Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Center for Constructive Communication

**Ancient Wisdoms x Digital Technologies** Informed by years of social media and media analytics, CCC’s work combines the ancient wisdoms of human conversation with emerging digital technologies to promote shared understanding and trust rather than reinforcing the “side-taking” and binary thinking that too often divides us. Based at the [MIT Media Lab](http://www.media.mit.edu/) and working closely with the non-profit [Cortico](http://www.cortico.ai/), CCC brings together researchers in AI, computational social science, digital interactive design, and learning technologies with software engineers, journalists, political scientists, designers, and community organizations. An important aspect of CCC is its commitment to reach both within and beyond academia to work closely with locally based organizations to launch pilot programs focused on building a culture of listening and dialogue that promotes a sense of shared understanding, empathy, and trust. **The Principles of Constructive Communication** Born out of research on social media, our work at CCC has led us to key principles to foster respectful open dialogue at scale: **Small is beautiful.** Small groups are the essential unit of meaningful dialogue. We shouldn’t expect to throw large groups of people into a town hall or onto sprawling digital platforms and expect them to connect constructively. **Scale at the speed of trust.** Just as we can’t expect people to connect in large groups from a cold start, we shouldn’t expect community-scale dialogue to succeed at the speed of electrons (yet most modern digital platforms feature real-time content broadcast). **Balance the use of technology with ancient wisdoms of human connection.** Our technology is designed to interconnect small-group conversations at the speed of trust. Those conversations, in turn, should be intentionally structured and facilitated. And participants should engage with respect, an open mind, and humility; listen generously; and speak only from one’s own experience. **Values first.** People are able to connect with one another and build bridges when they lead with their values rather than debating over opinions or facts. Values emerge through sharing and listening to stories and experiences that are the connective tissue of our shared humanity.