," and the like.

Most computer-mediated communications systems reflect this blindspot obscuring our forgotten potential (Johnson-Lenz, 1988). They include computer support for objective knowledge, but provide little for subjective knowledge, such as intuition. These systems support well-defined actions and explicit transactions (Winograd, 1986; Johansen, 1988; Dyson, 1989), but little is known about supporting the dynamic, paradoxical flow of group life. Since it’s easier to understand, most people focus on the technology. But they all too often forget the most important, elusive, human parts of the system.

That’s to be expected. All of us are still growing in our capacity to be whole.

Remembering and Reconciling All of Who We Are

We are now at a crossroads in history when remembering and using our potential and reconciling the polar opposites within and among us is essential for our survival as a species (Johnston, 1990).

To survive and mature, we need to:

• remember all our ways of knowing, objective/outer (reason, facts, sensation, action, feedback), and subjective/inner (intuition, imagination, emotion, body knowing, insight) (Johnston, 1988a; Harman, 1988)
• remember our essential connection with ourselves, each other, nature, and the Mystery, and reconcile body and mind, self and other, humanity and nature, and spirit and matter (Huxley, 1944; Markley and Harman, 1982; Berman, 1989)
• become personally whole, "owning" all our faces and working creatively with the conflicts within ourselves (Satir, 1978; Feinstein and Krippner, 1988)
• become whole together, cooperating in fundamentally new ways, using our differences creatively (Wallace, 1985; Theobald, 1987; Johnston and Theobald, 1988; Schindler and Lapid, 1989)

Virtual Meetings in Hyperspace

All real living is meeting. Meeting is not in time and space, but space and time in meeting. --Martin Buber

It’s not where either person is, since they may be miles and time zones apart. It’s some other place where they are together. It’s not in the machine, since clearly they are not inside the hardware. It’s somewhere else beyond the bounds of space and time.

We call this place hyperspace (Johnson-Lenz, 1989). It’s a frontier we are beginning to explore and inhabit.

It’s the mundus imaginalis (Corbin, 1976) where our imaginations’ expressions are released from the limitations of physical reality. In this world of imagination, "persons and places are fully real; they are as real in that domain as our physical world is to our senses....I am not implying that such experiences are imaginary, but rather that they are imaginal" (Ring, 1989).

Meetings in hyperspace are virtual meetings -- meetings in essence and effect, but not physical form (Hiltz, 1986; Rheingold, 1987; Kelly, 1989; Jacobson, 1989).

Currently these virtual meetings take place in writing, rather than through graphics, video, audio, or other means. Rather than a limitation, this can be a significant benefit, particularly for self-development education. Metaphor, nuance, story, even poetry are important for clarifying, communicating, and responding to personal issues and insights. Description (text) rather than depiction (visual media) is often more effective for expressing the subtleties that emerge in hyperspace, and reading invokes the imagination more than pictures.

We are only beginning to understand the dynamics of this space. Many of the principles apply that people have used for millennia to organize our meetings in physical space. New principles are yet to be discovered.

Tailorable Groupware

Groupware, a term we coined in 1978 (Johnson-Lenz, 1980, 1981a, 1982), is the social architecture of hyperspace. It embodies our patterns of social organization in this new frontier.

Most people tend to think of groupware as group software, but that’s only part of it. The creative whole of groupware includes consciously chosen group processes plus software to support them.

Effective groupware is designed in response to the needs and purposes of those using it. It responds to, supports, and even evokes human potential rather than force-fitting the group into what the computer has been programmed to do. This requires tailorable software which can be adapted to embody appropriate patterns of organization, easily modified in response to evolving group needs, and ultimately tailored by managers, facilitators, and even users -- without programming (Turoff, 1971; Hiltz and Turoff, 1978; Johnson-Lenz, 1981c; Turoff and Hiltz, 1989).

Our Learning Community

In the fall of 1988, after a year of prototyping and pilot testing, we convened our Virtual Learning Community. It uses a computer-mediated communications system and tailorable groupware of our own design.

In our on-line community, we have offered workshops and seminars on topics such as right livelihood, living on purpose, embracing uncertainty, inner knowing, and more. Each is from four to twelve weeks long and includes a mix of personal self-discovery processes; group sharing; focused discussions; and a hypertext of quotes, information, perspectives, and resources for going further.

These seminars and workshops are conducted in writing. Participants read (or download) the weekly self-discovery processes and then reflect on and live with the questions for a few days. Then they compose their responses to share with the group for further discussion. Writing helps them clarify and learn from their thoughts and experiences. It also helps the group use its time together effectively. What takes someone an hour or more to write may take only a few minutes to read.

We also have holiday and solstice celebrations, a dream group, book and movie discussions, a healing circle, wide-ranging informal conversation in the lounge, and more -- all via computer.

The theme of all Awakening Technology activities is living on purpose (Paulson, Brown, and Wolf, 1988; Marks, 1989). Our mission is what Johnston calls "purpose-centered education" (Johnston, 1987): "to help people be in touch with what most matters to them, what for them is most fully alive, and find the courage and capacity to shape their lives from it" (Johnston, 1988b).

We encourage participants to use their inner sense of what is most appropriate for them, and then to act in the world in ways that will make a difference. Our community provides intimate and supportive groups for learning and growing together. We share our pain and despair, as well as our insights, joy, and creative edges. We seldom meet face-to-face because of schedules and far-flung locations. Instead, we meet in hyperspace.

Cultural Transition

At this crossroads in history, many of us are living in two cultures. One foot is still in industrial culture and the other is in the emerging post-industrial, global culture. The patterns of social reality differ markedly in these cultures, particularly with regard to presentation of self and capacity for holding contradictory points of view at the same time.

A few of the characteristics of the split-person social reality of industrial culture are:

• "split-off" parts of the self are forgotten in one’s "shadow" and projected onto others (Jung, 1954; Mindell, 1985; Johnston, 1985; Bly, 1988; Berman, 1989; Borysenko, 1990)
• it is taboo to express "bad" faces and shadow parts (Satir, 1978; Carson, 1983)
• social armor is required to protect one’s vulnerable inner core (Reich, 1972; Schmookler, 1988, 1989)
• contact depends on saving face and is lost when one’s shadow is expressed (Goffman, 1959)

In contrast, a few of the characteristics of the emerging whole-person social reality are:

• all parts of the self are gradually integrated into a creative whole (Assagioli, 1971; Johnston, 1985)
• it is safe to express "bad" faces and shadow parts (Travis and Callander, 1990b)
• it is safe to be vulnerable, to not know, to be confused
• contact depends on authenticity, willingness to be vulnerable, and perhaps even losing face!

Islands of Safety

Since the old culture splits and limits creative capacity, we need safe places free from its influence to build a new whole-person culture.

Here are some of the characteristics of islands of safety that we encourage in our learning community:

• a spirit of inquiry rather than grasping for quick conclusions or easy answers (Johnston, 1988b, Johnston and Theobald, 1988)
• openness to not knowing rather than pressure to know the right answer
• time to reflect rather than react
• freedom to participate according to our natural creative rhythms rather than according to the clock
• freedom to share our intuitions, feelings, and spirituality without explaining or defending them
• encouragement to experience all parts of ourselves, particularly the forgotten ones in our shadow
• encouragement to use our differences creatively rather than polarizing or forcing agreement
• creative win-win interactions rather than win/lose games
• power by affiliating and linking with others rather than power over others (Eisler, 1987)

In 1980 we created two safe spaces via computer using the tailorable groupware of the Electronic Information Exchange System (Hiltz and Turoff, 1978). The Transform exchange was a covenantal space for exploring personal and social transformation (Johnson-Lenz, 1981a). The One Attunement group was a virtual Quaker-style meeting or "electronic chapel" (Johnson-Lenz, 1981b).

Since then, others have begun to explore the potential of virtual safe spaces including on-line support groups (Farson, 1989; Gonzalez, 1989; Hafter, 1989; among others). However, at this stage little is known about how to create safety intentionally, incorporate explicitly spiritual and holistic principles into the groupware, or ways the computer can support such group work.

In our learning community, we are taking a few more baby steps toward creating such islands of safety via computer.

Computer Support for Safety

While nothing about computer-mediated communications tools creates or guarantees the safety necessary for unlocking our potential, several inherent characteristics of the medium may contribute to it:

• asynchrony: people participate when they want, according to their natural rhythms; they engage with the challenging questions when they are ready; they can pause and think over their responses to others, particularly in provocative situations
• privacy: people can reflect on their issues and creative edges in private; they experience their reactions to others in private before responding; they can carefully consider what they want to tell about themselves or say in response to others, editing or rewriting as necessary to express themselves most precisely when sharing with the group
• intra-personal/inter-personal communication: people can engage in both intra-personal communication (within themselves) by using word processing (editing, deleting, rewriting, reorganizing) to write about their issues, much like writing in an electronic journal, and inter-personal communication (with others and with the group) by sharing their responses and discussing others’ responses, like structured group journal work
• study and review: people can read, study, and review on-line learning materials, facilitator comments and questions, and their own and others’ comments at any time to come to deeper understandings of themselves and others; if they are absent for any reason, they can review the transcript and catch up without disrupting the group

This oft-forgotten component includes the myth, values, purpose, styles, norms, processes, and procedures of the group. Without these, a social system is rudderless and devoid of meaning. With appropriate computer support, it moves in response to the group’s intention -- the computer reflecting and giving form to the patterns in the hearts and minds of its members.

Set for Safety

While the primary polarity within groupware is the distinction between the human and computer components, we also find it useful to distinguish between the set and setting.

The set includes everything that people bring to the group -- their mindsets; intentions; expectations; beliefs; and knowledge of themselves, each other, and how to participate. The more they are prepared for and expect safety, the safer they will feel and the more they will contribute to the safety of others. While this is largely a human component, the computer can provide limited support.

Here are some of the ways we create an appropriate set for safety in our on-line learning community:

• promotional literature that describes a safe and supportive environment
• consistent words and images expressing a cultural myth that values growth and wholeness
• a respectful marketing process which supports people making their own choices to participate or not as they see fit
• guidelines which balance self-disclosure with trusting each person’s timing and sense of what to disclose
• guidelines which balance natural curiosity and feelings for others with respect for their process by not advising, rescuing, fixing, or otherwise trying to change them
• a norm that each person knows what’s right for him, and that it may change as he grows
• a style of not giving people answers but rather encouraging them to discover what’s true for themselves
• a covenant of confidentiality (see below)

Each successive layer in the process of engagement with our community reflects and expresses our myth, values, purpose, style, and norms. It begins with the promotional literature, is reinforced during registration, continues through orientation, and is ultimately embodied in the setting.

Community Covenant

Participants in our on-line learning community sign a covenant with each other "to create a safe, supportive, and vital learning community together." We agree to keep each other’s items confidential, participate regularly, and inform our group when we are absent for whatever reason. We also agree to accept and be patient with the parts of ourselves and others that are not yet clear, to listen with care and compassion to each other, to speak our truth as well as we can, and to remember and acknowledge everyone’s personal wholeness and connection with the Mystery.

The covenant expresses our shared intent to create a sanctuary -- a safe and sacred place where we can explore being ourselves as we learn, grow together, and deepen our understanding of and connection with ourselves, each other, nature, and the Mystery.

The covenant is our most concise statement of the shared myth, values, purpose, norms, and style in our Virtual Sanctuary (tm).

Setting for Safety

The setting is the environment. It includes the behavior of those present, the arrangement of objects and space, and the ebb and flow of life within it.

Here are some of the ways we create an appropriate setting for safety in our community:

• private spaces in which all group members become known to each other
• facilitators who model behavioral norms including appropriate self-disclosure, trusting one’s own process, and encouraging others
• facilitators who draw boundaries to protect the group from behaviors that compromise the safety of others
• choices of self-discovery questions that allow each person to respond to the most appropriate one
• encouragement to trust one’s process of growth, including not responding at times
• option of signing items anonymously or with pen names
• randomly displayed one-line “insights” at the top of the screen that reflect the myth, purpose, and values of our learning community
• simple, aesthetic visual appearance of the display
• time medicine (see below)
• circle ritual (see below)

Through experience, we have learned the importance of drawing boundaries to protect the safety of our learning community. All of us are still learning how to live in whole-person ways. Sometimes members behave in split-person ways, projecting their shadow parts on others and then polarizing in reaction.

A common pattern is giving advice -- telling another how to be -- rather than telling one’s own story in a way which respects another’s process and choices. Instead of feeling safe, the other may feel unsupported and hold back parts that disagree with the advice rather than risk conflict. Unfortunately this reiterates the splitting process we are all trying to heal.

Since our purpose is to provide safe places for learning and practicing whole-person ways of being, intervention may necessary. Some ways we draw boundaries to protect the safety of the sanctuary are:

• discouraging people from participating who seem to have a (currently) limited capacity for whole-person work — people learn when they are ready
• using private electronic mail (or the telephone if necessary) to ask those whose behavior seems to be compromising safety to make adjustments, reminding them of the norms and guidelines
• where appropriate, either through private electronic mail or in the group activity, encouraging other members to share their experiences of such behavior, particularly those who are most affected
• if earlier measures have not remedied the situation, publicly (in the on-line group activity) asking those compromising safety to change their behavior
• as a last resort, being willing to ask people to leave, and if necessary, to close their accounts on the system unilaterally

We are learning the paradox of boundaries. To insure the safety of most members, we may need to take actions which a few will feel threatens them. Few of us know how to take what we consider criticism easily, no matter how constructively it is offered. And yet it is essential that we all learn new styles of relating to each other and resolving our differences if we are to survive as a species.

Time Medicine

Another aspect that contributes to safety is timing. When we’re pushed to act, respond, or grow faster than our own process, we resist, withdraw, get sick, or otherwise subvert the situation.

We all experience the "time disease" of our accelerating lives (Dossey, 1982). It’s increasingly difficult for us to live according to our own natural rhythms (Rifkin, 1987). Slowing down, meditating, relaxing, and reflecting are forms of "time medicine" we can give ourselves.

Unlike other systems, our on-line environment includes reminders to take time to relax and reflect, optional guided meditations, and pauses in text to display selected words and phrases slowly and rhythmically. We have no hourly connect charge, so participants are encouraged to take as much time on line as they like.

Such time medicine encourages us to reconnect with our forgotten potential, our inner knowing, our spirituality.

Our Tailorable Groupware Toolchest

To support these aspects of our learning community and action research, we developed our own tailorable groupware. Written in C and running under UNIX, it includes:

• exchanges: named spaces for group interaction containing text items and/or hierarchically organized sub-exchanges
• actions: commands for performing operations within exchanges
• roles: named roles for each exchange which are assigned to members, thus permitting them to perform specific actions within the exchange
• settings: rules governing the structures and patterns of interaction within an exchange
• arrangements: named and commonly used patterns of roles and settings
• scripts: user-modifiable texts that specify special-purpose group processes and procedures
• menus: user-modifiable texts that specify local abbreviations for specific actions -- menu choices

While the array of over 30 settings provides a wide variety of exchange patterns, the following are directly relevant to the creation of safety:

• public or private exchange
• optional pen/anonymous item identification
• option to view responses from others before responding
• response allowed only inside the group process
• viewing new items allowed only inside the group process

Just as the arrangement of furniture and other objects in a room has a significant effect on how people interact, the arrangement of objects in hyperspace governs our interactions there. Successful facilitators pay careful attention to how the space is arranged so that it fits and supports the group’s process needs.

Our software provides a variety of arrangements, several of which emulate the most common structures available on other systems, and several of which are unique to our system. Spaces can be easily rearranged by facilitators -- without reprogramming.

Standard arrangements that are used in our learning community include:

• meeting: one-level simple conference
• topics: two-level exchange of topics and responses
• information: one-way information dissemination
• interactive questionnaire
• circle (see below)

A problem common to most computer-mediated communications systems is the often-elusive sense of group when members participate whenever they like. It’s like trying to have a meeting in a room with people coming and going all the time. A related problem is unequal participation. A few members may be very active, and others "lurk" in the background. While useful in some situations, neither of these contributes to safety.

To solve these problems, we developed the circle arrangement. It is based on a simple, powerful ritual found in many native cultures where everyone sits around a sacred fire. As a "talking stick" is passed around the circle, each person speaks her truth in turn while everyone else listens with respect.

In our Virtual Circles, a round typically takes a week. As with face-to-face circles (Travis and Callander, 1990a), the process encourages equal participation and a coherent sense of group. The computer facilitates the group’s activity by focusing attention on the current topic, inviting everyone to express herself at the appropriate time, and insuring that all items are viewed before the group moves on. We use the circle arrangement for our circle rituals (below).

To have a sacred place is an absolute necessity for anybody today....This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen. --Joseph Campbell

Based on the Virtual Circle arrangement (above), we meet around an imaginal fire in hyperspace -- a circle in essence and effect, but not physical form. The computer marks the sacred place. The four elements (Grandfather Fire, Mother Earth, Grandmother Ocean, and Father Sky) are displayed in the four directions as the circle is cast and opened.

The names of everyone in the group are slowly displayed in a circle, and members are encouraged to speak them aloud. Participants report that this simple graphic helps give them a sense of the group, even when others are not on line at the same time.

This ritual gives form and meaning to our asynchonous interaction. The circle is the most powerful religious symbol in all of human experience (Campbell, 1988). It symbolizes our individual wholeness as well as our essential connectedness as we share the diversity of our experiences. It is a sacred vessel, an island of safety for unlocking our human potential.

Evaluation

Evaluation ratings and participant feedback show clearly that participants feel our workshops are safe environments and have experienced significant growth through them.

This table summarizes some demographic information about participants in our learning community from September 1988 through December 1989:

Participants were asked to rate the following statements on scales from 1 to 5, as indicated below:

• Average overall seminar rating (poor to excellent): 4.28
• The seminar created a safe atmosphere (disagree to agree): 4.25
• I felt safe to share what I wanted (not at all to a lot): 4.20
• I felt supported and encouraged to be myself (not at all to a lot): 4.13
• It was useful to participate at times of my choosing (no use to useful): 4.80
• It was useful to take as much time as I wanted to respond (no use to useful): 4.50
• It was useful to explore feelings and issues in private (no use to useful): 4.21
• It was useful to express feelings and issues in writing (no use to useful): 4.14
• It was useful to edit and decide what I wanted to share (no use to useful): 4.21
• It was useful to receive reactions to my responses in writing (no use to useful): 4.33
• It was useful to receive expressions from others in writing (no use to useful): 4.21
• I gained a better understanding of myself (disagree to agree): 4.31
• I know what next steps to take (disagree to agree): 4.14
• The system is easy to learn and use (difficult to easy): 4.03
• I like taking seminars via computer (dislike to like): 4.07

• The technology either supported or had no effect on the seminar: 100% agreed
• I would recommend the seminar to friends and colleagues: 100% agreed
• I now know more about what really matters to me: 93% agreed

"It’s a wonderful marriage of technology and personal/spiritual growth opportunities. I’m impressed with the depth of sharing that came from each of the people participating."

"I have finished reading all the responses...and am realizing what warmth and love has been generated here."

"I see this as a kind of interactive or communal journaling."

"Interface with the machine allows me to explore my innermost without the normal shyness and fear that arise in interpersonal interaction."

"Person to person contact would be more rich, but I doubt I would be able to say as much as I have so far. Normally I’m very quiet, very sparse with words. But this format gives me the freedom to be a bit more verbose."

"I really appreciate my own courage and extra effort I had to put forth to write many of the responses. These rounds were some of the hardest issues I’ve had to deal with in a long time. Thanks for the challenge."

"I am always full of thoughts, but I never have the discipline to organize them and get them into text. The circle helps me to focus and get things down...."

"What fun! I’ve spent the past few days just noting/brainstorming all my ‘wants’ (goals) for the next 6-12 months....This circle really helped to refine and balance my process....Writing in paragraphs, narrowing to ten, and tinkering with language to ‘fit’ has been extremely helpful...."

"Knowing that I could trust and be open with each of you created a kind of opening that is hard to find."

"I am also thankful for our circle in which I can safely acknowledge my vulnerability and share my process of discovery with you."

"This seminar has been a glorious tool for deepening the ability to listen -- to others, to my inner voice, and my inner noise. A bonus -- direct, potent insight to observing myself (obstacles, patterns, gifts, etc.)....I’ve savored the slow, deepening process here, both individually and in the group."

"You have all contributed greatly to both heart and mind and at times touched me, brought me to deep levels of compassion, made me laugh, lifted me up out of my Why-Oh-Why and most of all listened to what I have to say and responded. What else can we expect of each other than clear communication and love."

"This has been a unique and positive experience for me -- testing new ways to find deeper meaning in my own life and connection with others."

"This form of communication removes many of the barriers to intimacy, expression and recognition. In this information space, we need not project our sex, color of skin, social status, or any other trait that could impede acceptance....This is a new place for us to explore, experiment with, and grow in -- a place for discovery."

"I feel such a strong sense of sharing with all of you. We approach through this darkened screen and find kindred souls to share with. Thank you all."

A continuing theme in our work is the joining of opposites in creative wholes. Our work itself embraces business and research. Our purpose is twofold:

• to encourage ourselves and others to be creatively whole — through the island of safety of our learning community where we can begin creating a vital, sustainable culture within and through hyperspace
• to inspire others, through our example and action research, to that same purpose

• creating support for all our ways of knowing
• exploring ways of creating safe, high-trust virtual environments
• exploring ways of creating and maintaining personal and group presence and authentic contact in an asynchronous environment
• exploring ways of using assumed, exchanged, and multiple virtual identities to become more whole individually and collectively

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