VillageLab

Visioning and Strategic Planning

Ferananda — Tue, 05 Dec 2017 21:59:38 +0000

“Utopian visions, and the social experiments they inspired, are a product of our most freely creative faculty, the human imagination. They are an expression of the universal impulse to create the new –to reshape culture and even consciousness itself”. Jessica Roemischer.

Visioning and Strategic Planning

Vision and Mission
Founders Coaching
Organizational Development
Agile Culture Design

Bringing inspired vision to reality – this is the basis of all great work! We love our visionaries and cultural creatives! Without them the world would be a dull place – in fact we probably wouldn’t survive!

But how do we best bring vision into being – especially for something as complex as community? How do we accurately translate the vision into the various social, economic and technological forms it needs to thrive? How do we preserve the integrity of the original vision while allowing for more to come – for synergy with multiple visions – for evolution as we go forward?

And once we have a mission – and a strategic plan – how do we develop an organization that walks it’s talk – that embodies the values inherent in the mission in it’s very structure and function? How do create a organizational culture that matches our values and deepest motivations?

At VillageLab we have been students of the process for many years and hope to be for many years to come! We thrive on this process! And over the years we have gathered and honed many tools and processes to help us. We look forward to working with you in this most foundational and essential part of the whole systems design process!

Process & Team Facilitation

Ferananda — Tue, 05 Dec 2017 20:17:37 +0000

“Time to look with clear, clean and unfiltered eyes, ears, hands and heart, and build a new vision with n-dimensions, and n-constituencies, and n-voices, and n-contributions, and n-considerations, and n-values, and n-awarenesses, and n-minds; and then … begin to see and feel and know what is to be done, how to do it, and how to move as one.”

Doug Breitbart

Process Team and Facilitation

Group Process and Coherence
Organizational Design
Community Building
Conflict Resolution
Collaboration

Communities of intent bring people together to support one another and create powerful, lasting relationships – often guided by a powerful shared purpose. Essential to this is a culture of effective teamwork and collaboration. Working together – living together – is a very rewarding but challenging opportunity – often requiring support for growth!

VillageLab works with individuals and groups to design and implement effective patterns for community collaboration and coherence. Coherence is key – it is a state of alignment, connectivity, and generative flow – the essence of a healthy and dynamic social organism. It is not easy to achieve but when we do the “community glue” is palpable!

We’re here to guide each other to compassionate understanding and confident contribution. As consultants, we work to empower community members to take the lead and establish beneficial patterns, with room to evolve.

Our approach emphasizes the magic of conscientious co-creation and expanding possibilities over the burden of rigid rules and elaborate processes. We go to work on a deep level to help craft truly thrivable cultures, and the individual capacities to nurture collective wealth, wisdom, and wellness.

Our process and facilitation services include:

Meeting Design, Circle Process, Group Coherence Inquiry
Generative Conversation, Appreciative Inquiry
Play & Exercises for Deepening & Co-sensing
Conflict Resolution – Non-Violet Communication, Compassionate Listening
Decision-Making Facilitation – Consensus, Sociocracy, Holocracy, Dynamic Governance

Network Intelligence and Partner Synergy

Ferananda — Tue, 05 Dec 2017 19:17:47 +0000

“The new way of knowing is just now becoming apparent. Although we can’t yet know its adult form… Networked knowledge is less certain but more human. Less settled but more transparent. Less reliable but more inclusive. Less consistent but far richer. It feels more natural because the old ideals of knowledge were never realistic, although it’s taken the networking of our culture to admit this”.

–David Weinberger

Network Intelligence and Partner Synergy

Resource Mapping
Communication and Outreach
Relationship Building
Network and Media Strategies
Data Intelligence

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.

Communities of intent, whether newly forming or well established, benefit greatly from smart linking and rich interaction with similar or complementary groups from around the movement, opening opportunities for resource and knowledge sharing and more. Collaboration is key! One of the basic premises of community is that we are stronger, wealthier, wiser together – and this translates to larger scales as well: communities of communities become an important pattern in the Living Systems view of an emerging regenerative culture.

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.

Decision-Making System Design

Ferananda — Tue, 05 Dec 2017 18:30:02 +0000

The issues human beings now face go beyond solutions that many of us can conjure up. We need to make a collective shift as well as an individual one. This means learning to think with others and not merely on our own.

–William Isaacs

Decision-Making System Design

Facilitation and Process Mentoring
Decision Making Systems
Participatory Design
Communication Tools and Skills

Communities are about sharing – sharing our lives, sharing resources, sharing the earth – and sharing power. We all influence each other – we are all leaders in some area of life. In this world of tops-down hierarchies, sexism, agism and racism – intentional communities represent a refreshing oasis for co-creation and equality in relationships.

But that is easier said than done! With all our conditioning and fears – sharing power is not something we are used to doing. We have not been taught power-sharing systems – there are few models and a general lack of opportunities to practice the tools that do exist.

For communities of intent – decision-making training, skills and process must be grounded into well–crafted agreements that work for all. The design of a communities governance and decision-making system is one of the most crucial pieces to “get right” – to align with the spirit, mission and culture of the community.

We’ve seen all too often the pain and heartache caused when this piece is not in harmony with the rest of your community design.

The Core Consultants and staff of VillageLab – and many of our Associate Consultants – have extensive experience in the design of decision-making systems in the following areas:

Formal and other types of Consensus
Sociacracy
Holocracy
Dynamic Governance

Our primary goal is to ensure that this essential element becomes a bedrock foundation of your community – not a hidden structural conflict that could seriously hamper all your other great work! We look forward to working with you!

read more . . . . .

Co-creation can be like magic – bringing forth the greater sum energy and ability from a group to produce extraordinary results. If you’ve witnessed or participated in such an event, it should be clear that this is not an automatic result. It can be easy, almost natural – child’s play! a dance! – in short bursts and novel situations. When complexity and commitment levels rise, it gets exponentially more difficult to sustain the magic and maintain coherence. Working, building, crafting together in a sustainable and flourishing way is an advanced art form, and one of the most important aspects of healthy community.

While many groups do survive and succeed through the “trial by fire” approach, figuring things out on the fly, that path has led to a lot of painful disappointments and hard feelings too. New community projects have approximately the same success rate as new business ventures: around 10% or less! There’s much that we can do – both for communities, and for new social enterprise models – to improve that statistic.

Decision-making and governance are an essential learning area for everyone taking part in a community venture – not just the ‘leaders’. In an era where we see individuals, institutions, and enterprises all moving away from rigid authoritarian power structures towards increased autonomy and self-organization, there is a great deal of learning and experimentation going on, building an understanding of what it takes to balance and steer all the dynamics of a collective entity or social organism within a larger cultural field.

It’s a big part of the evolutionary curve we’re riding today as a species, lots of new tools and ideas coming into play. Some of the most exciting experiments and innovation in community decision-making are coming from open source technology development communities online, using the power of digital connectivity to coordinate global initiatives with a dedication to the common good. Customized communication tools, voting systems, wiki knowledge bases and many other convenient information system options help make this feasible and efficient – things we all could seek to integrate for better awareness and coordination in the network environments of an increasingly connected world.

Much of the deeper work with interpersonal process and egalitarian governance is carried on in active communities of intent – and has been for many years. There’s so much to draw from, personally and collectively, as anyone who’s spent time in community, or even begun to research it, will recognize. Increasingly, this knowledge is available to others who can benefit from it, although nothing replaces direct experience in application.

To select and weave a workable set of patterns for participation and stakeholding in community takes great care, and ideally, experience. There are a growing number of training programs and even specialized institutes to cultivate certain skill sets in this realm, it can be beneficial to bring your whole group through some such training cycle together. Alternatively, invite expert coaches in to work directly within your group context. Capable facilitators and practitioners can provide excellent insights about appropriate solution sets and integrated systems for a given community environment – saving many harder lessens. They bring a level of wisdom that is not available through study alone!

Whatever the chosen course, group governance will continue to evolve over time, and with changes in the group structure. With good design and care, community decision making process can become a lively organic, and yes, magical experience for all, where collective intelligence and wisdom show up to lead the community into its full expression.

Community Economic System Design

Ferananda — Tue, 05 Dec 2017 17:18:23 +0000

“Emergence of community dynamics is an essential ingredient for doing business. Deeply inter-networked economic actors involved in local and productive communities that combined with digital reproduction and the increasingly ‘socialized’ production of value, makes the individual and corporate privatization of ‘intellectual’ property if not untenable, then certainly more difficult , and in all likelihood, ultimately unproductive”. -David Bollier

Community Economic System Design

Asset Mapping and Wealth Acknowledgement
Ownership and Equity
Value Generation and Resource Sharing
Deep Wealth Design

The subject of economics does not give most people butterflies. It’s often portrayed as dense, complex, ill-defined, and vaguely threatening. Is this really the case, for an ancient science of the lifeblood of societies and communities? Could we try a different approach?

Economics and wealth management can be a tremendous pain point for newly establishing communities of intent. Current economic frameworks are designed around the trap of scarcity, setting up all the fears and conflict that go along with it. This is the legacy of destructive market-based systems, which attempt to reduce value to a single monetary figure – and all the contests that arise from that.

What we are seeing at the leading edges of new economic systems design is a shift to holistic views of wealth and the appropriate currency systems which nurture and spread it. VillageLab expertise in designing and implementing systems for community economics takes this fresh approach to recognizing the true abundance and potential at the heart of all living systems. Our work affirms the life-giving currents that enhance the entire community organism and beyond.

A whole-systems approach to economics recognizes that we are all connected and interdependent – we are much more than a collection of parts and pieces and property and purchasing power. Communities of intent are taking a bold step beyond the dominant cultural paradigm of separation and competition, to grow and create together. This does not mean isolation and self-sufficiency – in fact there is a tremendous movement underway in this direction now, a community of communities, and we as participants have much to offer and exchange with one another at all scales.

VillageLab is developing a community economic system design tool to help integrate the financing, ownership, equity, income generation and resource sharing systems of a community with the mission, vision and culture that is wanting to emerge. We have begun to identify and map the spectrum of possibilities so that we can offer this menu to new communities with guidance on matching design with social agreements, values and culture.

Successful communities are able to bridge between the old and new economic models, keeping a foot in both worlds in order to increase the flow of energy, people, ideas, and resources forward into the future we choose. VillageLab serves as a distributed laboratory for this transition process in different settings, bringing together resources and expertise to assist communities in establishing regenerative wealth systems at the core of their economic infrastructure.

Eco-tech System Design

Ferananda — Tue, 05 Dec 2017 16:48:18 +0000

“Ecovillages offers that rarest of gifts: wisdom. It asks not simply how to address the build-up of carbon, dwindling of species, and toxification of our world, but how we can live together joyously on a single earth.”

Paul Wapner

Eco-tech System Design

Food, Water, Energy, Shelter
Appropriate Tech
Permaculture
Eco-Reintegration

Envision yourself as a member of an established regenerative community settlement, in the bioregion of your choice. You have arrived with your chosen peers, in a thriving enclave of the near future. Where will you source your food and water? What provides you with power, heat, and protection from weather?

Sustainable ecological infrastructure is often the first issue that comes to mind for individuals and groups choosing to pursue an ethical lifestyle in community. Perhaps you can picture a cluster of resilient Earthship dwellings, or an array of sun-tracking PV panels adjacent to a fertile food forest. Is such aesthetic natural abundance within reach of anyone? There are many appropriate technology solutions to consider, and new innovative approaches always in development.

The range of possibilities can be daunting, and even more so the time, energy, and resources needed to implement many of the more elaborate solutions. Most importantly, decisions about infrastructure usually involve a long term commitment that will go hand in hand with essential decisions and development in other key areas of a whole systems approach to community: social and economic.

VillageLab consultants take this integrated approach from the beginning, working towards optimal, achievable results that are designed to evolve and grow with the project as a whole. The design methodology of Permaculture is central to our work in this area, offering a pragmatic long-term approach that incorporates three pillar principles at its core: earth care, people care, and fair share.

While much of this work with infrastructure takes time to truly flourish, there are many eco-tech improvements that are available for rapid integration and short term advantage too. We offer a depth of experience in implementing renewable power systems for community scale grid-independent energy supply, and can bring together expertise for most other types of green utility or appliance.

At larger scope, we will convene a dedicated team to address building design and site master planning in support of a full-fledged vision for regenerative habitat.

In some cases it may make sense to start at a smaller scale in multiple directions at once to determine which solutions are going to work best in a given context – or to implement experimental new ideas. We are looking for opportunities to partner with groups who wish to take on a rigorous research and development program to advance these technologies towards greater effectiveness and availability in the world. Let’s talk!

Emerging Leader Labs

Ferananda — Sat, 07 Jun 2014 22:13:44 +0000

May we rediscover…

clrwater — Sun, 27 Apr 2014 06:53:42 +0000

May we rediscover the power of circles, of sitting in council to listen and learn; the power of trusting the wisdom that emerges from the voices that are quietest, least valued or that we least expect to learn from. May we recall the power of listening patiently for the intelligence of the whole to emerge, without rushing toward conclusions.

May we risk that first step of standing on behalf of what we most love and value— knowing that the first step is the hardest, and trusting that once we take it we will be met tenfold. May we practice growing ourselves, cultivating our capacities to connect and curbing our habituated tendencies toward comparison, hierarchy and isolation.

May we be willing to feel the depths of our despair so that we may dream ourselves into the possibility of soaring together. May we be informed by our wounds but not defined by them. May we remember the power of empathy and practice seeing the world through others’ eyes.

In this great interdependent web may we remind ourselves that whatever befalls others happens to us. May art remind us that it can reveal and awaken new possibilities as we look to our artists to reveal pathways forward. May we recall, celebrate and invoke our belonging to our one and only home. May we make this migration together, finding our ways through obstacles, habits and fears.

Guided by the beauty, love and truth that surround us. May we liberate the pathways, for them and for us. May we remember to reach out for each others’ hands, to ask for the guidance of those who came before us, to listen for the guidance of those who walk, swim, fly and crawl among us.

Amen, Awomen, Aho and Ashe

byNina Simons, co-founder of Bioneers |

What is required to live in community?

Ferananda — Sun, 27 Apr 2014 05:50:39 +0000

Deep, personal intention to go beyond ego for the sake of the whole -commitment to live one’s life for the greater good, regardless of the sacrificial implications for oneself -humility, which means a recognition of the limitations of one’s own knowing -willingness to embrace uncertainty -capacity to comfortably engage complexity for sustained periods of time -courage and autonomy to go against the grain and voice disagreement regardless of the personal implications -ability to be both fully autonomous and surrendered to the collective -ability to embrace multiple perspectives without losing one’s own

-Craig Hamilton