Warm Data Theory and Practice
September 16th - September 23rd, 2025
Asheville, North Carolina, USA
Now more than ever our communities are divided and polarized.
The possibilities for people to respond to events of this era (polyscrisis, metacrisis, omnicrisis, etc.) depend upon their ability to improvise and learn together within their complexity. One way to tend to this ability to commune is through the Warm Data Practices.
Too often, attempts to solve these complex issues are unwittingly perpetuating the very same problems. The quest for solutions, despite our best intentions, is inherently informed by the same patterns of thought that are creating the illusions of separation.
This course offers a deep dive into theory and practice toward a shift in perception. Through storytelling, archival documents, poetry, multitudes of texts spanning from ancient wisdom to modern complexity theory, a multiple description of the movement, rhythm, and resonances of life comes into study. This is both a felt sensorial inquiry and one of intellectual rigor.
“There will be no community without first communing.”
— Nora Bateson
“There are unexpected possibilities that await in another order of parallel approaches. There is a territory of communication, relationships and daily living that allows for a total change—it is within reach, but not in the solutions currently being reached for.”
— Nora Bateson
Diving deeply into practicing Warm Data, we are more likely to perceive the possibilities of ‘readying’ for change to meet the brokenness of the existing structures and systems. Possible actions are shifted with a change in perception.
Practicing Warm Data offers the possibility of perceiving, feeling, thinking, and knowing differently.
These practices are described as being ‘practices for a broken world’.
Join us in being trained by Nora Bateson in our Warm Data practices.
Grounded in over a century of deep theoretical roots and a lineage of systems thinking, the Warm Data practices transform complexity science into an experiential approach of profound mutual learning and relationship building.
There are two warm data practices made for today’s fragmented and broken world—Warm Data Labs and People Need People (PNP) Online.
The Warm Data Lab is created to help release and revitalize sensitivity to the sacred processes of life that have been fragmented by the last several hundred years of history.
People Need People Online adapts this practice to offer uniquely rich and storied online communication, in contrast to the common experience of polarized and divisive digital communication patterns.
By shifting perspectives through a transcontextual conversational structure, the Warm Data practices:
address the fractures that inform the illusion of separation in day-to-day life.
allow people with no previous exposure to complex systems theory to perceive the systemic relational patterns, interactions, and interdependencies in their communities, generating a nuanced systemic understanding of their circumstances.
strengthen the collective ability within families and communities to perceive, discuss, and respond to the complexity of the issues they face.
reveal possibilities that open new ways of perceiving, living and communing.
There is no goal in a People Need People session or a Warm Data Lab as they are not about solving identified problems. Instead, they allow movement through many aspects of memory and perception that can alter the underlying assumptions about who I am, who you are, and what life is about.
These sessions have been designed to deepen the collective perception of complexity through personal stories and the study of ecological process (life life-ing). Together these groups of people are building relationships that build relationships that build relationships— a vital ingredient of how systems change happens.
One of the most profound experiences of Warm Data is the observation that ‘Your story changed my story’. The joy of Warm data is in how this change shows up unpredictably and profoundly. This is fundamental to the theory and the practice of Warm Data.
What are the Warm Data Practices?
“The most important task of this moment is to generate a base of people who are eager to practice perceiving the complexity and interdependency in every aspect of our lives.”
— Nora Bateson
This training is challenging. It is a rich blend of theory and practice, both of which are essential.
This course is an arc of deep steeping in the theoretical underpinnings of the Warm Data Lab & People Need People practices.
The theories that will be discussed and explored include:
Abductive Process (C.S. Peirce),
Aphanipoiesis (N. Bateson)
Differences of Abstraction (A. Korzybski / B. Russell)
Ecology of Communication (N. Bateson)
Epistemological Frames (G. Bateson)
Complexity Theory
Conscious Purpose (G. Bateson)
Double Bind (G. Bateson)
Interdependency and Change in Complex Systems, Mind (G. Bateson)
Multiple Description (G. Bateson)
Nth Order Agency (Transcontextual Anticipation) (N. Bateson)
Patterns that Connect (G. Bateson)
Requisite Variety (R. Ashby)
Schismogenesis (G. Bateson)
Side-by-Siding (N. Bateson)
Simultaneously Implicating (N. Bateson)
Symmathesy (N. Bateson)
Transcontextual Process (G. Bateson)
Participation in this course also includes:
Joining an international community of Warm Data hosts.
Gaining access to an online Warm Data platform to share insights.
Meeting online monthly with other Warm Data hosts from around the world for practice sessions, organizing projects, contributing and having an open invitation to attend regular theory booster session, reading salons on Bateson and other materials.
Completion of this course comes with an open invitation to join this course again and again, free of training fees (in-person trainings still have modest venue fees).
Course Information
When:
Tuesday September 16th - Tuesday, September 23rd, 2025
09:30 am - 05:30 pm Each day, (including the 16th and the 23rd)
Special Event!
We are delighted to announce a special event with guest lecturer Daniel Schmachtenberger
— An Evening Lecture on Schismogenesis
More details to be announced!
Where:
81 Broadway
81 Broadway Street, Asheville NC, 28803
Course Fee:
2850 USD - Organizational / Supporter rate — The additional funds will allow us to offer more places at the Low Wage / Low Resource price point
2350 USD - Individual / Non-profit Organizational rate
1350 USD - Low Wage / Low Resource rate — A limited number of Low Wage/ Low Resource places are available at the discretion of the organizing team.
How to Apply:
Registering at the Organizational/Supporter Rate or the Individual/Non-Profit Rate:
When you are ready to register, please fill out the registration form below. Please take the time you need to fill out the application. If we have any questions, we will contact you, and if we don’t, you will receive an email confirming your place on the course with an invoice for the course fee due 4 weeks after your confirmation email. Expect an email from us regarding your registration up to 4-7 days after you submit your registration form.
Applying for a Low-Wage/Low-Resource Place:
We are a not-for-profit organization, so there is limited abundance, and everything we have is being paid forward. As a general rule, we don’t profit from Warm Data Labs or People Need People sessions. Donations and grants cover all of our operational expenses and public-facing work.
We sincerely appreciate everyone who chooses to join our course. The payment system is designed to balance economic accessibility, with those with greater financial resources helping to support those with less. We hope that you'll consider your own position within this global economic framework and contribute accordingly.
If you would like to apply for one of these low-wage/Low-Resource places, please fill out the registration form. We will contact you 4-7 days after we receive your form to confirm that we have received your application, let you know if we have any questions, and let you know if we are able to offer you a place immediately or if you will be placed on a Waiting List.
We cannot always offer as many places as we get applications for, and we will try to accommodate as many applications as possible.
Please note we are not able to offer any further reductions on the course fee at this time.
If you have any questions or would like any more information, please reach out to us here:
“Nora’s goal is to apply mutual learning in living systems to effective responses to economic injustice, gender inequality, ecological destruction, and other challenges facing our modern world… [Warm data] is information about relationships... [The Warm Data Lab] avoids binary positions, such as right-left politics, or science versus mysticism.”
— Rex Weyler, Greenpeace co-founder
