<Meta: Consolidating some bits floating in my environment - nothing novel, just integrating>
I've spent the past five years doing system design involving 500-1000 people in a corporate org. I've also run a few ~30 person non-occupational groups in the last few years. And of course I've been involved in many size<10 teams over multiple decades... but those were all within a pre-existing organizational context.
I'm thinking about starting from scratch now - rebuilding a completely different context and way. "I don't know precisely where I'm going, and I don't know how to get there, I think it's this direction; come with me if you want." (h/t Kaj)
In this current state, thinking about starting, a few apt thoughts popped up yesterday:
I think it is usually not worth thinking about relational dynamics of 50 ppl if you haven't first cultivated a humming team of 5.
— Richard D. Bartlett (@RichDecibels) May 14, 2020
Yes to this. I do still have grand dreams about taking a particular culture and way of being and making it self-replicating to world-changing scale - but I'm very much aware that different groups of different sizes are very different environments. And a "way of being" (grandiose term) is very much personal and small-group.
This blue-sky beginning is something I've never done before. It reminds me of this mini-talk about going from something to nothing:
Zero to one, one to two, two to five, maybe all mixed in at the same time too. Then Visa popped up with another related thought: (This is a thread you can click into to read the rest)
[cracks knuckles] Mass movements are made up of little movements. The first thing you have to do is talk to every person you know. Talk to 300 people. Find 10 that are particularly interested + motivated. Have them over for dinner (oh wait lol... have a zoom call?) https://t.co/gKW1gJjCPv
— Visakan Veerasamy (@visakanv) May 14, 2020
I don't think his thought necessarily contradicts the "doesn't know exactly how that's gonna happen", though. It's both directionally right and yet still, the jump from "scene" to "meta-scene" to "shift in global consciousness" is vast undiscovered territory.
But right now... zero. Not even one guy dancing in a field. What does the first step look like - a manifesto? Mmm... yes and, starting happens by starting - by doing, not merely a declaring. It's not quite time for it yet, but I feel the itch to start preparing more seriously.