enspiral
Where conversations spark ideas, that become new projects, which grow into world changing ventures.
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intro’d a while back.. via loomio and Richard and p2p.. adding page this day:
sandymaxey (@sandymaxey) tweeted at 6:25 AM on Sun, Sep 17, 2017:
Fascinating. https://t.co/knK07AvWZi
(https://twitter.com/sandymaxey/status/909392869282258944?s=03)“Uber didn’t come out of nowhere, it came out of a culture and networks. We need to build the alternative.” – Nathan Schneider
“Toxic leaders aren’t just a bunch of bad apples in a barrel that need to be tossed out. They are employing a social strategy that works for them, given the institutional structure of the U.S. Army … The current institutional structure breeds toxic leaders … The only solution to this problem is a change in the institutional social environment.” – David Sloan Wilson
The humans we become at work
Think about how much of our lifetimes we spend at ‘work’, how this culture shapes us — our sense of self, how to relate to others, what is possible in the world.
Cooperatives were developed to address inequality, poor working conditions, create democracy and fairness. But without creating a strong cultural foundation of collaboration and humanism, they can get eaten by the predominant ‘dog-eat-dog’ work culture.
Imagine, if instead, the social environment in our organisations bred a different kind of culture? One where co-generation trumped individual genius, where you could safely assume that everyone else was thinking and acting in the interest of the whole, ..
Sounds pretty utopian huh? But it’s what a group of us have been prototyping for the past six years in New Zealand and around the world. This experiment is called Enspiral.
We started off as a freelancers collective dedicated to working together to more easily win highly-paid work so that we could spend the rest of our time working on stuff that really matters. We defined core values of collaboration, autonomy, transparency, diversity, entrepreneurialism, non-hierarchy.
As our numbers swelled, so did the complexity of our endeavour. Instead of being one company, we were over a dozen — linked by a central foundation. There are currently over 200 people in our organisation, all of which have open access to participate in our decision-making and financial management.
To cope with this complexity, we developed tools like Loomio for collaborative decision-making and Cobudget for participatory budgeting. Other groups became interested in operating like us and adopted our tools, structure and processes. But a strange thing happened. They still often didn’t collaborate well. There was something missing. In 2015 I was given the job of finding out what that was… It was the enabling culture that they lacked.
“Enspiral believes solutions to humanity’s biggest challenges demand a new way of relating to each other” – Enspiral member
Through these practices and cultivation of a collaborative mindset, we each became different humans — re-cultured if you like. Work became a practice-ground to become the kinds of people that we need to become to create deep solidarity, dismantle inequality and toxic power dynamics. In essence, together we developed the human abilities required to make the paradigm shift the world is crying out for :
- Systems literacy (embracing the complexity of reality)
- Non-naive trust (assuming that your collaborators want to build you up)
- Flexibility and response-ability (adapting in dynamic realities and constant change)
- Collective intelligence through inter-subjectivity (letting go of the construct of objective truth)
- Surrendering control (actually the group is smarter than you are)
- Deep empathy and ability to use emotions in service of what we were creating together (yes you can bring your feelings here)
- Naming and navigating power dynamics (no there is no such thing as a flat power structure)
- Dancing between autonomy and collaboration (self-leadership and shared leadership)
- Lifelong learning (continual experiments and prototyping, insatiable reading)
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oh my enspiral.. from value in commons econ:
2\ case studies
p 16
enspiral – Enspiral has successfully pioneered a funding process based on capped returns, in which capital is separated from decision-making, and the resulting resources can be donated to the commons after the agreed payments of the returns….Enspiral is a network of professionals and companies aiming to empower and support social entrepreneurship…..it also serves as the legal entity of the network as a whole.
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enspiral able to create/present their own brand to clients..
oi.. graeber enough to stop law et al
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memebership description..
flowery words, but same song.. ie: need leader/decision-maker.. people telling other people what to do.. people deciding who’s in/out..et al
p 19
Regardless of the formal structures, all the people that contribute to Enspiral effectively participate in the governance and day-to-day coordination of the network through a series of coordination tools, including (Enspiral, 2016a): • Loomio;Cobudget; Chalkle: a virtual space where all the Enspiral events are listed, ;Numerous communication channels,…
imagining hosted-life-bits via self-talk as data.. making much of this irrelevant.. because decision making is unmooring us
enspiral coord/govt tools: 1\ loomio: open source decision making; 2\ cobudget: investors vote on where to allocate; 3\ chalkle: events listed; 4\ communication channels ie: newsletter, slack fb group et al
flowery words not needed.. such a strong same song embed..
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on enspiral pioneering new ‘ethical’ value regime.. in ways that do not endanger ethical orientation..
whoa.. huge red flag ensiprial/loomio.. et al .. same song..
enspiral.. shifts away from dominant form of shareholder driven command/control..
oh my.. but still decide who gets in/out.. still branding.. ie: commondifying.. because graeber enough to stop law.. have to or people would stop buying into it..
3 ways show enspiral appraoch to value:
1\ open source.. does not conform to artificial scarcity .. providing training et al
but just to members/community allowed in.. and need training.. oi
2\ collab funding.. can propose project.. create standardized proposal called ‘bucket’.. using simplified online form.. on reg basis.. those who have contributed funds decide to which ‘bucket’ they invest
aka: graeber grant law.. oi
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(still collab funding): furthermore.. people actively commit money as well as skills, knowledge and creative energy to the realisation of this vision..
not legit creative energy aka: graeber min\max law.. et al oi..
3\ capped investor returns.. to ensure investors/money.. lined up w mission..
oh my.. enspiral
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find/follow enspiral:
Virtual and physical network of companies and professionals working together to create a thriving society.
new zealand
http://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Enspiral
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perhaps an even deeper nother way
ie: hlb via 2 convos that io dance.. as the day..[aka: not part\ial.. for (blank)’s sake…]
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via fb share by michel.. enspiral as ie on love made visible site:
http://www.lovemadevisible.eu/examples/enspiral
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douglas rushkoff (@rushkoff) tweeted at 5:50 AM – 7 Nov 2018 :
Remember: top-down governance isn’t everything. There are still bottom-up, community-based solutions that don’t depend on elected officials. Hear Enspiral on the new Team Human show https://t.co/XHl2RthCzy (http://twitter.com/rushkoff/status/1060152625495191553?s=17)on new book – better work together – http://betterworktogether.co/
31 min – refining collective decision making
32 min – s: proposal based decision making fundamentally diff than having a ballot w a yes or no
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Richard D. Bartlett ⌛️ (@RichDecibels) tweeted at 4:39 AM on Wed, Sep 25, 2019:
This blog post about the book we wrote is possibly better than the book we wrote… https://t.co/AReUNXttyw
(https://twitter.com/RichDecibels/status/1176808377328001024?s=03)That’s what this post is all about and I think I may have stumbled upon the “next big thing” that I was looking for—even if the tech world isn’t quite ready for it.
Tech world, meet Enspiral
My objective with this article was not to push any “woo-woo” organizational structure on you or sell you on the need to build a self-managed business. But Enspiral has been challenging the status quo for over a decade, and I think it’s undeniable that there are trends like remote work, the sharing economy, and social entrepreneurship that are driving us towards a place where we should be rethinking our organizational structures.
good.. but today we can do better. go deeper.. ie: 2 convers as infra.. via tech as it could be..
curiosity over decision making
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One subtle flavour i love from @enspiral: theory/ frameworks/ abstractions are treated as private concerns. You’re expected to use them at home to develop your thinking but in conversation you stick with plain language, direct experience and curiosity as much as possible.
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/RichDecibels/status/1197410618531360770
Richard D. Bartlett (@RichDecibels) tweeted at 0:16 AM on Thu, Nov 21, 2019:
We still use stupid impenetrable jargon sometimes don’t get me wrong. It’s just the bias trends towards accessibility and plain language.
(https://twitter.com/RichDecibels/status/1197413496821936133?s=03)
what if that’s backwards..? i mean.. who decides what is plain language..? who’s plain language..?
imagining we take that stupid impenetrable jargon (ie: idio-jargon) as our universal plain language..
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be you. 