From our hometown hero, Kinnie Starr: Alright.
…Your mind leads my eye
to a world more beautiful…
to a world more beautiful…
I’ve been hanging out with Ashley Cooper and Thomas Arthur this week learning how to juggle, playing Uno and Yahtzee and using the advantage of new eyes on the island to see things in a delightful new way. Both of these two lovely people have that gift.
And as a result of spending time hanging, there hasn’t been much blogging, but I have been doing some reading, and here are the latest things I’ve noticed:
- Animals laughed long before humans arrived on the scene. They haven’t been laughing much since then.
- Here’s a heck of a question from generationsit:
Forget what Buddhism, Christian Mysticism, Vedanta, Hinduism, etc. have told you about the nature of existence and your own awareness right now. Let�s pretend that each one of those traditions�due to bad translations, collective delusion, and culturally-specific factors we�ll never understand�is totally full of sh_t. Let�s also pretend that the theories on Emptiness, Nirvana, Godhead, Nonduality etc. are also completely wrong, outmoded, and outdated (and, for me at least, boring). What, in your own words, is your deepest experience of this moment right now? What new spiritual theory could we synthesize if left to our own devices? - Wild Thoughts Magazine: an online journal of environmental writing
- Jack Ricchiuto has sold his little house on gassho avenue and bought a bigger place on jackzen boulevard. It seems he’s opening a optician’s practice in the basement.
- The Lady’s not for burning
- Free Throat Singing Videos, including all kinds of traditions
- Dave Pollard contributes some expansive thinking on conversation. Welcome to my world, Dave!
- Bernie DeKoven reflects on the legacy of New Games:
“The search for the well-played game is what holds the community together. But the freedom to change the game is what gives the community its power.’
Song from Alison David:
…Pure and clear
I feel warmth whenever you�re near me
You�re my family and you�ll always be
Brothers and sisters coming together as one
All the things you do
Keep me loving you
Just the way you are
Keep shining like a star…
More on the simple rules of community forming…
Here is Shawn’s current thinking on community formation:
Simple rule 1: Participating in a community must be easy. Hold meetings on a regular basis�say the first Tuesday of the month. Make the technology dead simple. Avoid technology until you need it.
Simple rule 2: Someone �who matters� must care about what you are doing. In the early stages it might be quite unclear how your community�s activities delivers business value. Consequently, the �people that matter� must initially believe in the concept of a community of practice. More importantly, the core team and then the other members must care about the topic�nothing new there. Knowing what a group cares about can sometimes be difficult to work out. It requires discussions among members to discover the activities people would commit their precious discretionary time to. If you don�t find this, you don�t have a community in which case people will always be too busy. The choice here is to disband or persist in looking for a better topic. This is the point where your community activities should operate like a skunkworks. Low cost and exploratory.
Simple rule 3: Community activities must link to member needs. Remember I said the end result must link to a need. Some people need to be connected, others need public recognition, while some want greater access to power. Your discussions at the outset need to get a sense of the many needs your community should cater for. Running anecdote circles would be a good way to get people to express these needs.
These are good, and they lead me to thinking about process. Over the weekend I was working with a group that actually DOES this kind of work, and what we decided that what we were talking about was shaking out the existing network. It’s not so much a question of assembling pieces together in a network, but rather shaking things up a little bit so that a network (or a community) emerges.
There is a technique in astronomy that small telescope owners like me use for better seeing faint objects. You tap the tube of the scope and that little vibration is enough to cause the faint object to “pop out.” Your eyes see it and can then focus on it and work to resolve details of it.
A fourth principle I would add to Shawn’s list might be that once you have set the process in place, step back and participate as a member of the network instead of it’s controlling hub. A community that is sustainable has no one in charge of it. There is a role for a forming organization, but if you don;t get out of the way fast enough, the community will stick to you, making it dependant upon you for its continued existence. And that is NOT a community.
It’s a question of lead, follow AND get out of the way.
Technorati Tags: community, development, selforganization,
Nice song in the style of an old American murder ballad.