This webinar will explore several aspects of the large-scale communications platform outlined briefly at the 2023 Metaphorum Conference, including the vision that led to its creation, the problems already identified over a number of years that motivated its creation, and numerous factors that had to be considered before any work could begin.
The need for such a platform has been evident to a number of people for a very long time, but this is really something that has become fully clear only recently. These conclusions have been reached in very different ways, along very different paths, and with very different assumptions about what might or might not be practicable. Indeed, such a project will probably have seemed overwhelmingly daunting to most. Almost by chance (although that does favour the prepared mind), a spark of synergy led quite recently to a possible realisation of what had previously felt only like a distant potentiality.
The following needs have been particularly important in bringing this vision into clearer focus:
- The need to support connections between ethos-cohered communities as self-organising, co-evolving structures.
- The need to support and enhance the viability of autonomous organisations within appropriate recursive structures.
- The need to enhance the capability of any viable organisation to apply the VSM in support of its own viability.
As a starting point, a small number of autonomous recursive structures have been created, each for use by a different organisation, on its own terms, acting according to its own rules. The only thing shared by these organisations at this stage is a significant commonality of ethos.
The one organisation on which we focus here is Metaphorum. This is partly because the initiative was sparked within Metaphorum dialogue. It is mainly because Metaphorum is a community exceptionally rich in highly relevant and valued skills that will be needed both to shape this embryo and to nurture its development following its birth.
Following a brief glance at the overall structure, we shall demonstrate the platform in greater detail by focussing upon Metaphorum’s community and, in particular, the support the platform provides to SIGs (Special Interest Groups) within Metaphorum itself.