Last week, I finished reading the really seminal and important book “Reinventing Organizations” by Frederic Laloux.
I did that in order to find out how REPDEV should operate a global network. Unfortunately, Reinventing Organizations only covers formal organizations like companies and non-profits, but not informal networks or swarms. This I why I started reading Swarmwise by Rick Falkvinge.
Note: You can get that book for free here: Swarmwise – The Tactical Manual To Changing The World. Chapter One. – Falkvinge on Liberty
Now, I want REPDEV to become an “evolutionary swarm”, whatever that may be. Well, it’s one for the first challenges of REPDEV to find out how it should operate according to “teal consciousness” (Reinventing Orgnizations) and “swarm dynamics” (Swarmwise). Common denominators of both books are
- dynamic self-organization, but with clearly defined structures
- people are free to do what they think is in the best interest of the organization and can act in the name of the organization, if they adhere to some simple agreed on rules
- formal or informal leaders who provide the vision and act as role-models for the organization
- trust and a positive vision of human nature are crucial
- the mission is the most important thing around which humans congregate (not leaders, or power, or money, or structures)
- team sizes are important. Teams or groups which become too large become dysfunctional.
- don’t be afraid of things going wrong. If they go wrong, take that as chance to learn from your mistakes.
Edit[2015-06-12]: Some more commonalities:
- voting is not seen as good decision making mechanism. Instead, people act on their own, after talking with others about their plans, or they use consensus mechanisms, or conflict resolution strategies.
- people don’t command others around. Instead self-appointed leaders say “we do it like this”. People are free not to follow the suggestions of others.
The task of turning REPDEV into a functional evolutionary self-organizing swarm is quite complex, because REPDEV wants to bring some revolutionary new structure into the world: Reputation economies. This is both an economic/technological, and a political task, so it can’t quite operate like a company, and also not quite like a party, but it has to be something in between that uses the best methods of both. The political aspect comes from the potential problem that nation states have the ability to make crucial components of a reputation economy illegal. This is, why REPDEV should cooperate with political organizations and parties in order to maintain political legality of what it tries to establish: A flourishing reputation economy ecosystem. How much these political organizations and parties will be “a part” of REPDEV or not remains to be seen.
On the other hand, REPDEV needs to work together closely with organizations which provide the actual technology, services and know-how that are necessary to establish a reputation economy infrastructure. Whether these organizations see themselves as part of REPDEV or not is secondary. What matters is that they actually further the REPDEV mission, whether they want to associate themselves with REPDEV or not. And it also doesn’t matter whether these organizations are amber, orange, green, or teal in the terminology of Reinventing Organizations. REPDEV itself will of course aim to set up as many teal organizations which support the REPDEV mission as necessary and possible.
I know that I have a critical role in this as inventor of the Quantified Prestige system, an as founder and leader of the REPDEV Network. I may not be optimally prepared for this job, but optimal preparation is an unnecessary and unrealistic requirement in any case. Sure, my central role consists in providing the great vision and to bootstrap the evolutionary swarm into being, but I cannot do that without support from the start. Besides all the important roles and tasks that await in REPDEV, which are hinted at in the [REPDEV Network Eco Transformation Strategy][1], I need help to find out what an evolutionary swam really is, and how it operates. I haven’t written the final part of the REPDEV Introduction blog post series yet, because that post about the REPDEV Operating System is a tough nut to crack, and I haven’t even finished reading Swarmwise, yet. If you want to help, analysing the books mentioned in the beginning would be tremendously helpful, since they will be used as important (partial) blueprints for REPDEV. The real difficulty lies in applying the knowledge and insights from these books to something radically new like an evolutionary swarm.
Perhaps you might even suggest more important and relevant books. Or point to examples of similar networks or swarms. What seems promising is looking towards the decentralization community for help and guidance.
This is the totally important forming stage of REPDEV. Your input can have a huge influence on how a global evolutionary swarm will operate, especially if it is prompt! You don’t even need to read any of the books I’ve mentioned (though doing that eventually is highly advisable). Perhaps you have some really great spontaneous ideas about how an evolutionary swam should operate ideally.
Please share your thoughts, ideas, and opinions, whether that’s here, or with me personally via email (radivis@radivis.com) or PM, or over some other channel.
Perhaps a final words I should make a distinction between the mission and the vision of REPDEV.
The REPDEV Mission: Establishing a flourishing reputation economy ecosystem!
And what’s the vision behind that? Total Universal Abundance!
[1]: http://fractalfuture.net/the-repdev-network-eco-transformation-strategy/