Ted, formerly known as Jennifer Rau, is a linguist, videographer and singer-songwriter. Ted got exposed to sociocracy when moving into a sociocratically run cohousing community. Seeing how effective decision-making was there, and enjoying the flow in sociocratic meetings, he realized that: “I am leaving the meeting even more refreshed and energized than I came.” Ted realized sociocracy, particularly in the combination with NVC, was big and potentially world-changing and started paying attention to the suffering that ineffective meetings and collaboration bring almost everywhere people collaborate – which is everywhere where people are. People and their universal need to connect and move things are at the center of attention. The training in syntax and semantics taught Ted to find patterns that work well for the human mind, work empirically and break things down so they can be understood. Being a parent had taught him to be extremely pragmatic; at the end of the day, dinner must be on the table no matter whether the new vision statement is done.
