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I drew this diagram to illustrate a lot of related insights about agency, hosting, community-building, collaborative leadership & social change come with me now, the thread is long and full of bangers… https://t.co/hX3lV9xylT
you can use this map to self-evaluate your level of agency: where are you currently? what group experiences do you feel comfortable to host? what feels very doable? what would feel like a tolerable stretch? what would be overwhelming even to attempt?
the steps are roughly continuous: if you’re comfortable running a 1hr workshop for 15 ppl, a natural next step could be to attempt a 3hr workshop, or design for 50 ppl if you’re comfortable hosting a 1-day workshop, next time you could try running a 3-day retreat
a healthy developmental context includes peers, mentors & apprentices if you want to stretch to the next level: who do you know who is already competent at that level? are they willing to support your learning process?
development happens spontaneously in the right social context the vertical axis starts at 5 people, it does not start at 1, because individualistic self-development is a scam oh you’re going to use your self, to improve your self? good luck with that https://t.co/rx74eCYZk9
un-self-ing development: I'm not interested in "self improvement" as if an individual is a bounded system that contains various habits, beliefs, skills & behaviour patterns that can be upgraded like a phone downloading a new version from the app store
you can estimate the quality of someone’s opinions about large scale social systems by evaluating their experience as a small scale organiser if you can’t create harmonious relationships in a collective of 15 ppl, why should I trust your opinion about policing or governance?
skipping the micro scale is a mega problem if you can organise a 20,000 person conference but you don’t know how to design for small-scale conviviality, the vibes will be off. your event will massively fail to deliver on its potential
the cure for loneliness is hospitality someone with charisma, resources & generosity can host a good party, make introductions, and lubricate the formation of social networks the best place to meet the love of your life is at your friend’s dinner party
to have a good life you need a place & people to belong to, and you need to contribute to their wellbeing accountant, gardener, artist... it doesn’t matter. what matters is you make a significant contribution to something you’re proud to be part of https://t.co/teS3JAqRbq
the Microsolidarity Network is a fractal agency pump, reciprocating between individual & collective transformation we’re learning together: how do you create a social context? what levers can we pull on? what can be engineered, and what needs to be left up to emergence?
my mission for the Microsolidarity Network is to find/recruit/train/encourage/introduce/support/inspire 150×150’s I mean, 150 people who each have the capacity and willingness to make a long term commitment to host a community of at least 150 people
“host a community” can mean many things: an online meditation group that meets once a week, a co-living community where everyone lives in the same neighbourhood, an annual festival where people make life-changing friendships... https://t.co/eneJHvpLfB
each step up the ladder of scale creates a developmental container for the previous: your personal development proceeds more smoothly when you have a crew; it’s easier to find a crew when you’re in a congregation; congregations learn from each other in a network...
a counterintuitive way to support your development is to find apprentices e.g. after running a few cohorts thru the Microsolidarity course, it no longer felt challenging to us so we trained our replacements, forcing me to make my implicit knowledge explicit
I made a blog post for sharing: https://t.co/LrFbiP6JhS
@RichDecibels I have hosted small groups, can do. Being asked to put together a full day for dozens in the not too distant future and the thread gives me a roadmap of ideas to help with that. My most likely failure mode is to attempt to host alone. Maybe I shouldn’t do that Thanks
@RichDecibels Going to a big conference in Feb (thousands) as a volunteer to learn some too. One of my organizing principles internally for communities is “never ever be too good to do the dishes” Is it weird that I’m excited about sweeping floors and setting up tables
post your hosting map! https://t.co/rtfKloDcuG
post your hosting map! https://t.co/Wq0aXGcifq
temporary community is how you build permanent community https://t.co/xR0NXj4hZg
@RichDecibels lfg https://t.co/SpTE9OFnsS
@RichDecibels https://t.co/Rv7Ca8Db7u
@RichDecibels @rickbenger 🤔🥺 pepicamp is definitely the up-rightest thing I've done ever. It somehow doesn't feel like a super big responsibility though, and I have @alineblooms as a co-host, although I guess we haven't really formalised what that even means haha
@RichDecibels @rickbenger @alineblooms There is also a third axis to your plot, something like intensity or load. Like, picking a campsite is a whole different thing from personally giving a multi day workshop. Pepicamp feels more like an extended picnic. Maybe a giant underestimation, we'll see.
@RichDecibels im the step before retreat, in terms of what i have done. and im very aware that moving further requires more than just me. but eventually i will ☺️ thanks for this, it helped me parse between “I don’t want to go further” and “I have yet to go further”
@RichDecibels Interesting to note the difference in placement between "could improvise without too much effort" and "would be the next major project". I have the intuition that raising the former is at least as important as the latter, at least for me.
@RichDecibels This is super helpful & thoughtful! Wondering about things hugging higher up the y-axis. As in, ppl who coord 300M people to engage for 30 mins. i.e., electoral democracy. And for ppl working their way up that axis: is that neutral, harmful, or just a non-overlapping magisteria?
@RichDecibels I like the idea of choosing to get to a certain scale (whether size or duration), and then just locking those variables and moving out of the plane, into another dimension. For example, dialing in on distribution of power or diversifying leadership, or becoming more invisible :)
@RichDecibels Just gonna https://t.co/dIuTvNqs0Y
@RichDecibels poast hoasting maps! @RichDecibels @gptbrooke @jasoncbenn @Prigoose @__drewface @TylerAlterman @danielgolliher @conaw @utotranslucence @this_is_silvia @myceliummage (https://t.co/Y4dJ01I4JK is a free online old-photoshop clone that works well) https://t.co/f1UvI9YSc8
@RichDecibels also lots of people that I know in ‘leadership’ positions that have very poor temporal agency as they maximize y but unable to keep sustained commitment over time - these people are often at the root of burning out communities
@RichDecibels Also adjacently relevant, here’s another powerful tool I got from @ShiverTweet years ago that brought lots of clarity and pace in otherwise ambiguous community/large scale projects where many loosely coupled people contribute differently at diff time & rates https://t.co/muRK5tqsUI
@RichDecibels oops I accidentally put America on your chart (may also be of interest to anyone looking to plot something that's outside your scale) https://t.co/lDBmC6tJIc
@RichDecibels genuine, open question: what's between a coliving neighborhood (500 people x 3y) and a network state (10-100,000+ people x 5-25+y) https://t.co/x7kDKLaZeW