Gathering #10 February 25, 2021 - Where do we go from here?

As usual, what follows is not documentation or even rigorous recollection. It is impressions and follow-up thoughts mixed together.

We arrived at this gathering without an explicit agenda but I feel safe in saying that there was a shared sense that there was an implicit agenda.

After a spacious check-in, I was pleased that the audio-generative-process from the altar surfaced of its own accord. I was relieved it happened this way and that I didn't need to bring it up explicitly. I believe it was @Toni Blanco who opened that door.

The Inversion

I, in response, shared my thoughts about "the inversion" I experienced. In cycle2 I offered a minimal skeleton of a generative process together with an invitation for intentional and explicit collaboration (with an elaborate consent-driven process). This offering did not create traction. Though I was not explicitly aware of it at the time I was prioritizing explicit collaboration and asking how there can still be flow within that (which never got answered).

The notion of sacrificial (hence altar) that came up in cycle2 led me to an inversion. I started from an assumed trust (within the crew) and allowed myself to flow into the authoring of the generative process. I assumed permission to do this ... and allowed, within myself, that it may be a sacrificial effort and get rejected altogether.

This inversion was embraced during the gathering and was embraced as a wider pattern: inviting everyone to contribute from their gifts, knowing that trust flows from and within the crew, and remembering the sacrificial nature of the offering.

Do-ocracy Warning

In my mind this led us a bit down the path of "do-ocracy" and I want to place a caveat on that. I have had bad experiences with do-ocracy, especially in an environment where there is a potential for creating software.

My specific negative experience with do-ocracy was that it short-circuited collaboration: in a pure do-ocracy a coder can coder whatever he wants to see in the world, there is no need for a coder to integrate input from a designer. If a designer cannot code a designer cannot "do".

This creates and invites unhealthy (I believe) power structures: those who can "do" have power; those who wield social power can affect what is "done"; the rest get to tag along ... and objections don't need to be integrated ... because it is a "do-ocracy" and you don't need permission ... and that is not a culture I would like to work in.

I believe there should be qualifications to "just doing". This is probably just a seed list and if we remain attentive it may lead, over time, to more explicit protocol:

1. If you do "just do" .. remember it is sacrificial.

2. Therefore, it is better to do within some kind consent (implicit or explicit) framework. I am assuming that It was not a complete surprise to anyone in the crew that I created the generative process. This is something we talked about at length.

3. "Doing" is not allowed to create any external contracts/obligations without explicit permission from the crew. This permission will probably be generated via consent.

Manifestation

I was very pleased that talk of manifestation arose in response to the generative process. This indicated to me that the images created by the generative process were indeed alive.

We discussed the distinction between creating such a digital space versus implementing it. Creating implies creating tailored software while implementing explores using existing tools to manifest the process.

@Toni Blanco presenced funding. @Alex Rodriguez presenced social implementation. @Josh Fairhead presenced coding. It almost felt like it may become real :)

This, together with the notion of assumed trust within the group, felt like a collective invitation to awaken our gifts within the crew. This started to generate a sense of cycle3 can be.

To do

I am left with these potential do-ings open to me:

1. Collaborating with Alex on an invitation to cycle3.

2. Expanding the generative process to cover: creating and caring for a space.

3. Exploring with Josh the role of money and expanding the generative process to include money.

4. Collaborating with Alex to improve future audio recordings of the generative process.

Please all: add, correct, and refine this thread with your impressions from the gathering :)

I already brainstormed some stuff around funding with things to do on my side.

I think that the third cycle could consist in 1) to complete/refine the generative process and 2) to explore and envision together its way of implementation. Maybe we could refine the process by commenting your cards and suggesting new ones at collectiveone?

Do-ocracy note

I'm very pleased you voice these thoughts @Ronen Hirsch. I'm 100% with you on the asymmetry of developer hubris that often sinks collaborative efforts. This is actually a big part of the reason I'm learning to code, its less expensive for me to learn for myself than to work with people of technical persuasion who are unable to work as a team (listening and integrating feedback). So HEARING you articulate these points brings a skip to my step as I really have a distaste for devs in the driving seat, who themselves are driven by ideology, dogma and a limiting world view. I whole heatedly consent to the minimal protocol above and would be interested in developing something more robust in future. I wouldn't like to develop anything serious without a proper design process going into it; my knowlege of such is limited but I believe some of the usual initial steps are often: personas, user stories, user flows, sequence diagrams > code, unit tests, integration tests. I'm probably missing a bunch of steps here as I'm not native to either domain. I'm also sure that other methodologies are relevant outside of the usual corporate processes.

Money note

Nothing like a record deal to break up a band. When it comes to money its often the fastest way to ruin friendships, but needn't be the case. I've also witnessed a number of tyrannical situations and just sheer fuck ups around money, there's a number of patterns that give rise to these phenomena. But to get my biases on the table I'm personally of the lean living persuasion and believe the theory of constraints to generally be a good thing. This has made me quite good at spending it effectively, however I quite like the agency it enables and thus believe that should some come in the door at some point that I'm NOT the guy to hold it. As Zappa once said; anyone that wants to be a politician should be banned outright. By that same logic, my inclination would be to elect Ronen as treasurer for his sheer allergies to the stuff - not spending, but stopping foolish spending. I believe that 'beyond budgeting' may be a good framework to look at regarding group spending; this may be relevant to expanding the generative process to include money - or perhaps that comment comes from another frame. All this is of course all hypothetical but should we eventually move into that territory those are my thoughts for later discussion.

I want to share some considerations regarding the material conditions to build and launch a remote microsolidarity space by implementing the generative process. I would love to know what do you think about them. They are just possibilities to take into account, not maybe now but in the (near) future.

Bootstrapping would be my ideal scenario. Thinking about similar endeavors at the Enspiral ecosystem (Loomio and CoBudget), that could be achievable, although the contexts are quite different. Also, in the case of CoBudget, the actual business development has not been the tool itself but the consulting opportunities it raised. I imagine an open-source tool, but that is something to talk about.   

a) The first possibility to get funding in the short term is by selling services related to byproducts that we have after our work together. I see for instance:

• Facilitate/guide audio-based creation of spaces during on-line (long) conferences, either for relaxing or favor a particular exchange dynamic. Perhaps combined with simple yoga exercises?

• Training or consulting in the creation of generative processes, particularly for software development? Maybe hard to sale, and not mature yet as a product/service, but maybe we could experiment a little bit more.

b) Getting direct funding for developing it would entail finding either some donors that trust the idea and the team or organizations that want to implement the tool for a particular collective. Usually, it is better to show a beta version of the tool or MVP, but anyway I imagine some scenarios in which the project could raise enough interest, particularly if we look for precise collectives, as persons with disabilities in which remote entrepreneurship would facilitate entrepreneurship, or broader categories of population, even women, which it is known that do not perform equally well under the traditional-heroic entrepreneurship policies and spaces. I also can guess interest for recent graduates; at least in Spain, the job market is horrendous for them. I would like to pitch the idea to see if those organizations have the funds or know how to get them. 

c) There are VC and funds that work with ventures with social impact. This project could attract their interest as well. 

d) Another way to move forward to get a beta sooner would be by opening the development/implementation project to more people under a value accounting/slicing the pie type model. I have a friend that is an expert and has a tool for supporting this if we would like to experiment with it. But hen I imagine more a venture with a more defined business model. 

Finally: all of the above could be easier maybe if supported by a community, such as Enspiral or Ouishare.

So, what would be the next steps?

For a) I could try to find the interest of these services by offering them and hear what they have to say (It is my understanding that @Alex Rodriguez even could deliver sessions in Spanish). In the case of the training, we need to work on the training. Pantheon is redesigning its website, I could experiment myself (or with @Ronen Hirsch). Maybe @Josh Fairhead is involved in a project with coding in it. I am well connected to the Agile community here and in Argentina, so participating in a meetup, and offering the training program to check the interest would not be hard. For b) and c) we should talk about a roadmap and its cost, and then I would prepare some slides to pitch the project to leaders of different organizations that could be interested (here in Barcelona). For d) is mostly following the methodology. 

What do you feel more desirable for our crew? We can answer here or talk at a future gathering.

Very exciting ideas, @Toni Blanco ! Two things stand out to me in this that strike a nerve in particular: creating a tool that can be used well and support women and Spanish-speakers. This helps hone the ideas around next steps for me somewhat---getting me thinking about how to create some mechanism for translation and then also thinking about next steps for collaboration with others. I have some friends in the Spanish-speaking world as well who might be really into collaborating in this way.

The other thing that comes to mind is that this "product" idea could find a home in the "wellness/meditation" type spaces and apps that have been popping up all over the place over the past couple of years (the most successful being Insight App, Headspace, etc.) I'm thinking that the "generative process" is kind of like a guided mindfulness practice but for group-minds instead of individual-minds. This is also where training/coaching could be a valuable service. I'm also connected to some of the "rising stars" in that scene like Lama Rod Owens who I could probably get a favor from to record content (or prototype a "training space"). In fact, Lama Rod has been doing trainings/workshops on Undoing Patriarchy that could work really well in this format, and he basically has philanthropic foundations asking him to apply for money left and right these days...

OK that's my brainstorm for now! Thanks again Toni for getting me thinking along these lines!

A LOT to unpack here @Toni Blanco ... thank you for all the lively energy that you are bringing in :)

I want to preface what I am going to say with a kind of (but not really) apology. I feel doubtful about others even being interested (let alone be willing to pay) for offering that come from my gifts. I recognize that this is coming from my life experience and I have come to embrace it. I do not want to struggle to pretend that I am not doubtful since I feel that would make my thinking less authentic and less clear. I ask that you understand the "negativity" and are able to discern that what I am choosing to say is intended to be constructive. I hope that the combination of "doubtful" and "potential" vibes add up to something ... whole and beautiful :)

Harvesting what has grown

I appreciate your presencing a recognition of what has already grown in our small garden and asking what can we do with what we already have?

I honestly don't know how to apply this. As an example, I would like to look at generative processes. I feel grateful that you all made space, gave it a chance, and embraced this notion in our collaborative work. But it took the time we've been together in collaboration for this to START making sense. And even now it is still not a tool we USE collectively. I am still (as far as I can tell) the only one creating generative content.

Looking at our shared process, I cannot see how it could be possible to package it into a concise, marketable offering with a price tag AND for it to be an authentic and effective offering. I CAN imagine creating a sellable-packaged version that is marketed (and possibly sold for good money), however, I CANNOT see how that could be a sincere and effective offering.

This is a pattern that runs deep. Almost any knowledge that I value and have to offer does not lend itself to compartmentalization and sales. I keep coming back to the belief (informed by my Yoga practices and injected into our collaborative space) that learning requires repetitive, gradual, passionate, unfolding PRACTICE. More practice than most people expect. More practice than most people have space for. And most importantly more practice than "competitive offerings" that are comfortable making big promises of rapid results ... and NOT delivering. I am simply unable to do that.

Funding

On this subject I have mostly questions for reflection:

1. Why would someone give me money to do something I would do for free?

2. Would I (we) want to work differently if money were made available? If so why?

3. Injection of money demands (usually?) addressing ownership. It exploring ownership a good investment of our time right now? Or would it divert us from tending to the present to speculating about a non-existing future?

4. I do not like the feeling of being beholden or obliged to someone just because they gave me money. Is there a way to receive money without this baggage?

5. What about crowdfunding?

6. There are more questions ... but I will leave it here for now :)

Collaboration

I would like to discern between collaboration and funding. I very much like the idea of seeking to connect with specific domains or social niches like disabilities or women (mothers?). For me a primary value of such collaboration is grounding ... getting real feedback from real people in relation to real needs.

I feel discernment is needed here because collaboration can be created regardless of funding. Collaborations may open funding avenues. But I feel collaborations should be explored for their own sake and not made as utilities FOR funding.

I feel it is still too early for such collaboration. However, I have thought about opening a thread where we can collect ideas for specific communities that we feel can become collaboration partners.

Opening Up

I have already partially addressed your point (d) in my questions about funding. But your comment sent me on another vector.

Though we are working "in the open" I have been wondering if we should be more explicitly and intentionally open? Should we have a blog somewhere where we explicitly share about our exploration? Social media accounts?

This also echoes a conversation we've touched on shortly: when is it time to explicitly signal back into Microsolidarity? Enspiral? Others?

And the two questions, in my mind, dance together: would a signal out of nowhere (eg into Microsolidarity) be a good signal? Would it better if we already had an explicit online presence where people could learn more about us and what we do?

@Toni Blanco

Bootstrapping would be my ideal scenario. In the case of Loomio and co-budget the actual business development has not been the tool itself but the consulting opportunities it raised.

I'm good with this line of thought. Its like building 'clients' on an open protocol.

A, B, C & D) are all fine options for me. I think the first thing is 'customers', starting with things people actually want - not some arbitrary design or hypothetical service. Market fit comes first IMO. The question is which market are we going to fit with? Where is there traction? Who wants our services? What services can we provide right now given request?

@Ronen Hirsch (Second iteration, I lost a good bit of typing just there!!)

Gifts note

feel doubtful about others even being interested (let alone be willing to pay) for offering that come from my gifts

In my opinion this is just immediacy bias Ronen. Your exceptionally talented Ronen and many people would pay for your gifts. You've read the book Lila, perhaps its time you read it again. You have at least three people right here that find your presence and work valuable. That story doesn't check out. Your wrong.

Harvest note

Looking at our shared process, I cannot see how it could be possible to package it into a concise, marketable offering with a price tag AND for it to be an authentic and effective offering. I CAN imagine creating a sellable-packaged version that is marketed (and possibly sold for good money), however, I CANNOT see how that could be a sincere and effective offering.

Just look at what Lama Rod Ownes is doing. He's written a book (neat pacakge) that's just a topology representative of himself and his personal brand, and then does consulting and workshops for NGO's and such. I don't find this insincere or ineffective.

I know your adverse to the shallower brand side but we are always our own brand. Our identity is separate to our identifiers but they are somewhat nondual. A brand is what the exterior the world sees that's barely representative of our interior depth, or quality but it is still representative. Without a starting point or 'center' to scratch at we are invisible. You create output and all output is an expression of self. You do great stuff.

As Fripp says, how you hold a guitar pick is how you do everything in life. Quality transfers across domains. Its a state of being. I bring this up because Fripp teaches life through the guitar. He does that by offering up a carrot (Guitar craft course, analogous to an album, book or piece of art) to get people in the door and then they learn how to cook, clean, meditate, journal, alexander technique... and hold a pick. Check out Toms Tails To His Grandson and some of the other guitar craft videos of what I consider to be a functional anarchy.

I am still (as far as I can tell) the only one creating generative content.

Maybe. I've given it a crack. I might be doing it wrong but scroll halfway down this page. I'd be grateful to receive feedback and guidance on how to do it better of course.

Funding note

Why would someone give me money to do something I would do for free?

Because no one is more valuable and reliable than somebody working from intrinsic motivation. Want something done and know the guy that's doing it? Remove his obstacles with resources. Why do patrons of the arts exist? Its about finding the right match, when you can't be swayed its simply harder to find a match. I face this problem too but I have faith that I'll either sort it out for myself or something will pop up. Perhaps both.

Would I (we) want to work differently if money were made available? If so why?

I kinda want to work differently now. I want to ship output. Its why I'm bootstrapping a publication and learning to code. This can be a "me" or "we" thing dependent on adjacency and alignment. I don't really want to go through an expensive process of making agreements and finding compromises to accommodate a group. I intend to work from an intrinsic motivation (while tracking others and finding touch points).

I'm not saying we have this, but I don't want to deal with bureaucracy, blocking issues, social nonsense and the variety of constraints that life throws at us - hence my work is for myself, but I am most willing to share as I do wish to work with skilled friends whenever we have adjacency and alignment.

If money were made available, it would probably come from paying customers. At a group level I can see this being a motivating factor that simply speeds up the process, rather than changes our course entirely.

Injection of money demands (usually?) addressing ownership. It exploring ownership a good investment of our time right now? Or would it divert us from tending to the present to speculating about a non-existing future?

Well put, I believe I'm somewhat addressing this above in a way. I wish to do my thing for this reason. I don't want to address ownership. I think everyone should build and be captain of their own boat so there's no need to address and explore ownership. Should we all with to do writing, then syndication would be the simple answer. I can imagine that for many things its not that simple though. I don't think ownership is worth exploring now, and I believe my view is somewhat expressed at this stage anyway. I would say that launching a company or product requires an audience though so I believe we should be building such both individually and collectively. Again syndication comes to mind. A coordinated crew can amplify each-others reach.

I do not like the feeling of being beholden or obliged to someone just because they gave me money. Is there a way to receive money without this baggage?

Yes, build an audience, sell them something they value. In music marketing this is the 1000 true fans model.

What about crowdfunding?

I'm not adverse to it. Again building an audience would come first, then crowd funding through them is a legitimate way to launch. 50,000 mailing list subscribers is a good number to do so from.

There are more questions ... but I will leave it here for now :)

Thank god, it feels like I've been typing for an eternity given I got to this point of my response once already before loosing it. The second iteration feels better, though I cant compare!

Collaboration notes

I feel it is still too early for such collaboration

Me too. I think that if we can do it as intrinsically motivated individuals with enough coherence that artifacts emerge at the group level, then we can safely scale up to inter-group collaboration. Before that is a mistake IMO. I also appreciate the discernment.

Opening up notes

Though we are working "in the open" I have been wondering if we should be more explicitly and intentionally open? Should we have a blog somewhere where we explicitly share about our exploration? Social media accounts?

Well I've started bootstrapping a publication. If others wish to write with my I'm happy to syndicate. If anyone wants a blog setup I'm happy to spin up a shared space representing the group identity on uberspace. As I've said above though I think its best to start at the individual level and scale up. That way there's no scarce resources or curational issues to be dealt with or worried about. With our own ships in tact, we can certainly then aggregate at the group level as a governance exercise.

This also echoes a conversation we've touched on shortly: when is it time to explicitly signal back into Microsolidarity? Enspiral? Others?

Tougher question but I think this somewhat falls under the collaboration answer above; when we're ready as evidenced through cohesive output?

And the two questions, in my mind, dance together: would a signal out of nowhere (eg into Microsolidarity) be a good signal? Would it better if we already had an explicit online presence where people could learn more about us and what we do?

Yes, a place of explicit presence would be better. A forum post just says we enjoy each others company but can't coordinate a website (which is simple as paying square space if we cant do better). No artifacts = still nascent culture.

Closing note

I'd be interested to receive feedback on how this reads. After loosing a lot of writing the first time the second iteration feels very 'in the zone' as its somewhat practiced. However my frustration at loosing all the writing has some what fueled that focus. The writing as a consequence feels quite direct, which I like, but I wonder if it comes across as brash and sharp instead? If so please forgive me, haha, I just wanna rock an roll. Granted its quite specific in that I wish to minimize constraints, just know that I do want to be together at the same time :))

OK I have a lot to add but one thing I want to echo while I'm here reading is the note @Josh Fairhead made speaking to @Ronen Hirsch 's doubts. I agree with Josh that Ronen you've demonstrated the value of your approach to us. What I especially appreciate is how you are foregrounding a commitment to imagining real things into being, not the mere creation of appearances. I've been mulling over this quote from Abdullah Ocalan recently that seems relevant here:

“The classification of the society in categories and terms after a certain pattern is produced artificially by the capitalist monopolies. What counts in a society like that is not what you are but what you appear to be.”

Finding our way into actually being together, not just appearing to be together, has been a delight and is at the heart of this shared inquiry for me. These last two comments from Ronen and Josh offer a lot of good direction for how that can continue.

I really like the idea, Josh, of us supporting one another in our respective work and aggregating / amplifying each other's pieces somehow. And I so appreciate moving at the speed of Ronen's patient discernment.

I've been wanting to respond since you posted this @Josh Fairhead but haven't had space (mostly emotional) for a full response. I am going with a brief response for now:

1. I am noticing a recurring pattern, wanting to respond more than the capacity I have to respond. In facing it I am discovering a surprising quality of trust. I am trusting that the untended thread and unspoken feelings are alive amongst us. I feel comfortable with this. I do not feel any need to grasp and capture everything. This feels precious.

2. Thank you for the kind words of support. As I feel your support to wash over me, your offering of light calls to my attention a shadow present in me: I feel beat up and used by countless past attempts to offer of myself (these wounds also feel alive in the present as I negotiate my crumbling partnership). I will try to ingest some Lama Rod Owens now that the invitation has been presented both by you and @Alex Rodriguez :)

3. I practically know Lila by heart :) I'm curious what aspect of Lila you had in mind when you mentioned it.

4. There is a good tapas between our (yours and mine) current position on "independence." I used to be where you are striving to be and also learned coding for the same reason. While a single person may be able to create a "working mockup" I believe that odds are very much against a single person creating an actual working solution. I no longer bother to even develop ideas that I have unless there are others who are willing to hold it with me. When I moved to Romania I was a big believer in INdependence. I quickly learn that I was very naive and have shifted to a view of "healthy dependence."

5. I feel we are on the same page re: collaboration and grounding in real-world needs. I will try to initiate something around this.

6. I feel that we are almost ready for a "crew public presence" ... I feel like we need a bit more progress but mostly explicit shared commitment to make that possible.

7. Feedback. I have felt, over the years, that the generative process exploration has effected also other forms of my writing, though I don't know to say explicitly how. Your second iteration, though extensive, stood out for me as one of the clearest I've read from you. I had a sense of "generative kinship" reading it :) Though I still am not sure how the generative quality expresses in it ... I feel it .. I felt you "in the zone" :) Once in a while, I go back to this short speech by an American Indian Chief (from Lila!) to remind myself of how powerful & graceful simple, clear. concise, and direct words can be.