Today we had our second significant Global Strategy Summit at the unMonastery - in order to assess how the overall project is going, focus on what we need to pivot on and reenergise our approach.
The last post I made on EdgeRyders was focused on solving the issue of capacity by establishing well defined Collaborator Roles - whilst this has moved forward somewhat, it’s not enough. I want to register now for the Book of Mistakes a fundamental flaw in the unMonastery prototype - so that it is not repeated in future iterations. One project per a person is a bad idea.
The unMonastery was in many ways intended to be a place where a group worked together collectively to solve problems and in doing so build a new way of working - which drew from the tradition of past monastic orders. Framing the call of applicants around the idea of individual experts, with individual work, is a total anathema to healthy and productive collaboration. As a result we suffer from a deeply rooted concern with individual objectives, a logistical strain and a sense that any time spent working together is damaging and restricts ones own project.
It would be good to discuss alternatives for future iterations on this thread but it’s important to say this wasn’t the sole concern of our meeting. Instead the specific concern here is to extend the project and to prove value in our work by the end of May - for 2 reasons, firstly if those here don’t now act to ensure others can enjoy the same experience of the unMonastery, it might be considered as little more than holiday for hackers. And secondly, more fundamentally, any kind of failure in Matera will cast a long lasting shadow on the potential for others projects like the unMonastery to succeed here.
So with this said, here’s the overview produced prior to the meeting and an initial set of outcomes.
OVERVIEW AND AGENDA
Initial Draft of Stakeholder Interests:
- MT2019
- Desire to act at policy making level
- Desire to establish a neutral space
- Improving Communication with the city
- Creating an international dimension to the bid
- Creating a social innovation dimension to the bid
- The future of the building itself
- Addressing the Challenges
- EdgeRyders
- Good communication and involvement of people remotely
- Create a successful pilot project for ‘Proof of Concept’
- Generate discussion and content for the platform
- Bring more people to EdgeRyders
- City of Matera
- Improve the city
- Create a space for children and intergenerational dialogue/activity
- Upskilling
- Connecting citizens to a global dialogue
- Established a shared space
- Platform for discussing burning issues
- Issues
- Lack of Capacity - Collaborator Roles - ‘Experts’ from Outside
- Time - Less than 2 months
- Proving Value
- Planning that goes into extension
- Communication (is a mess)
- Extending unMonastery Objectives (Rough Sketch)
- Ensure Additional Funds
- Establish Budget / Figure out how much we have saved
- Build relationship with Joseph Grima
- Secure 6 funded unMonasterians (3 Local / 3 International)
- Create 3 Partnerships with Matera based Organisations - that ensures active use and co-ownership of the space.
- Solve 11 Challenges
- Full transition at the end of the year to citizenry of Matera
- Ensure Additional Funds
- Objectives Now - How do we get there? (Initial Suggestions)
- Merge Individual Projects and create taskforces/subgroups focused on a set of (relatively) well defined goals and milestones - COLLABORATE!
- The growing map of Matera
- Open Tech School
- Big festival at the end of May
- What else? (3 MAX?)
- Zero in on a single area in Matera, focus attention and energy here so to ensure impact is visible, measurable and realistic, use as model to expand throughout the city.
- Establish a schedule for between now and end of May (with room to breathe).
- Quotas (e.g number of people to meet, onboard, etc) or state specific commitments that individuals feel accountable for.
- Rules (e.g certain amount of time spent outside of the building)
- GOOD WELL DEFINED COMMUNICATION
- Merge Individual Projects and create taskforces/subgroups focused on a set of (relatively) well defined goals and milestones - COLLABORATE!
- The Report
- What’s missing?
- Schedule for filling in content
- Uploading to EdgeRyders
- Planning
- With all this taken into account what is the structure of planning on weekly basis?
Outcomes
I’ve captured what I could and hope others will follow up with their own outcomes - points above in the initial overview are broadly accepted as common objectives.
Extending unMonastery Objectives and Objectives Now:
(by the second session, this became group under 3 categories)
Initial Sustainability Plan, Split into 4 Tiers (Ben, Rita and Lois Leading) - Working board
- The Report (1st Draft Friday)
- The Projections (1st Iteration Monday)
- The Budget (1st Iteration done)
- The Model / unMonastery in-a-box (End of May)
Notes:
Assess economic value of the services and work produced, with the aim to dwarf the cost of the overall project. Actively engage public in assessing whether they think something is value for money - spent or built collaboratively. Seek clear exchanges of in-kind support.
External Communication (Ksenia Leading)
- Establish Communication Strategy (1st Iteration Monday)
- Presence; Zen Like Delivery, set an example of work not dictated by chaos and deadlines, present ourselves in this way at all times.
- unMonastery Daily Diary
- Tie Content and Documentation directly to specific Challenges
- Tell powerful stories; lose the excel spreadsheet of the mind.
- Centre communication around making visible the ability to bring people together
Integrated Communication, Actionables
- Identify Potential Partners
- Establish a focus group for sceptics to assess unMonastery
- Identify ‘Natural Supporters’ - Understand ‘Internal Client’
- Identify Specific Neighbourhood
- Establish (bi-)weekly dinner with MT2019
Projects
- General agreement to merge projects, 3 core projects yet to be defined, in this moment appears to be; Open Tech School (Led by Kei), May Festival (Led by Marc and David), Cultural Commoning Organsation focused on Tourism (Led by Maria).
- Damiano to create stream of translators for the unMonastery
- Speculative Criteria for assessing feasibility of group projects
Definition of Participants.