Reserving my vote for the moment, because it's not clear to me exactly what is proposed for decision here - a Yes/No decision should relate to some clear action and consequence and I don't see that here.

What is "collaborating" in this case? What does it mean to hold an intention for it, collectively? What are the prior steps leading up to this point, and what is foreseen beyond? Who is going to take which roles/accountabilities in carrying out the results of an affirmative choice?

Seems important to provide enough context and focus to give everyone on the team a sense of the implications before responding - I don't feel that I have that now. If it's more of a symbolic matter, or checking for general inclinations, maybe that could happen informally elsewhere or be presented in exactly that light here.

All good questions, Ben. I'll try to explain the perspective of putting this "soft" proposal up for collective decision-making, and limit the context of the specific proposal up for discussion.

I am interested in making a stated, clear intention on behalf of our OVN (not a personal statement of intent) that we are interested in working together with Catalyst, and to explore what that collaboration will look like. I feel it a powerful move that can create more momentum if it does come from the network and is not just one of us as individuals.

I don't want to make this statement of intent (very loosely related to a business construct, Letter of Intent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_intent) on behalf of the network without checking in with everyone else who this will involve, otherwise I feel like I'm overstepping my bounds and speaking on behalf of others without consultation. I feel it important to be very careful about this, we can't have anyone running speaking on behalf of the OVN promising things in other people's names.

With this, as a manager of the OVN 'assets', I have the ability to speak on behalf of the OVN in a defined capacity, while further activity in this direction will continue to be proposed and discussed.

One note, i don't agree that a Yes/No decision necessarily relate to a clear action and consequence. A "yes" decision can give a point person, in this case me, some boundaries/capacity in which I can operate on behalf of the OVN, while a "no" decision means that I do not have permission to act "on behalf". this type of decision helps define the scope of agency one has as an agent of the OVN.

Also, these things are time sensitive, so part of this is seeing how we can develop effective and agile processes for people to get these permissions and move things forward without bogging it down.

I believe, as we establish certain methods of agency, clearer methods of the scopes of decision making capabilities will become defined. This is prototyping their creation, here and now.

Ishan I still feel like this was a poorly framed proposal, and that there are some specifics we could boil down to here that would give clearer cause for collective decision.

Good to walk and talk this decision process through a few times at low/no commitment levels - but it does run the risk of trivializing or obscuring what the tool/space is set up for.

It seems like there are several gray areas or assumptions in your presentation above. We have not yet reached a clear definition of OVN in our case, so I don't know what it means for you to 'speak' on its behalf.

While I agree that a decision process like this could empower someone to pursue certain courses of action for a collective, the proposal here doesn't state what the scope or implication of those actions are.

I do like the idea of sketching this out more broadly on a Metamap. And yes, I am enthusiastic to learn more about the possibilities that you see in this direction (Catalyst) - but I want to take care and make note of how we are using a crucial tool in our social box here, meanwhile!