The DNA of collaboration

IMO this is well worth exploring @olisb thanks. A small quibble regarding naming . . you've tagged this thread with 'DNA' but the example you're reasoning with in the article is Cellular Automata. Seems to me, the latter is way easier to adopt as a model, and might do the job, as you imply.

Your article's murmuration/automata reasoning triggers thoughts, for me, on how a 'pluriverse' might work - Arturo Escobar's important concept of harmony in the future, challenging, post-modern, federationist world, where there is no Modernist expectation of some singular universe inhabited by all communities. Here he explores pluriverse and degrowth,.and here in Patterns of commoning he explores pluriverse and commons. Myself, I might be inclined to tag this thread as 'The plumbing of the pluriverse'. Whatever . . I hope it gets traction :thumbsup:

Thanks Mike - you're right, the DNA title/analogy is weak - "protocol" might have been better...

Thanks for the Escobar links - the Patterns of Commoning is great

Thanks very much for inviting me to participate in this conversation. I am deeply curious to know where it will take us.

Could there be a git repository related to this DNA so that mutations could happen via forks and pull requests?

Hi @thierrymarianne - That sounds like an interesting idea... we're you thinking the git repository would be for the "organisations collaborative DNA" i.e. each org submits their Purpose, Scope tags and RSS to a repository, or that the general idea could be on git somehow..?

I love the idea that it could be forked and evolve...

Mainly I'm wondering whether it would require Orgs to publish their "Collaborative DNA pages" in a specific way / format, or whether a clever spider would be able to pick up and pull out the Purpose, Scope tags and RSS feed if, for example, those titles were simply H tags, with the variables directly after them...?

I guess it would be easier to test the visualisation (murmurations) aspect if Orgs added the data to a centralized database (at least to start with) but I like the idea of it being completely distributed and that Orgs only need to add a very simple page to their own site. But then how would they make other related orgs aware they had done so...?

Doesn't need to be centralized (altho github is centralized). We're working with projects in 4 decentralized protocols:
* ActivityPub
* HoloChain
* Scuttlebutt
* Solid

I think the ActivityPub or Solid projects might be the easiest way to do what you are thinking about. I am not personally very connected to the Solid project, but @jonrichter is.

And then you will need a common vocabulary...

I read the article again. The cellular automata approach still looks good, with its three components - cohesion, separation, alignment (each of which requires a short para to explain what it means). But in making an operational translation into three other constructs - purpose, scope, RSS - it seems to me you’ve lost the goose that might lay the golden egg. These constructs can so easily be applied in a casual, careless way, so that nothing of the original terms’ careful meaning remains in the descriptions. I’d say you need to retain the complexity and specificity of the original framing concepts. That’s a lot harder to police of course, as a protocol. But what we’re chasing is a pretty elusive thing, not easily reduced to something that an algorithm can crunch?

I responded to the blog post but it seems the convo is actually here :)
What do you reckon of the following collaboration pattern based on musical allegory? https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Qa-U2twXdte1sjgbx6VXa2ekohGkEp0rpzOSPiZ6hmY/edit?usp=sharing

Thanks @joshafairhead I loved your article - seems like we are definitely thinking about the same idea... although I was trying to imagine how we could visualise the murmurations that might already be happening between existing organisations and movements... and it seems you are talking about a recipe for forming and developing new groups. Still, there's loads of overlap in the ideas. But I'm still wondering how we could test / experiment with these concepts...? Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts.

@olisb - yeah, I think we are on the same page for sure. Re: measuring our current interactions, sadly I'm not sure we do those particularly well intrinsically. It would be great to have a measuring stick of sorts though as a gauge for base level efficiency would allow us to measure improvement.

Re: implementation, it's tricky where I'm at (Giveth.io) because it requires heading cats. i.e. theres no telling people what to do, but we might have people that would jump on board in our channels if they have the bandwidth. It is possible... We've had a few web cam work jams at Giveth based off the article. We're somewhat calling it the Gov-lab game, though we've had to iterate a few times so its only MVP until activity is more consistent. Maybe you fancy joining our channels and trying to stir some pots?