From the host page:

This time on Peace Talks, Nonviolent Communication (NVC) with Marshall Rosenberg. NVC is a verbal technology for exchanging information and resolving differences peacefully. Marshall Rosenberg, who founded the NVC technique is captured before a live Albuquerque audience talking about how this communication style helps to resolve conflict. He also helps members of the studio audience develop solutions to conflict scenarios using the principles of Nonviolent Communication. Co hosts: Paul Ingles and Suzanne Kryder.

…and a few excerpts. On human needs:

ROSENBERG: Let me give you all nine of them, because, according to the Chilean economist, Manfred Max-Neef, we only have about nine needs. Needs are very important to Max-Neef, because his whole, economic system is based on human needs. How do we measure them, so we really gauge our economy, its success, on the meeting of human needs - and not the tragic way we have been measuring it?

The first one he calls, “sustenance:” food, shelter, and water - the basic, physical needs. Next, “safety:” protection. Next, “love.” Next, “understanding.” Next, “community.” Next, “recreation:” play, rest; he lumps those as one. Then, one of the most important needs of all, “autonomy.” Look in the newspaper on any, given day and see how many wars are going on over that need. Human beings have a strong need to be in charge of their own lives, to not have somebody claiming to know what they have to do or should do. Anybody who says that to them, it threatens his or her autonomy. You see all the wars going on between nations. Listen in on any family with children. You will hear autonomy wars. “It’s time to go wash up for bed.” “No, I don’t wanna.” “Did you hear me?” “No!” See? An autonomy war. Another need, “creativity.” Then, according to Victor Frankl, probably the most important need of all, a need for “meaning:” purpose in life. How sad, how few people on the planet are getting that need met. They are educated to misrepresent needs, according to Michael Lerner. We have been educated to misrepresent our needs. We have been educated to think we have a need to consume, a need for money, a need for status - not realizing those are not needs.

On social change:

INGLES: There are so many applications to what you are just describing. I found the example of the environmental activists, in your book, channeling their anger into empathy and specific requests, as an interesting example. This might also have application to political discourse, as well. It sounds like you’re saying that a lot of the anger expressed openly at politicians, or companies, doesn’t have much of a chance of getting an activist’s needs met, really, if it’s just expressed in anger.

ROSENBERG: We show people involved in social change that, if you really want to create change, we have to get rid of enemy images that make us angry. Realize that all of those enemy images are tragic representations of our needs. The idea is not to go out and punish bad guys. If we really are scared about what is happening, let us go and trust that these people have the same needs that we do. Let us show them other ways of getting everybody’s needs met that are more effective and less costly.

The Power of Prototyping

And how to do it.

For those who do not want to sit through the 30-minutes romp and my rapid prototyping, here are the principals of prototyping that I explain fully in talk:

1. Your first try will be wrong. Budget and design for it.
2. Aim to finish a usable artifact in a day. This helps you focus and scope.
3. You are making a touchable sketch. Do not fill in all the lines.
4. You are iterating your solution as well as your understanding of the problem.
5. Treat your code as throw-away, but be ready to refactor.
6. Borrow liberally
7. Tell a story with your prototype. It isn’t just a set of features.

This is particularly about designing software, but I’m convinced it has much broader applications.

Loneliness does not come from having no people around one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.

(via americansatori)