This is more like it!
This thread just got a lot more interesting. Thank you @mishek, @Vidrij_Da, @K, @Eimhin and of course @iamronen and @Nadia for contributions.
Here’s my two cents: as Nadia said, it’s a balancing act between asking for reassurance and making sure that the caravan, as David puts it, stays mobile. Example from the Rockefeller Foundation debate (thread here): Eimhin’s sharp question prompted me to do some research. The stature and independence of some of the researchers who were funded by RF persuaded me that it was conditionally ok to accept their money, if it came on a good project. Then:
- on the upside, Eimhin provided a cue for me to double check my ethics. This made me more aware of the issues at stake.
- on the downside, he did not offer any help in doing that. He did not present a balanced argument after looking through their website, so I carried the burden of proving (to myself, more than to him) I am not some kind of evil corporate money taker.
- a more telling point is the following. Here's the group that ended up doing the work in the RF application process: Arthur, Lucas, Ilaria, Vinay, Chris Brewster and myself. They did not find any problem with what we are doing! Eimhin might still be unconvinced, but he can simply stay out of this one operation while still being a very active and respected member of the community. Everyone wins.
I worry about organizing things in a way that gives people veto power on something they are not contributing to. “Who does the work calls the shots”, we like to say. Does that imply that “who does not do the work does not get to call the shots”? Perhaps that would be going too far, because I do appreciate Eimhin (or anyone else) to blow the whistle when appropriate, and perhaps prevent me from making some bad mistake. But yes, I am trying to embed a strong pro-doing bias into Edgeryders; at every step I try concentrate on enabling people to do whatever it is they want to do – making the company is a step in that direction, and in fact some people are already doing stuff with it. I think this focus is working reasonably well and has empowered us to get surprisingly far on very little resources. IMHO Nadia proposes a good compromise:
ask pointed questions, yes- but please compliment with at least partial attempts to answer them e.g. by researching for existing instances where people have answered them creatively. That way this becomes a collective learning journey, rather than a small number of people serving answers to a growing number of people asking questions.
Deal?