VillageLab consultants and collaborators are continuously in service to this goal, weaving and meshing people, projects, assets, and ideas for powerful results. We see this as not an option, but an imperative for success in an increasingly decentralized and hyper-connected future. We recognize there are many ways to engage with this networked future, and different reasons for doing so. Our expertise, and that of others at the leading edge of peer-to-peer (P2P) exchange systems, illustrate promising pathways to follow through the jungle of potential connections, towards meaningful, generative interactions and key alliances.
Living and growing in community is an adventure, and at times in the journey it’s essential to draw on outside support such as funding, expertise, and other forms of participation from extended networks of peers to enable further progress. In conventional economic thinking, such a venture would need to carefully manage “public relations” in a strategic way to attract partners and customers (participants), which would then be coaxed into contracts or “sales” to drive the engine of growth. From the new standpoint of emerging P2P culture and generosity economics, it’s all about communicating your story, building relationships and trust (aka social capital), providing value and making effective offers, requests, and agreements amongst peers.
Some of the tools and processes we employ in our work and integrate into our designs for peer groups and projects include: asset map, storytelling, pattern language, crowdsourcing, special events / retreats, conscious contracts, social media tools, currency design (to enhance meaningful monetary and non-monetary exchanges), data intelligence and collaborative knowledge management.
A community is strengthened by the quality of connections it develops with its environment – its social and ecological surroundings – and the nature of flows or value exchange that happen through these connections. Relationships of all types are mediated by communication: offers, needs, acknowledgements, feedback, expression, understanding, more. These are powerful currents in a group that can sustain alignment and openness together, they can also be directed outwards into wider circles and networks for even greater effect. Learning to work intentionally with these dynamics is truly invaluable and transformative.
What’s the next step for your project or community? We can review your situation, your goals and capacities, and work together to craft a program for exceptional development and interaction, finding right placement and right relationship within the ecosystem of regenerative value and culture.