Towards a source document by George Por

Why and when would the evolutionary movement need a "source document" (and "source picture")?

“A source document is a reference text for continual renewal, and something that can be returned to at any point of paradox or difficulty in making choices. It provides a basis for dialogue that generates meaning. ‘Source’ refers to the basic elements from which something emerges.  It applies to those things that are continually emerging, that have lives of their own, that generate their own shape and identity.  A ‘document’ enables us to relate current circumstances and current development to original intentions.  This provides us with a connection to our history and identity...” -- Emergence, organisation and freedom: the sources of innovation, talk by Michael McMaster in a conference on Complexity, in London, 1997.

Besides serving as a shared reference of the movement, the source document can also become target for a dynamic network of strategic conversations, in which participants can accelerate their individual and collective learning by sharing and improving their mental models of what is and what it is becoming.

To fulfill its potential, a source document/picture needs to be essential, robust, evocative, and richly linked to a web of conversations interpreting and improving it. "Robust" means here: capable to serve as guidance information for various areas of action, and stages of movement growth. Being built on sufficient diversity of models, the document is gaining in depth and the robustness.

When the need for such document becomes felt by a large enough number of players to produce it, we will know that the coherence of the many streams is ripening, the many seeks to discover the one, without sacrificing the richness of diverse views and approaches.