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Editor: Hi, this is an old newsletter from Loomio (tech co-op I worked for and still support). It indexes two guides I was involved in developing that are still relevant today for groups aspiring to better collaboration.

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A big reason why Loomio exists is to help people collaborate to achieve successful outcomes.

We are constantly surprised at the ways in which groups around the world use Loomio to do just that, with less time and effort, and this month we want to highlight some of that magic with:

1. A guide, “Four patterns of high-functioning groups”
2. How Loomio supports boards
3. A powerful story from a member-driven organization

1. Four patterns of successful groups

Why is it that some groups succeed where other groups often fail?

This is the underlying question group coordinators and facilitators grapple with as they seek to help people do better work together, and one that we aim to solve with Loomio.

Having talked to Loomio users — from volunteer activist groups to companies to governance boards — time and time again we hear and see a few key factors that all successful groups have in common.

So, what sets great groups apart from the rest?

We’ve identified four patterns:

Learn what they are here.

2. Loomio for boards

It can be difficult to deal with issues that crop up between meetings, particularly if you rely on email as your primary communication channel.

Boards are using Loomio to continue important work between meetings — overcoming email frustration, saving time and enjoying better meetings.

See how Loomio can transform your board.

3. “Investing in community”

The Vermont Solidarity Investing Club is taking a participatory approach to resourcing cooperative organizations.

We are proud that Loomio is a tool through which they are transforming the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of investing in order to more efficiently work towards healthier economies and communities.

Read the full story.

Ngā mihi nui,
John and the Loomio Team

PS, We are really excited to make early-access of Loomio 2.0 (beta) available soon; stay tuned for details and updates by following us on Twitter and keep an eye on our latest blog posts here.

The benefit of thinking of our “DIY collective of social enterprises, ventures, and individuals” as a housing cooperative struck me as I’ve recently been on calls with many Enspiral people in light of a change to the financial model of our Foundation we’ve been co-designing over the last year. With finances on our minds, we naturally have talked a lot about value, about what Enspiral makes possible for us, and—most recently—about the possibilities that lie between those whose energy makes Enspiral come alive. I was reminded that, similar to the housing co-op I’ve lived in, the identity and character of Enspiral changes depending on who’s living in the house.

The identity and character of Enspiral changes depending on who’s living in the house.

If you’ve lived in an intentional community or a co-op, this probably resonates. The experience of a house or community can change very quickly when people move out or move in, especially when the house or community uses consent-based decision-making or cooperative governance processes. This makes sense, as the idea of a cooperative is that it is driven and owned by its members, and it exists to serve its members; it should adapt when its membership changes to reflect the changing needs of the members.

I’m not saying that those not currently present or active in it don’t affect its identity. In living at the 30-person co-op, Lothlorien, I remember our collective excitement at receiving postcards from former residents. People would also come back and visit. In my experience of cooperative life over the last 8 years, the shared identity of a group is shaped by all those putting energy towards it. A friend of mine with a degree in positive psychology told me that intention → words → actions → habits → character. The character of our collective is tied to the intentions of those here at home and those off traveling, as well as those who have moved out but are still thinking about us, phoning now and then, or even just chatting about their experience with us in cafes and living rooms across the world.

The shared identity of a group is shaped by all those putting energy towards it.

Like a housing co-op, people may also only hang out in certain rooms. Some people are always in the kitchen. Some people always come to the house meeting but never attend collective meals. Jean can always be found in the backyard. Being able to see various channels where communication happens as spaces has been really helpful in developing a Working Groups system for Enspiral, and for thinking about how we consult various types of people in our network as we further implement advice process as a decision-making tool alongside our consensus processes.

How do we want to Enspiral? is a great question, but in this moment it may also help us to ask, what are the qualities of this place that enlivens our interactions? and how do we honor the ground on which we stand together? I’m reminded, of the African proverb, “if I stand tall, it is because I stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before”. As a collective that assembles online more often than not, I wonder how—when we connect digitally as well as in person—we can further embody this wisdom as we create and hold courageous spaces, spaces of choice, places for co-creating and living out our purpose.

P.S., I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention two projects in and near to the heart of Enspiral that show immense care and attention to the ground on which we stand, in our interacting online:

Loomio: if you have followed the Enspiral journey, you’ll know this is integral to our way of working, and emerged from our network’s efforts. I truly believe that hanging out in Loomio is transformative for myself and Enspiral due to the democratic intentionality around which its developed.

Secure Scuttlebutt: These folks are also developing the foundations for cooperative life on the internet. The user experience and interface are really coming along, and when it feels like those who lean away from tech could start using it, I do wonder whether Enspiral will begin to incorporate it more intentionally into our online collaboration environment.

P.P.S., In preparing for this article, I came across some beautiful writing, a kind of spiritual prose, that resonates greatly with my experience of Enspiral. The following is written by Orland Bishop in his book, The Seventh Shrine:

Sanctuary is a safe, secure place of rest and recovery, a place of shared respect for the conflict a person is in and the potential for change and transformation. It is a place where giving is intentional and cathartic and makes possible the question, “What if?”

…Sanctuary is a place of communication—inner and outer—where the deepest exchange is love. It is friendship, relationship—a home.

Sanctuary is a place of risk, of dynamic tension—between the past and the future, between fate and destiny—where one can search for the right. It is a place to know one another in the light of change and where one can face the consequences of one’s life.

Sanctuary is a place outside time, where there is always time for what is needed, a place of practical, continuous support. It is the authentic ground where every individual is welcomed, touched, and cared for.

It is a place of beginning, of faith, healing, forgiveness, imagination, and intention. It is a place of memory, of what lives beyond the temporal.

…It is a place where aspiration and purpose meet. It is a source of the waters of life, a place of reconciliation and resolve, a place of The Word, of the vital exchange of ideas.

Sanctuary is a place of meeting, of mentoring, a place of welcome.

Am I online? or in a housing co-op? was originally published in Enspiral Tales on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Dear reader, I want to flag, now — before you start scratching your head in confusion — that some of these ideas may take awhile to sink in. I’m an amateur at the practices suggested herein, and I’m certain I have much more to grasp… and I’ve been dwelling on the essay “A Delicate Activism” for a whole year now, at the same time immersing myself in similar lineages of thought: Octavia Butler ¹, adrienne maree brown ², Kahneman ³, Grace Lee Boggs ⁴… That said, I invite you to review this critically, and I look forward to any dialogue or comments (:

Reading “A Delicate Activism” by The Proteus Initiative’s Sue Davidoff & Allan Kaplan played a large role in changing the way I approach my work in community. It presents a way of working where communities are supported in improving their capacity to adapt to complexity and the rapid, massive changes to our political, economic, and environmental realities. The publication was recommended to me by my mentors and friends, Phillip Barker & Glen Lauder (Cultivate Partners). I am grateful to be supporting them in an initiative they’ve cofounded — convening a collective of folks working in land and water conservation in New Zealand. It’s been an invaluable experience for me, in part, because it has further teased out the wisdom articulated in “A Delicate Activism.” I want to name two aspects of Phillip & Glen’s project that I think embody that wisdom:

• the collaboration is designed with, rather than designed for, the participants, resulting in better relationships, processes, and outcomes
• it provides substantial value to every person, despite the group’s diversity (e.g., collaborators are comprised of those who work nationally, regionally, or quite locally as farmers)

My hope in reflecting on “A Delicate Activism” is to examine the paradoxes and tensions in social change work and to encourage a more holistic and refined approach to how we do work for social and ecological good. I’ve aimed to capture its essence, but surely will have missed much. If you enjoy this, and don’t mind an academic reading, I highly recommend you look for the full publication, here, or message me @coopchange. You may also enjoy my notes & quotes sheet.

Tension of Generalization

It’s probably easy to understand the value of naming and sharing what we learn from personal successes or failures, or the insights gained by noticing patterns across a number of experiences. Seeing role models, be they people or projects — or, conversely, cautionary tales — can reduce time wasted in re-inventing the wheel or running into common pitfalls, and accelerate our learning and growth. The stories passed down to us over generations, such as Aesop’s Fables and other such tales, can be recognized as generalizations of our learning and wisdom.

Stereotypes, on the other hand, are an example in which generalization can do more harm than good (the popular film Hidden Figures depicts a low-intensity example), but there are less obvious ways in which we shortchange ourselves and our communities. By “generalization”, I mean abstracting, i.e., removing context. Generalization is undesirable when used on individual, social, and cultural phenomena that can only be usefully accurate when understood within the context of the circumstances in which they arose.

Two examples

Where I live, Indianapolis, we’ve felt the harsh consequences of generalization more than a couple of times within the scope of city or community development, a.k.a. “gentrification” when it is done harmfully or when it displaces people or culture (e.g., traditions). I live in a neighborhood that many call a “food desert”, so you can imagine my surprise when I woke up to find that, where there used to be a grocery store a brewery has moved in, with the ironic name, Happy Brewing Co. Just what we needed! NOT! Unfortunately, this event isn’t as surprising as you might think. My neighborhood is also a target for massive capital investment and development, because a new rapid transit line will make it prime real estate. That’s to say, gentrification is likely on the way, and we’re already feeling the cookie-cutter-approach chafing as it disregards the local context and impact upon the local community.

There’s a pattern of development that seems to accompany gentrification in several Indianapolis neighborhoods where I’ve seen it occur. Craft breweries have been like the pawns in a chess game, they’re the first move in almost any gentrifying neighborhood in Indianapolis I can think of. Perhaps on average they’ve been economically viable where gentrification has succeeded across town, but — in this case — they’ve caused a tremendous amount of community ill will towards themselves by not even taking the time to come to any local meetings. The local food purchasing co-op meets not even five blocks from their location! It’s not that a brewery was the wrong choice, rather it’s that there was no exploration of how this brewery could connect with local initiatives to address current community needs.

I don’t think their neglecting to connect was just a case of greed. Building social capital, cultivating and sustaining positive relationships, can — in a place like Indianapolis — make or break a business; it has economic value. The small grocery chain that closed down and left this neighborhood without any nearby, healthy food options failed, in part, because they never fully built trust with the neighborhood. There’s a dozen ways that Happy Brewing Co could have created synergy with local initiatives and institutions and thereby changed the story being told about them. This reductionist and over-generalizing approach to economic development denies us a tremendous amount of opportunities that would otherwise be available if we only reflected on — and acted upon — the recognition that every situation and context is complexly unique.

The second story can be heard by checking out the above podcast from The Lit Review. Twelve minutes in you’ll hear how Quinn Rallins, who flew in to re-build homes after Hurricane Katrina, was blown away when a woman comes up to him as he’s working and says she doesn’t plan on living there anymore — there were so many other challenges in her life that she was planning to leave, and it totally shocked Rallins’ assumptions about the best way to support Katrina survivors.

Three levels of sensing

To further understand how generalization might go awry, Davidoff & Kaplan include this great explanation of what likely amounts to a cognitive bias where we get muddled up by what we’re actually perceiving and what meaning we make of it:

1. Most immediately, we perceive with neither thinking/cognizing nor recognition nor meaning… we just receive the signals
2. We bring cognition to bear and we make meaning of it and/or recognize what we perceived
3. We explain, seeking to understand — in context — that which we’ve recognized or perceived, through metaphor, etc.

Levels (1.) and (2.) are very often conflated as they happen almost simultaneously. Levels (2.) and (3.) are often difficult to distinguish. Thus, we confuse (3.) with (1.), now suggesting the metaphor in our head is objective.

For example, Davidoff & Kaplan relate how they’ve met folks who described the human memory as a database. This metaphor can lead one to think that memories are discrete entities within the brain, which is completely misleading (though it does support the notion that, like in Harry Potter, we could preserve our favorite memories in our favorite bowl or crockpot).

With the urgency of climate change, economic inequality, and political instability, I am eager to see us take advantage of our collective intelligence and information communication technologies, but at the same time I feel strongly that sometimes you have to think slow³ in order to move fast, otherwise we might make some assumptions that will lead us hurdling off the cliff… and perhaps you can think of some ways in which we have already made some damaging assumptions (cough cough ‘we’re individuals and not connected’… ‘profit as maximizer of human benefit’… ‘ecosystems perceived as nothing more than material resources’… cough cough).

Tension of Confidence and Certainty

It’s important to move courageously from a strong stance in your belief system (or theory of change, or principles, etc.), but it’s also essential to be vulnerable, to embrace ambiguity and uncertainty, and to be open to examining your mental models and assumptions—and how you apply them — and changing as your understanding grows. Davidoff & Kaplan highlight the importance of this,

“A radical path, pushed to its limits with unquestioning certainty, arrives at fundamentalism”

This paradox is especially fun (and tricky) because it invites you to challenge everything, including everything I’ve written here. Davidoff and Kaplan write about the tension between having “deep intentions”, while also being open to these intentions changing. “By this logic, shouldn’t I also be open to changing my intention to balance the tension of generalization?” While my answer would be a “YES!, do please critically question all that you read”, I personally find it daunting to confidently move forward while embracing uncertainty or ambiguity. By my understanding, to balance this tension well and mitigate the harm that can be done by unchecked assumptions, I have to critically question all my assumptions. I even have to question my belief that the current mode of neoliberal capitalism is fundamentally flawed.

However, I’m not suggesting you wallow in self-doubt. On the contrary, stepping into your agency, or your self-determination, is essential to this type of work. These are “tensions” because they’re not rules; they only provide us useful questions, or tools, to hone our craft. As with any tool, especially mental models or systems — they’re are only “true” in so far as they’re useful to you and your people. While I can attest that it’s hard to keep these tensions in mind, let alone to practically implement them— I have found that I’ve improved my own processes (and outcomes) by doing so. A small success I can attribute to questioning my deeper assumptions: in the last year I’ve connected with a higher number of people who I know to have views that differ from mine; these connections grow my social capital and, thus, my productive capacity.

“The only lasting truth is Change…” — Octavia Butler ¹

I think Davidoff and Kaplan are also suggesting that we would each benefit from an iterative (e.g., Agile) approach to forming intentions, reviewing and revising them regularly as we learn through experience. I’m not saying principles aren’t useful. They can act as signposts to help us find the others, as shared values for collective decision-making, and as heuristics (i.e., learning or decision-making shortcuts) to guide us in moments where we must choose under pressure. However, if we never question these principles, or apply critical reasoning to the values that we or our communities proclaim, then we may become rigid and fragile through dogmatic ideology. Moreover, we may blind ourselves to seeing a deeper truth that could better move us forward.

I wish I could say “here’s the type of situation in which you take pause to question your assumptions, and here’s the situation in which your assumptions are good enough to try and it’s best to take action”. However, even if I could say that I was especially talented at distinguishing this in my own work, your line in the sand will be unique to you. Writing this article is part of my efforts to better learn how to implement reflection in action.

Grappling with personal Theories of Change

Sometimes, for ease of reference, I call my vocation “community organizing”. In practice, to me, this takes the form of building relationships with the deep intention to ‘disrupt collusion with systems of oppressive power’ (this amazing definition of organizing came from Allied Media Conference in ’17, I wish I could credit it’s lineage!). This explicit purpose reinforces my belief that I should work from the bottom-up, which is to say that I prioritize efforts that support those who are most negatively impacted by any given issue. This way of working also reflects my assumption that a relational way of working will get the goods. By acknowledging the tension between certainty and confidence, I have to question these assumptions, while still moving the work forward. This year, I’ve been regarding my commitment to efforts that directly support those most impacted, and at the same time exploring a contradicting hypothesis that I should “meet myself where I’m at” and “organize my people” in my own place.

In working to disrupt collusion with systems of oppressive power, I also have to have critical dialogue with myself and others — regularly — around why, how, and where oppression occurs, what it looks like when it shows up, and how to proactively subvert the dynamics at its roots. These questions may seem like additional work that would slow you down, but you can also think of them as growing your productive capacity; taking time to “sharpen the saw” ⁵ can save you time and effort in the long haul.

Embracing ambiguity and acknowledging uncertainty may be critical for dealing with the complexity of interdependence, of being utterly entangled with and connected to our environments and each other, socially, culturally, physically, politically, etc. “All that you touch / you Change. All that you Change / Changes you.”¹ says Octavia Butler. Grace Lee Boggs acknowledges a similar, reciprocal relationship as she advocates that we must change society and change our selves³, simultaneously. If I change, my ecosystem has changed; if my ecosystem changes, so will I… this is why it’s important to balance the tension of certainty and confidence.

Inquiry-based versus Solution-based

Another way to talk about this tension was named in part by a friend and colleague, Chelsea Robinson. Orienting social projects around a question, rather than around a predetermined solution, has been championed by many in the last decades, from the 15+ years of folks developing and implementing Social Labs and Innovation Labs frameworks, to the 20+ years of Asset-Based Community Development practitioners asking “what is possible with what we have now?” While inquiry-based methods are common for scientific or educational endeavors, I expect we’ll see more and more social enterprises leaning into this approach, especially as Participatory Action Research, Cooperative Inquiry, Design Thinking (even experimental co-design in grant-funding/ the nonprofit industrial complex), Citizen Science, and the practices I’ve mentioned above appear to be growing in popularity.

For an expanded view of the above tensions and some others not included here, watch my introduction to the learning resource I produced, A Delicate Organizing - The tensions of transformative change:

Paradox of Attention

As we try to move past harmful paradigms, where we put our attention matters. Focusing on the issues, the injustices, the problems — or our struggle against the ills of the human experience — can backfire. Focussing on deficits may regenerate or strengthen the challenges, especially wicked problems, we want to solve.

“What you pay attention to grows” — Deepak Chopra

I still feel that it’s useful, at times, to name problems or issues. The irony, though, is the way in which this focus on the deficit or problem can reinforce or perpetuate that issue. I do think there are moments when naming issues can help us to consciously divert our attention from them, to avoid giving them power by unconsciously dwelling upon them.

This dynamic can also support generative activity. One example that sheds light on this phenomenon is the open source movement. By naming projects open source (or Free Libre Open Source Software, FLOSS), you can bring more attention to the practice of releasing code, designs, or content under open source licenses, encouraging others to do the same, and increasing the value that the movement brings to society. (Maybe you’d like to open source some photos so I’ll have more visual options for my next blog? ;))

More than a few well-regarded thinkers have articulated how opposition to something can strengthen, solidify, or make more real the very thing that’s being opposed. I’ve heard it said that rioters create (or strengthen, or perpetuate) riot police. While this may be problematic and may overly simplify some of the complexity involved, you’ll hopefully also see its logic. If there were no rioters, there would be no riot police. Another metaphor for this dynamic can be seen in our simplest physics, Newton’s second law, “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”. The Paradoxical Theory of Change a classic of Gestalt therapy—and mentioned in “A Delicate Activism”— suggests that, “the more one attempts to be who one is not, the more one remains the same.” ⁶

Medicine includes many examples, including the well-cited placebo effect. One study that surprised me was conducted by one of the highest regarded scientists in the subject of mindfulness, Ellen Langer. In her words, “I took old men to a timeless retreat that had been retrofitted to 20 years earlier and had them live there as if it was the present, speaking in the present tense and so on”, as if they were 20 years younger. “The results were phenomenal… their hearing improved, their vision improved, their memory improved, their strength improved. At the end of this, they were evaluated by people who knew nothing about the study as looking significantly younger” ⁷.

Antifragile by Nassim Taleb provides many more examples in the areas of medicine, ideas, and evolutionary biology. There is plentiful evidence that putting stress on our bones increases their strength over time. Sharing another example, he writes, “many claim that restricting the caloric intake of lab animals will increase their life expectancy… it looks like such restriction makes humans healthier”. All press is good press, goes the saying, and there’s countless examples of negative attention to writers and public figures increasing the spread of their ideas, to the extent that some authors even pay people to ‘troll’ their work.⁸ We develop increasingly complex strategies to combat viruses and bacteria, using vaccines and medicine, to find that we create super-resistant agents of contagion. The idea of “antifragility” is that there are many phenomena that benefit from stressors, energy, or attention that — to more fragile entities — we would call attacks or negative impacts.

The paradox around attention and growth also provides a path to understanding one of the foundations of “A Delicate Activism”, and to the phenomenological method, the idea that how we observe the world changes the world, as we are reciprocally changed by that which we see in the world. The phrase, “A Delicate Activism” comes from “a delicate empiricism”, a concept of the holistic scientist, Goethe. A delicate empiricism emphasizes the delicate relationship between what we observe and the meaning we make of it. It then follows that if I change the way I look at someone, they themselves have changed. If I can get you to suspend your doubt or confusion for one more story, I can elaborate.

To paraphrase a story from William Isaacs (a long-time consultant for business people), there was a young executive who came to Isaacs and told him how he was having great difficulty with a much more senior executive. The older exec generally would not cede control nor validate the proposals of the younger exec. Isaacs suggested to the younger exec, “next time you spend some time with him, rather than see him as a micro-manager refusing to let go, try to see him as a guardian of your company’s cultural legacy” [paraphrased]. Sure enough, when Isaacs next chats with the young exec, this reframe had profoundly changed the dynamics of their interaction.⁹

The case study/ testimonials included in “A Delicate Activism”, the story of Cape Flats Nature, gives even more nuance and fullness to these tensions. For a taste, here’s a passage that sheds another light on the role of our attention.

The folks of Cape Flats Nature noticed that, with more and more people and groupings actively observing, paying attention to themselves and to the other, the quality of adversarial boundedness that had characterised relationships before, fell away... This was revelatory… as they expressed it, “for the person who is really paying attention there are no adversaries!”

In-conclusion

The way we go about our work — how we hold ourselves as we navigate complex, emergent change — can dramatically affect our outcomes. In turn, how we see the world, and how we process what we see, plays a big role in how we act. As in George Mead’s “living present”, the glasses we choose today, based on the future we desire, colors the way we see the past and the present. The way we see the past and present changes what we desire for the future, and therefore affects the glasses that we choose next (…and next… and next… recursively). For Davidoff & Kaplan, “a truly radical activism will recognize conversation [and staying woke] as its most critical activities… living into the reciprocal relationship between self and the world provides the foundation for wakefulness”. I hope that — by balancing the tensions of generalization and certainty, and being mindful with our attention and how we observe the world — we can develop self-mastery and collective-mastery in conversation and wakefulness. My current hypothesis is that these skills will support our journey towards a flourishing world, ecosystem, and beloved community.

Here’s some other skills that Davidoff & Kaplan mention might support us:

• really pay attention, which means pay attention to the whole
• see simultaneity rather than cause and effect
• look for meaning, interconnectedness, and relationships
• look at the dynamics of belonging and separateness that lie between things as the activity or flow that unites them
• lean away from explicit (especially conceptual or abstract) explanations or causes
• be present — reflection, self-reflection, can help

Rigorous discernment of what can be generalized and what is only true for its context, consistent questioning of our fundamental assumptions, and diligent adaptiveness in how we use our attention. I don’t think it will be easy to fully integrate these into practice. However, support exists. In my experience, more and more people are incorporating similar strategies and methods. My colleagues at Cultivate Partners, Enspiral, and the Kheprw Institute are all developing capacity along these lines, and there are many incorporating lessons that people like David Bohm have unfolded by applying quantum physics, the Observability Principle, and complex adaptive systems science to human dynamics and social practice. You’ll find a bunch more bread crumb trails (references etc.) for this kind of thinking in my Delicate Organizing mental map.

Pa’lante. Travailler pour vivre. Onwards. And share the love (:

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments or directly @coopchange.

REFERENCES

1. Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler
2. Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by adrienne maree brown
3. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
4. The Next American Revolution, and other work, by Grace Lee Boggs
5. 7 Habits for Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
6. Gestalt therapy, Wikipedia article
7. “Ellen Langer [interview]: The Science of Mindlessness and Mindfulness” with Krista Tippett on Onbeing
8. “I Helped Create the Milo Trolling Playbook. You Should Stop Playing Right Into It” by Ryan Holiday
9. Dialogue: The Art of Thinking Together by William Isaacs

Thanks to Glen Lauder, Phillip Barker, and the Kheprw Institute for direct contributions to the ideas herein, and to Sukie Conley, Susan Basterfield, and Adam Waterhouse for their sharp eyes for clarity and grammar.

Tensions in Intentional Social Change was originally published in Enspiral Tales on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The internet was a promise of open access and global inclusion, but has this been realized? You might have sensed that the internet isn’t living up to this potential, and that barriers to global access and equity are yet to be bridged. The internet was born in a time before globalization 3.0. The current methods of design — for networks, communities, and software— are in need of a remodel to ensure they support inclusion, and a social cohesion that fosters both cultural and individual diversity. I write this post as a call to action. My hope is to spark discourse, the sharing of challenges and examples, lessons learned, and practical ways towards self- and group-improvement in the arenas of open source design , participatory organization and online collaboration.

While there is a lower class, I am in it; and while there is a criminal element, I am of it; and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. — Eugene Debs

Open source found swift adoption after its appearance at the Free Software Summit of ’98, and amplified a cultural revolution that saw information as a public good, and knowledge as a commons that should be freely available. Open access was elaborated on by the Berlin Declaration of ’03; one of its stipulations being, “free, irrevocable, worldwide, right of access”.

These movements have momentum and power, but until they put intercultural competence at a higher priority, they will be prematurely stunted from their transformative potential that could free all of society.

Background

My provocation: I’m a digital native, having communed and convened through the web since I was young. For the last nine months, the majority of my social and professional interactions have occurred online. Ever since I read an article entitled, “A Model of Cultural Competence in Open Source Systems” [e-book] eight months ago, I have been seeking conversations on intercultural competence in open source design communities. The vast majority of my online engagement is with progressive and impressively democratic networks, and so I was surprised to see so little about it (though Enspiral’s Diversity Agreement was certainly reassuring).

My interest in such competence began from a painful yet most valuable experience. For six years I have been working primarily as a community organizer, within the framework of social change. At the end of my first year, I had the opportunity to learn in a personal and powerful way what my privilege meant. A long story short: myself and two other males had been dominating the conversation in a non-hierarchical, direct-action collective, in the midst of the biggest protest movement Wisconsin has ever seen, and several women of color felt unable to bring their issues up for a period of months. The outtake was a dramatic pair of sessions, six hours each, that were necessary to reestablish the balance and harmony of our group.

I’m cis, white, and male, from the lower-middle class. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized how much easier I can move through my world than others who don’t have these same privilege-granting characteristics. It was just easier, more comfortable, for me to speak than for people whose experiences differed vastly from my own. This balancing lesson taught me how to authentically collaborate through the lens of power with instead of power over, and it continues to shape my work and increase its effectiveness.

In my current work online, the lessons I learned about balancing power have become harder to apply, because

1. I can’t always tell who is in a virtual room
2. It’s harder to determine what privileges are held by those present
3. Asynchronous communication lacks many of the visual cues that are so helpful in facilitating safe(r) spaces and recognizing when someone is in discomfort or shut down. With the loss of visual cues and physical presence, new tactics are required for safeguarding groups from imbalances, and reversing disparities when they occur (e.g. asking someone for a quick face-to-face after a meeting looks very different online)

Why Intercultural Competence Matters

Cultural competence is defined as “a complex, psychosocial and socio-cultural process of cultural awareness, content knowledge, and applied or practice skills. It is as an active, developmental, and ongoing process, one that is aspirational rather than achieved,” (Sue & Sue, 2008). It is the awareness of cultures, the distinctions of their context, their sense-making, and their values and norms and the applied practice of interacting with them through communication and other collaborative processes in appropriate and competent ways. Beyond being a fair or just concept, intercultural competence is just plain effective, as it can activate and sustain collective action in many ways, especially through Social Capital.

Benefits of Social Capital

Social Capital is a concept used to identify resources that are neither human nor financial, but interpersonal. It’s important to note that the phrase “social capital” is problematic, as “capital” has represented a relationship of domination and oppression for half a millennium or more. I use the term (without intending these connotations) as it is widely used in the literature I cite, and is useful until a better naming emerges. These resources found in “cross-cutting personal relationships…provide the basis for trust, cooperation, and collective action in such communities,” write Nahapiet & Ghoshal (1998). In that same paper, they found it useful to identify three dimensions of social capital — structural, cognitive, and relational — though they admit that the three are interwoven.

The structural dimension refers to the makeup of the network — who relates to whom and how strongly. The cognitive dimension refers to the self-rated expertise and tenure one might have; self-efficacy, or control belief (the belief that my actions will yield the intended results) has a significant effect on whether one will intend to do anything, let alone participate in an online community.

The relational dimension has the largest potential impact, in my opinion, for the way online communities organize. Relational Capital can be further broken down into four aspects.

In a group that has high amounts of Relational Capital, it’d be likely that:

1. A member has confidence in the other group members
2. Members identify with the group
3. Members feel a sense of obligation to participate in the group; I’ve renamed this interdependence above, since it is a primary cause of such commitments
4. Members understand and abide by group norms. This may be reinforced through sanctions

Intercultural Competence for Collective Action

Relational Capital is where intercultural competence can be effectively leveraged in order to build collective action and increase knowledge sharing in online communities. Intercultural competence, as I explained above, means being able to understand someone’s cultural context, communicate in ways that are appropriate, and take actions that are mutually understood. I’d also describe it as being fully present with someone. Such competence is required to build confidence, create shared identity, communicate and form norms, and enable commitment. Intercultural competence strengthens all of the components of Relational Capital.

Another leg of the stool for collective action, that I’ve depicted below, is reciprocity. Studies, “consistently found that reciprocity is critical for sustaining supportive relationships and collective action” (Chechen 2013). Intercultural competence is key to reciprocity because, in any exchange, understanding the context of someone’s culture and the ways that they send & receive signals is critical. How can you return the favor if you don’t know what you’ve received? How can you pay it forward if you don’t know what you gave, in the eyes of the other person? This is why online communities need intercultural competence.

In future articles I hope to write more about some of the other concepts depicted in this Collective Action Hypothesis, above. The dotted lines are my personal understandings, and the solid lines are backed up with formal academic research.

Call To Action

If we are to reach the admirable, attainable goals of the internet — to bring democracy, inclusion, and access to people everyone around the globe — then intercultural competence must be on the agenda. The open source movement, as well as participatory organizations and any online collaboration, have much to gain from prioritizing dialogue and resource sharing on intercultural best practices, as cultural competence is a key component of open access to tech.

I invite people to share any resources, comments, or quotes by making a suggestion here. I also hope that you will spark these sorts of conversations, and share these types of resources, with your community. Continuous learning and diverse lenses have the capacity to transform our world into a more sustainable, flourishing home. So please — stay curious — and in these disconnected times, a simple act of kindness can be a “hello” to a stranger.

Resources + Examples

● The World Value Survey created this very interesting cultural map depicting traditional values versus secular-rational values and survival values versus self-expression values

● “The Challenges of Managing Cross-Cultural Virtual Project Teams” research paper on the challenge of leadership, virtual aspects of communications and developing trust

Many of the online resources I found were proprietary. However, this

● 6 Levels of Culture diagram was helpful; the DIE assessment is a freely accessible & widely used method to teach cognitive flexibility, frame of reference shifting and curiosity

● Short videos, like this one on New Zealand & German cultural differences, can help (h/t Gena Rembe)

References

Carroll, Doris Wright. “A Model of Cultural Competence in Open Source Systems.” Safari. IGI Global, n.d. Web. 1 Mar. 2016.

Chechen Liao Pui-Lai To Fang-Chih Hsu , (2013),”Exploring knowledge sharing in virtual communities”, Online Information Review, Vol. 37 Iss 6 pp. 891–909

Faraj, Molly Mclure Wasko; Samer, and Wasko. Why Should I Share? Examining Social Capital and Knowledge Contribution in Virtual Communities (n.d.): n. pag. Web.

Nahapiet, Janine, and Sumantra Ghoshel. “Social Capital, Intellectual Capital, and the

Organizational Advantage.” Academy of Management Review23.2 (1998): 119–57. Web.

All comments are very welcome! Thanks for reading :)

john gieryn | @coopchange | john(at)enspiral.com | Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

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