“All of those for whom authentic transformation has deeply unseated their souls must, I believe, wrestle with the profound moral obligation to shout from the heart-perhaps quietly and gently, with tears of reluctance; perhaps with fierce fire and angry wisdom; perhaps with slow and careful analysis; perhaps by unshakable public example-but authenticity always and absolutely carries a demand and duty: you must speak out, to the best of your ability, and shake the spiritual tree, and shine your headlights into the eyes of the complacent. You must let that radical realization rumble through your veins and rattle those around you.”
Ken Wilber

Ceptr: Do-Ops as Centers

Published: July 28, 2017
n

This is a proposal for a do-op formation process. It is aimed at creating the do-op as a living center within Ceptr.

Emergent Scenarios

  1. A do-op is most likely to form as a seed within an existing do-op. That seed may emerge as a signal: a question, an idea or a side discussion. Most such signals will merge with the stream of collective consciousness of the host do-op itself. Some signals will fade into the background. Some may gain energy until they’ve reached some kind of critical mass. Such a critical mass will affect the flow of the host do-op. The host do-op may meet this with different strategies. One of these strategies is to spawn a new do-op. This will alllow the host do-op to stay focused and aligned with its purpose, while a new do-op is free to explore its place in the world. Is is natural that the two will stay connected and that signals will travel between them (and with other do-ops). MetaCurrency spawned Ceptr. Ceptr spawned Holochain (and we are now discovering the nature of the relationship between the two).
  2. Though less likely, bu tnot impossible, a do-op may form as a more spontaneous response to an outside agent. As Ceptr membranes become more permeable, new agents (people, ideas … ) may appear in Ceptr’s collective consciousness. It is better for new agents to be first embedded in one of Ceptrs existing Do-op’s, even if for only a short period. However we should stay open to “miracles” … unexpected forces and opportunities for change. We can achieve this by providing a containing nursery / incubation do-op. This can be a place for wildcards to gestate until they are ready to join Ceptr.

In both of these scenarios a new do-op emerges from within an existing do-op. A do-op should never be added as an external piece that is attached to the Ceptr body (that will most likely lead to a parastic relationship that will consume Ceptr instead of nourishing it).

Process: Do-Op Inception

The purpose of this process is to present a new do-op to the Ceptr team and to give the team an opportunity to intentionally relate to the possibility of a new do-op. A new do-op should be formed with a sense that it enhances and increases the coherence of Ceptr as a whole.

  1. A group of at least 3 people have come together with a clear sense of a shared interest. At least one of them is at least a Ceptr Member (see Spheres of Engagement).
  2. The group publishes a written proposal describing the new do-op. (see process: New Do-Op Proposal)
  3. Everyone of the existing do-op coherence holders publishes a response to the proposal. (see process: New Do-Op Proposal Commentary)
  4. If at least half of the coherence holders express a position of “passionately support” and none of them express a position of “object” then the new do-op can be created.
  5. Otherwise schedule a meeting with the coherence holders. At least 75% of the coherence holders need to present in the meeting. All of the coherence holders who objected need to be present.
  6. If during the meeting consent is given (all of the objections are removed), the new do-op can be created.
  7. If consent is not given the proposing team will publish a summary of the process and what was learned from it.  (see process: Rejected Do-Op Report)
  8. Decide who is the coherence holder for the new do-op.
  9. Write a brief description of the new do-op.
  10. Write a more extensive (though still brief) introduction to the do-op. Describe its purpose and how you expect it to contribute to Ceptr.
  11. Create a home-space for the new do-op.
  12. Announce the new do-op in the existing do-ops.

Process: New Do-Op Proposal

The purpose of this process is to help you formulate a proposal that is relevant and grounded in Ceptr’s current state of being and its needs. Following it will increase the odds that your proposal will resonate with the existing do-ops and that the new do-op will be able to contribute to Ceptr.

  1. Take time to reflect on what a do-op is and what it isn’t. A do-op IS a means to focus existing attention and resources towards a clear purpose. A new do-op is a quiet space within the busy-ness of Ceptr where new ideas can be explored. A do-op is not a means to allocate resources. Ceptr has no free-floating resources that a do-op can apply-for or capture. A do-op is a means for injecting new resources, primarily your passion, attention, skills and time to contributing and evolving Ceptr. A vital do-op may be able to capture Ceptr resources by being relevant and attractive.
  2. List the people who are proposing the new do-op.
  3. Describe what in Ceptr (as it currently is) caught your attention.
  4. Describe where you identified a desire to intervene and introduce change.
  5. Describe the change that you would like to see and how you feel it may benefit Ceptr.
  6. Describe what actions you would like to take as first steps if your do-op is formed.

Process: New Do-Op Proposal Commentary

The purpose of this process is to help you (an existing coherence holder) respond concisely and effectively to a proposal for a new do-op. It is intended to help you assess if and how the proposed do-op would contribute and enhance your do-op and Ceptr as a whole.

  1. Read the new do-op proposal.
  2. Ask yourself if the proposal is clear and coherent.
  3. Ask yourself if the proposal resonates with your active do-op and with Ceptr as whole in its current state-of-being. What you are looking or at this stage is a feeling rather than an intellectual undertanding.
  4. If the proposal does not resonate with you ask yourself if you want to invest energy in getting to understand it better.
  5. If you are interested, contact the authoring team and inquire about the proposal to get a better understanding of it.
  6. If you are not interested, ask yourself if that means that you object to this proposal?
  7. If you do obect to this do-op see process: Rejected Do-Op Report
  8. Otherwise, ask yourself how does the new do-op relate to your do-op (the one for which you are the coherency holder).
  9. Ask yourself to in what ways you think that this new do-op can relate to your do-op.
  10. Ask yourself if you would like to see this do-op come to life right now.
  11. Determine your position: support passionately, on-the-fence, need more information or object.
  12. Respond in writing to the proposal. Include in your response your feelings about it, feedback you would like to offer, reservations you may have and your position on it.

Process: Rejected Do-Op Report

The purpose of this process is to get better at working together by giving attention to differences in our perceptions and valuations.

  1. Re-read the written proposal.
  2. Reconnect with your original motivation in proposing the do-op.
  3. Re-read the commentaries published in response to your proposal and if available a summary of the meeting with the coherence holder.
  4. Ask yourself if you are able to see something now that you were not able to see before.
  5. Ask yourself if you feel that you encountered a blockage that arises from some kind of group-think residue.
  6. Take time to observe how you feel at the end of this process.
  7. Assemble your thoughts and reflections into a summary that you feel may contribute to a future version of yourself or Ceptr.
  8. Publish your summary as a reponse to the original proposal thread.
  9. Close the proposal thread to further comments.
Posted in Ceptr, outside | You are welcome to read 2 comments and to add yours

Ceptr: Centers instead of Containers

Published: July 28, 2017
n

This post is another reflection followup to the recent Ceptr organizational structure meeting.

Centers

Imagine a hill or a pond (or, spoiler alert, anything LIVING) … there is a clear sense of “there is a pond” but we can’t really draw a clear border around it?
Does the pond include the earth underneath it – if so how deep?
Does the pond include the earth around it – if so how far?
Does the pond include the air above it – if so how high?
Does the pond include the in-feed flow or the overflow drain – if so how far?

Talking about containers implies that we CAN draw clear lines.
Talking about centers acknowledges that we CANNOT.

The primary quality of a center is the degree (not necessarily quantifiable) of life we experience when we relate to it.

  • Centers are made of other centers and support each other: a plant – in a pot –  on a stand – in a place – in a room – in a house … each a center supporting other centers.
  • When we change a center well its aliveness increases and by relationship so does the aliveness of other related centers.
  • A good change is a small change in one center that resonates profoundly throughout a sytem being (symathesy?) of interrelated centers.
  • Unfolding wholeness is that living pocess which leads to a sequence of good changes.

(If you are metaphysically inclined you may pick up a scent of something suble and profound: all there really IS is not even centers, but a network of relationships.)

If we wish to talk about something living (as I assume we are) then a vocabulary of containers is bound to make us feel choked, constrained and fragmented.

During the (infamous?) “organizational structure” talk we went with a containers-based vocabularyand that highlighted the more mechanistic and tangible-to-our-minds things (that we don’t yet have) and, I believe, downplayed more subtle yet living things that we do have. I suspect there are quite a few vital living centers in the Ceptr project which we did not acknowledge in the meeting because of the “contained” glasses we collectively put on.

I hope to be able demonstrate the implications of this in numerous domains. But I want to start with one concrete and relevant example: do-ops.

Current Do-Ops

Our do-ops are work-groups that have formed to focus on different aspects of Ceptr. If we think of do-ops as centers, then each do-op that forms should enhance the overall vitality of the project. As each do-op matures and finds its team, voice … comes to life … the overall life of Ceptr increases.

But as it currently stands we are treating do-ops more like containers and as a result there are undesirable outcomes that can make the do-ops draining (reducing live) rather than nourishing (increaseing life):

  1. Too many – creating a sense complexity and possible overlap. Where do I belong? Where does a subject belong?
  2. Dead – do-ops that promise life but do not have any.
  3. Hidden – some of those that are brimming are inaccessible (for differing reasons of tools, process, culture …) to an outsider.
  4. Theoretical – an expression of needs that have been recognized  but for which resources have not been allocated.
  5. Personal Ambition – some are expressions of personal preference, not necessarily bound to what Ceptr needs at the present.

For anyone who is not already deeply immersed in Ceptr this can come across is a fragmented experience. For anyone just stepping in, it can seem like a confusing and alienating space.

What would our do-ops look like if they were treated as living centers? coming up next.

Posted in Ceptr, outside | You are welcome to read 1 comment and to add yours

3 Sources of Bias in AI

Published: July 24, 2017
n

” … Math really is pure, has certain truth, it’s eternal, it would be the same without any particular sentient species looking at it. That’s because math is an abstraction that doesn’t exist in the real world. Computation is a physical process.

… the first source of AI bias:  unintentionally uploading the implicit human biases that pervade our culture … There’s no real way to fix this without fixing our culture first, so we need to compensate for it when we design our systems.

… the second source of AI bias is poorly-selected training data for machine learning, or poorly reasoned rules … when we detect these errors we can fix them, so we can expect that these types of AI biases should iteratively improve and hopefully eventually disappear

… the third source of AI bias is evil programmers.  Or corporations, or governments … The way to deal with this is to insist on the right to explanation, on due process.  All algorithms that affect people’s lives should be subject to audit.”

source

Posted in Intake, Intellect Run Amok, outside, Tech Stuff | Tagged | You are welcome to add your comment

On Ceptr and Wagn and WordPress

Published: July 24, 2017
n

This post, in addition to its subject matter, is offered as an experiment / demonstration for:

  1. This format of communication / expression (even though it isn’t published where it should be) as having intrinsic value as a collaborative tool.
  2. Coordinated, distributed and asyncronous work while potentially reducing the need for yet another meeting (face-to-face or online).
  3. If this was discussed in (yet another) meeting, the contents may have not made it into this written form and been available only to the participants of the meeting,
  4. That the written and published form creates a referencable / sharable / discussion point resource for others who would not have attended the (yet another) meeting.

This is a followup to a conversation with Arthur and Jarod about creating a collaborative work (codenamed: make.ceptr.org)

Personally

I’d like to clarify that in an ideal situation I would prefer to not get involved “under the hood”. I enjoy applying these tools more than creating them. I’ve been using WordPress for 10 years and have formed a satisfactory relationship with it, in that empowers me to express myself and create things I’d like to see in the world (that no one else has created or will create for me). Given that there aren’t technical resources available in the Ceptr team, I am offering to create what I can.

Wagn

I am curious about Wagn and what it can do. I apperciate the approach it takes and maybe in another context (not after a year of challenging coding work) I would be interested in exploring what can be done with it. However it feels to me like a technology and not yet a usable tool. I can imagine that for someone who is closer to a developer mindset it is more of a tool. But I am not of that mindset.

Lets assume that an in depth suitability analysis of Wagn as a technology to create a clearly outlined solution were conducted and gave a clear resounding yes. If I am the one who has to now create with it I would have to enter a learning curve which 1) I am not interested in and 2) would divert energy from creating a solution for Ceptr, to investing in Wagn.

I do, however, want to dedicate a few more sentences to Wagn as a technological manifestation.

Solutions and Technologies

Wagn highlights a fault-line I have been observing for many years in IT and more endemically in open-source. A technology is not a product. An engine is not a car. Technology is only one dimension of creating good applications that provide valuable solutions. RSS was an oh-so-simple protocol/technology for connecting people that wasn’t properly productized. Facebook did fill that void with an exploitative product.

I would like to avoid this shortcoming in Ceptr.

I realize that Ceptr & Holochain ARE technologies. Ceptr & Holochain are on par with developing an operating system like Linux. For Linux to “succeed” it took many others who built upon it distributions that were targeted for more specific contexts / applications.

My understanding is that a similar view is currently shaping Ceptr & Holochain. That others will adopt Holochain and build solutions upon it. But I am not convinced that can happen, or that if even if it did, that it would necessarily be be a good thing.

Yes Ceptr can be framed, for example, as a Blockchain alternative. But, in my mind, that isn’t true. Ceptr is designed for a different mindset … heck … lets say it out loud … to a different heart-set. Those who see and embrace it as a Blockchain alternative will not be manifesting that different heart-set. They will be applying pressure to get Holochain to do their bidding. The question is what will give? Will Holochain bend their mind-set and bring them closer to its mindset? Or will Holochain itself be bent to be framed into their expectations?s

This is why I believe that it is up to us, the makers of Ceptr & Holochain to also create applied solutions to really give them life. When we do, please, please, please … lets avoid making Wagns.

For anyone interested in reading more on this I recommend The Inmates are Running the Asylum by Alan Cooper.

WordPress

I would like to keep this short:

  1. WordPress, in addition to being an application / product has been, for me, a vivid example of distributed collaboration. I have enjoyed watching (though not as an active participant) how it grew as a collaborating community. WordPress, to a large extent, was used to create itself. I would like to bring that morphic field into Ceptr.
  2. Part of what I bring with WordPress is … what I bring with WordPress … the way I personally create with and use it. I would like to try to demonstrate the difference between engineering a theoretical process vs. a gradual unfolding and emergence of process. This can happen when we enter a cycle in which 1) a tool is being used; 2) the usage provides feedback; 3) the feedback can be converted in short iterations into changing the tool itself.
  3. If the unfolding experience pleases us we can apply it with other online contexts (websites and what not) because WordPress can be used for those too.
  4. WordPress, in my experience, brings with it many subtle assets. If we opt to use it I will try to make a conscious effort to highlight them as we encounter them. This touches on what it truly takes to elevate a technology into a solution.
  5. WordPress is fully open and documented, lock-in to it comes not from it but from the gains and satisfaction of using it. It is not the Hotel California or Google … you can always leave.
  6. WordPress can potentially be an agile, living mockup-tool for us to experiment in what we want collaboration to look like … so that when the time comes we can be better informed about how to build alternatives in Holochain.

Actionables

  1. Review the beginning of this post and reflect on its format as a collaborative tool.
  2. Communicate contents to others who you feel are vested in the next question.
  3. Do you feel you have sufficient information to make a decision about using WordPress to create a collaborative work space? If not, what is missing?
  4. Do you want to move forward with this experiment?
Posted in Ceptr, outside | You are welcome to add your comment

Ceptr CEO

Published: July 23, 2017
n

A few days ago I was invited to listen in on a conversation where some Ceptr friends tried to deal with questions on organizational structure and whether whatever organizational structure there was needed a CEO and/or COO. I am going to try to zoom in on the CEO question as a reflection on the wider context.

I will start with what wasn’t brought up in the meeting at all: what is a CEO? Because this wasn’t brought up the conversation seemed to gravitate towards an unspoken but conventional assumption of what a traditional CEO (at least in my mind). I would vaguely describe it as someone who is brought in to introduce and sustain structure and order through authority (in this case authority that would be willfully given). Given some of the core narratives that have shaped Ceptr this felt like an inconsistency at least, possibly even a betrayal of values. Ceptr is about creating a technology which evokes dyamic and adaptive self-organization – an idea inspired by nature. I would want to see the organism that is Ceptr live in such a way. A forest doesn’t have a CEO, why does Ceptr need one? Can centralized authority be a foundation for creating a system of distributed authority?

Can there be another kind of CEO? These thoughts are inspired by the work of Frederic Leloux and his work Reinventing Organizations and by some of the inspiration I experienced in the existing examples introduced in Better Companies: Equal Footing.

The primary responsibility of a CEO is to listen to what wants to be. It is not to figure out or decide where an organization needs to go. It is to listen to listen carefully to what an organizations is asking to become. The primary action of a CEO is to direct attention and energy throughout the organization so that it can gracefull move as a whole towards that which wants to be. It isn’t to make sure that everyone is executing a predetermined plan. It is to notice and share with others that by bringing together our wills, resources and gifts we have created emergent conditions and that something is emerging.

Such a CEO cannot exist in a hierarchical and centralized organization. Such a CEO resonates with a different form of organization. If there needs to be a process of recruitment (whether its direct hiring or onboarding) then that process needs to be informed by the emerging story not by some centralized decision about recruitment which falls on the shoulders of one person. If there needs to be a process of funding then that too should not fall upon the shoulders of one person to direct and control, but is shaped to be in service of what wants to emerge. Maybe this CEO is a modern-day shaman-like figure … an intimate keeper of story.

If I look at Ceptr in this context, it already has a defacto CEO. If I try to imagine this defacto CEO being placed in a traditional CEO role, I can see him rejecting that notion … which is what seems to be happening. It goes against his nature. A traditional notion of CEO would undermine him and undermine Ceptr. His rejection of it is an act of leadership. I believe, the challenge we are left with is not to find a CEO, but to find a way to create conditions for an organization to emerge around the CEO we already have.

I would like to also touch lightly on the subject of man/woman. I believe we need to better discern between man/woman and masculine/feminine. I believe we need to give rise to feminine qualities and that confusing that with woman can be distracting. I would very much like to create and partake in an organization that is shaped by a better feminine-masculine mix (to avoid male dominance). I  believe our defacto CEO is a good example of this.

 

 

 

 

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