#History and Context
#Progress to Date
#Value Creation
#A Place To Work Together On The One Thing That Unites Us All
#Relational and Conceptual Value
#Facilitation
#Recording and Sensemaking
#Technological Infrastructure
#Social and Organizational Infrastructure
#Legal Infrastructure
#Network and Ecosystem Enrichment.
#Planning and Action Cycles
#Request For Recognition of Value
#On Value
#Proforma Use of Funds.
#Concept
#A Rapidly Scaling Meta Project
#The Core Team
#Funding Structure
#Core Team and Infrastructure Fund
#Impact Funds
#Investment Funds Phase II
#Funding Phase I
In response to the [Meta Crisis] threatening humanity and the [Living System], and to the [Meta Vision] of a better future that continually arises from the heart of love, we have begun to recognize and participate in a more competent way in the [Meta Project] that is required to:
Solve the total set of grand challenges
Accomplish the total set of global goals
Design and build a flourishing and abundant future for all
Catalyzing such an effort in this decade will simultaneously address the pressing issues we are currently facing, while creating the infrastructure and processes required for each subsequent generation to take up the baton and press on towards destiny.
Based on our experience in large scale infrastructure construction, technology development, innovation funding, and many other fields we are beginning a process through which we will attempt to articulate and present out the value that is being created through this process.
We trust that as value is created and recognized, it can be transacted on by an increasing number of people so that a ever-growing snowball of goodwill can emerge.
Several years ago, we stepped back to look at [Worksite: Earth] in its entirety, to see if we could conceptualize a strategic program of action that actually might work to accomplish the total set of objectives above. We found that it was indeed possible to conceptualize a logical network of commitments and milestones, that if accomplished, would produce throughput of the goal, within a single generation.
Recognizing that every living being would be a stakeholder and participant in such an endeavor, we also began to design and build the structure(s) that would be required to connect, coordinate and empower [Conscious Agents] around the world. As it is said, changing everything takes everyone.
Recognizing that new and existing fields of trust would need to be woven together, we also began to design and build the foundations for a diverse global community that could be inspired to come together around the one thing that unites us all.
Recognizing that we needed a starting point, we began to connect together a diverse network of leaders and experts in various fields around the concept of a [Meta Project].
Recognizing that each of us were likely holding unique pieces of the puzzle, we began to discover and map the resources, capabilities, gaps, and needs in the field.
And recognizing that we couldn’t possibly predict the future and would need to navigate through short iterative cycles, we engaged in our first formal 6 week cycle as a community.
Here is what happened.
We are presenting this summary of the value we believe is being co-created by this community in hopes that if God and humanity also finds it of value, the resources required will continually arise to continue to expand the good work.
The next step, if humanity agrees it is wise, is to equip a small core team with the tools and resources required to coordinate and empower a growing decentralized federation of initiatives that advance the [Critical Path] towards [The Goal]. This primarily runs through continuing to design and build the federation and shared infrastructure to empower a decentralized-yet-coordinated-network-of-autonomous individuals, organizations, and communities around the world.
When we speak of Value, we are speaking of it here technically, in the sense that economic systems speak of it.
Organizations are created to accomplish a set of goals that are valuable to a customer. Often, that customer in turn uses the [Value] that was created for them in turn to create [Value] for their customers. This basic [Chain] of [Value Creation] works its way through a series of organizations from the smallest individual inputs all the way up to the most complex outputs.
As the organization accomplishes the goal for the customer, value is created for the customer that is then recognized and paid for.
Activity that the customer does not value is [Waste].
Organizations work to progressively eliminate [Waste], and progressively increase [Value] creation. These two activities work together to increase [Throughput] of the [Goal].
Value is recognized by those who pay the creator for what they have created. Less is paid for less value, more is paid for greater value creation. This voluntary reciprocity around created value is the basis for functional free market economies. Reciprocal relationships and value exchange need not be monetary in nature and can be bartered or transacted in kind in a number of ways.
Value can take numerous forms. For example a product, service, knowledge, location, mindset, access, influence, wisdom, capability, etc. Anything that anyone is willing to recognize as valuable can be a basis of value exchange.
The key is that the [Value] is created and recognized, and reciprocally transacted on so that the cycle can continue.
Often value creation goes unnoticed. If it is not noticed, it cannot be recognized. If it cannot be recognized, it cannot be valued. If it cannot be valued, it cannot be transacted with. If it cannot be transacted with, the ecosystem / economy of value exchange cannot build itself.
As we recognize and enumerate different kinds of value that has been creating or is emerging, we make it visible, and recognizable, and countable, and otherwise measurable. This leads to the possibility of also making it transactable by a multitude of different relationships. For example by funding partners, media partners, influencers, thought leaders, and the full diversity of current and future collaborators.
This is a reflection on the value that was created in the first 6 week cycle. Based on the resources we are entrusted with, we will create as much value as we can in each cycle, and then report back out. The intention is for this snowball of value creation to continue to grow each cycle.
We are defining Value as [Throughput of the Goal].
The [Goal] is the total integrated wellbeing, development, and right relationship of all generations of life in a flourishing and regenerating world.
In service of creating [Throughput] of this [Goal], by advancing along the [Critical Path] towards it, the following value was created and recognized by the community:
One Thing That Unites Us All
The co-creation of an identifiable place, that is not any one of the diverse organizations, institutions, governments, political parties, or religious denominations we might associate with, where we can work together as individuals towards the one thing that unites us all.
The engagement of a highly curated network of dozens of individuals, each with their own strong networks, in focused dialogue and action around the one thing that unites us all.
The creation of an ecosystem that allows for the types of value that cannot easily emerge in one-on-one conversations between people of the same organization, or between two organizations that are not a part of a richer, more diverse ecosystem.
The creation of a conceptual whole big enough to begin uniting and aligning our previously divergent focuses.
The creation of an overarching and uniting [Meta Goal].
The beginning of an overarching and uniting [Structure of Values].
The creation of a way to define [Value] at the broadest scale.
The beginning of a way to recognize [Value] as it is created.
The beginning of a way to package and present created [Value] to the world.
The articulation of a set of understandable language and concepts around the [Meta Crisis] and [Meta Project].
The creation of the [Meta Project’s] Ask: To come together and engage in dialogue around the one thing that unites us all, paired by action in 6 week cycles to meet needs, solve problems, and continuously improve our lives and our world.
The inspiration and vision that this is possible and achievable, here and now.
The coupling of vision with capable, engaged, and distributed leadership.
The engagement of diverse people, in diverse ways, offering their unique brilliance, experience, authenticity, and discernment to the community.
The engagement of initiative, energy, resources, work, time, thought, and articulation to connect with one another and build relationships and trust beyond the weekly meetings.
The creation of a fixed rhythm of weekly community meetings.
The co-creation of a space and people capable of commanding and holding attention.
The cross pollination and weaving among an emerging ‘network of networks’.
Holding space that engages diverse amazing people who continue to participate
The guiding of dialogue that is generative and evocative
The honing and deployment of various methodologies to source multiple viewpoints from different participants (waterfalls, breakouts, fish bowls, open discussions, the use of chat)
The inspiration of participants, and growing sense and recognition of the value that is emerging.
Holding space to “be with” pain and discomfort as they emerge in the group, without dropping into reactivity, judgment, defensiveness, withdrawing, quitting, trigger responses, etc., and how to be with such responses when they do occur.
The creation of a spacious enough container of expectation that we will experience some levels of disagreement, conflict, and emotional arousal just by convening diversity.
Embracing the ability for the group to carry itself with limited moderation for stretches of time, trusting the process.
The ability to reign in the process when it feels like more focus is needed.
The ability to track in real time what is actually happening in the room.
The ability to engage in real time based on what is actually happening / emerging.
Recording calls, creating transcripts, saving chats.
Processing the calls, transcripts, and chats to find out more about what happened, what emerged, what threads are arising.
Designing and building technology to aid in the sensemaking process.
Conscious efforts to process with inner sensemaking (intuitive sensemaking, creative sensemaking, individually and in conversation after events, developing further the emergent ideas and threads).
Sharing the additional conversations and weaving the emergent threads and learnings back into other conversations.
Dedicated focus on weaving together different threads from different conversations.
Seeing the big picture of what is seeking to emerge through different events and conversations, gathering concrete nuggets and themes.
Conscious recognition and articulation of what the group is sensing.
Recognizing what is seeking to emerge as action items, what needs to be dialogued on or processed more, what big or persistent questions are arising.
Recognizing what people and resources are already present, how they show up and step up in different forums.
Strategies and assistance to to further engage / empower / mobilize what is already here.
The creation of documents around what is emerging on multiple dimensions, be it conceptual, practical, technical, dialogical, reading lists, links of interest.
Mind mapping of the conversations and events.
Activated a “sovereign” chat system in partnership with Collective Sense Commons.
Funded and Activating a backbone infrastructure platform in partnership with Open Future Coalition.
Activated a shared database and data structure to begin testing interoperability among multiple technological platforms.
Activated a dynamic repository system to store calls, links, documents, and events in partnership with Catalist.
Activated technology that enables downloading and tagging of chat contents from Zoom chats (and eventually Mattermost) in the interoperable database.
Began experimenting with visualizations of the underlying data.
Established the language and basic logic and rules for a decentralized-yet-coordinated-and-federated network / community of sovereigns
Established multiple (circles / pods / sovereigns) according to function and theme
Defined the basic startup / bootstrapping procedure for (circles / pods / sovereigns / teams)
Established social understanding and expectations regarding the need for diversity and redundancy among all functions and elements (no one organization or group “owns” any area or theme).
Established a basic shared understanding of the different types of areas and functions that would require (circles), and a basic understanding of how those circles could rightly relate to one another.
Established the basic “rules” and logic for how to unite (sovereign / autonomous / self directed circles) into higher order functional unity through a [Platform Approach].
Created the basic understanding and expectation of the basic templated agreements that would be required as “service interfaces” between all elements of the system.
Developed multiple Miro-boards to aid in mapping and visualization.
Created the conceptual architecture for distributed global federation / community of goodwill (multiple years of work).
Established a working prototype in the United States capable of dealing with multiple capital flows from charitable donations, to charitable investments through DAFs, to political donations, to for-profit organizations and investments flowing from the same set of values.
Co-created a ~40 page contextual, conceptual, and planning document outlining the next steps and priorities of the 6 week cycle.
The focus of the coming cycle will be on decentralizing, federating, and resourcing.
In addition to the work being done by the individual sovereigns, as a community we will begin testing what is possible for us to do collectively. This will depend on the amount of value that is recognized by the world in the first 6 week cycle, which will drive what resources are available for us to incorporate and advance.
On that note, we need your help establishing a network of reciprocity.
We have a growing community of people willing to devote themselves to creating solutions, solving problems, and co-creating as much value as possible.
Based on the tremendous value created in the first cycle, which built upon and began to synthesize lifetimes of work by many participants, something extraordinary is emerging.
In order to create the space and runway for that emergence to continue, we are requesting recognition and transaction on the value that has been created, so that the story can continue and the ecosystem can continue to build itself.
We are open to discussing all forms of value recognition and exchange, from charitable donations, to debt-based funding, to communications amplification, to media, to introductions, to any other forms of capital and resource exchange that would help advance the mission of solving and grand challenges and designing and building the best world we can.
Proforma covering the 12 month period from July 2022 to June 2023
The concept of a federation, community, or joint venture arises from the realization that together we can accomplish far more than any of us can in isolation.
The primary focus of funds stewarded at the highest level of abstraction in the community is to build the shared services, infrastructure, and support that empowers the distributed and autonomous members of the federation.
While there are many models and frameworks to learn from, a variety of different disciplines and community practices dating back thousands of years demonstrate that it generally makes sense for an individual or local element to invest and coordinate at least 10% of its time and resources with other individuals and localities, so that all can be supported and flourish.
This pattern has stayed relatively consistent, from taxation in federations, to donations in spiritual communities, to the amount of overhead that it generally takes to build the infrastructure and relationships that allow a distributed team of teams to succeed in a complex program of action.
Because time is of the essence, if we collectively are to succeed and avoid failure in the Meta Project that is required to address the Meta Crisis and secure our future, we are going to need to rapidly scale up our resources and capabilities.
At scale, we can imagine that if there is already $500 Billion + per year in charitable cash flows, before adding in the government budgets related to similar issues and endeavors, we could dramatically reduce [Waste] and increase the [Flow] of [Value] by using ~10% of those flows to coordinate and empower the rest.
According to the social and organizational architecture that has been outlined for the Meta Project, those funds would not be used to build a large central organization, but rather to design and build a distributed network of autonomous-yet-coordinated service and support organizations and infrastructure to serve and empower all.
As much as some of us would like to see a completely decentralized system with no discernible core team, we recognize the reality of the challenges and opportunities we are up against are going to require incredible skill in leadership, coordination, and execution, at least at the level that is required for human beings to accomplish any significantly complex endeavor.
The architecture calls for the distributed network of sovereigns to contribute highly capable people to a small ‘core team’ that work to serve and coordinate the activities of the federation, and to represent it to the ‘outside’ world.
The activities of the core team would be strictly limited to prevent the type of ‘creeping bureaucracy’ that has plagued many federations.
Our current hypothesis is that these activities would include (something like):
Building community and trust
Helping the community / federation define and maintain the highest overarching shared intention, vision, structure of values, and goals.
Becoming very skilled at helping form, cultivate, encourage, and coordinate the (sovereigns / circles / teams) that are required to fulfill core functions and needs, or that want to emerge to expand the functional capability of the federation / community.
Helping the federation / community set and achieve overarching strategic goals and milestones.
Interfacing with the [Program Management Guild / Sovereign] to coordinate key activities and monitor progress.
Interfacing with other [Core Guilds / Sovereigns] as required to ensure the proper functioning of the community.
Presenting back to the federation the aggregated summaries of its collective progress.
Continuously improving and integrating the ‘Prototype’. The prototype is designed as an interoperable kit of parts that can be locally adapted and deployed.
Define and continuously improve the identity, brand, and communications of the federation / community.
Define who can say with authority what is or is not part of the federation / community.
Define and continuously improve the “Rules of the Game”.
Define and continuously improve the quality of the Culture / Way that sovereigns need to conduct themselves to be considered part of the network.
Manage ‘foreign relations’ between the federation and those outside its boundary.
Help the federation understand and perceive itself, its goals / direction, its opportunities, and its challenges and threats.
To accomplish and ensure accountability around the concepts discussed above, we have established a multi-tiered fund structure to provide clarity and transparency into the use of funds.
Fuels the core team and infrastructure that empowers the distributed network of autonomous sovereigns.
Transparently stewarded by the collective and deployed to resource and empower high leverage initiatives that advance our shared mission to design and build a better world.
Type 1: DAF Investment Pools - individuals donate to donor advised funds, receive tax-deductions, pool those funds, and invest them in mission-aligned projects. Funds are managed to grow over time, rather than be depleted.
Type 2: Grants - individuals donate, receive tax-deductions, and those funds are granted to third parties who make commitments that advance the mission and goals of the federation.
For-profit equity or debt investments in mission-aligned organizations, whose empowerment advances the mission and goals of the federation.
In Phase I, the priority is to get the core team and infrastructure resourced with enough runway to demonstrate the long term staying power and legitimacy of the federation.
The budget for this is $2M to $10M depending how rapidly we want to move, contributed to the Core Team and Infrastructure Fund that is stewarded by the non-profit.
After this phase, we expect Lionsberg to be self-sustaining, with the core team and infrastructure resourced by ~10% of the Flows of the System.