I start participating in Source Team of this season in Emergin Leader Labs. We had call with Arthur Brock and also spoken a little about UnMonastery and possible collaboration. He also mentioned helping with getting a flight with Frequent Flyer Miles for Ethan McCutchen developing Wagn with few other folks. BTW we also started using Wagn for OuiShare Labs.
In case someone here feels interested and would like to participate in Emerging Leader Labs- Summer 2013 please let me know. Even better please Apply To Participate direclty (only 3 days left!) + paste link to your submission in comment below. We could look together on making campaign of collecting Frequent Flyer Miles to arrange flight for a person! I would also link it with a research group exploring how we all can fly less frequently in general
Elf, you are truly a force for good. Those guys are lucky to have you involved.
I will not participate in ELL – I need to focus on the Edgeryders-unMonastery buildup. But if I must have frequent flyer miles stored in somewhere, and if you find an easy way for me to transfer them, I will do so gladly.
I watched the video – and it was not my first ELL video either. Have you noticed how different off-mainstream folks look in the US and in Europe? In America the predominant visual language (and language language) is hippy; in Europe it’s punk. I wonder if this plays out in the sort of stuff they tend to do, and how.
That’s an interesting observation, Alberto! I tend to agree that on a mythological level, the ‘counter-culture’ in America is more idealistic and positivist, probably in large part due to the legacy of (real, physical) ‘open space’ in which to explore and create anew by simply detaching from the old. However, that myth is being quickly dispelled in the 21st century–as is, I think, the idea of ‘punk’ and rebellion–in a more and more connected, finite, interdependent global village.
I produced the video series for ELL last summer, and will be involved again this year most likely, and I’ll say that almost everyone who participated in the first prototype experience would like to adjust the format for more emphasis on collaborative production and accountability. However, the first class of ‘test subjects’ also agreed that the initial process of more introspective and interpersonal work, hacking ‘social DNA’ together, although somewhat intangible and ‘hippy’, was powerful and necessary - something I tried to convey with images and thoughts in video form.
Thankfully, the setting of the labs is an interesting contextual mashup of these two spirits of ‘hippy’ and ‘punk’: there is a large area of beautiful undeveloped land where I am working on permaculture design and natural building, along side a gritty and corroded (but still very useful and upcycle-worthy!) old industrial site–so, look for an interesting hybrid blend of stories and styles to emerge in the next round
Elf - I am so glad to hear you will be participating! I hope to get more involved with this ER community online here, and if circumstances allow for travel this year perhaps a visit to activity sites in Europe.
I meant no criticism – I could not resist making the point, the aesthetics are so obvious. Unlike you, I did not ask around for feedback around the relational side of this ER experience. Personally (and only personally) I find the roughness quite liberating. In the LOTE conference, someone had the idea to do a session called “Dark sarcasm”. The whole point was to venture out of one’s comfort zone, in areas like system collapse, YOYO vs. WOOO etc. You were sure to get verbally abused for saying stuff like “we could use solar” unless you were familiar with the math (how many Kw per square meter of state-of-the-art solar panel?); and when somebody got sniped, everyone else would cheer (including, often, the person being abused). It was very refreshing: we could turn things around in our heads, be crazy and creative in suggesting things because the nutty stuff would be immediately shot down by the others. It was a tough environment for ideas, with strong evolutionary pressure – hence rapid progress. That someone (Smari, I think) got it right: if you don’t criticize an idea for fear of hurting the person that suggests it, you are missing learning opportunities. Plus, once you are out there trying to start some crazy project, the bad guys will throw all of those criticitisms at you – and your idea will have an underdeveloped immune system to fight them off with.
This is by no means a characteristic of Edgeryders alone. At CCC, the conference spurred by the Chaos Computer Club – possibly the most impressive hacker conference in Europe – MCs introduce Q&A sessions as follows: “Don’t thank anyone and don’t say who you are, we don’t care. Just ask the question, then sit down.”
This might sound horrible and mean, but it just saves you so much time. Very soon it sinks in that that’s the way things work, so you stop taking it personally. And in the end, you come to expect from your friends and respected peers to go for your throat in debates: better they do it in the seminar room than life doing it in the field!
Alberto I appreciate your perspective and experience here - and I am largely sympathetic with regard to being authentic, respectful, and precise in collaborative workspace…
However! An important part of the ethos/esprit at ELL (and in my life, personally) is the agile blend of work/play/live/learn such that there are never rules and rigid boundaries and even the preferred background atmosphere of “culture” holds an edge of unpredictability, disruption, and fluid synthesis. This approach was formalized in the Gameshifting methodology at ELL - and to avoid contradicting myself re: rules <–> methodology I’ll say that it works best as an open/infinite game that invites participatory evolution and exploration.
I would certainly challenge the assumption that there’s a “the way things work” which people should adopt and expect in a broad category of interaction, although it can be convenient to make explicit conventions around certain instances and activities in order to ‘collapse the wave function’ and reach a desired outcome on schedule. Just take in to account the loss of diversity and inspiration which may result.
Debate is the antithesis of co-creation, and both of them belong in the ‘greater good’ of collaboration. I think ELL is running some important experiments this year; as is UnMonastery, Valldaura, Mycelium School…it is spreading, and connected
I’m no authority on the matter – and as I said up front, that was only really just personal. Whatever works must be the right “way things work” – and that shifts across people. At the LOTE2 people made a badge with two sides: one said more or less “don’t pull your punches, I can take it”; the other one “I prefer a less jagged interaction”, or something to that effect. You could wear the badge whichever way, and people would get a visual cue as to what was the most appropriate way to behave. Yet another incremental innovation! I seem to recall this came out of the interaction between myself (definitely a “no holds barred” kind of guy) and Nadia El-Imam (who prefers people not to go for the jugular from the get go). Since each recognized the value to the collective of the other’s proposition, someone (she, I think) came up with the idea of the double sided badge.
