Gathering #16 October 7, 2021 - Cycle 3 Retrospective

I want to suggest the following outline and guiding questions for this gathering:

Part1: Retrospective

1. In your mind and heart, what has this cycle achieved?

2. What is a prominent experience you are left with from this cycle?

3. What did you most enjoy about this cycle?

4. What made you uncomfortable or uneasy during this cycle?

5. What collective cultural habits have you come to appreciate and would like to carry forward?

6. What collective cultural habits would you like to improve?

7. What collective cultural habits would you like to leave behind?

Part2: What Next?

1. What is currently mostly alive for you in our process?

2. What would you like to do next?

3. What do you feel is the correct next thing to do?

Are there are other questions for reflection that you wish to offer into the space?

I invite us all to invest some asynchronous time in this reflection (we have almost 3 weeks until the gathering). You can both contribute your own thoughts and take in and respond to thoughts offered by others in the crew. This will allow us to focus on the things that most matter to us when we are together during the synchronous gathering.

@Ronen Hirsch When you say contribute our thoughts, do you mean thoughts on the outline (such as additions/changes), or thoughts on answering the questions? I think by your suggestion you are presenting a candidate outline, and wouldn’t want us to answer the questions here.

Both @Robert Damashek :)

My intention was to offer the outline as a seed and an opportunity to start the conversation here asynchronously ... though clearly that invitation has not found appeal :)

And I am curious why you think I would NOT want answers here :)

Ok - I didn’t catch that asynch element of responding - agendas and synchronous meetings are so ingrained in my world 🙂 Anyway, I am posting the answers I have come up with!

@Ronen Hirsch Here are my thoughts on the questions:

Part1: Retrospective

• In your mind and heart, what has this cycle achieved?

  1. It has introduced the GP to several people, and expanded the crew with two new members and perspectives

  2. it has produced an audio reading of the GP to make it more accessible

  3. it has begun the process of grappling with the position of money as a strong center

  4. it has led the crew to explore a new platform for collaboration on the GP

• What is a prominent experience you are left with from this cycle?

  • An increased level of awareness about the crew (who they are, what motivates them to contribute to the crew, how they think, how they work), the GP and the collaborative process, and a sense that I can contribute.

• What did you most enjoy about this cycle?

  • Getting to meet and being accepted into the crew

• What made you uncomfortable or uneasy during this cycle?

  1. Newness to the team and being awkward using the sociocracy techniques

  2. Not being able to respond rapidly due to proposal workloads

  3. I feel that we have left the GP less whole because we as a crew have as yet been unable to fill the center that Money held

• What collective cultural habits have you come to appreciate and would like to carry forward?

  1. Deep respect for each other and each one’s voice

  2. Skilled use of collaboration tools

• What collective cultural habits would you like to improve?

  • Can’t think of any

• What collective cultural habits would you like to leave behind?

  • Can’t think of any

Part2: What Next?

• What is currently mostly alive for you in our process?

  • The crew and the GP itself

• What would you like to do next?

  • Find a way to keep the GP more alive in us

    • Take a scenario and role play it?

    • Take a section and practice

• What do you feel is the correct next thing to do?

  • Introduce others to the GP and gather their feedback

  • And find a way to keep the GP more alive in us

• Are there are other questions for reflection that you wish to offer into the space?

  • Would the crew be willing to revisit how to fill the center that Money held?

    • I believe that the GP can be made whole again by adding a strong center describing the dynamics between Offer and Need as the driver for value exchange, and that this will unfold space for Money as a weak center

    • I am willing to propose those additional changes to the GP for consideration by the crew

Elements for reflection/retrospective of cycles

June 2020 - First cycle - 3 months

September 2020 - Second cycle - 5 months

February 2021 - Third cycle - 8 months

October 2021 → Fourth cycle - We don't know, but are we heading to a 12 months cycle this time?

Retrospective

• The space sound description, crystallizing ideas of the previous cycles, and introduction of new ones.

• A new way of not working collaboratively in the design of a generative process as more insights to do it (via negativa)

• A better shared understanding of what we are trying to achieve, and the specifics of the invitation. The generativity of what was not understood. Alignment around the scope of work.

• External signaling and precious feedback.

• New members, more diversity. I feel more comfortable having Jennifer and Robert voices.

• We squeezed Collective one, and we decided to experiment with Obsidian and Github. 

• Alex and I envisioned a new space for collecting and experimenting with "ripened fruits" of the process, to open new possibilities of contributing to the new cycle, and also to not to defer value exchange (and money) to the moment in which the space is created.

Some learning may be more personal, not shared:

• I understood a little bit better the work of Christopher Alexander, and how my limited understanding made me sometimes be misguided in my proposals and contributions. At the same time, I reflected a lot about the difference between crafting a generative process of an inanimated artifact such as an origami bird, and a space of social complex interaction. I also stumbled upon the work of that Japanese professor that has been experimenting for years in this field, and some of his findings such as the "egg" are now in my toolbox and I am delighted with it. 

• However, I gained some confidence in my intuitions of the generative process. My comments and objections were seen at first (or at least that is my perception) as me being out of tune with the wholeness of the generative process, but finally even Ronen himself felt, for instance, the weakness of the money sequence.

• I also enjoyed the richness of the different contributions of the new, and the different energies we brought in. The joy of finding other beautiful souls with other talents and offers that the ones we could bring in.

• I understood also the other day that the concept o microsolidarity is not after the idea of solidarity being micro, but the collective being solidary being micro. Isn't it?

What's next. 

• I have the feeling that we could benefit from making a new version of the generative process just with the most essential. I imagine for instance to see a prioritization of cards from each of us (picking a limited number), talking, and seeing what we feel stronger after listening to each other.

• Exploring together options/possibilities/scenarios of a concrete implementation would clarify, in my opinion, the money dimension of the generative process. As I said, the generative process of the Japanese tea house nor describe the process of the first one ever built, nor the funding model of its construction.

• Refining the tools for working together and improve the generative process.

• Designing in our lab experiences/tasters of the space. Share them out there.

Retrospective

For me this cycle has a flavor of maturity, commitment and focus. While we may still become musical producers, we are, for now, focused on manifesting in the world a digital space. There are, in my mind, a few indicators for this:

1. The GP has arrived at a kind of steady-state. Though it can and will continue to unfold it feels like a "thing"

2. This. in turn, feels like it made us available to (summon?) encounter, connect and integrate Jennifer & Robert into the crew.

3. This has placed a kind of evolutionary pressure on the need to collaborate, which has led to Josh initiating a tool transition.

For me, the most prominent experience was the initial call with Robert & Jennifer while I was in Israel. The stark contrast between feeling alienated in Israel vs. feeling belonging in the crew (while it was shifting phase!).

I most enjoyed the feeling that whatever we have done so far has placed us in tune with an emergent field. I sensed this emergent field in the way that a random stimulus within the crew led to my meeting with Jennifer which led to her & Robert fluidly joining the crew which led to the friction around money which led to a kind of distillation of the GP which led to the conclusion of this cycle and to the aroma of another cycle already in the air.

I continue to feel uneasy around a kind of gap that exists between our collective wish to dedicate ourselves to this work and our actual ability to do so.

I look forward to feeling like the force of initiation is shared and more spread out among the crew. I feel like a lot of initiation sits with me. I experience it both as a power and an obligation, both of which are qualities I prefer to be more distributed in the crew.

I deeply appreciate our ability to flow well together. I am recalling a conversation from another cycle around rhythms. I find myself feeling amused that it feels like we have found a good rhythm together ... but I can't really say what it is ... it is not as simple as a beat that can be named ... it is a complex, subtle, and mostly improvised rhythm .. but I do feel it is there!

What Next

I see a potential for two parallel activities: sharing and exploring money.

I would like to amplify the sharing dynamic. I would like to formulate an intentional measurable target (how many sharing, with whom, etc.). This is, in my mind, an Alexandrian effort to get a felt-sense of if/how the GP meets the ground ... how people that may benefit from it experience it. The outcome is (interestingly) binary in my mind: build it or don't build it?

The money exploration is very much alive for me. Though it has morphed, expanded, and refined itself. In my mind it is currently an exploration of value, equity and money. In order to prevent this exploration from becoming theoretical and detached I want to bind it to concrete needs and questions (assuming we the outcome of sharing is "build it") such as:

1. Equity: how do we express the value of what has already been created so that this notion can grow as we bring on more people and resources?

2. How do we do "hiring" - reaching more people and bringing them on board to build "the thing"

3. How would we take on an investor?

4. If we had money, what would we do with it?

There is a generative sequence alive in me for playfully exploring equity together.

Link to my reference on accountability pods: https://batjc.wordpress.com/resources/pods-and-pod-mapping-worksheet/

I have a few reflections related to the gathering today.

First, the sharing from one of the crew members about something that happened during a previous gathering that troubled them stayed with me throughout the day. I realized that in the future, I want to be reflecting on gatherings and communications here to be watchful for these kinds of unintentional hurts. The hurt that arose shouldn’t have been a surprise to me, since I have experienced the same very personal topic causing extreme reactions and rifts in communities of mothers in the past. The topic evokes very strong feelings and opinions. I want to watch out for and tend to those kinds of potential hurts in the future. Something that I could have done which would have been simple and easy would have been to point out that not everyone in the gathering may agree or make the same choices on the subject, and there are good reasons to see things differently. That’s true for almost any topic I can think of that tends to bring out strong emotions. I think just saying that could help resolve upset and hurt.

The other thoughts I have are about money, investing, equity and one possible way what has already been generated by the crew could be put into practice.

In my mind, this crew already are the investors in the digital space. You have invested your talents, knowledge and skills. You have invested your time. If the digital space is going to be for-profit, I would hope those investments would be part of the calculation when it comes to equity and distributing profits, not only financial investments.

I would like to know if there an opening for considering making the digital space not-for-profit? Just because a business is not-for-profit doesn’t mean those involved can’t profit from it, it just means the legal purpose for the business is something other than simply making a profit.

Ronen asked in his thoughts before the gathering, if we had money what would we do with it? The answer to that to me is to pay the members of the crew who want/need to be paid to build the digital space.

An idea for how to put the generative process of the digital space has been percolating in my mind for a while.

Alex mentioned today that the organization he works for just lost three staff people, and this was disruptive for the organization. The non-profit I volunteer for also had to let a staff person go recently. I believe the same non-profit (and many other non-profits) could also use help finding, nurturing and retaining dedicated staff and volunteers needed to do essential work for the organization.

I think this is a common problem in organizations that are seeking to work in different ways, ways that resonate with this crew.

This way of working is not easy. People who are traumatized can’t work this way, even if they truly want to be able to. And almost all of us carry trauma from the world we live in.

If the digital space could support the training and development of people who are interested in working in the way the crew works, this would be valuable to many organizations around the world seeking people like that. They are hard to find. I think organizations would pay for access to people trained in working this way and who have demonstrated they are dependable and capable.

Another slightly different path to generating an income that came to my mind is from people who offer paid activities already and are looking for certain kinds of people who are capable of being in groups like this crew. They also might pay to have access to people drawn to the digital space.

I think we could possibly start by simply starting to work with more people who are drawn to the idea of the digital space as described in the generative description. We could organize activities for them and start building the digital space to support those activities.

Any potential path to generating an income will take time. In the meantime, Robert and I would like to say again we are willing to put money into this project.

One way this could look that would be simple and easy is to use the Open Collective Foundation as a fiscal sponsor. This would only work if the digital space were non-profit. They want to work with groups in alignment with the solidarity economy.

If Open Collective were a fiscal sponsor, we wouldn’t need to make a legal entity or open a bank account for the digital space right away. Money would be put into Open Collective and they do all the tracking. Crew members could simply make requests to be paid from the account, and they would be paid.

Those are my thoughts right now.

Thanks for offering these reflections, Jennifer. Interesting that you mention Open Collective---I've been working on a project with Metagov to build a consent-based collective decisionmaking integration with Loomio and Open Collective that could be useful if we were to set things up on there.