What a busy three months it has been since our last newsletter and update! Let me clue you in on some exciting things that have been happening!

CMM on the Road

First, we are taking CMM on the road! This is a big year for us for getting the word out about CMM and connecting with new communities where there are opportunities for collaboration! As I shared in our previous newsletter, Kim Pearce and I attended the Arizona Association for the Gifted and Talented (AAGT) Annual Conference in February. But that was just the start!

In April I attended the Central States Communication Association Annual Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio, and gave the keynote address during the Undergraduate Honors Research Luncheon. You can read my speech here. Plus, as the new Secretary for the Communication Theory Interest Group, you can expect to see me again at the 2026 CSCA Conference- hopefully participating in a panel with some fellow CMM scholar-practitioners!

This month, I will be traveling to the Elevate Conference in Tennessee, where I will link up with our favorite gifted educator Stephanie Higgs to give away more CosmoActivities sets! They are expecting over 3,000 participants, so this will be huge!

And in July, I will be traveling to Virginia for the SENG (Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted) Annual Community Conference, where I will present about using CMM to story experiences of giftedness, and also get to give away more CosmoActivities sets! This is a community and a conference we did not have on our radar at the beginning of the year, but we met Adam Laningham (Executive Director of SENG) at the AAGT Conference, and he invited us to this! A great reminder to leave room for emergence!

CMM on the Air

We are now the proud hosts of TWO podcasts- Stories Lived. Stories Told. and the CosmoParenting Podcast. SLST has just surpassed 20,000 total downloads and already inching quickly toward 25,000! This is a huge milestone for us as we are seeing increased listens this year across all episodes.

Plus, this month marks the half-way point for the CosmoParenting Podcast! June theme is Conflict, and features our very own CMMi Steward Ilene Wasserman and her children joining us for our ‘Validate’ episode. We know that everything we make has an afterlife, and we are beginning to wonder about the future of CosmoParenting… Once the year is over, how can we continue to share the wisdom of CosmoParenting?

Finally, CMMi Steward Don Wasianen and myself were guests on the Eastside Institute’s All Power to the Developing Podcast (Ep. 59), described in this way: “’CMM and social therapeutics have a shared understanding of human beings as builders of the social world,’ says VanMeter. This conversation provides a concise and clear introduction to this important social constructionist approach to interpersonal communication, and its potential impact on our weary and wounded world stuck in age-old communication traps.”

CMM in the Wild

I’m not the only one who has been busy these past few months! Our CMMi Stewards have been traveling and sharing CMM in their respective arenas as well. Here are a few highlights:

Ilene Wasserman has recently travelled to Budapest, Hungary, and hosted “Building an Inclusive World through Nurturing Inclusive Organizations:” A conversation with Dr. Ilene Wasserman for the Hungarian Organizational Development Society- Szervezetfejlesztők Magyarországi Társasága (SZMT).

Bart Buechner and Rik Spann presented Sound-based interventions: Co-creating healing spaces betwixt and between lifeworlds for people in need through Conversational Jazz and Improvisation at the Schutz Circle Conference in Vienna, Austria.

And Sergej van Middendorp has co-authored an important piece titled ‘Democracy for the Future’ on his Substack.

And, you can still register for the Taos Institute’s Dialogue with the Author featuring Robyn Penman on her new book- Justice in the Making: Relating, Participating, Communicating on Monday, August 4, at 6 pm EDT.

CMM in YOUR Life

What are your updates to share? We always want to hear from you! The best places to talk with us are on the CMMi Substack. Right now, there are two ongoing opportunities to be in dialogue. First, you can answer the question What does CMM mean to you? here. Second, you can share how you are using CMM here.