I'm wondering if it has ever been considered that the members of the crew form seed spaces based on their own skills, abilities and interests?

This would allow Robert, Alex and Toni to form a seed space based on helping organizations become more aligned to their purpose.

Couldn't Ronen form a seed space for yoga and generative processes? And the work of Christopher Alexander?

Josh seems to have many skills for a seed space.

I suspect there are many other skills and talents here in the crew that could generate seed spaces.

I would like to form a seed space, and I'd like to offer funding to help it be built. Would that be the same as self-funding? I have no idea what it would cost, but perhaps we could start with the parts most needed.

The seed space I would like to form is for parents. Two specific groups of parents. 1. Parents of children with special needs who want to support their children becoming more functional in the world. 2. Parents who want to do better raising their well kids to be functional human beings than what they see around them.

I have a friend who would very likely be interested in doing this with me. Her name is Alecia. Alecia has three children, all of whom have varying degrees of special needs. Her youngest child is three years old. When he was a baby, he had seizures that were not able to be controlled so a significant portion of his brain was removed. She and her husband were told her son would never walk, see or talk. Her son now does all of these things and is thriving.

I have told Alecia about the digital space and she knows it would be incredibly valuable for parents to have access to activities that support them in learning new skills and ideas about parenting, and for there to be small groups for mutual support, sharing, and learning.

Alecia and I have many things in common. We used two specific programs with our children that generated amazing results. They are not practices I am comfortable talking about with almost anybody. I recorded an interview with Alecia about the practices so I could share it with people who I wanted to understand what Alecia and I did with our kids.

The reason I don't share what I did is because most parents won't be interested in what I did and might have a negative reaction to it. However, I would LOVE to work with parents who would be interested in what Alecia and I have to offer. Parents of special needs kids especially are more open since their children are not doing well and they are usually willing to try things they might not try otherwise.

I would also like to invite other people who work with parents to help them raise functional, healthy people to join the space as gardeners.

Alecia has a podcast and already has a community of parents to invite to such a space. I am on message boards for parents who would likely be interested in such a space.

Here is her podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/2oJjEihSkc6v2Gwm1t9Xhj

If anyone wants to hear the conversation we had, let me know and I will share it.

How I see the space for parents being funded is by inviting dwellers so support it financially. There would no set price for activities. I think the financial arrangement between the space and the crew building it would need to be negotiated separately, and it would be up to the culturizers of the space to figure out how to meet the financial agreement with the crew.

Until there are activities and dwellers to support it financially (and perhaps even on an ongoing basis), Robert and I are happy to fund it, within the constraints of our budget.

I have ideas about plenty of others others who might be interested in forming seed spaces. I am enthusiastic about reaching out to people. I know that it will take reaching out to many, many people and being persistent in communication to get anywhere. I would be happy to set up readings of the generative sequence for the digital space, and I would be happy to follow up with people to have conversations about what they found valuable, if they think any part of the digital space would benefit their work, and whether (and how much) they would be willing to pay for that benefit.

I am also willing to initiate the creation of a website for the crew.

Thank you @Jennifer Damashek for this seed.

Personally, I am not currently interested seeding a space, however, the space that you want to seed (I will refer to it as the "Parenting Space") feels very much alive - it seems there is a reachable audience and grounded offerings to make.

However, I don't see how this fits into the scope of Cycle 4!

I do have some initial thoughts to capture and share with you in response to you bringing it up.

• It feels like a good opportunity to simulate what it would be like to actually seed a space and actually try following the generative sequence to do so.

• If you were to follow the sequence you would actually need to back up one sequence and form a crew (3-6 people).

• If you were to follow the sequence you would actually need to back up to another sequence and seed first the Seed Space ... which would probably, as a point of departure, be our current crew to help guide and provide feedback as your seed crew would try to seed the Parenting Space (you would be active in both spaces).

• This requires involvement from the crew and is the reason I don't see it belonging to cycle 4.

A few meta-thoughts:

• The first spaces to be seeded will probably have a sacrificial quality because they are the first and will absorb the cost of a learning curve. That needs to be taken into consideration when proposing a space in the early phases of seeding.

• I did a brief loop in my mind through what would be needed to seed a space without the Digital Space existing to support this effort. I believe it would take much more than "creating a website for it." In fact, I believe it will take quite a bit of work and integration of numerous tools and protocols to bridge them and even then it would leave a substantial administrative load that would need to be held by the seed crew. This was a useful exercise in realizing that most of what needs to be created for there to be a digital space is really effective administration!

• This also brings up in my mind the question of MVP (minimum viable product). I believe that it can be very tempting to have an MVP that is primarily about a scheduled menu of activities and to leave out of an MVP small subtle things (like signaling vocabulary) and elements that make up the social fabric. However, I suspect that doing so may compromise the generative quality of the space which is the fundamental purpose. So you may end with a space where activities actually take place but a social fabric is not weaved This made me reflect on MVP and I came to wonder if it should include most of the elements of the GP but initially with only basic functionality. In Alexander-talk that would be placing all the centers even if they are weak ... and then gradually strengthening, deepening, and refining them over time and in response to what is most needed.

Hi @Ronen Hirsch sorry I missed the Reading Club proposal. My thoughts are similar to @Toni Blanco 's. If we're going to do a reading club I would prefer that we choose between a range of options as there are other things I'd like to suggest as well that we could benefit from reading together!

@Alex Rodriguez thank you for chiming in, but I feel you left a thread hanging in the air. If you wish to choose from a menu of other reading options, it would be helpful if you found an actionable way to follow that up. Since I am coming from a place of wanting to respect your input and wishes, your comment, even though you used the word "prefer" reaches me as an objection ... and an objection that I cannot resolve on my own.

@Toni Blanco your comments felt like a narrowing of the potential experience. There may be reflections about my relationship with money in this exploration ... but that feels like too specific a target ... and not what I had in mind ... and is probably better addressed in the sequel (Lila). Your last words "I don't know" are better aligned with my motivation in making this offering. The reading club is an invitation to play together with a different social dynamic ... and to do so while exploring something that I feel pertains to our exploration ... in as yet unknowable ways :) Also, as I replied to Alex, unless you want to make an offer to alter the proposal (be it the process or the book), I am not sure how to address or incorporate your reservation.

Part of the issue is that we've been talking in terms of consent/objection but I'm not sure how that translates into the agree/abstain/disagree/block signals in the Loomio poll you shared. We also don't have agreements in place about how we move forward with partial feedback from a poll (for example if someone doesn't respond, as I did in this case). To clarify my position a bit: I'm not likely to protect the time to participate in that but am fine if some part of the crew goes ahead with it. In that case I'd love it if some traces of your conversation ended up on Loomio where I could take them in (even in a limited way).

Another option, which I'd be much more excited about, would be if we set up a container for a reading group that included 1) creating a new thread in loomio for the reading group process 2) soliciting nominations for a text to read from the group 3) choosing from the menu of options that surface via the poll feature, 4) agreeing to times/rhythm for discussion, and using the comment function in the Loomio thread being a place where we can post thoughts asynchronously as our reading unfolds.

I don't have a general rule in place. Since this offering was not on the "critical path" of our shared exploration I chose that vocabulary for the proposal replies to leave space for expression, for you to use them as you please. I am also not treating this as a consent/object proposal, since it is (in my mind) optional both in terms of manifestation and participation.

I am a bit confused about your response. It is unclear to me if you do or do not have time for a "reading club" regardless of what format it takes. If the format itself can affect your availability, then I would like to see a proposal from you that can help navigate the crew towards that possibility.

Thanks for that feedback. I edited my response slightly to clarify that I would not be likely to protect my time for something that I don't have an opportunity to engage in at the process level (I took out the phrase "be able to" to make it clearer that this is a choice on my part). I'm happy to make a new thread and proposal along these lines and also welcome you to go ahead and get the group together on ZMM if I'm too slow on the uptake for that :)

It feels valuable to me to give you space to take the proposal forward and shape it into something that may better suite you and may benefit everyone else. Though it is not critical that everyone participate in this, it feels to me like it has the potential to be formative and so I prefer, if possible, that it become something inclusive.

I will signal you if/when I feel that too much time has passed or if I feel that your availability is holding me back.

Sounds good, thanks Ronen!

I wasn't sure where to put this post, but since it is related to money and Cycle 4 is related to money, I decided to put it here. I didn't think it needed a separate thread.

I am finishing the book Debt by David Graeber. I found the book difficult to get through. I reflected on why and realized that it seemed to me the entire book was about one thing: what happens to societies and to people when debt/money is created. To me the book was a history of the destruction of natural, healthy relationships. My sense is that before the creation of debt/money, or before something happened that required the creation of debt/money, most societies worked differently from the societies which have written histories. In many cases, writing seems to have arisen to account for debt.

I think that when societies are healthy, the meeting of needs and the abundance that emerges is shared by everyone in community. Gifts, food, objects and services are exchanged in relationship. The relationships exist first, and the meeting of needs and exchanges naturally happen within those relationships. Accounting for debt isn’t necessary.

I think the book Debt simply details a multitude of ways that the creation of debt/money degrades and destroys these relationships, and the creation of debt/money happens so that the valuable things which are exchanged can be traded and exchanged separately from relationships.

I found the book tragic, depressing, and tedious.

In writing this post I remembered a video of a woman describing what it was like to live in a Tibetan village before and after it opened to the global economy. She witnessed the degradation a healthy, joyful community after it joined us in the economic system we live in. The video is over an hour, but this description is in the first 8 minutes.

Your experience of the book has stayed with me ... lurking in the back of my mind. A few things have remained prominent in my thinking:

1. While yes the book can be tedious, it feels to me like an important book that sits beyond "likes/dislikes" ... to me it felt like a book that is important to simply know. It is a rigorous examination of our history with money ... the evolutionary partnership that we formed with money played. I think it was,(at least partially) written to target and take down the faulty financial arguments upon which much of our current social operating systems are built.

2. It's been a while since I've read the book ... but one of the things I appreciated about it was how debt (not money!) was used to resolve REAL social situations ... especially conflict!

3. I felt the book was an invitation to reclaim the world debt from its twisted modern incarnation as in "I am in debt to the book" and to bring it back to a basic human experience as in "I feel indebted to you ... and I am grateful for what you have given me ... and I have a natural impulse to respond generously to what I have received from you."

4. I was, and continue to be affected by the (surprising to me) notion that this latter, seemingly natural, innate form of human (non-quantified!) indebtedness is what weaves social fabric: a bunch of people that feel organically indebted to each other.

It seems to me that if there is going to be a world in which "societies are healthy, the meeting of needs and the abundance that emerges is shared by everyone in community", then in order to get there, it would helpful to learn about what we've already tried, what drove us to try it and why it didn't work!

I just discovered that this (follow-up?) book, challenging not just the history of money, but of other established (and apparently unfounded) assumptions about our history, was recently released:

https://www.amazon.com/Dawn-Everything-New-History-Humanity/dp/0374157359

I have a .pdf of Dawn of Everything if anyone wants to read it that way. I LOVED it, for whatever it's worth.

yes please :)

Here the epub. https://3lib.net/book/17582303/93bedf Great book.

Thank you, Ronen. Your comments above have stayed with me for the past week or so.

I want you to know I do realize the book Debt is important. I'm glad I read most of it. I couldn't bring myself to read the last part about capitalism because I've read so much about the history of capitalism of late and as I scanned that section the details just seemed so tedious for me to read...again I know it's important to know the information contained there, but I already have read so many similar things about capitalism.

I guess I felt that for most of the book, I'm not his audience. I'm already sold on his message. I didn't need to read most of the details.

I never thought the things most people seemed to have thought about money so he was kind of preaching to the choir to me...

What I took from the book was a reinforcement of my sense that when debt/money enters human relationships to support the meeting of our needs, we are either already broken in our relationships or that very event breaks our relationships.

I feel that when we are in healthy relationship with each other and the world, we don’t feel indebted to each other, we just naturally support each other and want everyone to have what they need. We have a natural sense that none of us are healthy or safe if any of us are not healthy or safe. There is an innate desire to contribute to each other and help each other. Asking for help and receiving help is natural in this way of way of relating.

In this way of being, when I receive something valuable, I naturally want to return that gift. It’s not because I feel indebted. Rather, I feel abundant. I want to share that abundance. I want to return it. This way, abundance grows and circulates.

If I have abundance and someone else is in need, it just seems natural to me to share what I have. Anything else seems broken.

This way of being in the world just comes naturally to me, and I am blessed to have people in my life who also operate this way. My life has been enriched by them and I wouldn’t be where I am now in my life without those relationships.

It seems to me that if there is going to be a world in which "societies are healthy, the meeting of needs and the abundance that emerges is shared by everyone in community", then in order to get there, it would helpful to learn about what we've already tried, what drove us to try it and why it didn't work!

Yes, I take that point. I guess for me, I didn't need to read this book to see what we have tried, what drove us to it and why it didn't work.

In my mind, Debt detailed multitudes of ways humans have tried to make up for the brokenness in our relationships and failed. To me it points to what seems so obvious: there is no way that economies that rely on debt/money to replace trusting and healthy relationships can ever succeed in the long term.

From my point of view, we need a fundamental shift in relating. It's obvious money is not going away but figuring out how to assign value and facilitate monetary transactions to make things better aren’t the answer. We must heal our broken relationships first. Then it’s possible to work out the details of how to handle money and debt to support those healthy relationships.

Here's what I think we need to do next - it is a dance of two movements - one internal and one external - an inhale and an exhale. I will describe first the external movement first because it will make the internal movement more clear.

Qualifier: my thoughts in this post pertain to (potentially diverse) avenues of money generation that are directly related to the Digital Space. I am not speaking to other potential directions, currently in my mind under the heading of "consulting." This is not a rejection of the "consulting" exploration, I simply have nothing to say about that. The thoughts alive in me are related directly to the Digital Space.

External Movement: Project Website

The gathering with Sergio reminded me that we are not seeking money, we are seeking people, namely relationships with people. Money will arrive through people.

We need to create a website that can act as an attractor for people who resonate with our work. "Funding" will require this. "Hiring" will require this. Tapping into unknown potentials through relations with other people and other organizations and other initiatives requires this. If I share a reading of the GP and there is no website, the sharing interaction stays contained and private and the person who received the sharing cannot share this with anyone else, cannot signal to their network about the project. This, I believe, needs to change.

The website is a continuous unfolding process. The initial seed I see from the present moment includes:

• A generative summary of the Digital Space.

• Introducing the team (currently the crew).

• A retro-active and then live publication of cycle summaries (that signal what we've been working on).

• A continuously unfolding Roadmap.

• An organizational handbook of our "organizational" patterns (I see this as becoming potentially a separate mini-site as this grows and unfolds and becomes a complex and valuable asset in its own right).

• A "Hiring" page where we can signal when we are looking to grow. The conversation with Sergio also made me realize that people may join us before funding is available (as we "joined us").

• A "Connect" page where people can contact us and or sign up to stay in touch and receive updates.

Internal Movement: Equity & Value

I believe that we need to start playing with the Wholocracy processes around contributions and equity:

1. To provide a core sense of value and equity for ourselves.

2. To test and mature an equity process that can allow us to grow and bring others on board.

3. To foster a trustworthy contribution and equity environment so that newcomers feel valued and experience trust especially if money is not initially available.

4. To expand our "organizational handbook" with patterns that allow others to see who we are and how we operate.

5. To allow these patterns to become "value objects" on their own.

6. To seed a "Gradual Funding" pattern where we can raise funding (smaller amounts, local investments, trust-building) for the work of inventing an organization that can manifest the Digital Space.

The two movements are, in my mind, intertwined as one whole movement.

Next Actions

1. Feedback on these thoughts that lead to an explicit consent-seeking (non-objection) proposal.

2. Choosing a name ... I don't yet have a sense of how we can do this.

3. Choosing a technology stack ... probably best done in conversation

4. Creating a "sandbox website" - The way I like to create websites is by building a sandbox website where we can work together simultaneously on design and content until the site feels mature enough to make it public.

These two movements are generally in line with what @Alex Rodriguez and I were talking about how to approach the cycle after the gathering with Sergio, but I find that they are too much based on your personal work and not on the collective, and that does not take into account weak centers we wanted to address this cycle (yes, I read the qualifier). For example, yesterday I was reviewing again the Wholocracy sequence and I think it doesn't take into account learnings from the previous cycle (apart from the fact that I don't like the name at all!). I like a lot some specific ideas of your proposal above but It seems to me a rushed proposal, and it is not clear to me if there is a continuity with your previous proposal to close the present cycle, or is completely different one.

I hope that when we continue the conversation about the meeting with Sergio my above ideas will be well illustrated. I am also pending for that conversation, and the ongoing ones of the threads on money and assets, to deliver specific and generative feedback on the Wholocracy sequence.

1) I don't have much to say other than that these movements both feel like a step in the right direction to me - consent granted my side.

2) Yep, but no idea how to do this either I'm afraid. I run into this issue every time that I want to put something up on the web... for me there's often an uncomfortable sense of limitation and permanence that feels like overcommitment to a particular aesthetic or path.

3/4) Tech stack and website are the things that feel most alive for me. Unlike the namespace, this is probably something that's reasonably flexible. I've some experience with Netlify for continuos delivery/integration which can be pointed at Github repos to compile static sites. Previously I've used Hugo for basic cookie cutter sites, and have been upskilling from there to do more fancy/custom stuff in JavaScript with the likes of Gridsome/Nuxt/Svelte (none of which I feel confident in but have a degree of exposure to).

My initial thoughts there are that we could get something scrappy up pretty easily as a placeholder/prototype while building a more representative as a second iteration. Baby steps at a time

I have two questions.

I have read through the Wholocracy processes again and I am left with the understanding that @Ronen Hirsch envisions the digital space project as a for-profit endeavor that builds private equity for those involved. I don't see how the processes work for a not-for-profit project. So by beginning to adopt Wholocracy processes now, it seems to me that the decision to become a for-profit is being made. Is this correct?

I would like to know if @Alex Rodriguez, @Josh Fairhead and @Toni Blanco envision the digital space as being for-profit.

I have a few comments in this regard.

When you have a look at the thread of our very first gathering, Ronen recorded that (emphasis in original):

"We talked about possible outcomes for this crew-cycle:

1. We will NOT be tackling any questions of implementation"

I have been working with this spirit since then because I am not aware of deciding to reverse this. In my mind, we needed to picture what should happen in that space, and how it was configured for that to happen. 

As I noted elsewhere, the generative process of the Japanese Teahouse that served as a model never presented transformations related to how the building has to be funded. 

The original call did not mention anything about being for profit or not. For me, this is not a distinctive or critical quality of the space. In my mind, the generative process should be open enough to generate both types of spaces.

So we are stepping into the issue I raised about generative processes and (shared) context. My line of thinking right now is that anything that reduces optionality not implied in the objective of the generative process should not be included, unless it has been explicited, debated and consented. Ronen's original call stated (emphasis/bold in original): 

"This crew will explore how people in remote locations can come together to effectively form crews and congregations. We will aspire to create a generative process that transforms a continuous flow of individual strangers into a continuous flow of cohesive groups who are able to embrace, practice, and thrive within Microsolidarity".

Nothing about profit or not profit. Not even a space, but a generative process. Actually, in the context of solidarity, one would be more inclined thinking in a non for profit initiative that the opposite.  

Now, if we say that we (emphasis mine) "aspire to create a generative process of a for-profit (alternative: non-for-profit) space that transform a continuous flow of individual stranger into a continuous flow of cohesive groups", then is different. Now we know that the generative process has to lead to a space for-profit or not for profit. 

I find very problematic to introduce transformations that set such critical features without them being debated/consented to previously. As I see it, the funding model will define dramatically who will inhabit the space. That is a huge decision. If you ask me, I am interested in the two scenarios to reach more individuals and generate crews with more diverse purposes.  

What I said when we discussed the "financially rewarding" wording applies here: this transformation makes sense in a certain context, not in the void. And certainly, does not make sense at all in other contexts. And contexts lead us to think of concrete implementations. 

Another thing is that we want to address the financial needs of the crew to work in the creation of the space with the funding model of the space itself and/or the funding model of its build. But again, this is something to be debated and consented to previously.

My response includes the following:

1. Clarifications/refutations

2. Example

3. Process / Culture

1: Clarifications/Refutation

1. I am pretty sure I did not use the word profit anywhere in Wholocracy. I did a search in Obsidian and did not find any mention of it.

2. Though I did write about equity I do not recall at any point writing about "private equity."

3. In GenSeq - Equity -> in the "Shares" transformation I wrote, "Shares are a form of internal currency, created, shaped, and distributed by the crew ... They have no intrinsic monetary value and cannot be traded."

So I don't know how you came to the conclusion that what I am describing is a "for-profit endeavor that builds private equity for those involved."

2: Example

Consider this hypothetical example:

1. Contributions are expanded to encompass everyone who partakes in the spaces: the makers of the space, sourcerers, culturizes, gardeners, and dwellers.

2. A method of accounting is employed to capture and convey how every act of participation in the space contributes to shaping it. Writing code to make the space possible contributes to it. Offering an activity contributes to it. Participating in an activity contributes to it. The outcome of this accounting is a dynamic image of equity in the space.(I believe this may make the space a co-op).

3. The life of the space includes income streams of various kinds. These income streams accumulate and are directed (primarily) to support the needs of the people who make the space.

4. At the end of a financial cycle (such as a fiscal year), after money has been directed to meet the needs of the people who make the space possible, and after money has been allocated for other openly agreed-upon purposes (eg: pension fund) ... some money is leftover in the balance sheets ... I'll call this profit.

5. A communal decision process can be initiated about what to do with the profit. The ability to participate in this communal process is shaped by the current equity image of the space (eg: if you've been working on making the digital space for two years your voice carries more weight than a dweller who recently joined a space).

6. If a decision to do "profit-sharing" is reached, the profits are distributed according to the current equity image of the space. This means, for example, that dwellers who, for example, paid a membership fee, get some of their money back (and dwellers who were more active in the space for a longer period of time may get more than dwellers who were less active in the space).

Equity is not directly related to profit. It may be the case that it is predominantly used this way in our societies but it doesn't have to be this way. This is partially why I explicitly disassociated equity from money.

Process / Culture

Jennifer, your request:

"I would like to know if @Alex Rodriguez, @Josh Fairhead and @Toni Blanco envision the digital space as being for-profit"

feels to me like a seed of slander, misinformation, and dirty politics. It treats YOUR assumption (that I am describing a private-equity-for-profit venture) as a TRUTH and asks the others to relate to that ... even though it is a misunderstanding.

A different, and I believe a healthier, version of that question could be:

"What is your understanding of Wholocracy and its relationship to equity and profit?"

By framing your question "is it for profit" you have boxed the question into a false dichotomy AND you have done so in such a way that implies that I was the one who framed that dichotomy.

In the case of our crew I feel safe that, despite your misleading framing, I trust our collective sense-making to generate rigor and diligence. But in a wider social setting, where some people may be less involved and less aware of some subtle aspects of the collective work, your framing sets the stage for a non-existing controversy. This is, in my mind, flawed behavior.

Even though this subject has come up before (in an almost identical pattern) and has been (at least to my understanding) resolved you:

1. Opted to again turn up the heat on it.

2. You gave me doubt instead of the benefit of the doubt.

3. You did not inquire with me about your "understanding" and how it relates to mine.

4. You implied that I am using Wholocracy to somehow push through an informal decision about becoming "for-profit." As if, by agreeing to experiment/play with Wholocracy I am trapping you into a decision ... in violation of our culture (formal and informal).

5. You escalated your misunderstanding into a communal inquiry set up as a false dichotomy instead of a genuine and expanding inquiry.

That is, in my mind, a negative way of showing up. I think you are manifesting biases and unfounded assumptions. Saying you "misunderstood" feels to me like an understatement that incorrectly describes what is going on.

I would like to look deeper into what IS actually going on. Because showing up this way feels disruptive, unpleasant, and wasteful. I would like to hear from everyone if you would like to allocate time and attention to a gathering on this subject. If we don't tend to this I am left with a feeling that I simply need to accept that this is how the way things are going to be and to make emotional and mental space for this low-quality dynamic.

One thing that I learned from my mother, a workplace conflict mediator, is that strong emotions like this are best held outside of asynchronous communication spaces. I request that we pause this thread until we are able to gather on the subject. This is a conflict that needs tending to.

@Ronen Hirsch

1. Your clarification does not help me understand how what you describe could legally be a not-for-profit. The outcome of the process you describe is distributing profit to those involved. This is the definition of for-profit. Not-for-profits do not have equity.

2. My two questions resulted in being criticized. It is now clearer to me why I have not been feeling safe participating here. I feel angry that I have been criticized. Anger is a healthy and protective emotion, and that is most certainly where I am right now.

3. I would like to note that I am not opposed to the Digital Space being for-profit. There are ways that an endeavor can be for-profit and aligned with solidarity economy principles. I simply want to know whether this is the direction the crew wants to take.

You implied that I am using Wholocracy to somehow push through an informal decision about becoming "for-profit."

That is what seemed to me to be happening. You said you thought we should start playing with the Wholocracy processes around contributions and equity:

1. To provide a core sense of value and equity for ourselves.

2. To test and mature an equity process that can allow us to grow and bring others on board.

3. To foster a trustworthy contribution and equity environment so that newcomers feel valued and experience trust especially if money is not initially available.

I am not feeling safe to attend such a gathering, so please hold it without me.

Thank you @Alex Rodriguez, I would attend such a gathering.

@Ronen Hirsch I find your response to be rather a reaction full of vitriol and anger spewed at @Jennifer Damashek. To me it contains all of the negative energy that you said she was “stirring up” in the community and reflects it at her personally, rather than just trying to answer her questions. Jennifer and I discussed how to frame those two questions as simply as possible to give clarity at what appears to be an important decision point for the crew.

@Ronen Hirsch, your reaction in turn makes me angry and disappointed, when the two questions were asked simply to foster understanding. I helped frame those questions because I too would like to understand how the internal movement on equity and value discussed above, and adopting Wholocracy elements about the use of profit for purposes like funding pensions, which seem to me to be very much like tangible implementation steps, could ever be considered in the context of a not-for-profit.

Pause.

Hey @Toni Blanco. I may be wrong but aside from your valid answers I sense a frustration in your response. To me this is understandable as the query imposes a degree of cognitive load that you may not have space for at the moment. Take a moment for yourself and come to this when you have space :)

Hey @Jennifer Damashek,

Perhaps I'm projecting on Toni so I'll take accountability for feeling a sense of frustration in the query myself, namely because I've had these kinds of discussions many times so the topic is aggitating, but also because I thought we had previously reached a shared understanding around these matters.

I would like to know if @Alex Rodriguez, @Josh Fairhead and @Toni Blanco envision the digital space as being for-profit.

My perspective is agnostic on the matter; as we discussed previously I see legal frameworks as tools suited to different contexts. Yes to for-profit, and yes to not-for profit. IMO it's often between the polarities that generativity occurs, so I really don't wish to pick a flag until the moment its required; they are both tools and I have little against either (...other than the reliance on government force to maintain such structures - a necessary evil?). Many of the smart for-purpose companies integrate both frameworks to build firewalls with the NFP while enabling agility/optionality through the FP and I hope we can hold space in the middle for them too!

I have read through the Wholocracy processes again and I am left with the understanding that @Ronen Hirsch envisions the digital space project as a for-profit endeavor that builds private equity for those involved. I don't see how the processes work for a not-for-profit project.

If you remove the term "for-profit" from the very first sentence then I technically see it as correct but only based on the origins of the word equity - essentially meaning 'that which is due in fairness to somebody'. In this light, it's nearly a definition of the term solidarity and certainly encapsulates mutual care.

Do you perhaps think that your past experience with financial terminology is colouring the present interpretation? Most of those terms came out of our seemingly better nature before they became distorted in more recent times (via the industrial era). Perhaps I'm misinterpreting your perspectives and you have other more specific concerns though?

So by beginning to adopt Wholocracy processes now, it seems to me that the decision to become a for-profit is being made. Is this correct?

To be clear; this is not my understanding. I'd actually be very disappointed if this was @Ronen Hirsch's intention but from a place of experience I very much doubt he's even capable of such a selfish intent.

I'm glad you voiced your concerns rather than bottling them up and I hope you continue to feel empowered in that capacity. What you've said however raises a concern in me that your uncertain of Ronens intentions and are currently uncertain if you can trust him (and by extension others such as myself ); is this correct? It may feel counter intuitive but it's ok to say yes here; hopefully we can find a way to meet your needs if so :)

Please take all the time you wish to breathe, feel into the question and then respond in a way that expresses something real and whole to you. No need to respond here either; if you want to talk with someone/others in private just signal them somehow. I'd like you to feel more safe here :)

Sorry, my response be discontinuous as several other posts were written while I was writing. I'll come back to those in due time, which may be a little while.

I am writing to thank everyone in the crew for giving me the opportunity to join you for the past few months. In addition to experiencing the wonderful potential of the digital space and the generative process you have envisioned together, I have learned from each one of you about practicing sociocracy principles, conducting respectful and open conversations, and conducting deep and meaningful conversations. I hope I have been able to make a positive contribution. However, I’ve been thinking about what I have to offer at this time, and believe I need to step back from participating in the crew. 

My reasoning is two-fold:

1. My ability to participate and contribute is pretty limited due to the intensity of my company’s work cycles (e.g., US Government contracting) and my role there (lead solution architect on proposals).

2. My experience either with small groups or the kinds of contributions the crew needs at this particular stage is very limited.

   • I have worked most of my life in support of very large, established organizations. Even though I have worked with some small consulting crews, their dynamics have been focused on navigating the client’s established and mature processes. I haven’t worked directly for a startup since my first job in/out of college, and the little consulting I’ve done with startups has been helping them focus on securing business with large organizations, and only after they had a demonstrable product/service.

   • On the product/service side, I do have a lot of experience introducing digital collaboration environments to large organizations, but these have very different intentions from the digital space. I’m concerned at the crew’s tender stage, I might find it difficult not to color the design and implementation of the digital space based on the biases I have gathered through my experiences.

The bottom line is that I think I will be able to make a much more significant contribution to the crew and the digital space once my work schedule isn’t as demanding, and/or once at least an initial digital space prototype has been implemented. I definitely and sincerely believe in the value and beauty of the digital space as an intention, as well as the sincerity, skills and ingenuity of the crew itself.

I greatly appreciate the opportunity I have had to meet and work with all of you up to this point, and the honor you have afforded me by inviting me to join the crew. I also want to say that I treat anything that has come up as hurdles on the way as water over the bridge between friends. I hope we can continue that friendship as you move forward, and that you all feel free to ask me immediately when anything arises where you think I can contribute to your success.

All the best always, Robert

Dear @Robert Damashek, your message triggered lines of thought that I want to share with you and the rest of the crew. They are related on the one hand to your/our availability for the crew, and the second to your/our contributions to the crew. 

I feel very empathic about the lack of time for proper participation in the crew. Mine has been irregular, and mostly at a cost of sleeping/resting time. I am writing this almost at midnight when the kids are sleeping. Consulting and parenting together are quite hard, and as I expressed elsewhere, one of the reasons for my limited income. 

As we are approaching a new phase in our endeavor, this is a pressing issue, and one of the reasons that lead to the "stress test" of the crew we are dealing with. Securing time for this crew is at the origin of the word "equity" emerging in the conversation; I think by @Alex Rodriguez before @Ronen Hirsch used it. And I am the one that introduced to @Alex Rodriguez the "slicing the pie" methodology: here it is a little bit the genealogy of the whole thing. Being a for-profit project was not a decision of this crew, just a possibility in the absence of anything better. Add to this the semantics of the word equity, Ronen's personal issues in the context of his current hard vital circumstances, and how easy is to misinterpret things in online environments (I can hear Richard's "I told you, guys" here) and then you have the "perfect storm".

I strongly insisted on separating the two conversations, the one of the sustainability of the crew and the one of the sustainability of the space. With the understanding that they could eventually converge, but not from the start! Well, we were not able to do that, and here we are. 

We were working in this cycle on these two issues. Equity is a perspective to address fairness, but fairness about what? Jennifer and I interpreted, money. Given the usual meaning of the word and the context of our cycle, I think it was a reasonable way to interpret it. That said, if fairness is the answer, what was the question? None. Maybe an issue: asymmetry. 

Since now, we were able to ignore asymmetries of dedication and contributions to this project, for money was not in the equation, and with the different contributions, we could self-fund we had enough to move forward. 

Now we had a different situation: some in the crew needed income (or perspectives of an income) to continue their participation, and even more in the light of the fact that we are entering a phase in which our mode of work has to be different because the exploration phase is over and looks more like a project dynamic. Also because our contributions would be more in need, and this lead me to the second aspect: the contributions to the crew.

You rightly point out that your technical knowledge is not for big use at this stage. I agree. But I want to make clear that that technical knowledge was not the only contribution you were making to the crew, not the main one, not the only you can offer in the future. Theoretical and methodological contributions have been a bias in our work so far. But in the Pantheon Work model, actually, is just one out of the twelve kinds of contributions a human system needs to thrive. And if it had an excess of relevance is because the other eleven did not do their job to prevent that happen. I feel bad that my intellectual humility prevented me to not to insist on the importance of acknowledging the different kinds of contributions, which not only makes the group more robust but also puts the "value", "money" and "fairness" under conversation in another light. I feel bad I did accept from Ronen some behaviors that we wrongly framed as "directness" because for me they felt then (and look now) like aggressions. Ronen thinks he just justified (rationally) his aggression to @Jennifer Damashek; I think he just rationalized it.

He admitted he did not know how to proceed now. The need for new skills and talents is explicit. We have got them, Alex stepped in but feels slow. Maybe it is what it is, maybe he has no time for this. And we are back to the point of how we fund or self-fund our contribution here, in a way that we all feel comfortable with the potential asymmetries that addressing all this can cause. If we are moving forward, we need another rhythm and a more variety of talents. By the way, this post that Sergio and I wrote three years ago to launch our blog (and that we have refined but we still subscribe to every word) might sound provocative but this is what I think about the value of our different contributions.

With all that said, Robert, I already miss you. I can only speak for myself now, so I tell you that I would like you to feel welcome to whatever space I am in, including this one, whenever you feel is the right time to be, be it next month after the crazy end of the year, be it in ten years, so to speak. And thank you for everything you bring here.

Thank you @Toni Blanco for your thoughts. I do offer myself if in any way I can contribute as a resource to the crew as a whole, and to each of you individually. I am enjoying a brief break at the end of the year before digging into a work pace that I expect to be quite dizzying. Very much enjoyed reading the contribution that @Alex Rodriguez shared on Discord last week about Vital Cells. It very much expresses the feelings of my heart of the import of the moment, as we work together to create a liberation from the slavery of aloneness and separateness fostered by the “Empire”’. Just want to be free to do what we want to do,

Hi everyone,

OK, my turn for an update here!

I've spoken individually with Ronen, Jennifer, and Toni since my request to "pause" the exchange on this thread two weeks ago. I'm also recognizing @Toni Blanco 's point that this response has been slow in coming and I apologize for that as I know it has left you all waiting.

There are a few things I'd like to surface that I've synthesized from these conversations as it relates to next steps for this cycle:

1) We are just beginning the real work of figuring out how to decide things together, which is juicy and exciting to me.

2) I am intending to protect more time and space for this work starting next week, now that I have been able to end another work commitment that has been taking up a lot of my time and emotional bandwidth over the past year.

3) Jennifer graciously recommended to me that we retroactively consider this the end of a "trial period" for her participation in the crew. I would like for the four members of the initial crew (me, Josh, Ronen, and Toni) to gather on a call to discuss how to proceed. I will have some feedback to share from my conversation with Jennifer that will inform that process. In my conversation with Jennifer, she agreed that this seemed like an appropriate next step.

Thank you, everyone, for your patience and good will as we move through this together.

Hey everyone, I'm looking forward to seeing you on Thursday at sandbox time (14:00 UTC, same as last week). Let's start on Discord and if that gets wonky we can move to Zoom.

I spoke with @Toni Blanco on Friday and that helped clarify the loose structure I'd like to hold for the conversation. I'd like to propose the following form for our gathering:

1. Appreciative inquiry: we hear from everyone about each person's contributions to the crew and our shared intentions thus far

2. Matters of concern: everyone has an opportunity to articulate concerns about where we are. We will see if anyone has a proposal for how to address the concern through a shared agreement. If we are unable to address it, we will simply name that it is a concern that remains unaddressed.

3. Closing exploration: based on what has surfaced through the first two steps, we each explore the question, "are there circumstances that allow us to continue to work together?"

4. Next steps: address any next steps needed before the following week's sandbox time

In the meantime, I encourage all of us to reflect on the first two prompts. Also, please let me know if you have any concerns about this format or would like to suggest changes. Feel free to ping me on Discord if you want to check in before Thursday, as well.

See you soon!

Thank you Alex for this offering.

If this form is taken as a whole I think a single gathering will not provide enough space to delve in deeply. This raises three possibilities (that I can see):

1. Just start and it takes as long as it takes ... though this may break the flow.

2. Take one step at a time collectively .... so everyone does step 1 and it there is space in the same gathering move on to the next, if not the next step is next gathering.

3. Dedicating a gathering to one crew-member at a time ... so going through the whole process but one person at a time.

I am leaning towards the 3rd option.

Comments on the form itself:

1. "Appreciative Inquiry" feels to me ... a bit forced ... like "let's all say something nice before saying something potentially disturbing or hurtful" ... it feels to me like "tell me that you love me" which I've never felt comfortable doing (especially on demand). I have reservations about this ... but no hard objections (for now).

2. "Matters of Concern" feels like the heart of the matter ... so I prefer to go directly there.

3. The title "closing exploration" seems unnecessarily biased towards closure/convergence. As a result, the question for-reflection also feels narrow and restictive. I'm guessing that better prompts will arise naturally after the previous steps ... but if I had to choose something now it would probably be more like "What do you wish for next?"

I also want to suggest regarding time that:

1. If possible everyone try to leave a space (15 - 30 minutes) both before and after sandbox time without other things scheduled back to back (on either end).

2. If not, to avoid tight/rapid/incomplete endings, I suggest that we treat the time available as 1:45. That will allow either for soft closure or a bit of overflow that we seem to usually need.

I'd like to let this take how long it takes, even if it is a bit of an awkward flow. One way that we could move it along in the meantime would be to offer step 1 observations acknowledging each person's contributions asynchronously before the meeting on Thursday for folks who have time.

I appreciate the suggestion of wrapping up the meeting after 1:45 minutes to allow for some flexibility on how things end. Thanks for that!

BTW Ronen I don't need an agenda item to tell you that I love you <3

Re: "closing inquiry" I'm not attached to the title, the idea is just to get us circling around a specific question as we close the sequence. Maybe call it "winding down inquiry" if that is helpful for step 3. "What do you wish for next" is really the crux of step 4, so step 3 gives us all an opportunity to each share some context to work with on that crucial question.

Appreciative Inquiry" feels to me ... a bit forced ... like "let's all say something nice before saying something potentially disturbing or hurtful" ... it feels to me like "tell me that you love me" which I've never felt comfortable doing (especially on demand). I have reservations about this ... but no hard objections (for now).

Probably bad wording; we could call it "Acknowledging inquiry". It Is not about niceness, but fairness. About our place in this crew. About us being seen and our contributions being seen. About value flow. How is it, if any, perceived from my contributions and my skills. It is quite relevant for me to understand my skills valued for the future, and its fruits so far in our work.

I will not discuss what are you valuing. I want to listen carefully and learn how this crew is aware of everyone's contribution. I want to know what is valued. That seems to me as relevant as the difficulties to keep working together. It is very important, at least to me, to see how I can contribute to this crew and how it will be acknowledged.

Maybe the best way to do this is writing it in advance and send it to Alex, or copy/paste in the chat and hit intro at the same time. We can read the answers, make a round of comments, and move forward.

If possible everyone try to leave a space (15 - 30 minutes) both before and after sandbox time without other things scheduled back to back (on either end).

I am available before as much as you want, but not after, for I have a meeting at 16:00 UTC.

Just to be clear: this first sequence can be quite disturbing or hurtful as well. But we can work that in the second sequence.

Knowing I may sound like I am repeating myself, I believe that this should not be done as a one-off thing but should be a regular process. Some contributions are valuable in a moment, or in a cycle but fade over time, some create a more lasting presence. I have ***suggested*** a way to approach this in GenSeq - Contributions (within "Wholocracy").

Doing it in the present moment is unappealing to me because I experience the crew as stuck/dormant. I would have to go back in time to recollect specific contributions.

I also feel that contributions are NOT directly related to "belonging in the crew." Your place in the crew is, in my mind, related to your interest/desire, your showing up, and your resonance with and contribution to the vibe in the crew. I feel that is what needs tending to in our present moment. Approaching that by recognizing and appreciating contributions feels to me like it misses the mark.

Well, this response is not redundant and actually quite informative to me; because of that I am OK to move forward to talk about concerns (and agreements to tackle them). Let us hear the rest of the crew.

there was a typing error in my comment ... I've corrected with the addition of the "NOT" 😏

Hi @Ronen Hirsch---I hear that this exercise is unappealing to you. I'm not sure based on this response if you are open to doing the steps I've outlined with the rest of us. It is very important to me that whatever we do next that we do it with the consent of all five of us. Do you object to us moving forward in this way? If so, let me know and I will adjust the plan accordingly. If not, then I'd like to continue forward with the proposal. Thanks for offering that clarification so we know how to proceed.

In a spirit of open expression, I have offered my thoughts and feelings about the exercise.

As I've stated before, I have no hard objections, so it is not my intention to block this.

I am happy to leave my feedback in your hands @Alex Rodriguez to do with as you please (or ignore). Regardless of what you choose, my intention is to show up authentically and if I experience tensions or frictions as we move into this, I will make them known and navigate my way through them with and within the group.

That sounds like a plan---thank you for clarifying. If @Josh Fairhead or @Jennifer Damashek has any thoughts one way or the other, please let me know (either on this thread or privately if you prefer).

Hi all, after some reflection I've decided that I will not be able to hold a space for the five of us to convene over video chat during our sandbox time this Thursday.

It has become clear to me through feedback I received from @Josh Fairhead , @Ronen Hirsch , and @Toni Blanco (each in different ways) that the plan we left with at the end of our last meeting---to prioritize cards on Trello and discuss matters of concern one at a time---is not a viable next step for us. I am also not confident in my capacity to hold space to create an environment where we can all speak freely to meet shared needs. I will, however, be available to talk with anyone in the crew during sandbox time or to try something else if anyone would like to propose anything in terms of how to create a container for communication during that time. Please feel free to ping me in the meantime, too, and I'll respond as soon as I'm able to do so.

Thank you @Alex Rodriguez. We had a good gathering and the list at Trello triggered very interesting conversations in dyads while the interactions in Discord where not as interesting and intense, as @Ronen Hirsch made me notice.

So I think that a good move is to keep the Sandox Time for dyads and see what emerge from there.

As I see it, we flowed to a different stage, thinking in a significant shift that goes beyond the commitment we had until now, which was enough for crafting a good draft of the GP, but makes unthinkable to move towards any implementation without clarifying stuff like time and money, quite interrelated for most of us.

In my dyad with each of us an idea manifested with different wording (collaborative forks @Josh Fairhead , groups @Ronen Hirsch, work in parallel @Jennifer Damashek, little congregation @Alex Rodriguez) the one of re-configuring the crew as a little federation of dyads/crews working in what it is most alive in them to move the vision of the digital space forward, making the most of their skills, choosing their methodologies and practices for organizing and contributing, and making this way easier the incorporation of new folks.

So I suggest to keep having this generative conversations and see if this (I perceive) shared desirable scenario can emerge form them.

though I don't have plans to utilize it, this pattern appeared to me and I am sharing it here in case others may wish to utilize it - Witnessed Dyads:

1. An initiator (one crew member) invites another 2nd crew member to a dyad - they are the participants.

2. The initiator and 2nd crew member choose a third crew member to be a witness.

3. The conversation starts between the participants while the witness is just listening.

4. At any point in the conversation, either of the participants can invite in the witness ... or not ... the entire conversation can be between the two participants with the witness silently watching.

5. The witness can then choose to either step in or reject the invitation and instruct the participants to continue.

6. If the witness chooses to step in, the witness chooses with which one of the two participants she wishes to dialogue and the other participant now becomes the silent witness.

7. Now the roles have changed ... the original dyad has now dissolved ... and the cycle can repeat numerous times from step 4.

8. If both original participants and the witness agree to it, other crew members can be present as an audience. Audience members are silent with webcams off and cannot partake in the conversation in any way. Audience members need to understand and accept that they may be spoken about in the space but they cannot speak into the space. An audience member can initiate a follow-up Witnessed Dyad which may weave together into a more encompassing exploration.

I think this may both enhance some bring some richness, clarity, and continuity to some of the dyads taking place and possibly transform them from a kind of back-channeling dynamics back into a collective or semi-collective experience space.