Here is a beginning collated wish list for the Evolutionary Nexus site.
There are two good ways to incorporate your suggested improvements to this page:
Please do not simply delete items. We have to come up with a good way to prioritize.
1. General
1a. Navigation
2. Search
3. Forums (many of these items are also relevant to wiki pages and their replies)
4.Wiki (also see Wikifying Drupal)
5. IM/Chat/IRC
6. Subscriptions
7. Homepage
8. Library
9. Admin
10. Calendar
The little History of ENexus (as seen through Ria’s eyes)
The idea of ENexus was born in the head of George, a long time ago. In the months and weeks running up to Evolutionary Salon 2 it became more into reality, Ria supported the idea and in an email conversation Finn said he would love to join.
George and Ria did some co-Presencing work on it between Christmas and New Year. In the mean time George was doing most of the practical work to have the site up and running just in time when the Salon started.
It was only on the Salon itself that the three of us were able to meet in person. We talked most on the relationship between EvoNexus.org and EvoNexus.com, as a possible form to get money into the system.
Then the Salon took over! We engaged ourselves during the Salon and after; and ‘forgot’ how to be or become a true collective.
There was a meeting scheduled with the techies and one with the stewards, which happened to be most women. But there was no building up of the hosting collective.
Finn, George and Ria had some forum conversations on Principles and Commitment, but for Ria it was ‘too heady’. This conversation died and the outburst of activity in the first weeks after the Salon slowly diminished…
Finn wrote on Febr.8th:
“I would rather focus on the few principles that are specific to who we are, our work, at this time. That would be the principles that we discover "in the flow", and that we surface and give voice to become aware of them. Right now the principle "slow down" may have some value.”
Ria wrote on the same day:
"radical trust" and "listening to the middle" could also be good principles.
We wrote it, but we didn’t live up to it.
Then there was an email message from Bill (proposing an agenda for a next stewards meeting, nobody responded), an email from Ashley (asking for more response) and finally a big letter from Tree, the heartkeeper for the next Salon.
Finally I heard it and could step out of the little box I had placed myself in.
slow down – radical trust – listening to the middle
not just George, Ria and Finn;
but with everybody who cares for the mission and vision of ENexus
I started with a call with Ashley:
Highlights from a call between Ashley and Ria:
(Sunday March 5th, 2006)
We began by starting in silence with the awareness of a line from the EvoNexus mission statement: "Sensing from and acting on the biggest context"
Ria noted that the habit of starting our real time engagements in silence could be carried over into the online space. We noted the importance of silence for emergence. We also noted the importance of simplicity in online space.
Ria noted the need for a collective to hold space for a bigger collective.
Much of the conversation returned to this idea of a collective, needed to meet regularly (regular phone calls) and coming to know itself as a collective and working/generating together.
We noted the need for clear intentions. "How can we bring this into being" . . . ‘this’ being the mission and vision of the site. An invitation to be a collective, consciously listening to what is emerging and giving voice to it.
Pattern of hosting:
We agreed on adapting the format of weekly phone conversations (as used by the ES3 hosting team and the Moving the Edge team), which invites all the stewards that are interested in participating to show up on a weekly call and then in that space we sense into what is calling, and when there are action steps to be taken, those who feel called will steward those projects. . .
We explored the notion of starting with (a part of) an online space that has all of the qualities that we want right now. And then, as it grows and matures, the bells and whistles that we think are most valuable can be added. By qualities we mean the essence of what the space is, not the content structures that it supports (like a place for information, news, conversation, etc).
4 main lines or essential parts of being were defined:
1. A site that is beautiful, warm, inviting (user friendly and seducing to come back), simple, honors silence
2. A place where knowledge is shared and that is searchable
3. A site that is sustainable... money: Awareness of time, effort, and energy spent.
4. A site that facilitates relational connections and engagement
These are all aspects of hosting.
The community of stewards will need to look at all 4 and integrate them!
Ashley talked about the process of vision becoming manifested reality and Ria said how the physical is always more slow than the thinking and visioning... and we have to pay attention to the presence of such things as emotions. We looked at the process of bringing this site into being as similar to the vision growing a body.
An exciting idea that came after the call (Ashley in conversation with Thomas) was that prior to entering into the forums (the area where the most conversation and dialogue occurs) there could be a screen whose only words are "We invite you to rest in a moment of silence, connecting with the collective presence of this space." or something like that.
Here is a proposed design for a set of community roles to support a rich future for the Evolutionary Nexus site.
A sufficient number of people have to show up to do some critical amount of work in all these functions for the site to succeed. Some people, naturally, may be active in multiple functions.
There are two good ways to incorporate your suggested improvements to this page:
To talk about your ideas, questions about the roles, and/or the reasoning behind the changes you make, please use the Community Roles topic of the Community Facilitation and Roles forum.
Evolutionary Nexus Site Roles
Members
Read and create content
Visitors
Read content of blogs and wikis
Co-initiation Team
This role is sometimes referred to as the "owners," which is misleading because a community can be cared for by the founders but not "owned."
Typically, the founding team is responsible for:
• Drafting community agreements, principles, source documents, and manage the process of collaborative updating them
• Making decision about development issues that concern the integrity of the community and its platform, until organs of the community's self-governance take over that role
• Collecting, managing and allocating resources that the community needs for its development
Community Architect
• Develops the initial segmentation of the community's virtual space. Using the available platform features,. s/he designs and configure special-purpose structures to support various community functions, e.g: document archives, workspaces, polls, online classrooms, etc.
• Makes recommendations regarding the structure of the community and its relation with its fractal-like subcommunities.
• Advises the community on specific issues related to, for example, trade-offs between various technical solutions inn terms of their impact on the community and its members.
• Works with the cybrarians, coaches, facilitators, admins, and others to continually improve harmony of all of functions.
• Conitnually improves site navigation - creates a menu structure that will minimize the number of steps a member has to take to reach a desired destination.
Developers/Webmaster
• Respond to bug/feature requests in forums -- first, a human response to let the requester know they have been heard, then doing whatever's needed to put the request into the pending work pool(s).
• Install modules
• Fix bugs
• Write new code
• Interface with Drupal dev community and other dev communities as needed
Admins
• Manipulate site setup parameters including look & feel & other defaults
• Turn features on & off
• Add/delete user IDs
• Escalate to developers as needed
The social host or "host as innkeeper" is the most well-known online facilitation model originating out of long time discussion communities like The Well, Electric Minds and Salon Table Talk. As a dinner host brings together the elements of a successful party, a social host helps create an environment where the members feel comfortable to participate. Part conversationalist, part counselor, part role model and sometimes even part bouncer. They are also usually part of the conversation. (from Nancy's site)
Cybrarians
Cybrarians represent the gift of knowledge and information. They are "topical" experts. Cybrarians help members find information internally and externally of the community. They organize information and make it accessible. And they stimulate interaction with the introduction of or pointer to new and relevant information. (from Nancy's site)
Content Stewards
• Add/delete forums
• Create/move/copy/xref topics and posts as needed to maintain coherenceˆ
•Archive completed requests
Site Coaches
Help novice users learn to work with the site, monitor and respond to requests for help.
The Town Council
The emergence of governance structures in online groups has given rise to roles that approximate those of "mayor" or "town council." Whether elected, appointed or self-appointed, this type of facilitator generally operates based on a set of community rules or norms. Again, the more explicit the norms and expectations, the easier to fill this role. (from Nancy's site)
Great collection on further resources on community roles and other online facilitation topics at Nancy's site:
http://www.fullcirc.com/community/communityfacilitation.htm
Introduction
This is a starting page for Nexus stewards working together to make Nexus an ever more valuable resource and meeting place for all of us. A steward is anybody who steps up to the responsibility to tend our digital commons, articulate and respond to opportunities to continually improve and innovate the Nexus experience.
The opportunities that we list on the pages linked from this one can be responded to by anyone without technical savvy or deep knowledge of Drupal. Improvement opportunities of technical nature are listed in the Open Task Pool forum.
How to use the "improvements and innovations" pages
The subsequent pages are organized by areas where we can improve/innovate the site. On the top of each page there are the open opportunities that somebody is not working on yet. When you decide to address one, put your name against its title. When you completed it, say it so and move the item to the bottom of the page. It is that simple.
To allow the at-a-glance review of all opportunities, open and met, we don't mix them with long conversations about them. Questions for clarifications, opposing views, related requests and offers can be posted in the Continuous Site Improvement and Innovation forum.
Areas of improvement and innovation opportunities
Examples: adding colors and visuals to content; inspiring silence and mindfulness online, with graphics and sound
Sub-areas: content development and editing (seeding, feeding and weeding); information architecting; hyperlinking; summarizing; creating special indexes for specific communities of users
Examples: initiate the convening of a wisdom of council comprised of elders we respect and seek their advice about the direction and principles of our site development practice
Examples: upgrade user guide, make it comprehensive and well-organized; insert blank lines when long chunks of text run into one blob
Mission – what we are here for
Evolutionary Nexus contributes to the emergence of conscious humanity by increasing the connectivity in the ecosystem of evolutionary initiatives.
Action – what we do to back up our mission
Evolutionary Nexus provides individuals and groups working for the conscious evolution of social systems, with electronic and social technologies that amplify the creative resonance among in and among transformational networks, communities and initiatives.
Journey – where we came from, how we move forward
Evolutionary Nexus is a brainchild of George Pór, and it was co-initated by George, Ria Baeck, and Finn Voldtofte. It is now supported by the Evolutionary Nexus Stewards Circle. As resources permit, we will provide a growing family of virtual community incubation tools and services. If our mission inspires you and want to help realizing it, let's talk.
Visions – what we hope to see our action manifest into
Finn:
I am in the core team because I want to support and enable, that all of what could be seen as separate initiatives and events addressing conscious evolution of social systems can know about each other, support each other, learn from each other, and that we can understand all of the individual initiatives and events as really one overall evolutionary process.
I have a vision of transparency of the insights and learnings that emerge from all kinds of interactions and conversations, in gatherings, across gatherings, in email exchanges, chatrooms, forums, phone conversations; transparency, in the sense that no matter what form and format the conversation takes, Evolutionary Nexus offers and supports seamless ways of making the richness of the conversations available to the larger community of evolutionary agents.
George:
Inspired by the Evolutionary Salons, World Café, droppingknowedge, p2p foundation, Business as Agent of World Benefit, and many, many co-arising initiatives around the world, I see the possibility for the living laboratories of the future linking up. I hope Evolutinary Nexus will become a platform for their cross-fertilization and co-evolution as creative and sensing organs of the emerging future.
Evolutionary Nexus will not be a new movement but a platform, a hub of our conversations connected locally, regionally, and across the planet. I pre-sense a highly synergistic collaboration of geeks, artists, activists, students, thoughtleaders, and social entreprenerus, supported by the customized combinations of emerging electronic and social technologies, the arts and disciplines of collective and systems intelligence.
I hope they will rejoice in the ease with which their aspirations and inspirations can connect and get amplified, across generations, cultures, and geographies. The platform will be very inviting to share insights and inspirations, as well as, effective tools and methods, and successful practices. I see all of the above richly inter-connected with one another by a Web-enabled, continuous field of social creativity, pulsating with energy, 24 x 7. That is the future of Evolutionary Nexus, which I feel strongly pulled towards..
The general thinking in this approach is to use different software / systems which each focus well on one particular medium or task, and link them together. This benefits from the great diversity in the larger software world. Some starting suggestions if we were to make our own mashup (please add your input):
Wiki: OddMuse (because Lion and Brandon are familiar with it)
Blogs: WordPress, or maybe blosxom
Forums/mailing lists: ?? [maybe phpBB --HD, AC]
(Not my area of expertise - please make suggestions. My only input comes from knowing that some people prefer e-mail and some prefer web, so hopefully something that lets people participate in either way - replies to e-mails appear on the web, and replies on the web go out as e-mail. E-mail users will probably want a way subscribe to everything or only selected conversations. And of course i'd prefer something free/open source. --John Abbe)
Photos: Flickr
Bookmarks: del.icio.us
Personal information and relationships: FOAF
What other functionality are we using, or do we want?
Stitching these together may seem like a lot of effort compared to using an all-in-one system such as Drupal, but as we are seeing there is a lot of fine tuning involved in setting it up, and features that already exist in the specialized systems we will apparently have to code for ourselves (or wait for someone else to do it). Also, we may find that we want our site to work with other systems at some point anyway, and the expertise we gain by doing this sort of work among our own systems will make that much easier.
Finally, equally important to the question of how much work an approach would take is how much interest/energy there is to different kinds of work.
In any case this is not an all or nothing issue. Some examples of what the small pieces loosely joined approach would look like while still using Drupal:
The name of this page is stolen from David Weinberger's book Small Pieces Loosely Joined, which is about the web and other successful computer/net technology. This way of working actually far predates the World Wide Web, going back to much of the way that Unix and Internet were and are developed.
Participants:
Ashley Cooper
Dana Lynne
Jennifer Atlee
Ria Baeck
Susan Cannon
Fernanda Ibarra
George Pór
Recording at: http://tinyurl.com/8sf3y
Password: evonexus
The meeting purpose:
Listen into what can support the birth of a generative community on EvoNexus
Explore what membership in EvoNexus mean and how shall we welcome new members
Suggested ecosystem of servant leadership circles
What are our high leverage and urgent taks?
Cheking in: (min 6 of the recording)
The session started with a checkin on the question of what attracted you to this conversation?
Ria
Structuring of the wiki pages and try to keep track of what is happening and develop of topics that needs to be addressed by a bigger community, a bigger circle, that’s why I am here.
Fer
What attracted me to be in this conversation. Is not only to make this tool available for all of us. I really believe in the facilitation role as a key part of what we are doing (the online community). We need to connect the different conversations around us and establish links between them in order to enable better groups and conversations every time.
George
What attracted me here was a joyful anticipation of what may happen The beauty is what I see that will come up from our community; meaning the small circle of stewards that can have the larger community to come into full blossoming.
Ashley Cooper
I am also attracted by the need and possibility of what may emerge, and my dream includes one where we can use technologies, that are available for us and to tap into the energy and experience that is available in the one to one face, direct experiences and I know that this can be possible and is really exiting that we can create a site and create open channels to communicate with one another, in order to enhance that flourishing and blossoming that George just spoke about, helping in that way to the evolution of the planet.
Susan Cannon
I am deeply called to what is emerging in these salons....I feel this space and conversation, facilitated with technology, is the nexus of the evonexus.
Jennifer Atlee
Why am I here...possibility...yearning. What Finn said, "supports seamless ways of making the richness of the conversations available to the larger community"... that there is a depth of connection and accumulated learning/wisdom and BEAUTY(!) that supports & enhances initiatives so that they are NOT separate but actively engaging as part of this larger community... I am really interested in the online-offline community, virtually enhancing to what Ashley said.
Sheri Madrone
From the last few years my life is been deeply embedded in the online world and how interflects with the work people are doing on the ground and I became inmersed in that world where I have no experience. Technology has been our connection for enhancing the beautiful web that we are weaving, the global dialogue that is happening and in different way I know that I belong, and this conversations is what my soul is longing. Its here where we are creating from different projects and conversations and facilitating with what will happen with all this imaginary self that is talking to each other and then the synapsis of our global brain, and I feel this offline-online weaving is so critical to the evolutionary nexus.
We talked about: What are the most important enablers.
What else will you like to talk about?
What are the most important enablers that this community needs to sustain itself and evolve into what it can become?
We did an exercise in the whiteboard and this were the results:
A commited core community
Look and feel
The forums, wiki and blogs are confusing to separate the functions. Location
Vision Flow
Clear, coherent metapurpose
Pictures, image and beauty
Yes… beauty, as much sensuality as possible.
Education and user support- Clear inviting newbie support (Yes, so we don’t feel like dinosauries)
Communal spaces/niches
How people get a sense of the whole. Visual Maps
Roles (clear and visible to people) Color
Ahhh, so there are organic ways to move around, using other kinds of intelligence
An opportunity to pay an ongoing subscription to support the community.
We began to talk about the image, visuals, look and feel, interface and difference in functions and what would it take to make it happen. (min 27 to 35 of the recording)
Ashley
The visual flow of the site is very important to me to enable participation of what can unfold. In the experience I have in the virtual world, forums, wikis and blogs have a certain characteristic that let me know that I am using that tool. Here I find it confusing to separate the functions. Ie. Forums should be separated in order to make it look conversational. The blog has a different look, it’s about information and inviting. How can the flow of the site can guide people to engage with it.
George:
There is work being done by John Abbe in making the look and feel more clear and easy to use. Regarding that people know where they are.
Sheri
How people get a sense of the whole when they come to the site, so they don’t see pieces here and there. For instance, some kind of visual map of everything that is happening there. On the right hand side is good, so people can tap the threats of ongoing dialogue that is emerging. It also has to do with how we facilitate the conditions on how people start to see connections from one place to another in the conversations that are in the whole site. Right now is focused in the evolutionary salon, but as it complexifies it is going to be a more important piece to look into.
-what conversations are happening over there and how is that related over here?-. Perhaps a type of metatags, little tags posted in different places could facilitate it. We should have a picture of it, a map, a quick summary or synopsis, so people don’t get lost and find their way there.
Dana: (min 44.10 of recording)
I think that one of the important features of what's evolving is the interpenetration of word and image. Not working----just that right and left brain, word and image, logic and intuition are trying to integrate.
Ria
I like this integrating of words and image, but has anyone a clue of how can we start with it? How can we start? Because I know only blogs, forums and wikies. How do we go from our longing for that to implement it in one way or another?
George:
I was very much inspired by Dana’s art, the sense of beauty and actually integrating words and images. I would like to ask you Dana how would you do this? So the possibility to combine images and words are not far away. We can post images already, but it does need support from our tech team to make it available for everybody. I believe that is something that can be done.
I have a bigger question about the visual beauty of the site. I am also thinking more about the interface. How the whole environment looks. I don’t find it very inspiring. We need to involve talented people in developing it.
Fer:
Is not difficult to get designers and share it in this room, and develop it. A design meeting will be set to talk about the visual design only. We can talk about what we all envision.
Ashley
Design comes first at the point of interacting as my experience is to get really connected to people through technology and the interconnection that exist between facilitation, design and technology.
Discover who we are, what a member role is, what we are the members of?
(min 54 of the recording)
George
I want to summarize the relation between users, registered members, etc. We need to decide who are going to be the members. Do we have any criteria after a user signs on? People could get invited if they wanted. We can have an invitational community, where people can get invited if they want to.
Sheri
One thing that comes to me with this question of opening ourselves up is something I already wrote about 1 degree of separation. If there are people that are connected to us and we have friends around us, that are interested in the conversation. In that way is very easy to invite them and join. I am connected to several people that I have conversations, close threads with them, and in that way we are connected energetically to many people that can be eager to participate and engage in this conversation.
Notes on the whiteboard:
We need criteria? Open invitation? Small fee to sustatin community online? Some kind of demonstration of connection to the purpose?
I think there is a dynamic tension between open invitation and enabling a coherent field.
What energy is emerging in the larger field where we are part of?
Consider the principles and nature of healthy ecosystems vis a vis membership.
Mision and purpose of Evolutionary Network (min 1:02:00 in the recording)
We then listen to the voice of the Evonexus mision and the mision of two members of the initiation team; Finn Voldtofte and George Pór
Take a look at:
http://www.evolutionarynexus.org/node/12
Servant circles
Finally we talked about the concept of leadership circles. Check out the framework for the self-organization of our community's social system.
http://www.evolutionarynexus.org/blog/3
~ ~ ~ S i l e n c e ~ ~ ~
I am drenched in a silent stillness of reverence.My mind and heart are buzzing. My mind wants to sink down into the heart essence and name, articulate, express the juice and content of the ‘buzz’. And there is a sweet voice that gently says… Be patient dear one. It is present and you are listening… that is all that matters.
And a sigh of gratitude and a grin of acceptance. I don’t have to DO anything. Be present, awake, listening and honoring. Breathe.Now it is evolution the experiencer. Here, as in thousands of conversations around the planet in this very moment, it is noticing how its work is advancing. "Aha, they are tasting my delicious fruits that only co-creators can taste! I ripened for them while they were tuning in with one another and the field of their shared energy and enthusiasm. A taste that they will never forget…"
To me, it is like an experience of imaginal cells ( http://www.community-intelligence.com/blogs/public/2004/05/the_collective_intelligence_of.html ) meeting and recognizing one another, each of which is carrying a portion of the genetic material that informs them about who they can be and what their work can be together… It's been enthused, sacred moments with you on the phone, deeply intimate yet nothing personal about them. Paying profound attention to you in our silent communion, as my teachers in that exquisite moment, I knew that we always will receive guidance to the passionate questions of our pure heart.
MARTINAs I sit here, writing, and I know that you, my friends, are sitting and writing too, it is easier for me to let the sense of being merge with my writing. Gratitude. I think again of the importance for Nexus to inspire connectedness in as many ways as possible. The option of lighting a cyber candle as you enter the site comes to mind, in addition to Ashley’s suggestions of introducing an online bell and still screen. Or other ways of inspiring a more mindful cyber behaviour than the more or less automatic mental, sort of disconnected, not-anchored-in-the-body behaviour. The behaviour that I so easily slip into, even when writing this. I am reminded to embrace my not-so-mindful behaviour and let go of the thought that non-mindfulness is something to be avoided or shunned. Perhaps nothing needs to be shunned internally, just embraced with mindfulness and gratitude.