The positive:

 

“There's nothing more urgent than supporting the emergence of real, participatory democracy and its collective intelligence and wisdom. You're bringing together the right disciplines in a potent mix, striking a masterful balance between orchestrating the process and nurturing emergence.” George - London

“I think you´ve got what looks like an interesting approach here. There is a need for structures that support network based action and collaboration between individuals around larger projects or aims, beyond the traditional stakeholder based initiatives. Especially when the participants are in different physical locations as the structures to support intra-national transatlantic initiatives are not really there.” Nadia - Strasbourg

“The platform has the potential to not just be "An ecology and process methodology structured around issues as social objects, designed to generate emerging forms of advocacy and governance." It could also be structured around a root cause analysis and model of the system. (analysis objects) It could be designed to generate emerging forms of high leverage solutions that advocates would promote. Since these are based on a deep, structured analysis of the system, the result would be much more likely to result in better forms of governance.” Jack - Atlanta

“I believe this to be an extremely important development. It is getting interested people together to deliberate and eventually act on important social issues, but it's really more than that. It could, in the future, be a core system to enable democratic government. This is a major trend for society - for how we choose to organize ourselves for best outcomes.” Sepp - Berlin

 

“This looks like an important piece of work to consider. I am not sure I fully understand the idea you have but I do know that we are losing a sense of involvement in all democracies and they need to be reawakened. Democracies and the involvement in communities that keep them fresh and evolving are urgent.” Carol – Seattle

Creating rivers of PULL -- from the most able, interested, intellectually capable -- to gather advocacy for political will and to curate & give access to knowledge, is IMHO not one but THE most important thing we can do next with this technology at this stage of our unfolding. Knight Foundation would illustrate their deep understanding of the creativity and innovation that lies at the heart of the network, specially the network of humans who care about the whole, by selecting this project. Irma – Johannesburg

 

"It's the people raising their hands in authentic accountability who shall earn 'the peoples' respect. The leaders of the future will be those able to understand and embrace the importance of collaboration whereby traditional/hierarchical systems of governance are turned on their head. This model will work because of the fundamental principles that relate to demand and supply. As authenticity becomes the demanded/expected approach, so the power of 'pull to engage' will take the world by storm. Thinking must (and WILL) change from survival of the fittest to unity." Caroline - Vancouver

I believe that those large map views may help to direct agency efforts into systemic change, acting at several environments with different methods, looking into scalable and replicable solutions, filling the map and giving density to it. Populating and increasing density with diversity may be a sound whole strategy. In that sense this project may play a big role. I would like to read it also simultaneously with cohere-compendium means. Giorgio – Santiago de Chile

 This looks like the most comprehensive proposal out there! Love the integration with community and capacity. Way to Go! Bonnitta – Winsted Connecticut

 I love the feedback loops and systems thinking here. Sabine – Boulder

 A very attractive and ambitious idea : if the first engagement issues are chosen well ("pick your battles"...), it can snowball into a magnificient form of enlightened governance. Patrick – Paris

 Helene and Team Commons: I really appreciated reading your proposal and especially the links. Your team are all systems thinkers, and you have committed to working on a planetary basis within the highest level of organizational structures spaceship earth has. You folks are so way ahead of most herein simply because you know what the real game is and are playing it big time with the big boys and girls! I just love your team, project, and energy! Mike – Eugene Oregon

This is a brilliant blueprint for an action-oriented metamoderation model, and has the potential to turn the tragedy of the commons into the triumph of the commons if implemented properly. Keith – San Francisco

To my non-expert ear, it sounds like this is a pitch for "the Internet". Jonathan – Chicago

 Good stuff. "issues as social objects" Mike – Wood Creek, Illinois

 The strength in your outline is getting the appropriate stake holders involved and help organise groups of people into collective action. Chris – Adelaide (from my blog post)

I like this very much. It articulates with a number of things I've been working with over the years. Joe – Alexandria VA (from my blog post)

 

“Dissemination of information for transformational action is key, which is precisely what I like about this project… Engaging citizen action in the developed world, one thing in particular I like about Helene's proposed network, is it's future potential for connecting with another project we're working on that's focused on Africa. That project in Africa will be developed in partnership with www.ideorg.org, and revolves around implementing grassroots approaches for driving community empowerment from within… By connecting Helene's proposed network to this and the broader CM network it will allow for the flow of resources and information as well as the connection between a much broader group of relevant stakeholders. The challenge will be to create participation and buy-in across the stakeholder groups in each network, enabling the push-pull to active and grow on its own as interactions increase. By interconnecting dynamic content on scalable networks each focused on a fulfilling a core need, potential for collaboration will know no end! One thing's for sure: the time to act is NOW!” Warren – Chandler AZ

"Dear Helene, Thank you for the link to your earlier graphic and document. I really like your graphics very much. They're very suggestive of system dynamics models or mixed models using system dynamics. Thanks also for the link to your We Move presentation. It's beautifully done. I'll look forward to keeping up and collaborating on transformations." Joe - Washington D.C.

The Advice

The platform has great capacities but requires consistent efforts that increase the number of people using it as a meeting place, and helping people understand and apply the information in their local communities. Funding intermediary projects that help outline complex problems into blueprints and virtual work groups, would be of great benefit. Daniel – Chicago

If you could pick three specific examples to illustrate how the world will be wildly different through the impact of these tools/the whole approach: Paint us a picture, what might/will have happened? I love the feedback loops and systems thinking here - and I find it easier to understand processes and implications from a sensory (see, taste, touch, smell., move..) perspective of a future vision. Would you be willing to illustrate? Take me/us on that journey in the context of your aspirations? Sabine – Boulder

I am not sure I fully understand the idea you have but I do know that we are losing a sense of involvement in all democracies and they need to be reawakened. Carol - Seattle

I haven't been able to fully grasp what this actually is or how and why various players would use it, but I get occasional glimpses, flashes of sunlight through the clouds of my incomprehension. In those momentary glimpses, a number of related ideas and initiatives pop into my mind, which I offer here. Tom – Eugene Oregon (from my blog post)

I would strongly encourage an emphasis on tangible prototypes, because I have trouble understanding what this will actually produce. To my non-expert ear, it sounds like this is a pitch for "the Internet". Jonathan – Chicago

You are talking to the wrong crowd here. 99% of the folks in this Challenge are into pieces not whole systems. They are attempting to solve a specific problem with a specific solution, even if they mash this and mash that together. Read all of the proposals in this Challenge, follow all of the links the proposals take you to and map each one against your excellent "design map". Mash-up whatever you select which will approximate your design map, make sure it is tightly integrated, and stay away from anything you have to create yourself. Performance on that stage will determine where and how you get to play next. You will get your funding and a chance to build something incredible only if you deliver something very tight and cool using COTS...commercial off the shelf technologies/techniques/tools... Mike – Eugene Oregon

“People need a 'hook' / the beginning of a reel of the thread from where what's created can evolve. Initiating this project through a simple prototype in the design phase is such an important step. Integrating leverage 'ratings' for building momentum to the push/pull affect then transposing those ratings onto visual maps will soon create an interesting story. Sow and let grow. As Seth Godin would say: 'Small Is The New Big.' Make it engaging to get informed; Give people specific 'easy to do' actions that each word toward driving sustainable reform; Provide simple visuals for individuals to 'feel good' about the result.” Warren – Chandler AZ

Pick your battles - Just a few concrete examples…

-  how to best deploy quickly decent emergency shelters after disasters (floods, tsunami, earthquakes, etc. ), lasting up to 2-3 years and yet very cheap ?
- could there be a ratio of one tree per urban dweller in all cities ? Is it desirable, and how to achieve that ?
- should the rewards of intellectual property -when applicable- be granted for duration (as is the case for patents or copyright) or volume concerned ? In other words, should the price of a software, a song, or a drug, automatically decrease when x thousands or millions have been sold ?
- etc. Patrick - Paris

Offers for help

“If you're interested in collaboration, why not consider the substantive commons knowledge repository we already built in the community knowledge garden of the School of Commoning. Helene, working with you and the crew on that translation [of design in technology terms] would be for me a dream coming true! Here's why. I started working on Internet-based collaboration and collective intelligence systems in the early 80s, learned from Doug Engelbart, and since then designed Innovation Architectures in dozens environments, both in the pre-Web and the Web era, (e.g. Lotus Notes, Drupal, various wikis, WordPress, Compendium, iCohere, etc.) During all that time, my vision were many years ahead what technology could do and what people recognized as desirable.” George - London

“I´d be happy to share my/our experiences from building Edgeryders and explore the possibility of collaborating around this.” Nadia – Strasbourg

 

“It appears that by using the analysis model in the paper, plus the Dueling Loops model and analysis at Thwink.org, plus additional models and analyses that platform collaborators can produce, the platform can generate discrete solution elements that are specifically designed to address the root causes in the Forces Resisting Change loop.” Jack – Atlanta

 

“I would like to think together how we could translate, complement, etc your work and outcome into a cohere (compendium) platform-map, for an array of complex (wicked) problems and complex solutions, involving several stakeholders.” Giorgio – Santiago de Chile

 

"Count me in!" Cauliflower ears - Barcelona