[p2p-research] Fwd: Open Collaboration Journal: issue1
Michel Bauwens
michelsub2004 at gmail.com
Wed Mar 24 07:15:05 CET 2010
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: alpha lo <lyricalforest at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 1:17 AM
Subject: Open Collaboration Journal: issue1
To: Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
Hi Michel,
Heres a newsletter we are putting out about Open Collaboration. In my
article "Gift Circles as Open Collaboration" I talk about my theory of
social systems and how love and nonattachment and higher consciousness
states factor into what level a social system is at. I relate it to our
experiments to create a gift economy in our town here in California.
alpha lo ,
author and editor of "Open Collaboration encyclopedia"
Open Collaboration Journal
issue one
mar 2010
'*We are birthing the new we'.
This a newsletter to look at the world of open collaboration and how it
works. To bring interesting news about open collaboration and help play a
role in seeding a great paradigm shift in human history.*
In this Issue
1. Open Collaboration book
news<https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&view=js&name=js&ver=rLSZMscVyio.en.&am=!8I3kSTkVCeO5ZdzkUoS2Q7EdVSsR2MceKj_PfxrUFgjaZKuz#1278717fe3c5d948_127871494b7e2f8e_127870ae9752d7fe_1278709fa9d453fd_1278705e339a6210_12786eea1d752eba_12786e6f2f0ca580_1274498e165e2661_12744710673c0ac8_127446d33e53d61b_oc_booknews>
2. Gift Circle as Open Collaboration
<https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&view=js&name=js&ver=rLSZMscVyio.en.&am=!8I3kSTkVCeO5ZdzkUoS2Q7EdVSsR2MceKj_PfxrUFgjaZKuz#1278717fe3c5d948_127871494b7e2f8e_127870ae9752d7fe_1278709fa9d453fd_1278705e339a6210_12786eea1d752eba_12786e6f2f0ca580_1274498e165e2661_12744710673c0ac8_127446d33e53d61b_giftcircle>
- Alpha Lo
3. The Common Interest<https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&view=js&name=js&ver=rLSZMscVyio.en.&am=!8I3kSTkVCeO5ZdzkUoS2Q7EdVSsR2MceKj_PfxrUFgjaZKuz#1278717fe3c5d948_127871494b7e2f8e_127870ae9752d7fe_1278709fa9d453fd_1278705e339a6210_12786eea1d752eba_12786e6f2f0ca580_1274498e165e2661_12744710673c0ac8_127446d33e53d61b_flip>-
Alden Bevington
4. Improv theatre and complex adaptive systems
<https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&view=js&name=js&ver=rLSZMscVyio.en.&am=!8I3kSTkVCeO5ZdzkUoS2Q7EdVSsR2MceKj_PfxrUFgjaZKuz#1278717fe3c5d948_127871494b7e2f8e_127870ae9752d7fe_1278709fa9d453fd_1278705e339a6210_12786eea1d752eba_12786e6f2f0ca580_1274498e165e2661_12744710673c0ac8_127446d33e53d61b_improvtheatre>-
Michelle James
5. Some thoughts
<https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&view=js&name=js&ver=rLSZMscVyio.en.&am=!8I3kSTkVCeO5ZdzkUoS2Q7EdVSsR2MceKj_PfxrUFgjaZKuz#1278717fe3c5d948_127871494b7e2f8e_127870ae9752d7fe_1278709fa9d453fd_1278705e339a6210_12786eea1d752eba_12786e6f2f0ca580_1274498e165e2661_12744710673c0ac8_127446d33e53d61b_somethoughts>-
David Chang, Laura Fox, Joseph Jacques
*1:** *OPEN COLLABORATION BOOK NEWS
Our Open Collaboration encyclopedia looks at all the different types of
collaborations out there, participatory models, facilitation techniques,
sharing ways, project management tools, examples for how to tap into the
power of the collective. Its a tool you can use to build your own open
collaboration project. It has been getting some attention lately Michel
Bauwens, a peer-to-peer economist, and founder of the Peer to Peer
Foundation, chose us as book of the week this week.
http://bit.ly/9knKdU<http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/book-of-the-week-the-shift-to-the-era-of-open-collaboration/2010/02/15#comments>
Shareable chose us as one of the best books of 2009
http://shareable.net/blog/the-ten-best-shareable-books-of-<http://shareable.net/blog/the-ten-best-shareable-books-of-2009>
2009 <http://shareable.net/blog/the-ten-best-shareable-books-of-2009>
The book was compiled, edited, and written by Alpha Lo and Alden Bevington.
The vision is for this book to continue to grow and involve more and more
authors/compilers/editors, so the book itself becomes an open collaboration.
You can take a look at the book here http://bit.ly/bISi84
www.pioneerimprints.com
follow blog here
www.opencollaboration.<http://www.opencollaboration.wordpress.com/>
wordpress.com <http://www.opencollaboration.wordpress.com/>
and twitter here www.twitter.com/alphalo
*
*
*2:** *GIFT CIRCLE AS OPEN COLLABORATION by Alpha Lo
An open collaboration has the qualities of open (vs closed),
non-hierarchical (vs hierarchical), non-owned (vs owned), emergent (vs
planned), participatory (vs witnessing). {*For more on these qualities see
our Open Collaboration <http://www.pioneerimprints.com/> book*}. A
well-functioning open collaboration is autopoietic - self-regulating,
self-maintaining, and adaptive to different conditions. There are principles
of how to create open collaboration projects and guide their evolution. An
open collaboration has many stages it can be at. Each higher stage will
have greater empathy, non-attachment, non-judgment, synergy; and be more in
touch with individuals deeper needs.
One of the projects I have been working in which these open collaboration
principles apply is a gift circle we have here in Fairfax,California. The
idea of the gift circle is we come together to share our needs and
services. People help each other out with our needs, and offer their
services without expectation of getting anything in return. It's a way of
creating a gift economy (which is different than a trade, local currency, or
money system). There has opened a field of generosity, caring, and
community. People have been gifting each other massages, car mechanic help,
graphic design services, bean soup, readings, babysitting, computer advice,
clothes, veggies, editing, cleaning, places to stay, rides, help moving
house, etc.. Over time many people have come through our weekly circle, and
a kind of tribe has begun to form centered around the gift circle - with
people helping each other during the whole week outside the circle. The
vision<http://opencollaboration.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/on-growing-a-local-gift-economy/>is
to have a whole network of these circles synergizing with each other
in a
local area to aikido the whole community into the gift economy.
*Can the circle self-organize?*
At first the gift circle was dependent on mine and my friend Matthew
Edward's energies. I wanted to transition it to become a self-organizing and
self-running circle. What that at times required me to do was to let go of
being the facilitator and allow others to facilitate. I could see all these
things that needed to be looked at in order for the circle to work. So it
was sometimes a little hard for me to let go and have someone really new to
it facilitate it. But that was necessary in order for others to step up, and
it empowered them to guide the circle in directions that they thought were
useful, and sometimes they took it to great places that I would not have
thought of myself. Over time we gradually had a larger base of different
facilitators.
Many open collaborations start out as being more hierarchical or dependent
on its founders. At some point comes the critical step where the founders
have to let go. If they don't and keep holding onto the power it's difficult
for the whole system to become a truly non-hierarchical self-organizing open
collaboration.
In our circle sometimes we would have little discussions after the meetings
to reflect on what worked, and what did not and figure out how better ways
to run it. Our gift circle is a learning circle. Its format is emergent over
time. As our circle grew and found success in meeting a lot of people's
needs, and began to develop a tribe around it, we wanted to put a little
manual together to explain to others how the gift circle worked so they too
could start their own circle. I was looking for a genotype for a gift
circle (a genotype being the DNA blueprint that guides what an organism
grows into) that we could give to others to start their own gift circle. I
was thinking the blueprint/genotype for a a set format/schedule. However,
what happened was that different people each week would try out different
ways to run the circle, and the format was continually evolving, adapting to
the circumstances. I have begun to think that genotype of a gift circle is
not the format itself, but the circle's continual process of reflecting on
what works and what doesn't and trying new things each time. A genotype
based on process means that the gift circle format has the open
collaborative quality of being emergent, not planned from the start. This
genotype is useful as the gift circle spreads to different demographics and
subcultures, and different formats may be more favorable. It's not to say a
genotype of a set format/schedule is not useful to pass onto others, but
that a genotype in the form of a process would be even more powerful; it
helps a circle become a complex adaptive system. For those of you who know
the spiral dynamics model of system development, a social system that can
use different and evolve social structures/formats/worldviews is probably a
characteristic of yellow level and higher systems.
During the growth of the gift circle many different people took initiative
and helped with various tasks - promoting the circle, cooking the circle
meal, putting the email list together, explaining to new comers the gift
circle culture etc.. People were stepping up and activating different
aspects of the circle. Around week 11 of the gift circle the circle began to
feel self-organizing. It did not necessarily need Matthew and I for its
survival anymore. It was becoming an
autopoietic<http://www.oikos.org/mariotti.htm> system.
An autopoietic system being a system that is able to self-heal,
self-regenerate, self-maintain, and self-regulate; examples of autopoietic
systems being cells and organisms.
In a brain the neurons rewire themselves into connective nets. The neural
net will then fire in different patterns in response to different
situations. In the gift circle people's connections and ways of relating
with each other will grow and change. These person-to-person connections
form a kind of autopoietic social neural network that fires in different
patterns in response to different social situations and goals. The tribe
that forms around a gift circle has a social brain made of these
person-to-person neural networks. This social brain figures out how to get
people's needs met in a distributed intelligence way. As the social neural
network evolves to a more highly functioning state, it will allow the tribe
to satisfy more of its own needs.
*Letting go of exchange*
In a social system if when a person gives something they expect something in
return then there is attachment of emotion to the giving. People may feel
upset if there is nothing gotten back. A society may put in laws that make
it expected that every gift has an exchange back. In money and trade systems
there is often this attachment to an emotion if ones does not getting
something in return for what they gave.
In some gift cultures if you gift something to someone, you may expect
that they may pay back the tribe/group/community at some point in time.
There is a loosening of the constraints of the giving, there is less
obligation, and it would be hard to create a law around this kind of
amorphous giving back. There is less attachment to an emotion if someone
does not give back. There is also an increase in gratitude in the system as
this kind of gift giving increases. The more there is a sense
of community the more giving happens. If a social group is architected in
such a way that people can see how the flow of resources happens, how people
are contributing, what happens when people contribute this can greatly help
the whole gifting process. A gift circle for instance where everyone can
hear each others needs and see how people are helping each other can
increase the amount of flow a lot.
Then there is yet another state that you give without expecting anything.
There is no attachment. In that state there is no underlying emotional
attachment associated with the giving. When the attachment is released one
can enter into a more pure place of giving. And as you do so, your body and
being can more easily access a place of bliss, of pure magic and spirit. If
there is attachment to reciprocity then that constrains the system to
function with tighter boundaries as only reciprocal exchanges are allowed if
the emotional field is not to be triggered into a state of upset. Clearing
up the emotional field allows the social system to enter into a collective
consciousness state where intuition and inner knowing guide the unfolding of
events. A gift circle in these states has a lightness to it. The energy is
less dense, with an ethereal quality to it.
One may ask but how do I know I will get taken care of, if I will get what I
need if one doesn't mandate reciprocity? As the group opens up, puts its
intentions out there, lets go and trusts, something magical begins to
happen. Needs begin to get met in magical ways, you will be helped in ways
you had not ever thought of. Its almost like there is a field of grace
around the tribe, and things begin to click into place without trying. It's
almost a paradox; first you have to let go of any feeling that you have a
right to anything, and then in that nonattached space things will come to
you.
One way to look at attachment and exchange is that there is a oneness that
everyone is part of. If we are all one when you give to another part you are
giving to yourself. And if we are one other parts will give to you because
they are the same as you. However, it's only when we clear away this
attachment to emotions and the stories we tell ourselves about exchange,
morals, and how society works that we can begin to access this oneness power
to get us the needs we are asking for.
*What is progress in a social system?
*
A social system has many levels of functioning. As it progresses to higher
stages of functioning it undergoes phase transitions in its behavior, in its
values, in its ways of relating to each other. In each new stage there is a
paradigm shift in the way things are done, and it can be quite a shock to
the people in it that you can do things this new way. In a gift circle at
each new stage the social neural network will have different configurations
and patterns, and the emotional field and value system shifts.
Here are some laws I propose about social systems and the different
phases/stages it evolves through.
LAW OF NONATTACHMENT IN A SYSTEM: A system phase transitions to a higher
state when the participants become more nonattached e.g. they do not become
attached to getting something in return for what they give.
LAW OF EMPATHY IN A SYSTEM: A system phase transitions to a higher state as
the amount of empathy of the participants increases.
LAW OF NONDUALITY IN A SYSTEM: A system phase transitions to a more
integrated and cohesive system as it becomes more nondual. Examples of some
nondualities that correlate with more highly functioning systems 1.
wants=service 2. play=work 3. waste=food 4. you=me.
LAW OF DECENTERING IN A SYSTEM: A system phase transitions to a more
transcendent state each time it decenters: A social system decenters when
it can become nonjudgementally aware of its own cultural norms, worldviews,
social architectures and nonattach from it. A gift circle that can
nonjudgmentally decenter from its format, culture, and worldviews, step back
and nonattachedly observe itself, is moving to a higher level of
development. This nonattachment allows it to evolve new formats and
cultures.
LAW OF DIFFERENTIATION AND INTEGRATION: A system phase transitions to higher
states where the parts/people are more individuated, and also more
integrated and synergized with each other. (This law is basically Ken
Wilber's
<http://www.esalenctr.org/display/confpage.cfm?confid=10&pageid=113&pgtype=1>holonic
tenet 12b<http://www.esalenctr.org/display/confpage.cfm?confid=10&pageid=113&pgtype=1>)
A gift circle at higher levels would have individuals expressing a
wide
variety of unique needs and perspectives and have the group synergizing well
and communicating clearly across values systems and worldviews to help meet
those needs.
Spiral Dynamics <http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j22/beck.asp> is a
theory that attempts to map out the stages a system can go through. It
assigns a color to each of the stages - blue, orange, green, yellow,
turquoise,... A gift circle at the orange level will have probably have
people looking to directly get back something in return for what they give.
A gift circle at the green level will have people acting more from empathy
and love directing the flow of services to where people have been expressing
their needs. A gift circle at the yellow level will have empathy, an ability
to integrate people with different worldviews,and be able to evolve its own
format and structure. It will be less judgmental (while still being
discerning) of different worldviews. A gift circle at the turquoise level
will have empathy and integration of multiple worldviews. It will be able to
evolve in its own structure in a less herky jerky fashion than at yellow
levels, as at this level it more deeply understands the systems cause and
effect chains, sees how everything is influencing everything else, and knows
how to integrate emotions, values systems, and worldviews into a coherent
system. At turquoise level will have intuition, psychic insight, and a
collective consciousness that guides the group. A spirit of gratefulness,
grace, and magic flows through the group. There is an effortless in how
things unfold. An actual gift circle will be a mixture of stages/colors in
the spiral dynamics model.
I'd love to see our gift circle evolve to and stabilize autopoietically at
higher levels of functioning. As of the writing of this essay we are at week
18 of our gift circle. Stay tuned to see how it evolves.
*You can follow the progress of the gift circle at *
*opencollaboration.wordpress.com<http://www.opencollaboration.wordpress.com/>
*
*
**3. THE COMMON INTEREST : the transparent ground of an open stakeholder
model
* by Alden Bevington
Bob Dylan, a fountain of essential and sincere statements regardless of
what you think of his voice, has somewhere in his vast repertoire the words
"Help me with my weakness". Sounds like a simple thing to say. At first
glance…
When we ask for help, specifically in a project or organization, we open up
the ownership field. If we're not paying someone to collaborate under our
thumb, we're opening up the hierarchical field. If we had a solid fail-safe
plan for success, or so we thought, and we ask for this help we're opening
up a field of emergence. If we're on the stage, and we ask for this help,
the whole relationship with the crowd changes, the star looks a bit more
human. A certain 'power over', one of the driving forces of the
non-collaborative mind (with all due respects to what that mind can get
accomplished), is crippled by these conditions of asking for help with its
weaknesses.
That particular 'power-over' as a trump-all incentive is the foundation of
many modern and not-so-modern economic and social assumptions, which come to
their roots in philosophies and observations of human nature. In terms of
production and innovation, and resource acquisition and consolidation (note
i do not say generation), I would venture to say that with few exceptions,
this 'power-over' driver as a basic incentive has proven to be true, and
apparently worth harnessing.
In terms of efficiency, sustainability, and effect on whole-system
coherence, I would similarly venture to say that this incentive acting alone
may be more like a drug than a nutrient. A drug offering short-term
predictable, and localized, 'positive' effect, while 'externalizing' costs,
and its attendant long-term destabilization of whole-system coherency and
viability.
As Julia Butterfly Hill, this week celebrating the 10 year anniversary of
her historic 3 year sit in Luna the redwood tree, says, in reality we can't
actually externalize costs or 'throw things away'. "There is no away," she
kindly reminds us.
Speaking of reminding… the point of this article, I remind you and myself,
is to investigate how inefficiency in a system is compounded by not asking
for help with our known weaknesses, and more deeply why on earth anyone, or
any project, or any economy for that matter, wouldn't transparently ask for
help with their weaknesses.
In any system, efficiency, and perhaps even sustainability, appears directly
proportionate to the degree of transparency of known issues to all
collaborators/stakeholders, and to the degree of opt-in responsibility for
picking up the slack for the collective goal of project success.
*
About transparency in an Open Collaboration:*
In a value-driven open collaborative project, such as one governing a common
property, participants are incentivized to be transparent in their known
issues, not only because they expect that someone else with more expertise
will be able to pick up the slack and fix the problem, thus sustaining the
resource that they too have an interest/share in, but also because the usual
negative incentives are not present, mainly that hierarchical position,
ownership status, a facade of star-quality (which relies to a degree upon
non-transparency), and resource acquisition capacity will not be affected
adversely.
Transparency can feel safe in an environment where those who are being
shared with share the same goals, and thus are disincentivized to exploiting
the 'weakness' for non-whole-system (or even predicted trickle-down) gain.
In such an environment based on commons, transparency leads to opt-in
responsibility for problem fixes by common owners based on shared goals. It
doesn't matter if this opt-in responsibility is selfish or altruistic to get
the job done.
*
About transparency in a closed-stakeholder model:*
But opt-in responsibility is very different creature from the 'pick up the
slack' that happens when two owned-hierarchical systems collide, or more
notably for this era of the privatization of the commons, when non-owned and
owned systems collide, especially when relatively non-owned systems, such as
a national bank or a property-in-common, are leased for profit, or even
bailed out for profit by an owned system such as a share-holder corporation
or an investment bank, as we've seen in Greece recently (Jan. 2010). The
events in Greece were the paragon of what we're talking about here, with
non-transparency driven by political face saving (threat to individual
hierarchal position) leading to a backroom privatized government bailout.
The maintained opacity of this fact to stakeholders, the Greek people and
even Europe's central bank, led to the dissolution of accurate feedback
loops, then leading to system failure. Ripples rippled throughout all other
members of its larger economic system.
Now the Greek government is faced with another choice, and so is the
European Currency Zone of which it is a part of. The Greek nation needs
influx of money to pay its debts, but has two obvious possible routes. On
one side they have their "peers", the member states of the EU. The nations
of the EU hold an interest in the solvency of Greece as they have a shared
'common', their currency and economy (and therefore destiny). If
Greecedefaults on its loans, it negatively effects the value of the
Euro and thus
the entire EU. This is an example, to a degree, of the open-stakeholder
model.
On the other side, Greece could turn to the IMF, the International Monetary
Fund, based in Washington D.C. The IMF is in a sense a third party,
extra-governmental organization which provides substantial debt relief to
nations, and under very specific terms. It is an example, to a degree, of
the closed-stakeholder model.
The motivations of these two potential bailer-outers are quite different,
due to them both having a different sense of the 'commons' with Greece. Both
would have conditions placed upon Greece to adjust its spending practices
and its economy, but the conditions, due to that sense of 'commons' would be
different.
The IMF for instance consistently has mandated that recipients of its funds,
most commonly developing nations and including close to two dozen
dictatorships, would sell as much of the 'commons' as possible to private
enterprise, usually western corporate entities. Through not having a
palpable 'commons', or shared interest (and apparent shared destiny) with
the people whom it is bailing out, the conditions for receiving aid given by
the IMF tend towards supporting goals that are not always in the best
interest of the nation. If Greece goes bust under IMF debt, what the IMF
holds of value is not threatened. In fact through hedges it is, through the
questionable magic of the modern financial markets, strengthened by its debt
holders going into more debt. It thrives on insolvency, or anything under
duress it can buy up at a bargain and sell at a profit. This is a primary
engine of capitalism.
The EU however holds values and resources in 'common' with Greece. They are
stakeholders in an open-stakeholder zone, fully interlinked, and thus by
lifting Greece up, Europe saves its own skin. For Greece to open to an EU
central bank bailout will be likely to get more favorable terms, however
unpleasant, than an IMF bailout for these reasons. Further, an IMF bailout
would decrease the EU's currency strength due to the perception that it
can't solve its own problems, and additionally allow a private stakeholder
with a set of motivations/ethics that is not based on the 'commons', pulling
the strings to its advantage in a system of 'commons'. Naturally the EU
doesn't want any of that. And in what I consider bad taste, Greece has used
the possibility of the IMF getting involved as a trump card to try to get a
better deal from the EU.
There are also political dramas being played out, around the French
President and the IMF President, two leading contenders in the French
political scene. We should accept that these mechanizations due actually
affect policy and the lives of millions. The value of de-incentivising
power-over becomes even more clear.
The essence of open and closed stakeholder bailout conditions are lain bare
through the basic mechanisms of the whole Greek metamorphosis, from the
initial budget opacities fueled by politicians wanting to save face, to the
wrangling over who will own the debt, under what conditions, what is their
motivation, and importantly how will it effect the Greek people and the
world. Germans are marching in the streets over it. Greeks are too.
Essential issues of shared responsibility and the common destiny are being
faced in the foum.
I imagine it will be studied for its lessons and data for years to come, as
we continue to assess the steady privatization of the commons, and the
roles, rules and tools which we either condone or discredit, of the finance
oligarchy.
The Greeks were always good at archetypal tragedies, and they've done it
again, in a very educational way for us all...
That's the only value I see in it, otherwise it translates to hard times for
millions of people. Nevertheless, it is a useful study. No wonder why people
and organizations in the current environment are afraid of asking for help
with their weaknesses…
Asking for help with our weakness whether we are an individual, business, or
country, and supporting each other to learn to recognize them, is not
opening to a personal critique, especially within a non-predatory
'power-over' environment, it rather is the way the way that we can get a
real example of how we fill each other in. It is what we don't have that
connects us to the people.
This transparency is a key step in setting the ground for symbiotic
relationship, which is arguably the key efficiency driver of evolution along
with autopoetic self-organization. Don't let your ego create a bottleneck in
the project's progress because you're afraid to be transparent for the fear
that in that process some of your 'power-over' privileges might be
diminished, whether they be ownership, hierarchy, star-quality, resource
acquisition, get-the-babe, or whatever. But do make sure you have good
agreements, and a common ground and goal with those you are being
transparent with. Open to your allies, not those who would exploit you
because they are incapable at that moment of recognizing the commons. This
world still is, economically and politically, the Wild West. But with strong
foundations, an open collaborative venture can improve the lives of all of
its stakeholders, and give them something vital and important to engage
their unique capacities and genius in.
*
*
*Don't get pushed around...*
*Asserting and restoring accurate reference points in the dialogue:*
For many it will take a 'I need to see it to believe it' approach to
consider what I'm about to say, (and perhaps what I have said already, in
which case I say read it again, then look back out at the world).
I assert, and this is not really news, that the deep human instinct for
'power-over' with its progeny of negative (not natural) hierarchy, coerced
ownership at the expense of the commons, and ossified non-responsive
self-aggrandizing top-down control, with their progeny, in turn, of
non-transparency, systemic imbalance, privatization of the commons, and cost
externalization are not efficiency or sustainability measures in and of
themselves, and if so only on an incredibly limited scope in a large whole
system.
Further, it does seem likely that there is somehow a way to harness this
'power-over' instinct as an incentive towards furthering the commons while
at the same time tempering it with enough context to offset its more
dangerous tendencies. I only have intimations regarding this. I imagine that
an openly collaborative project studying how this might be accomplished
might be a fitting way to discover a solution to this issue.
I also and finally assert that if you are one to insist that humans are
incorrigibly self-oriented, then the sensations of fulfillment that comes
from stepping aside, being transparent, asking for help with our weaknesses
(and in the process you'll be acknowledged for your strengths), and opening
to the processes of an open collaboration which becomes larger than oneself,
is a much finer and more delicious fare than the fast food of 'power-over'.
But if the only way to believe it is to taste it, then I suggest a place to
begin is to substitute the word 'we' for 'me', and expand the concept. Then
when settled in a bit more, and then a bit more, act, intelligently, with
others who have done the same.
I call this first step 'flipping your 'M'.
4. IMPROV THEATRE AND
COMPLEX ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS
by Michelle James of The
Center of Creative Emergence <http://www.creativeemergence.com/>
*Open Collaboration emphases the emergent aspects of projects. Improv
theatre provides a fascinating look at how to bring emergence into our
projects - editor
*I am in an improvisational theater performing group. We improvise
full-length plays with nothing planned in advance. No structure. No outline.
No character or plot development.
I became fascinated by what makes it work. What allows a complex, coherent,
sense-making structure to emerge from nothing but a simple location?
*
*
I soon recognized the connections between adhering to the principles of
improvisational theater in a performance and being able to adapt, create and
improvise effectively in the work place – and in any social system. The same
principles that allow a performing group to improvise a 90-minute play out
of nothing but a location are the same principles that allow groups, teams,
and organizations to solve problems in new ways and reach peak levels of
creativity and innovative thinking. The principles form the “container” that
allows the group to self-organize to emerge what’s next.
*1. Yes and.
2. Make everyone else look good.
3. Be changed by what is said and what happens.
4. Co-create a shared "agenda."
5. Mistakes are invitations.
6. Keep the energy going.
7. Serve the good of the whole.*
for Michelle's whole article read http://creativeemergence.
typepad.com/the_fertile_unknown/2009/12/improv-theater-and-complex-adaptive-
systems.html
5. SOME THOUGHTS
"Culture has been dominated by a more linear, rationalistic, cartesian
"masculine" perspective. A more feminine culture would embrace values of
open collaboration, co-operation, compassion, whole systems-thinking and
honoring the energy of the Circle. Why is this important?
We are at a whole new crossroads at a higher turn of the spiral, in terms of
embracing the gifts of the many, rather than the needs of the few. Through
re-orienting oursleves towards a more whole-systems, holistic, and integral
perspective--we are creating a better quality of life for ourselves and for
future generations."
David Anthony Chang
"If you were to inquire as to how we can come together in new ways to
collaborate and co-create which actually work in creating harmonic, dynamic,
syngergistic and long-lasting community bonds, what would you discover? One
of the greatest challenges in our awakening of consciousness and
eco-sustainable activities over the years has been just plain getting along.
How do we co-create in ways that allow us to look beyond our 'opinions'
while retaining our unique perspective for the benefit of the whole, while
allowing the Oneness that we are truly underneath it all to take the lead in
decision making for the greatest good?"
Laura Fox, author of the soon to be released "Collaborative Visioning ::
Co-Creation in the Resonant Field"
"God is Open Collaboration" Joseph Jacques
If you have would like to write an article or a letter to the editor for
future editions of Open Collaboration please contact us. If you have been
working on an Open Collaboration project please let us know about it.
For more info contact Alpha Lo at
alplo at yahoo.com, or Alden Bevington at editor at pioneerimprints.com
Please forward this email to those who you think may be interested in it.
<http://www.mailchimp.com/affiliates/?aid=d82974ae53eb8ccfebe2003b0&afl=1>
--
Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Think thank:
http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/attachments/20100324/61985403/attachment-0001.html>
More information about the p2presearch
mailing list