The Importance of Structure in Open Environments
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Suresh Fernando
May 5, 2011, 11:09:32 AM5/5/11
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Hey Folks,
Maybe the importance of structure has now become evident. Might I suggest that the group simply re-institutes the weekly Sunday call and reviews the various proposal thus far advanced.
The challenge that the group faces is due to the convergence of the following:
Not to worry, it is not my plan to participate...
--
Suresh Fernando
BLOG, YOUTUBE, OK WEBSITE, OK FAN PAGE, OK GROUP, OK-WE, PHILOSOPHY, TWITTER, FACEBOOK, WOTW FAN PAGE LINKEDIN, SLIDESHARE
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Maybe the importance of structure has now become evident. Might I suggest that the group simply re-institutes the weekly Sunday call and reviews the various proposal thus far advanced.
The challenge that the group faces is due to the convergence of the following:
- Nothing that everyone agrees on that can serve to bind the group
- No decision making process
- No individual(s) empowered to establish a decision making process
Not to worry, it is not my plan to participate...
--
Suresh Fernando
BLOG, YOUTUBE, OK WEBSITE, OK FAN PAGE, OK GROUP, OK-WE, PHILOSOPHY, TWITTER, FACEBOOK, WOTW FAN PAGE LINKEDIN, SLIDESHARE
-------ProM: Climate Change Project Matching System------
Project Description: http://cotw.cc/wiki/Project_Matching
To Join: https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!forum/cc-pms
Workstreams: http://cotw.cc/wiki/CC-PMS_etherpad_index
Patrick Anderson
May 5, 2011, 12:17:28 PM5/5/11
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Suresh Fernando wrote:
> Can all of you simply make the leap of faith that it might be a good idea to
> talk on a regular basis with the intention to figure out what to do?
>
> Not to worry, it is not my plan to participate...
> Can all of you simply make the leap of faith that it might be a good idea to
> talk on a regular basis with the intention to figure out what to do?
>
> Not to worry, it is not my plan to participate...
Somehow I think this will not work.
As much as I would like to believe we need no leader,
there is a psycho/social problem without a Captain.
I'm not saying Suresh is the one for this group, and I
don't know how such a thing could be decided.
But for some reason we, as a species, seem to need
a certain amount of Presidents, CEOs, Kings, Oligarchs
as a kind of catalyst to action - and otherwise tend to
remain dispersed and impotent...
Suresh Fernando
May 5, 2011, 12:28:10 PM5/5/11
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Patrick,
I am not disagreeing with this...
The question is what does the ProM group do NOW... in the absence of formal governance and leadership models. It might, during the course of regular Sunday meetings, be determined that some sort of leadership structure be defined. Then the larger challenge of figuring what that is will be the next step.
I raise this point in the larger context of trying to figure out how to implement an Open Project Model. It seems to me that commitment to structure and process is the most obvious and effective means of getting a project going in the absence of top-down leadership and an established governance structure.
Suresh
I am not disagreeing with this...
The question is what does the ProM group do NOW... in the absence of formal governance and leadership models. It might, during the course of regular Sunday meetings, be determined that some sort of leadership structure be defined. Then the larger challenge of figuring what that is will be the next step.
I raise this point in the larger context of trying to figure out how to implement an Open Project Model. It seems to me that commitment to structure and process is the most obvious and effective means of getting a project going in the absence of top-down leadership and an established governance structure.
Suresh
--
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Tim Rayner
May 5, 2011, 6:13:39 PM5/5/11
to cc-...@googlegroups.com, Suresh Fernando
Hi Suresh,
Thanks for reaching out to the group with this suggestion. I am not sure to what extent you have been keeping up with the conversations on skype - probably not a great deal, I'd imagine - though if you've read my emails to this list over the past couple of weeks, you'll be aware that Michael and I have been trying to refocus and recalibrate the collaborative activity about the idea of Open Work Groups (OWGs). The concept and practice of OWGs is still largely undefined. We don't want to impose a structure for others to follow - rather, our aim is to open new collaborative possibilities for various working groups to co-evolve in practice.
I am a bit bewildered as to what you want to achieve with this email, Suresh. At first I assumed that you were keen to get involved with the group again. But this doesn't square with your claim that you will not participate in the proposed meeting(s)... (?) I also have the impression that you have taken a different set of lessons from the bust-up that brought the project to a halt than I have. It is worth establishing this difference of perspective - so here is how I see things.
Structure is certainly important. Of course, it is not the only important thing in an OWG. Empowerment is important too. One thing we learned in the course of ProM is that it is vital that people have a sense of ownership of the group 'commons' - the stuff the group shares in common that binds it together. We failed to properly cultivate our group commons in our work on ProM. Yes, we set up open spaces, and we rigorously documented processes and meetings. But we (and I am thinking primarily of you and I here, the co-authors of the notorious slideshare presentation) didn't proceed appropriately with respect to ideational development. We had some good ideas to start things off: what we should have done is set up a rolling set of work parties to co-evolve the model from this point, so that everyone felt they had inputed the model and 'owned' it to this extent. This was a major mistake and a lesson learned, for my part at least.
Structure is important, yes. The million dollar question is: what kind(s) of structure(s) best facilitate and enable OWGs? I do not believe that we came close to answering this question in the ProM project. We imposed, instead, a rigidly defined meeting structure, which was ultimately a major contributing factor to the bust-up of the group. It makes no sense to bring a Fordist production-line mentality into an OWG. Indeed, I'd argue that even the kinds of structures that are employed in the fluid, self-managing work environments of post-Fordist business organizations are inadequate in this context, since OWGs lack the external incentives found in the business environment (namely money and promotion), and depend exclusively on intrinsic motivations such as empowerment, learning, friendship, and pleasure. My sense is that to make OWGs work, 'ethos' is more important than 'structure'. Structure should be something that is co-evolved through a reflective practice of sharing and learning - i.e., we do stuff together, then we look back and figure out what worked. I delivered a presentation on this topic the other night . http://cotw.cc/wiki/User_talk:Timrayner The notes are pretty sketchy, but my point, I think, is clear.
Honestly, I do not know if there is the energy and commitment in the group at the moment to continue the ProM project. Few people will be keen to pick up the ball where we left it, since the general feeling is that it rolled in the direction of the latrines! :-P A better strategy, I think, is to start rebuilding trust and enthusiasm in the group through a set of short focused work parties and see where this leads us. Darren has proposed a session on Diigo - this sounds like fun to me. Keep an eye out for more details on this one. I am sure that no one would have any objections to you joining in.
Tim
Thanks for reaching out to the group with this suggestion. I am not sure to what extent you have been keeping up with the conversations on skype - probably not a great deal, I'd imagine - though if you've read my emails to this list over the past couple of weeks, you'll be aware that Michael and I have been trying to refocus and recalibrate the collaborative activity about the idea of Open Work Groups (OWGs). The concept and practice of OWGs is still largely undefined. We don't want to impose a structure for others to follow - rather, our aim is to open new collaborative possibilities for various working groups to co-evolve in practice.
I am a bit bewildered as to what you want to achieve with this email, Suresh. At first I assumed that you were keen to get involved with the group again. But this doesn't square with your claim that you will not participate in the proposed meeting(s)... (?) I also have the impression that you have taken a different set of lessons from the bust-up that brought the project to a halt than I have. It is worth establishing this difference of perspective - so here is how I see things.
Structure is certainly important. Of course, it is not the only important thing in an OWG. Empowerment is important too. One thing we learned in the course of ProM is that it is vital that people have a sense of ownership of the group 'commons' - the stuff the group shares in common that binds it together. We failed to properly cultivate our group commons in our work on ProM. Yes, we set up open spaces, and we rigorously documented processes and meetings. But we (and I am thinking primarily of you and I here, the co-authors of the notorious slideshare presentation) didn't proceed appropriately with respect to ideational development. We had some good ideas to start things off: what we should have done is set up a rolling set of work parties to co-evolve the model from this point, so that everyone felt they had inputed the model and 'owned' it to this extent. This was a major mistake and a lesson learned, for my part at least.
Structure is important, yes. The million dollar question is: what kind(s) of structure(s) best facilitate and enable OWGs? I do not believe that we came close to answering this question in the ProM project. We imposed, instead, a rigidly defined meeting structure, which was ultimately a major contributing factor to the bust-up of the group. It makes no sense to bring a Fordist production-line mentality into an OWG. Indeed, I'd argue that even the kinds of structures that are employed in the fluid, self-managing work environments of post-Fordist business organizations are inadequate in this context, since OWGs lack the external incentives found in the business environment (namely money and promotion), and depend exclusively on intrinsic motivations such as empowerment, learning, friendship, and pleasure. My sense is that to make OWGs work, 'ethos' is more important than 'structure'. Structure should be something that is co-evolved through a reflective practice of sharing and learning - i.e., we do stuff together, then we look back and figure out what worked. I delivered a presentation on this topic the other night . http://cotw.cc/wiki/User_talk:Timrayner The notes are pretty sketchy, but my point, I think, is clear.
Honestly, I do not know if there is the energy and commitment in the group at the moment to continue the ProM project. Few people will be keen to pick up the ball where we left it, since the general feeling is that it rolled in the direction of the latrines! :-P A better strategy, I think, is to start rebuilding trust and enthusiasm in the group through a set of short focused work parties and see where this leads us. Darren has proposed a session on Diigo - this sounds like fun to me. Keep an eye out for more details on this one. I am sure that no one would have any objections to you joining in.
Tim
Suresh Fernando
May 6, 2011, 11:40:15 AM5/6/11
to Tim Rayner, cc-...@googlegroups.com
Hey Tim - see below
Great! - introducing OWG's and committing to do them with regularity would constitute what I am referring to.
It's not that I am not open to getting involved, it's only that I wouldn't want peoples perception to be that suggestions that I make are an attempt to get directly involved again. I take this stance since I wouldn't want any personality issues etc. to hinder whatever the plan is moving forward. Of course if others explicitly request that I get involved then this would change the picture.
My absence from participation is the result of a number of different factors:
Agreed. I am not taking the position that we did everything correctly and that the reason things fell apart was other peoples' fault in some way. Of course I assume a lot of the responsibility since I pushed much of the action initially. I've been doing a lot of analysis and reflection on all of this and will certainly modify my processes next time around.
Fair enough. To reiterate my initial point, I still maintain that if you decide to move forward with regular OWG's then this is some form of structure. It represents a commitment of some sort, the sort that people can refer to by saying at the least.... 'we have regular OWG's at ProM...'' Furthermore this commitment reflects a shared agreement.... or what we might refer to as an Aligned Collective Intention.
That said, you are right that in open environments where 'intrinsic motivation' is paramount , a focus on 'ethos' this needs to be an explicit aspect of whatever structure/processes you agree upon.
Cool.... yeah this absence of energy is what I noticed and prompted the recent email. Please post any meeting notices on the email list since I am not following the Skype activity very closely and I'll join in if it seems to make sense.
My experience with group process is that if you can navigate substantial challenge you come out the other side much stronger. Hopefully that is what happens!
On Thu, May 5, 2011 at 3:13 PM, Tim Rayner <t...@timrayner.net> wrote:
Hi Suresh,
Thanks for reaching out to the group with this suggestion. I am not sure to what extent you have been keeping up with the conversations on skype - probably not a great deal, I'd imagine - though if you've read my emails to this list over the past couple of weeks, you'll be aware that Michael and I have been trying to refocus and recalibrate the collaborative activity about the idea of Open Work Groups (OWGs). The concept and practice of OWGs is still largely undefined. We don't want to impose a structure for others to follow - rather, our aim is to open new collaborative possibilities for various working groups to co-evolve in practice.
Great! - introducing OWG's and committing to do them with regularity would constitute what I am referring to.
I am a bit bewildered as to what you want to achieve with this email, Suresh. At first I assumed that you were keen to get involved with the group again. But this doesn't square with your claim that you will not participate in the proposed meeting(s)... (?)
It's not that I am not open to getting involved, it's only that I wouldn't want peoples perception to be that suggestions that I make are an attempt to get directly involved again. I take this stance since I wouldn't want any personality issues etc. to hinder whatever the plan is moving forward. Of course if others explicitly request that I get involved then this would change the picture.
My absence from participation is the result of a number of different factors:
- It seemed like the right thing to do...
- I needed lots of time to figure out what happened
- I am working on lots of other things that also need my attention
I also have the impression that you have taken a different set of lessons from the bust-up that brought the project to a halt than I have. It is worth establishing this difference of perspective - so here is how I see things.
Structure is certainly important. Of course, it is not the only important thing in an OWG. Empowerment is important too. One thing we learned in the course of ProM is that it is vital that people have a sense of ownership of the group 'commons' - the stuff the group shares in common that binds it together. We failed to properly cultivate our group commons in our work on ProM. Yes, we set up open spaces, and we rigorously documented processes and meetings. But we (and I am thinking primarily of you and I here, the co-authors of the notorious slideshare presentation) didn't proceed appropriately with respect to ideational development. We had some good ideas to start things off: what we should have done is set up a rolling set of work parties to co-evolve the model from this point, so that everyone felt they had inputed the model and 'owned' it to this extent. This was a major mistake and a lesson learned, for my part at least.
Agreed. I am not taking the position that we did everything correctly and that the reason things fell apart was other peoples' fault in some way. Of course I assume a lot of the responsibility since I pushed much of the action initially. I've been doing a lot of analysis and reflection on all of this and will certainly modify my processes next time around.
Structure is important, yes. The million dollar question is: what kind(s) of structure(s) best facilitate and enable OWGs? I do not believe that we came close to answering this question in the ProM project. We imposed, instead, a rigidly defined meeting structure, which was ultimately a major contributing factor to the bust-up of the group. It makes no sense to bring a Fordist production-line mentality into an OWG. Indeed, I'd argue that even the kinds of structures that are employed in the fluid, self-managing work environments of post-Fordist business organizations are inadequate in this context, since OWGs lack the external incentives found in the business environment (namely money and promotion), and depend exclusively on intrinsic motivations such as empowerment, learning, friendship, and pleasure. My sense is that to make OWGs work, 'ethos' is more important than 'structure'. Structure should be something that is co-evolved through a reflective practice of sharing and learning - i.e., we do stuff together, then we look back and figure out what worked. I delivered a presentation on this topic the other night . http://cotw.cc/wiki/User_talk:Timrayner The notes are pretty sketchy, but my point, I think, is clear.
Fair enough. To reiterate my initial point, I still maintain that if you decide to move forward with regular OWG's then this is some form of structure. It represents a commitment of some sort, the sort that people can refer to by saying at the least.... 'we have regular OWG's at ProM...'' Furthermore this commitment reflects a shared agreement.... or what we might refer to as an Aligned Collective Intention.
That said, you are right that in open environments where 'intrinsic motivation' is paramount , a focus on 'ethos' this needs to be an explicit aspect of whatever structure/processes you agree upon.
Honestly, I do not know if there is the energy and commitment in the group at the moment to continue the ProM project. Few people will be keen to pick up the ball where we left it, since the general feeling is that it rolled in the direction of the latrines! :-P A better strategy, I think, is to start rebuilding trust and enthusiasm in the group through a set of short focused work parties and see where this leads us. Darren has proposed a session on Diigo - this sounds like fun to me. Keep an eye out for more details on this one. I am sure that no one would have any objections to you joining in.
Cool.... yeah this absence of energy is what I noticed and prompted the recent email. Please post any meeting notices on the email list since I am not following the Skype activity very closely and I'll join in if it seems to make sense.
My experience with group process is that if you can navigate substantial challenge you come out the other side much stronger. Hopefully that is what happens!
Pamela McLean
May 7, 2011, 1:20:58 PM5/7/11
to cc-...@googlegroups.com
Hi Suresh, Tim and all.
I'm encouraged by this thread. It looks like a good step towards re-grouping on a much firmer foundation.
Regarding organisational structures I like the model that is given in this video with reference to Better Means. http://bettermeans.com/front/how.html. I wonder how other people relate to it.
Personal assumptions - possibly very wrong
I realise now that when I came to COTW the model outlined in the better means video was the organisational assumption that I brought with me. I saw COTW as a newly forming online community of interest - made up of people who, like me, were attracted by the film. I got the impression that Tim, Michael and Chris were the core group. I assumed that people would engage in conversations to find informal overlapping interests, and then various other interest groups would emerge which would get on with things (keeping each other informed). I assumed that if the new groups interested Tim, Michael or Chris then they would join them - and if not then they'd just like to be informed of progress.
NB - I do use the word "assume" on purpose here = aware of the old training warning that "ASS-U-ME makes as ass of you or me and probably both of us". I also use "assume" aware of the fact that the only thing we can be sure of is our uncertainty and therefore we have to go forward as best we can - making use of assumptions - especially when we are working at a distance and across cultures. However we need to hold out assumptions lightly, being ready to review them every time there is a confusion which may usefully point us to a mismatch in our assumptions.
A comfortable and familiar model
To me the model in the video is very comfortable and familiar. It fits my mental model of the way that I try to enable things to happen in the Dadamac community (ways that are very similar to the video, but not as clearly expressed). In our situation the core group of an interest group is small group - maybe only two or three people, who have "the full vision" for what that particular interest group is doing (and how it fits in with everything else and so on). Other people get involved at different levels There are various different interest groups - and their different core groups link in various ways. The groups have varying "levels of energy" (sometimes very active - sometimes going "on hold" for a long time) - and the relationships between them is continually evolving.
Boundaries of ProM
My personal confusion with ProM was in understanding the boundary of its purpose, and who its core group were, in order to try and understand if I had a contribution to make.
If ProM was as wide as I first thought it to be (general exploration of how people/organisations would "find each other"/"match-up" in the COTW community) then I was passionately interested in it and felt that I had a contribution to make. If on the other hand ProM was more focussed on something that a group of techies were planning to do regarding writing a particular piece of software - then I did not see any role for myself and recognised that my input would probably just be a confusion. I was clumsily trying to find out which it was.
The "techie" "non-techie" divide
Regarding the techie/user divide. Something Paul said to me yesterday makes me think I may have unintentionally used language that could have been offensive when I was referring to "techies". I did not mean to cause any offense to anyone. I was simply trying to find some kind of shorthand. I needed to discover if ProM was to be something I could usefully contribute to (i.e. the user side of online collaboration) or if Prom was "techie". If it was techie then I knew it was something where it was best for me to leave it to the experts and simply come back when they had "done their magic" - or wanted a potential user to come in to try things out.
As I see my potential role - If techies are interfacing with socio-tech then I can contribute, but if techies are comparing the benefits of different systems or creating new ones than my input would simply be noise and distraction - wasting their time and mine.
Regarding the lessons learned through ProM and regrouping, I wrote something on that a couple of weeks back - I'll try to look it out and post into this thread later.
Pamela
I'm encouraged by this thread. It looks like a good step towards re-grouping on a much firmer foundation.
Regarding organisational structures I like the model that is given in this video with reference to Better Means. http://bettermeans.com/front/how.html. I wonder how other people relate to it.
Personal assumptions - possibly very wrong
I realise now that when I came to COTW the model outlined in the better means video was the organisational assumption that I brought with me. I saw COTW as a newly forming online community of interest - made up of people who, like me, were attracted by the film. I got the impression that Tim, Michael and Chris were the core group. I assumed that people would engage in conversations to find informal overlapping interests, and then various other interest groups would emerge which would get on with things (keeping each other informed). I assumed that if the new groups interested Tim, Michael or Chris then they would join them - and if not then they'd just like to be informed of progress.
NB - I do use the word "assume" on purpose here = aware of the old training warning that "ASS-U-ME makes as ass of you or me and probably both of us". I also use "assume" aware of the fact that the only thing we can be sure of is our uncertainty and therefore we have to go forward as best we can - making use of assumptions - especially when we are working at a distance and across cultures. However we need to hold out assumptions lightly, being ready to review them every time there is a confusion which may usefully point us to a mismatch in our assumptions.
A comfortable and familiar model
To me the model in the video is very comfortable and familiar. It fits my mental model of the way that I try to enable things to happen in the Dadamac community (ways that are very similar to the video, but not as clearly expressed). In our situation the core group of an interest group is small group - maybe only two or three people, who have "the full vision" for what that particular interest group is doing (and how it fits in with everything else and so on). Other people get involved at different levels There are various different interest groups - and their different core groups link in various ways. The groups have varying "levels of energy" (sometimes very active - sometimes going "on hold" for a long time) - and the relationships between them is continually evolving.
Boundaries of ProM
My personal confusion with ProM was in understanding the boundary of its purpose, and who its core group were, in order to try and understand if I had a contribution to make.
If ProM was as wide as I first thought it to be (general exploration of how people/organisations would "find each other"/"match-up" in the COTW community) then I was passionately interested in it and felt that I had a contribution to make. If on the other hand ProM was more focussed on something that a group of techies were planning to do regarding writing a particular piece of software - then I did not see any role for myself and recognised that my input would probably just be a confusion. I was clumsily trying to find out which it was.
The "techie" "non-techie" divide
Regarding the techie/user divide. Something Paul said to me yesterday makes me think I may have unintentionally used language that could have been offensive when I was referring to "techies". I did not mean to cause any offense to anyone. I was simply trying to find some kind of shorthand. I needed to discover if ProM was to be something I could usefully contribute to (i.e. the user side of online collaboration) or if Prom was "techie". If it was techie then I knew it was something where it was best for me to leave it to the experts and simply come back when they had "done their magic" - or wanted a potential user to come in to try things out.
As I see my potential role - If techies are interfacing with socio-tech then I can contribute, but if techies are comparing the benefits of different systems or creating new ones than my input would simply be noise and distraction - wasting their time and mine.
Regarding the lessons learned through ProM and regrouping, I wrote something on that a couple of weeks back - I'll try to look it out and post into this thread later.
Pamela
paul horan
May 8, 2011, 1:51:23 AM5/8/11
to cc-...@googlegroups.com
Advance warning folks, this message has got a bit of heft to it!
Dear Suresh,
Thanks for steering clear from our vessels' helms for these past few weeks = a pretty rugged stretch for most/all of us who've been busy getting to know one another & learning to collaborate more carefully, openly, etc., as good folks following up on the CotW film at least since last October.
Anyhow, gotta let you know that I totally disagree with you regarding just about all your main points =
First, structure's importance has NOT ONLY ALWAYS been self evident to any/all of us naturally attracted to Open Stewardship practices = structure's precisely one of our ongoing labors of love's well nurtured & still ripening fruits. So when you state "... the importance of structure has now become evident.", I gotta state back THAT'S NOT TRUE as clearly, openly, simply & humbly as I can!
Second, the rest of your points seem to emerge from a possible failure to appreciate our ongoing, collaborative, deep=digging efforts actually underway to ensure our emergent structures are viable for supporting our upcoming swarm nurturing activities.
In a nutshell, whether evident on your radar screen or not, sufficient numbers of us are already quite passionately engaged in the necessary work=play of cultivating real live trust among our selves as a viable human resource from which elegant structures naturally emerge.
Trusting yields structures.
Relationship quality's
a measure of trust.
With all due respect, the utter disregard for the quality of relationship you demonstrated interacting with at least one of our/my fellow open collaborators, suggests to me that you may not even be interested much less supportive of the kinds of structures emerging from CotW's Open Stewardship practices.
So, it comes as no surprise that your message conveys little appreciation for the trust at the source of our efforts toward digging and clearing space from which magnificently elegant structural foundations are beginning to emerge. Since we're still busy excavating more clearly good and trustworthy space, I might as well warn you that it's just plain foolish to waste time looking for signs of our activity on whatever upper floors you might imagine because they ain't been built yet.
Trusting leads structures.
Form follows function with grace.
Love's made visible ...
Believe it or not, I've attempted to keep this response brief. Believe me, there's a lot more where that came from ...
Trustructurally yours,
paul
P. S. = remember that crazy dancin' dude video you shared several months ago? Well, I assumed from our collective response back then that the kind of so-called "leadership" we're now busy seeking is more like an emergent property of our whole set of activities than anything else. Perhaps that was a mistaken assumption AND perhaps not; or as Charles Barkley supposedly said, "I may be wrong, but I don't think so" ...
Gerry
May 8, 2011, 7:59:37 AM5/8/11
to CC-PMS (ProM)
Structure is there whether we are good observers of its dynamics or
not. Modern dynamics talks of "chaotic order" because it now
understands that there is deep structure in the seeming randomness.
There is a difference from a system that is deep into the chaotic
region such that no structures remain stable for long enough for large
structures to emerge, and a system described as "on the edge of chaos"
where small changes in trim tab variables can guide large scale
behavior, and multi-layered emergent behavior is now possible.
We are so deeply social in our beings that our social environment is
like water to a fish, and though social structures drive us and their
influences are obvious in our institutions and organizations, the
architectures of our human created social beings are largely invisible
to us. On the other hand, this is no ordinary group of people, and we
are at the beginnings of forming a group with a new sort of structure.
I'm not ready to make any big claims for what this structure is or how
it works, but I know it's presence from the quality of listening
demonstrated by the emerging leadership (that is, all of us). It is
through this quality that we begin to illuminate the invisible
architectures of change.
Thanks,
Gerry
Tiberius Brastaviceanu
May 8, 2011, 12:38:39 PM5/8/11
to cc-...@googlegroups.com
Gerry and all,
I spent two days with Venkatesh, who came to Montreal. His concept of legibility is, in my opinion, a very interesting one. I wonder now how much structure we should impose to a (social) open enterprise, and how much we need to let structure emerge and change.
Venkatesh has just published a book called Tempo where he describes this concept and uses historical examples to compare legible and ilegible organizations, their strengths and weaknesses.
See this short video for an introduction to his book he made in Montreal.
--
-------Climate Change Project Matching System------
We're using the Coalition of the Willing Wiki: http://cotw.cc/wiki/Project_Matching
And BetterMeans: https://secure.bettermeans.com/projects/184
We're working as three tracks. Please prefix threads as follows: <Tech> <Data> <Outreach>.... and do join at least one of the tracks!
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paul horan
May 9, 2011, 12:33:39 AM5/9/11
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Gerry & Tibi,
I'm appreciating this deeply rich conversation y'all got goin' on here = THANK YOU BOTH!!! = this is quite life affirming for me ...
Venkatesh's voice & views are powerfully lovely = they feel good AND make sense = so I'm much obliged for this intro, Tibi. Thanks for sharing the video & pdf links = great stuff. I'm thrilled Mr. Rao may be interested in the art & science of Permaculture Practice.
BTW, if you haven't already checked out the podcast link shared by Mark Roest via his recent "An extremely important breakthrough in education" email message, I strongly recommend it because Diego Navarro's experiences seem to integrate naturally with Venkatesh Rao's (at least for me they do : )
http://www.stranova.com/Podcasts/Vfrom2020/VF2020_8.mp3
Onward through the fog,
paul
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