“The most robust and resilient networks are those that create additional value for each participant while strengthening a community or ecosystem as a whole.”
Return-on-investment (ROI) is not a term that I love, especially given how militantly utilitarian and narrowly it is often considered and applied. My friend, mentor, business consultant and holistic thinker Carol Sanford refers to ROI as “the future increase in value that is expected when the initial capital contribution is made.” Carol is quick to point out that capital can take many forms (financial, intellectual, social, spiritual, natural, etc.), and for network participants (or let’s call them “co-creators”) this often takes the form of investments of time, money, knowledge, creativity, and social connections.
Why would co-creators in networks take the time and risk to make such an investment? What is the expected return? Presumably, when we are talking about networks for social change, the principle driver is the desire to make a meaningful difference for people, places and purposes they care about and that they sense will be more positively impacted through network activity. Co-creators are also “kept in the network game” if participation enhances their own capabilities, grows and deepens their connections, and gives them increased opportunities to be creative, and perhaps even find a place of belonging!Read More
“For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out, and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.”
In the late spring, we had an unseasonably sticky stretch of days where I live, and after school one day, my wife and I took our girls to a local swim hole to cool down. As we eased into the cold water, one of our seven-year-old twins clutched desperately to my torso, not yet willing to put more than a toe or foot in. As the sun beat down, I began to feel both the weight of her body and the ebb of my patience, and I managed to negotiate her to a standing position in water that came to her waist. She continued to clutch my arm vice-like with both of her hands.
After another few minutes it was definitely time for me to go under water. But Maddie was unwilling to release me. I continued to encourage her to let go first, to get her head and shoulders wet. Initially totally reluctant, she got to a point where she was in just up to her neck but was still anxiously squeezing my hand. We did a bit of a dance for a few minutes where she would get to the end of my finger tips with her right hand, seemingly ready to take the plunge, and then the same part-anticipatory part-terrorized expression came to her face and she was back against me.
I kept coaxing her, and then let her know that whether she let go or not, I was going under, and if she was still holding on to me, that she would be doing the same. “Okay, okay!” she yelled, stamping her feet and once again got to the tips of my fingers while breathing rapidly. And this time … she let go. She pushed off and immersed her entire body in the water. She came up shrieking but with a big smile on her face, a bit shocked but also more at home in the water, moving around quite gracefully, actually. She splashed me and laughed and then I dived in. A few minutes later she was swimming along next to me.
Not long ago, at a gathering of the Food Solutions New England Network Team, one member, Dorn Cox, told the story of a farmer who has become renowned for the health of his soil. Remarkably, the soil health consistently increases, due to on-farm practices created over years of close observation and experimentation. This is significant as it has boosted the quality of the farm’s produce, reduced the need for and cost of inputs (helping to increase revenues), increased the soil’s ability to handle extreme precipitation and dry conditions brought on by climate change, and mitigates carbon release.
This accomplished practitioner has subsequently been sought out by academics and has served as lead author on numerous peer reviewed academic articles about his soil health practices. Dorn then relayed that the farmer recently reported that because of academic protocols he cannot get access to the very articles he has co-authored. Dorn punctuated his story with the lesson that:
To support learning, equity and resilience, knowledge wants and needs to be free and accessible.
This is a key principle for leveraging networks to make change. In the old world, knowledge was owned and proprietary. But in this increasingly volatile world,to help people be adaptive to change, there is need for robust flows of information that are equitably generated and accessible. This was a lesson learned by professor Anil K. Gupta, before he started the Honey Bee Network in India.
By his own admission, Dr. Gupta had been engaged in the practice of extracting information from people that served his own or purely academic purposes, without ensuring that the information made it back into the hands and minds of practitioners. He realized that “on efficiency and ethical grounds,” this could not continue.
“Minds on the margin are not marginal minds.”
– Anil K. Gupta
Dr. Gupta co-founded the Honey Bee Network on the core principle that in order for a knowledge system to become sustainable and create more widespread value, it must be authentic, accountable and fair. That meant that it was important to acknowledge the sources of knowledge. Furthermore,it was important to connect both knowledge and knowledge providers. Over the last 25 years or so, the Network has created a database of traditional knowledge and grassroots innovations, in seven different Indian languages, documenting and documenting more than 1 million ideas and practices.
Despite exciting innovations like the Honey Bee Network, in many places, knowledge and other valuable resources are held up and denied by existing structures. So how do we unlock this potential? A key step is to see human societies as living systems, as “ecosystems” held together by flows of information through communication and education.
Robust and distributed flows of information are critical for the creativity, resilience and development of human communities.
As Sally J. Goerner of the Capital Institute writes, human systems “are the most intelligent [and healthy] when they are integrative, inclusive and egalitarian.” A constant threat to social health is rigidity, hoarding, disconnection and exclusion.
Furthermore, it is important to understand that sometimes certain forms of knowledge may be held unknowingly by knowledge holders. Identification and transfer of “tacit knowledge” generally requires personal contact, interactionand trust for people to codify what they know from experience. Formal and informal communities of practice in networks are important in this regard.
In other cases, people may not see themselves as being resource-full, either because what is typically framed as a resource does not allow for certain kinds of valuation, or because they do not see in their own niche what might be excess capacity for another. To identify and free up resources, a few steps might help:
Think more broadly about what constitutes a valuable resource.Permaculturalist Ethan Roland and others are working to expand how “wealth” is understood. For example, Roland names eight different forms of capital: intellectual, spiritual, material, cultural, material, social, living, and experiential. Write Looby MacNamara adds health and well-being capital to these. The point is to see wealth and assets from a whole systems perspective and to help people see their own resource-full-ness in a different light, not defined by others and more narrow understandings.
Spread understanding of the concept of “excess capacity.” The sharing economy is helping people to see abundance around them that might be repurposed or shared with others. Examples abound (see Robin Chase’s book Peers, Inc. as a helpful primer): knowledge, creativity, passive sunlight, bandwidth, underutilized spaces such as parking lots, items that might be converted to other uses (old sweaters), etc.
Encourage a culture of making requests and offers. In certain places, people may be reluctant to articulate needs or put forth offers. This can stem the flow of valuable resources. In order to nurture a culture of abundance Lawrence CommunityWorks has cultivated what they call “The Marketplace,” whereby community members identify and exchange assets as a part of daily operations.
Create venues and platforms for people to connect and share.Value continues to be latent until it is actually exchanged. Whether in-person or virtual, it is important that there be places for people to find one another with relative ease and make exchanges of one kind or another.
Constantly pay attention to and work on power, access and equity. A lot has been and is being written about how networks can exacerbate inequality and inequity if left unchecked. The antidote is awareness (and self-awareness) and a commitment to equitable network building. What this means exactly is very much a work in progress, but educating ourselves about the dynamics of power, privilege and injustice and committing to work for broader systemic health is certainly fundamental. See also the following:
About 20 years ago I was introduced to the field of ecological design called permaculture, not in any great depth mind you, but from what I learned at the time, I was struck by how refreshing, sensible, and vital the practitioners’ perspective and approach were. Since then, and especially in recent years, interest in permaculture seems to have significantly grown (including my own) and its principles stretched beyond sustainable agriculture to human communities. Looby MacNamara is one of the teachers and practitioners who is helping with the more widespread application of permaculture principles. I just finished reading her short book, 7 Ways to Think Differently, which I recommend. In it she unites different ways of thinking (such as systems thinking and solutions thinking) with the underlying philosophical and methodological elements of “regenerative design.”
For me, one particularly fertile area is “abundance thinking.” I have to offer a bit of a pre-qualification that the word “abundance” can be used in certain contexts that I find off-putting, especially when there is little demonstrated understanding of existing structural inequities in society. That said, I think that “leading with abundance” as a mental exercise can provide valuable insights and approaches to social change. Here are a few thoughts, and I invite additions, reactions and push back: Read More
What if the goods of today became the resources of tomorrow?
Regular readers of this blog know that I am particularly interested in living systems and networks and how they can inform how we approach our change work so that it is more in synch with how life works. This video is very much in alignment with my interests and ongoing inquiry, and while focused primarily on the economy and production, IMHO it has implications for all areas of focus for social change. Some of the provocative questions it raises include the following: Read More
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