Ep.59 What Are We Making Together?

Host Desire Wandan talks with Abbie VanMeter, Executive Director of Collaborative Innovation for the Coordinated Management of Meaning Institute, and Don Waisanen, Professor at Baruch College, CUNY Marxe School of Public and International Affairs. Their conversation focuses on Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM)—a communication theory and a lived practice—which approaches human communication as how we together create meaning.  “CMM and social therapeutics have a shared understanding of human beings as builders of the social world,” says VanMeter. This conversation provides a concise and clear introduction to this important social constructionist approach to interpersonal communication, and its potential impact on our weary and wounded world stuck in age-old communication traps. Everything CMMi: https://linktr.ee/cmminstitute Everything SLST: https://linktr.ee/storieslivedstoriestoldpodcast Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abigail-vanmeter/ Direct to Podcast: https://cmminstitute.substack.com/s/podcast OR https://www.storieslivedstoriestold.com/podcast Newsletter sign up: https://don-waisanen.kit.com/  https://www.linkedin.com/in/donwaisanen/ @DonWaisanen (on both Instagram and X) Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/donwaisanen.bsky.social  ----more----Welcome to All Power to the Developing, a podcast of the East Side Institute. The Institute is a center for social change efforts that reinitiate human and community development. We support, connect, and partner with committed and creative activists, scholars, artists, helpers, and healers all over the world. In 2003, Institute co-founders Lois Holzman and the late Fred Newman had a paper published with the title “All Power to the Developing.” This phrase captures how vital it is for all people—no matter their age, circumstance, status, race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation—to grow, develop and transform emotionally, socially and intellectually if we are to have a shot at creating something positive out of the intense crises we’re all experiencing. We hope that this podcast series will show you that, far more than a slogan, “all power to the developing” is a loving activity, a pulsing heart in an all too cruel world. ----more---- The East Side Institute is a hub for a diverse and emergent community of social activists, thought leaders, and practitioners who are reigniting our human abilities to imagine, create and perform beyond ourselves—to develop. Each episode will introduce you to another performance activist or play revolutionary from around the world.   To learn more about the East Side Institute you can go to https://eastsideinstitute.org/   Made possible in part by Growing Social Therapeutics: The Baylah Wolfe Fund.