Even before participants have their first meeting with the group they’ve selected, they will read summaries of the proposed solutions submitted by all the other members. They will be encouraged to contact them as early as possible, in order to ask or answer whatever questions come up about a particular individual’s ideas.

Ideally, the contact will be by telephone (or webcam), so that interaction is more immediate and personal, but online instant messaging may be more practical for many people. All the questions that come up should be surfaced and answered, on the assumption that familiarity and clarity will minimize whatever confusion, misunderstanding, and mistrust might generate. A preliminary exchange of information might avoid the early misunderstandings that can form the basis for negative judgments that build on themselves and get more and more difficult to dislodge over time.

The purpose of this extensive preparation for the DNA group interaction is to give people a chance to know each other as well as possible, and begin the bonding process before the group meetings actually begin. Meeting face-to-face can serve to facilitate and deepen this process. Possibly such extensive contact with each other will also lower competitive and rivalrous feelings and perhaps minimize the antagonisms that such experiences tend to engender. Nervousness about presenting and responding at the meeting will also be lowered by the familiarity established in interactions, phone conversations, email exchanges, and online contact.

Of course, some early problems can’t be worked through. Participants will have the option of switching groups if some antagonism or negativity between specific group members seems intractable after attempts have been made to reach agreement, synthesis, or compromise. However, they will have to apply and be approved by the new group that they select. If they find it difficult to find a group to their liking, they may simply decide to just participate in the Solution Exchange, where the connections between people will be less structured, and they can move from discussion to discussion freely.

By the time the group has its first meeting, they should all be familiar with each other’s ideas and concerns. When they do meet face-to-face or online in real time, they’ll have an opportunity to interact and experience each individual’s opinions and responses to the thoughts, opinions, and ideas of each of the group members to each other’s ideas. They will also get fuller responses to their own ideas and to their personal participation in group interactions

Face-to-face interactions provide many opportunities for relationship and understanding based on important information that can only be transmitted nonverbally, by such means as tonality, facial expressions, body postures, gestures, etc. This kind of ongoing interaction will further facilitate understanding and hopefully contribute to the development of friendship and community between group members and possibly also between like-minded people in different groups. It will certainly help them to help each other develop the best possible solutions, either collectively or individually.

The opportunity to form responses to each group member’s proposal or other issues presented, and the request that each participant express their opinions about everything heard will maximize the effectiveness of the first real time meeting. It will also help group participants make the best use of the limited in-person meeting time.