Welcome. Thank you for coming. We are glad you are here. We don't know what has called you here. Perhaps you don't either, yet. But we are so glad you came.

We want to tell you a story, a story about how this study came into being. And then we would like to invite you to join us in an exploration.

For the past year, a group of us has engaged in this exploration. We are by no means the first group to undertake this journey; countless other individuals and groups have preceded us, helping to illuminate our path.

Our exploration has been supported by the Fetzer Institute, a foundation long committed to understanding and supporting the evolution of human consciousness. During the past decade, Fetzer has regularly convened small groups of leaders from the public, private and non-profit sectors. Through these gatherings, Fetzer has come to know and learn from a broad array of individuals and organizations involved in group work.

As part of an institutional assessment process between 1996 and 1997, Fetzer asked author Jacob Needleman to offer his reflections about the future role of the Institute. In his letter to Fetzer, Jacob offers a provocative image:

Jacob then underscores the urgency of this image, observing that "we obviously cannot confront this tangled world alone.... It takes no great insight to realize that we have no choice but to think together, ponder together, in groups and communities. The question is how to do this. How to come together and think and hear each other in order to touch, or be touched by, the intelligence we need."

How do we come together in order to touch, or be touched by, the intelligence we need?

This question, and Jacob's image of the group as "art form of the future," provided the principal catalyst for our exploration. The book, Centered On the Edge, is one small utterance in response to Jacob's provocation.

We invite you also to visit the Collective Wisdom Initiative web site, which came after, and was inspired by, Centered On the Edge.