Hello friends and allies,
We are issuing this Request For Guidance at the outset of our third 6 Week Cycle.
At the start of the second quarter, we invited you to participate in or observe a social experiment.
The idea was to take 6 weeks, and go through a loose integrated delivery process of 1) Intention 2) Analysis 3) Engagement 4) Planning 5) Action, and 6) Continuous Improvement to get a taste of what it might be like to attempt to work together on the One Thing that encompasses and unites us all at this moment in history.
The basic idea was to see if we could potentially forge:
The hope was that we could inspire a global community to design and build itself, so that together we could design and build a better world.
Our hope was to find at least 6 to 12 people willing to advance.
We ended up with a couple dozen consistent participants and a few dozen onlookers interested in seeing what would happen if we carried forward, so we prepared for a first "official" cycle.
Additional results are articulated in the 2022.05.09 Request For Guidance, and in the 2022.Q2 Presentation of Value Creation.
When it became evident we had the energy and alignment to advance, 8 weeks ago we sent out the far-too-long 2022.05.09 Request For Guidance.
It proposed 5 Next Steps for the 6 week cycle that just concluded on July 2:
Formalize a gathering place where we can work on the One Thing that unites us All.
Draft and adopt a minimum viable declaration / constitution that establishes right relationship among the sovereigns engaged in the federation.
Resource the federation (Core Team and Infrastructure Fund), and the distributed network of high leverage projects (Impact Fund(s)).
Operationalize an Integrated Delivery System that creates throughput of the total nested set of goals.
Advance the shared infrastructure platform that empowers the distributed network of autonomous sovereigns.
It was a super ambitious slate of the basic elements required to advance the Critical Path path towards the Goal.
The feedback to the Request For Guidance caused us to see the Wisdom in focusing on setting up the Patterns and Minimum Viable elements of each of these, along with a process for Continous Improvement, rather than trying to get them perfect.
In response to Goal 1, we advanced multiple elements:
In response to Goal 2, we determined that what would eventually become a constitution needed to begin as a living document that could be clarified and elevated over time.
We drafted the following documents, which are currently in the process of being reviewed and improved.
Over time, the Provisional Declaration will advance towards a full constitution, and the Program Statement will advance towards a fully articulated set of Plans and Specifications.
While we did not actually ask for or receive any funds, we significantly advanced our collective understanding of the architecture and theory associated with funding, and its various elements.
In Q3 there are multiple opportunities present:
We are also exploring different sustainable "for-profit" and "non-profit" aspects of the Integrated System that could be prioritized and launched to sustainably generate funds through services and projects.
In response to Goal 4, we succesfully completed articulating the architecture of an Integrated Delivery System.
This effort was aided by the provision of a starting point built through $10M+ of research and investment on how to most effectively execute 7 billion dollar projects simultaneously around the a single conceptual prototype and integrated Program of Action.
The results of this effort can be found in the Lionsberg Lionsberg Integrated Delivery Guide.
It should be noticed that this Integrated Delivery System has been purpose-built to Integrate with the Provisional Structure.
In Q3, we will operationalize the 0.2 Minimum Viable Version of the System, and begin making, securing, and tracking Commitments that produce Throughput of the Goal.
In response to Goal 5, we advanced:
Additionally, we created:
Additionally, we spent several weeks doing the hard work of establishing the core patterns of organization and federation.
General information on the patterns can be found in Organizations The Lionsberg Way, and the way organizations can collaborate and align energy can be found in the Lionsberg Integrated Delivery Guide.
Based on a survey of skills, passions, and needs, the following groups are emerging, and each creating their own unique value:
The Groups above each have concrete expressions of interest from 3 or more people.
The Groups below are emergent themes with expressions of interest from 1 or more people, looking to consolidate their center of gravity:
While internally it can feel a bit slow and painful for young life forms to grow, many of those outside who don't see the life for a while are stunned and cannot believe the progress that is being made.
That is a bit of how we feel with the Lionsberg | Meta Project. Internally it is slow, fast, painful, joyful hard work - we use the hashtag #bootstrappingishard. And amazing.
Yet there are many people who have remarked that we have already co-created something unprecedented in the world. Perhaps that is true.
So humbly we present it to You, the free people of the world, and ask that you would help guide forward and resource the New life that is emerging if you agree that there is Value being created, and if you would like to see it continue.
Our Cycle Three Goals that advance us towards the Milestones that mark the Way towards the Goal will be determined over the coming two weeks. They will likely involve:
If we are going to collectively advance along the Critical Path towards the Meta Goal, it is going to be through making and securing commitments to and from One Another.
Now that we have individuals organizing and federating into functional groups, and a Provisional Structure in place, we are in a position to begin Making and Keeping Commitments, and allocating resources in accordance.
If you would like to know more about how this works, visit the Lionsberg Integrated Delivery Guide, and in particular the section on 0.2 Minimum Viable Version.
In order to understand what we should do next and why, we need to understanding the Milestones that mark the Critical Path towards the Goal.
I believe it would be wise to target engaging in pull planning with at least three groups:
These three groups will help establish the outlines of and milestones of critical path for each side:
These groups should be expanded to include broader representatives from each of these areas than those that are currently engaged.
Once we understand the Critical Path sequence, and the milestones and needs of 1) Resource Providers 2) Infrastructure / Service Providers and 3) Projects, we will be able to integrate those into a wise and continously improving System Wide Master Plan that can be progressively executed, measured, resourced, and improved.
That plan will demand funding at least two buckets:
It is our present hypothesis that we should partner with the ecosystem / community to establish a reasonably large fund of funds as a prototype, and fund the core team and infrastructure primarily as a percentage (approximately 10% over time) of that total funding flow.
Our total funding ideas and infrastructure are growing in the quality of their articulation, however we do not have room to get into it here.
If you are interested, an deeper example of this thought can be found in the emerging concepts being articulated for the Open Future Fund. Reach out if you are interested.
We'll do our best to include more information as the cycle unfolds.
This is pretty self-explanatory, and is the overarching theme of the Meta Project.
Hopefully the stories, examples, and evidence above are a prophesy of the even greater things that are possible if we decide to work together to make them a Reality.
I close with a three part personal request for your action:
With Love, In Community,
~ J