Critt Jarvis

Thank you, Paul Adams (UX team at Google)

From catastrophic perturbation of Gulf waters, the emergence of open leadership

A Motif of Open Social Transformation

I heard it first in 1998, from Meg Wheatley. And it’s really simple: “Participate, react, create, connect.”

Now twelve years later Meg writes, “I hold in my heart the vision of what’s possible if we could stop screaming accusations across our huge divides, if we could quiet down long enough to realize that, with the Gulf tragedy, nobody knows what to do, we’re in new territory, we’re lost.”

With closing concern, “I don’t think we have a choice here. We have to come together to find what’s needed for the Gulf, its people, and all its living beings. But will we make this choice? I have no idea.”

So then, a Sparking Agent: Geoff Livingston

From that simple motif–participate, react, create, connect–comes an idea, “As a society, we continue to experience great anger about this situation. While BP has taken responsibility, it’s clear they cannot resolve the matter. We cannot wait for corporations or the government to act. It’s been almost two months and the crisis is deepening.

“We will create a Citizen Effect: Find local charities to pair with a national fundraising drive and help fishermen to find a sustainable, environmentally friendly future. This would be the best outcome from the oil spill.”

Participate, react, create, connect: What to Expect on Our Gulf Mission

From Fractal Brand, to Scale: TEDxOilSpill

We have the template. We have the technology. Geoff and colleagues Beth Kanter and Kami Watson Huyse at Zoetica, masters of socionetics, use social technology for social good, appropriately leveraging personal networks, building capacity to scale. If Geoff, working with Citizen Effect’s May Yu and Dan Morrison is one brand of open leadership, who might become another? And, to what scale?

Of the thought leaders speaking at TEDxOilSpill on Monday, l ask:

How can we – ordinary people, citizen scientists, citizen journalists – participate, react, create, and connect in meaningful ways to mitigate the crisis in the Gulf, and to explore alternative energy futures?

Open leadership. It’s here, now. Choose an idea :)

Abandoned larvacean 'house'

There is no dearth of men who understand these things.

There’ll be dancing…

Follow the Outernext Road

Clarifying the mention of a very early startup in my last post, I’m working with a core group of folks to create an open social platform at Outernext.com engaging communities in culture and technology. That may be a bit vague, but here’s what I mean by that.

Illustratively, culture constrains the advance of technology, and technology reciprocates by informing culture. Curious minds are asking questions: What follows, emerges from that two-way street of interaction? Who’s transforming, and what’s being tranformed? And, how’s that working for you?

The rules of engagement are changing, transforming the roles of engagement. Are you engaging?

Open is as open does

Keying thought

Friend, advisor, Mark Safranski knows, better than anyone, my passion for the “portals, platforms and rule sets” which enable strategic conversations — conversations transformative to the structure of organizations in emerging markets. Keenly aware how strategic approach provides the requisite constraints and affordances of structure, Charlene Li cautions the traditional way of doing business, “You simply can’t “Six Sigma” your way into new markets”.

Setting initial conditions

Invited into a new startup, I’m heeding Charlene’s caution, using the framework she provides in Open Leadership to develop a mindful strategic approach. For now, I’ll refer to the startup as Open Social Engagement Strategy. As soon as we’ve worked out our tactical transparency, I’ll mention our startup by name, trademark ;)

Roles before rules

The operational realities of getting things done are constrained by time and responsibility. Who does what, and when, and for how long?

Then we can ask, “Who needs to be in the conversation?”

Next post: The Roles of Engagement