Breakin' it down...

[Cesar Torres]

Today John and I (Dave joined us for a while) tried to write out
exactly what it is we are doing with this concept of "Conjunctured"--
trying to figure out its purpose and to give it some definition.

We wrote down a list of words, phrases and soundbites with this in
mind and basically tried to reverse engineer what we're trying to
ultimately accomplish. Even though it was a free-flowing list, after
looking it over after the fact, it can be broken down as follows:

>> What do we want to affect externally?
Silicon Hills
developing Austin
economic development (for the city)
"what starts here changes the world" - UT's tagline...not necessarily
university related, more the bigger concept at hand:
http://www.utexas.edu/inside_ut/tvspot/

>> Why create a new model/process?
rethink the nature of "work"
challenge the way work is done
connect ideas
make people come together
create cool shit
evolve culture

>> How will we do this?
doing "it" on our own terms, whatever "it" is
profitizing
making up words
empowering youth
partying
creating, creating, creating
all while listening to great music
wearing flip-flops and going swimming in Barton Springs
walkin' our dogs

>> What do we want to make?
create a model
create a meta process
create memes
inspire and challenge other groups to do the same

That all being taken into account...

>> What are we?
we're a meme house
think tank/incubator
startup
network
creative studio
collaborative company (co-company)
separate yet choosing to work together
symbiotic
conjuncture (noun): a state of combined events or circumstances; a
critical combination of events or circumstances

In the end, it turns out, we ARE Conjunctured. Probably the closest
label we can be to any external entity is a think tank ("an
organization of experts researching and advising on issues of society,
science, technology, industry and business"), but for the purposes of
an internal culture, we ARE what we ARE. We are that critical
combination of events. So. Cool.

Over the next week, I'm going to more concisely try to figure out what
"Conjunctured" means for me. What does it mean for you? I invite
each one of you to think it over in whatever style suits you best.

Draw it out, talk it out, write it out, sleep it out, run it out, walk
walk it out or drink it out. Just get it out. If you had to tell my
mom what it is in once sentence, what would that be? Hell, even in
one word if you want a challenge. Volvo = safe; Apple = clean, etc.
FYI, Conjunctured = badass doesn't count.

Thinking, talking and writing about this gets me very excited and I
hope it's the same for y'all. Also, I hope you all had a great
Valentine's Day with your respective pardners. I had pie with
friends, BOOYAH. I look forward to hearing your discussions online
and at our conference call next week. 'Til then, friends.

[David H Walker]

Great job putting this all together Cesar! I'm equally excited to unleash something so "us" into the business sphere---showing people that great things can be accomplished through methods that challenge the normal business format.  I will let all this soak in for a lil bit and then share my thoughts.

David

[John Erik Metcalf]

we're the cult of openness hah

--
John Erik Metcalf
tel: 210.724.3619
fax: 563.405.4275
email: jmetc...@gmail.com
web log: http://blog.think27.com
resume/cv: http://linkedin.com/in/johnerikmetcalf