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 12 Dec 2004
A few-many people (depending on how you count) are trying make "changing the world" into a full-time job. Most of us can't. So I want to explore "changing the world as a part-time job" (CtW-PTJ), not fully, only a little:
CtW-PTJ is good because that way we can bring many people in: we can count on many million cultural creatives.
Also, there's the benefit of independence: you don't depend on being profitable if you want to do good.
Are there other benefits?
CtW-PTJ is not perfect, as world-changers can't be fully inmersed in the action: they are always distracted by the urgent job of finding food etc.
They are not free to move around and work where there's need to work, and are instead tied to their pay-jobs. There's a similar limitation in timing: if your pay-job is from nine to five, then that's exactly the time you can't devote to world-changing.
It may be morally and physically exhausting to work for pay in something you don't find exactly up-lifting and then, when nobody looks, work "for loss" on something you like.
Are there other difficulties?
CtW-PTJ reminds me of priests and priesthood - which is a "full time" thing. A church takes employees on a full-time basis, so they can focus on their job all the time, and even, if there are no accidents, for all their lives.
There's need to use people's "minimal donations" and make them worthwhile. I mean, a sort of "paypal" for world-changing work. People dropping one hour of tv-watching each day, and doing good deeds instead. Maybe something like 50 million hours in the USA, and 80 million hours in Europe - each day! That would be doable if people's action is within their own lives radius: what if people learn to do certain things on their own?
So we need to connect the "cultural creatives", don't we?
What have I left out? More >
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27 Nov 2004
Reading what Jack Ricchiuto tells the OSLIST about "givens", I really like what he has to say about the steps before opening space.
I'm not yet a practitioner of "open space technology", but if I understand it correctly, there's some work before the actual event with 20+ people. The would-be facilitator needs to have a chat with the would-be sponsors. And that's where I get stuck - it all happens in my mind, as I haven't really tried it yet.
What Jack writes I summarise like this:
- first, agree with the would-be sponsor that self-organisation happens anyway, and that it's where things happen effectively anyway. "Things get started at coffe-breaks", so to speak.
- second, ask them "what would you do if you could tap into a power that you couldn't control but that would make you more effective and happy about yourself in your role as leader/manager?"
Then, if they want that power, it's all a matter of deciding on a theme and then opening space.
It sure looks easy :-? More >
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 21 Nov 2004
Just imagine peakoil.org to be real: at some point in time, we'll start turning to solaroof.org and similar things "en masse".
So how do we do the turning? Blogging about it!
Conversion via conversation. More >
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10 Nov 2004
Chris Corrigan wrote, way back in 2002, an article about 7 lessons and Open Space Technology.
I fully agree, really. Now, it's not so easy to take one's children (if one has any) out of school. So I wonder if there's a way to free their minds even if we can't physically free their bodies.
Freedom and openness are "only natural" things. Could it be that if they experience "open space" then they'll learn it really quickly, or maybe just remember it? I mean, maybe it takes just a very small dose (small, compared to the chronic intoxication they suffer for some 12 years) to bring up their innate knowledge of what freedom and openness taste like.
On the other hand, maybe they would suffer more if they know there's a better alternative to school? I would hope not, because I'm experiencing such a "pain" myself ... and I sort of like it. But, of course, I went out of school long ago, so I can't really imagine what it would be like to know of open space AND be confined to school for the next 6-8 years.
So I'm not sure if it's a good idea to offer just open space alone. Kids would have to receive, in addition to the few shots of vaccine, some extra vitamins to endure what's ahead of them. They would have to learn how to do well enough at school without really giving their souls away.
I wonder if it can be done.
Done, not as a sequencial thing: first you succeed at school, then you (re)learn freedom and open-space. But rather as a simultaneous thing: you do well enough at school and you simultaneously know it's not for real.
Any experiences out there?
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8 Nov 2004
I think I belong to the fine group of the easily distracted, or maybe it's my pay-job's fault (at times, that is).
Fact is, I've started carrying a notebook to work, where I write what I think about whatever I'm suposed to be doing. Otherwise I easily drift over to more interesting subjects, and the boring parts never get done.
I think it's a way to try and make dull activities more interesting. And, if at all posible, to rutinise them so much that they will disappear into automatism.
Some people talk to themselves to achieve just that: to keep themselves on track. A bit like when actors are helped in the theater play, by someone who is whispering what the next line is.
Of course, it's a pity that there are such jobs that need mumbling or notebook-writing to make them doable.
Also, not all boring jobs are like that: the job has to be both boring and demand your very own initiative. If I don't do something by my own initiative, it doesn't get done. Quite different from helping someone over the counter (or near a patient's bed), when that other person provides the motivation and you just have to dance to their rhythm. There's a problem that grabs your neck and forces you to pay attention.
Not so with many really important things such as changing the world. Those you have to look for them - or maybe not. Hmm, I'll have to think a bit more about this.
So maybe a software-bot that keeps me in track ... hmmm ... what if I code it right now (well, start anyway) and forget about that boring thing I was doing until that fly flew near my head? More >
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