confluence consultancy

OK, so how do the principles of the new economic model work in real life? Let's use tuttle since it was Lloyd who helped formulate it.

We perform a kind of free tuttle within a client's office comprising of a unique collection of individuals, vertically from company, and horizontally from tuttle collective. Because this is not a us v them situation, the ideas people come up with are positive and spontaneous based on genuinely interesting responsed to each other's ideas, just like in a standard tuttle meet up. The difference is, this unique group arrive at a decision, by consensus, to realise the best idea. And what is the best idea?

• ellicits a wow from all participants
• beyond the capacity for any individual to achieve alone
• minimal effort investment so as to produce a social result WITHIN THE WEEK
• the highest level of participant within the company simply allows the attempt to be made

If people make the decision to go for it, and they all do whatever they do within the company and with whatever network and resources they have at their disposal, then there is a chance that the idea is realised that week.

The quality of the manifest idea in the real world is that it benefits the individuals in the company and as a consequence the company itself. This might be indexed by how many people watch a video, say, or how much sales increase etc. The idea is, participants in the meeting might wish to come up with an idea that actually manifests as money flow.

If money flows, then the representatives of the company may wish to pay the tuttle collective a fee for their efforts. THIS IS NOT TO BE ACCEPTED! The tuttlers did what they did free. It is the nature of the kind of work that people are wishing to do. It is not money motivated. It is results based for sure. This allows an ethical dimension to enter into the equation. What the tuttlers may accept is a gift so that they can offer their services free ELSEWHERE.

Tuttlers are then free to contribute their skills and resources ad hoc to organisations. Clearly, we need to start clever, with the highest chance that the first consultancy results in a high potential return within a week. Hence, It's generally self-selecting as tuttlers choose those who they believe will be able to spark off the best ideas in themselves, as well as approaching the most open-minded clients. Once the positive cycle begins, tuttlers will be able to give a week, a month, a year of their time for free to realising a potential. It all depends on how successful their contributions are.

Hannah pointed out a disorder in thinking which might occur to you as you read this. Why would a company pay for something that was offered free? This is a mistake in order of thinking. If looked at in the right way, there is no organisational discussion or exchange. There are individuals within an organisation, normally aligned hierarchically, and individuals from a collective eg called tuttle. The honour of the payment is moral, and so must be conducted at the individual level.

Think blood and the circulatory system. This is a reasonable "model" for social media, since the medium of the social IS more fluid than solid.

With this model, there is only need for one tuttle, as it were. Since it is not really an organisation, but the closest to a formalised network there is. After all, we are all networked anyway, in the same way we are all self-organised. This model allows for a dissolution of the traditional structures, as people in companies experience the benefit of working in this way, they may add themselves to the tuttle pool, as it were, and find themselves in another company's office offering their services free.

standing wave

Very interesting moments of engagement. Talking with Dougald at tuttle assured me that he is a good man and doing his best; I shall not question him ever again. Meeting his mother also verified deeper aspects of his being. Spoke at length with Mamading, regarding collective strategy and my potential role as an outsider drawing attention to dynamics as I enter their organisational space and depart, only once invited of course.

Met with Luke, a genius, again at a talk at the beginning of Slow London Festival; watched an excellent talk by David Rooney about Time, and talked to one of the organisers of the event, Cathy was it?, and remembered that I hadn't replied to their request for information regarding my initiative with slow business ehehhe. Luke and I talked afterwards and we might be playing Armagetron together and mathematising the 'lose me, we win' ethic. There was also mentioning of tango, and perhaps Liz would be interested in teaching him with my guidance.

Big blow out with Tav, on Tav's side, which seems to have resulted in a useful engagement today. Attempting to invite thought on collective strategy, specifically on creating the conditions for next year that enable 1,000,000 to confluence well (cf pulse). This is further qualified by talking with Sofia with a 6 month goal of creating an "empty space" in autumn/winter which perhaps 1k people might block off, individuals who we have determined as having and demonstrating the appropriate qualities for confluence. It might be possible to define the skill/belief set in the negative space, ie it is not this, not that, etc, and whatever is left is thereby defined indirectly. Also, Sofia came up with "drop it when it gets too heavy", aligned to the mantra I suggested to her last week: imagine 10 people lifting a table; if it feels to heavy, then the response should be to relax and let more weight be taken by others. Consider this in relation to personal gravity, when things get personal, too heavy, just let go. The table will only crash down if there are too many people who are not "pulling their weight". Would be very impressed if Tav just decided to do the dishes, all the dishes, all the time. This is an example of the kind of thing required.

Regarding collective strategy, it's like a teacher who prepares the learning environment for the student to piece things together. Or, when people get thirsty, you have the water ready for them. Those involved in social innovation camp et al will realise the limited scope of their growth because the inherent basis of their business model is competitive. That is, the current successes of social media now will meet with failure, with some people realising this throughout the year until by next year it shall be understood. The trick is to set into place influential strategy so that by next year, when a new solution is proposed by various parties, the conditions are appropriate. A reasonable metaphor is to think about improving the quality of soil. It's not about seeding and growing things, but embracing the failure that is death, composting, enriching the conditions. To this end, finally, Sofia is starting to get the "failure vibe" and we hope to have a fun time with that.

Brief engagement with Lloyd of the social art piece, tuttle, which seemed to echo a lot of the things I have written and practiced with collective consultancy. Think I worked out the necessary business model for it to work. Instead of most of these startups starting up with cash injections, I believe it begins with free services, and money flows along the principle of pay it forwards. Start with small group and an effect within a week, giving rise to longer term, larger projects, and greater money flow. Think institutional aikido.

Tomorrow looks like a nice day. If the weather is nice, a picnic with the collapsonomic guys at st james' park, followed by meditation, fresh and raw food salon before tango in the evening.

Looks like this coming month and next month are going to be critical, as this year and next is critical of this decade and the next. The outcome of our efforts may define an age, heheheh, really. You can just sit and read this and watch it as it happens, or you are cordially invited to participate as you see fit. Please remember initial sensitive conditions of chaotic systems. Whether we get hurricanes or depressions depends on our actions now. Be awake. Be well.

what a weekend!

It started on friday. I went to tuttle which enabled me to meet mark, vinay and dougald again. I was directed to speak to a chap called ollie, who speaks to ministers on a regular basis. The best part of the experience was speaking with lloyd who set up tuttle, the social artist. I failed in my conversation with ollie, something about my manner. I was tempted and indeed encouraged to talk about the wave notion with its thresholds, but it did not fall on receptive ears. My fault, since I could tell the energies involved, although lovely people, there is a certain brittleness that means a distinction between word and thought, between action and intention. I should have honoured this sense and been more playful and light in my presentation such that on another day, we could properly discuss it.

The engagement threw me for a while, and I berated myself a little. However, I left and went wandering. I found anna turley deputy director of nlgn, new local government network. I walked into their offices and asked the receptionist if I could talk to her. She happened to be free, and we talked for some 15 mins. The conversation went well, and I felt that I had redeemed my confidence in my ability to communicate. It was much nicer and lighter. Although she could not see a way for her to move forward on it, she wants to be in contact. If anything does happen, she will be an important player, and I would like her to be in any prospective meeting with a VIP change-maker.

Then off for a meeting with vinay. We ended up doing a recording in the lobby of a hotel in mayfair. It was meant to be a direct confrontation of our realities, but when we got together that evening, we followed dougald's interest of capturing a conversation on video. Don't think i wrote about dougald. Dougald is one of the founders of school of everything. Went to a talk of his at the temporary school of thought on wednesday; very impressive. Spectacular character, eloquent and genuine in his integration of his experience, and flowed really well when improvising. So, his desire to record something about the wave took precidence, and we ended up recording a dialogue between vinay and myself. The vid has not been put up on youtube yet. We then went to the school to hear vinay talk about an interesting, and I would say accurate and useful, understanding of magic. His manner of presentation was also very powerful.

On saturday, I went to progressive london. I met a chap called pierre and had lunch with him and joy johnson, who chaired on the first meeting I attended which was to do with barrack obama and what "we" can learn from his campaign. Very interesting discussion, since it revealed the completely different realities that either party are not aware of, even though they were in the same room and apparently talking about the same thing. Pierre is an intelligent young man, who is making his decisions as he goes along combined with an open-minded attitude, and is looking to study political relations. Joy has been a politico most of her life, worked with ken livingston, and has seen plenty of changes in the system and politics too and is not afraid of speaking her mind. I was privilege to share lunch with them, and I was a little foolish in suggesting to them that there was an opportunity for us to gather our respective perspectives and experience in such a way that it benefits us all.

The format of the progressive london was still far too archaic. People behind tables, on stages, with a minute or two's contribution from people on the floor. A bit of shouting, disjointed discussion. It is mostly used for information transference! Weird. Ken and the speakers in the last section of the day were very impressive, inspiring and genuine, and I decided to hang around at the end of the conference to speak to jon cruddas since mamading had recommended I speak to him. His attention to people seemed genuine too, and so I outlined the wave notion to him and how it embodied a lot of what the speakers had said, but it was all about practical action now, and not just talk about it. He gave me his email, and I hope he creates the opportunity for us to meet this week. Even if I think it might be too late to catch the wave, it might be a useful experience to hear the kind of ideas and practice and networks that I am an example of.

Sunday began with a discussion with mamading and his meeting with vinay and dougald the previous night. He seemed enthused with the notion of playing a stone, my term, of making a node of the Jisc Developers Happiness meet up in early february. Interesting possibilities. Sunday also meant a visit to the temporary school of thought where tony had booked a session called "What Can We Do By Tomorrow?". Only mamading, tony and I started it, and we gave ourselves half an hour to come to consensus. We tried a technique of only saying one sentence at a time, ensuring we were inviting others to continue. We didn't manage to conclude, and that was mostly because we invited a few kids in, one called omar, and another called james. We passed the time-window, and we ended up talking. James revealed that he has dreams of being at the Olympics 2012, and I believe his dream is the kind of vector that can align a community. If we put our self-organising sense and skills into practice, we might be able to field some superb atheletes for 2012. Champions who are living proof of the operationality of self-organisation. We exchanged emails, and I hope to remain in contact with him see if he is interested, with omar too. Dougald and vinay turned up too, and there was a little interview which I shall put a link to when I find out when it comes out.

Ended the night with a deep vibe. I read some of my XQ solution booklet to tav and sofia -- and it works! It actually makes some sense. I have some reservations about discussing it. Sofia and tav have different notions, perspective, systems and processes of ideas, and by sharing them it appears we end up falling into the illusion that we are discussing something, when of course the maths is reflective of our processes. The trick is noticing the similarities.

Went off to tango. Had some seriously nice dances with fiona, an interesting challenge when dancing with the teacher claire, two disasterous times where I could not find my partners which made me feel like I couldn't dance, but then had a delightful dance with... with... I can not remember her name. We didn't really talk after the dance, which means there were no words exchanged and hence any label like a name just gets lost in the ether. Got home, did some jaxing, which I shall post up a link to when I get them finished, and a video for the kids who I taught last year.

What a weekend!