Here’s something fun I invite you all to explore and join in with if you are so moved: http://ow.ly/11y6A

These short URLs tell you next to nothing so I’ll offer a little context.

There’s a group of people I know convened together in open space in the cause of the “metacurrency project (MCP)” … their cause is heavily shaped by the question of play. There are technical dimensions to their work, but their work is aimed at making new things possible for humanity. If I could, I’d be with them now. I’m with them in spirit.

One quick point of entry to their world view (and my own) is in the contrast between Scarcity and Abundance as dominant meme. This is about the attitude in which we engage each other more than about how many resources their are in the world at any given moment. (It’s also a question of not being dominated by this contrast of scarcity and abundance.)

Even accepting some finitude, or relative finitude: as human’s in the application of intelligence we are meant to conduct ourselves in a stewardly manner towards life… that is to say, our behavior should be generative.

So, even though this group is in part engaged in a technical question – building software and protocol under the MCP effort – the larger challenges are social and ideational: how we might live together… opening the space not to offer a final answer, but to situate us in generative spaces of inquiry and infinite play… where the burdensome quality of tasks slip away and joy comes to the fore and where we collectively and selectively form responses and rules with a freedom to mutually adapt ourselves and the rules.

On the voicethreads platform you can add your own voice and your own vision.

I’m interested in more public dialogue, so I only provide my reaction here, and leave the others in that email exchange to speak for themselves and to audiences of their choosing – but as I have something to get off my chest, here I go…

(Wow, well, glad interest has been sparked…) my read is that real (as opposed to who?) people are affected in so many cross-cutting ways by media policies that they can’t even see it (or if and to the extent they do they are seeing so many things at once, and potentially different things from each other, with different languages to interpret or speak about them).

We’re embedded in the results/effects of media policy. Another factor to consider is the manner in which policy obscures itself. To the extent that those shaping policy are often angling for particular perks, obscurity is a strategy and an advantage … to those passing legislation/policy and serving narrow interests. The contrast between narrow interest vs. general interest in any policy (media or other policy) is the big puzzle. We’ve tended to accept the exigency of acceding to the narrow interest to get things done, or to get the uncomfortable questions off the table. We tend to steer away from the real work that would build enduring, generative capacity.

None of this is terribly helpful, I am sure.

Thom Clark makes excellent points in that capacity is policy … i.e. local capacity is both a (variably effective) policy maker and the result of policy. If we are to collectively “grow ours” (in contrast with “get mine”) then we have to invest in meaningful capacity building that seeds the local and builds lateral connections over these localities (not necessarliy spatial/geographic nearness) – in multiple dimensions – capacity in fields of interest, of professions, of other “community” of various stripes.

That is, every sector of life is touched by this.

In our work on Digital Excellence this was perhaps our central point. (We blend the concepts of Digital Literacy and Media Literacy at this point, at a very deep level, so they maybe synonymous or united at a higher level.)

Every sector, every aspect of our individual and collective lives is touched by media/technology processes. It’s important to pair these terms – individual and collective – it’s not just individual lives here, it’s how we live together that is affected, and our own awareness of our role and freedom to shape this. So it’s groups and communities and families, and organizations that have to be part of the story, too. Each of these flavor and shape the quality of my individual life and I have to take time to care for these aspects of my/our selves.

My gut is to flip the question on it’s head… show me any story or any aspect of life not affected by media policy. I recognize that that’s probably not compelling for the audience.

FWIW, (and to state the banal) I’m an individual… I engage in media activism, and media policy, and I buy into the importance of “being the media”. I endeavored to get others to some state of awareness on several interrelated topics (and to build my own awareness and understanding thereby), not to mention awareness of their interrelatedness, and I employ multiple strategies to do so. I have perhaps a very different notion of “policy work” than what may be commonly understood, but there’s the rub — all sorts of work are being re-imagined and restructured. (That’s nothin’ new, but perhaps only more so now..)

“Be the media” as sentiment and strategy is an expression of this transformation of work and life, and a recognition that practice and policy are one. Policy may otherwise be regarded as something that happens above, or elsewhere, or happens to you … but in this model, policy is what we contest and what we make and how we practice. If you’ve the motivation and I haven’t worn out my welcome take a look at the entry for Grassroots Public Policy Development in the Public Sphere Pattern Language project spearheaded by Doug Schuler.

Getting to this practice of “being the media” and being with (and for) each other in community, talking about and reforming our practice and our communities at the same time gives us something fairly exciting to talk about. Trying to be clear: talking about or sharing any of the strategies we’ve employed feels like a success story to me in that we’ve been building community and community capacity.

I’m tempted to enumerate tools, devices, strategies – ranging from the pattern language process itself to open space and other civic focused gatherings to new models of philanthropic or educational/research engagement to positive media to open data commons models – but any list would be partial, and would not honor the plethora of ongoing efforts and approaches to living together in a new way. So many things tied together … we’re enmeshed in good and bad ways. And as the story goes – each interpretation of the moment is subject to revision. Perhaps.

Any of you are welcome to tell your story here – or anywhere. How does media policy affect you, personally, or the things you care about?

Here’s the description of the session, join us if you can!

Networks of Collaboration and Service: Redesigning Work and Partnership

Tools and Networks abound. Our challenge is in working together effectively. What is missing from the tools and practices of the social benefit sector? What are the opportunities for coordination among and across networks afforded by a shift in perspective towards building for the commons? Catalytic Communities, a pioneer in the solutions ecology will be the starting point for a collaborative design session — building the tools and culture we need to grow a plurality of commons.

That’s the idea. This could be the theme of a conference all it’s own. We’ll see how it goes. We’ve only got one hour, but this is one of the questions that drives me in my work., Even if we just foster a little seriousness on the opportunities this frame evokes, we’ll be taking a step.

The metaphor of the mash-up is perfect for our vision. We want to bring together the talents and assets and interests and needs of Chicago — Chicago techies and community activists, NPOs and others ready to give back to the community and grow the network. Fundamentally, our perspective is that while NPOs are addressing deep needs in the communities they serve, our city and the neighborhoods and professions and trades are full of resources and talents that we have but to put together in new and exciting ways. This has been my credo for some time … this perspective informed the efforts of the Chicago Digital Access Alliance and our campaign for Digital Excellence (in the context of the Citywide Wireless Initiative that wound up stalling out).

We started off the evening with an invitation to everyone to step up and join us as co-convenors for this effort going forward… we all introduced ourselves to the group and then we sunk our teeth into our first big question about what Chicago Non-Profit’s really need.

That is an important question, to be sure, but I’ve reached the point where I want to start from our strengths and assets. We need to figure out how to share our skills and talents. We don’t have to start from a scarcity mindset.

More important than the answers to the question we started with, or any alternative positive framing I might offer, is the question of conversation and story, and widening the circle of participants. What questions do we have to ask? What are the big questions that will open some real conversation for Chicago? Who do we address the big questions to? Can we ask ourselves the really hard questions?

For myself – the issue of new social technologies leaves me rather ambivalent. We have to start from our purposes, and not from the faddish new tools. We have to get clear about what we want for our city. Let our technology choices and investments stem from that vision.

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These writings provide a conceptual matrix for an interesting breed of Civic Entrepreneur- (it’s a partial list) … really a new model of Citizenship and Society/Polity. They aren’t new to a lot of you – and if you have other works that you think really need to be on the list, please let me know.

Movement as Network, by Gideon Rosenblatt, also: The three pillars of social source

David Isenberg’s Rise of the Stupid Network

Pushing Power to the Edges (pdf) by Jillaine Smith, Martin Kearns, Allison Fine

The Cluetrain Manifesto (Doc Searles, et al.)

Cory Doctorow’s Down & Out in the Magic Kingdom

Coase’s Penguin: (by Yochai Benkler … his book The Wealth of Networks is also recommended. There’s a wiki inviting discussion of his ideas.)

The list doesn’t represent any hierarchic ordering.

Perhaps the earliest open space poet was Emily Dickinson. In 1858, she wrote:

In the name of the Bee–
And of the Butterfly–
And of the Breeze–Amen!

My only regret is that the between the eChicago Symposium, family obligations and the Green Festival, I wasn’t able to attend the conference at the University of Chicago put on by the Invisible Institute’s ‘The View from the Ground’ … Issues and Inquiries Arising from Eight Blocks of Chicago’s South Side.

This conference will explore issues, themes, and lines of inquiry that have emerged from the eight square blocks that once were the Stateway Gardens public housing development on Chicago’s South Side. Its aim is to enrich public discourse about fundamental issues–race, class, gender, impunity, and institutional denial–by grounding the conversation in the realities of life in an inner city community during a time of “transformation” . . .

I’ve written before about Jamie Kalven of the Invisible Institute.

Each of the three events deals with profound aspects of social justice and brought together some amazing people. Is Chicago awakening?

I personally needed that positive networking. I have felt it often in open space, but haven’t felt it to this extent online – not with so many groups and individuals. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I invite you to take share in a Vision, articulating Guild in (r)elation to Networking and Commons Perspectives which are among core values of the EFN.

Imagine a Guild as a Service-Leadership Collective, grounded in the ethical pursuit of a craft, and standing in relation to a Network of Practice.

Imagine a Concentric Commons: each Guild a Commons, encircled by a Network of Practice also as Commons, encircled at the widest level again by the greatest Commons for All of Us.

There is something striking in the relation amongst these Concentric Commons:

What is Good for All of Us is Good for each Network, and for each Guild.
What is Good for each Network is also Good for each Guild.
What is Good for the Goose is Good for the Gander (got you there!)
What is not Good for each Guild cannot be Good for Network nor for All of Us.
What is not Good for each Network cannot be Good for All of Us.

This sets a high bar, indeed.

As Guild is related to craft and practice… i.e. activities we find useful in this world, we see that within the widest Circle, within the All of Us there are Many Guilds, and Many Networks. (Network offers a Filter and Map.)