[Community] Preserving Identity Commons Purpose and Principles

[Bill Washburn]

Nice work...

I believe you all (Brett, Drummond, Eugene, Kaliya and all) are raising a crucial array of questions and observations around how to organize in an authentic community mode / open spirit, that is loosely coupled, robust and sufficiently well organized, and, as Brett put it, a "trust-worthy umbrella organization."  BTW, to me the use of the terminology of tiers 1,2, etc. though understandable, is a little concerning since it's hierarchical.  Maybe terminology from another field such as simple chemistry (ion, atom, molecule, compound...) could serve.

Thanks Brett.  You have nicely stimulated the beginning of putting a pretty fundamental question on the table: could the ID Commons community find the will and determination to take its purpose & principles and create an uber-upsidedown- umbrella organization in the identity space - if sufficient resources, etc. were made available?  

In discussing this, I believe the question of prospective organization's potential to become  trustworthy fairly quickly - both operationally and perceptually - will be fundamental.  It seems to me an important part of building trust and committing to trustworthy service/support for the community is prominent visibility for the new organization - should it be developed.  Isn't being visible an important part of trust, just as a strong brand engenders trust as long as it behaves well?

my 2 cents...

cheers,
-bill



Kaliya * <identitywoman at gmail.com> wrote...

.....<stuff deleted>.........

I think one of the things we are going through - with the technology collaboration tools is that we can now 'organize' for far less overhead.   Clay Shirky's book talks about this - the subtitle is the "Power of Organizing without Organizations" what we have done with IC is be 'organized in a super loose organization' one that would not have been possible really 5 years ago - AND with the groups and energy around it we need to have a path that helps the community stay connected, grow, collaborate, solve problems and innvoate together AND does not have 'power' controlled in center of corporate board members who are "managing" conflict and "decision making"  AND supports the people who want to do work together - who have raised money from corprate entities that want to work in common onc certain focused projects.

I would like to propose that when we get together face to face we use Value Network Mapping http://www.value-networks.com/to figure out the implicit and explicit value flows in the community - along with where we see them needing to evolve/get resourced.  What are the roles in the community, what are the contractual deliverables, where is money flowing, where is information flowing how are the implicit value flows moving and how does it all fit together. 

I also think Polarity Management Mapping http://www.polaritymanagement.com/can help us understand the tensions we are engaging with and how to navigate them so we are can get the best of out of having parts/groups that thrive and do goo work and a whole/commons/shared space that helps the group work be coherent and connected.   

In the new ways of being in an network this does not have to be in a 'top down' management way it can be in other ways - that we are already doing and we can continue to improve their effectiveness and  get explicit about the value they are delivering in helping the whole community and the projects function. 

I think this is a good discussion.
=Kaliya
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