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...
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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.
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" ...
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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