I wrote this in response to a post on Zaadz on web 2.0 and networks. This relates to what I’ve been thinking about with regards to empowering each person as a portal to create exponential value in networks and communities…

This wave of attention on sites such as MySpace, Friendster, and yes Zaadz too, has just peaked. People will eventually find social network sites limiting, as they did their Hotmail or Yahoo account…. ALL these network sites limit an individual’s identity and creative expression. (The only possible exception I see with some promise are the 43 network sites.) An individual’s identity is partially dependent on the digital spaces they inhabit and interact in. And yet my identity on Zaadz (or any other social network) does not exist outside of Zaadz. If Zaadz were to go down, I would go down with it. This does not follow the way we network in the real tangible world.

Let’s say Zaadz were an actual physical place where our community got together to interact. When I leave Zaadz, I retain every single aspect of my identity (my body/thoughts/content/etc). It does not “stay” at Zaadz. I can also take that same identity to any place of my choosing, and connect with other people outside of Zaadz. The way these social networks sites are structured does not allow for this kind of interpolation or interconnecting. This does not mirror how we interact with people in physical spaces.

If I go to a Starbucks to meet a friend, Starbucks does not own or retain my identity in any way. My choice to interact with another person at a Starbucks does add to my identity. The very experience of actively being there does inform and influence my identity. (E.g. I hear a song they play, buy the album, and become a jazz fan.) My choices as to what I can consume there may be limited. And the experience of the environment may be specific. But the individual expression of my own personal identity is limitless and unbound.

So how does a “web 2.0” site start? First of all you must own and host your own domain. (E.g. ThisisPashmina.com) Then you build or find the tools and services you need to express yourself and include them on your own domain. (E.g. Wordpress, Flickr, Del.icio.us) I would add a quality factor to all the tools of your choosing, and add that they must all allow for easy publishing, importing, exporting, porting/pushing/pulling of any kind really.

Now the second part takes some thinking. (I think this is the killer biz opp.) Once you have your own website (your own digital identity), how do you connect to another website? Certainly not through these old methods, where you’ll need over a gazillion different logins/passwords for each type of service…yech! There must be some overall one meta-identity that I can use, as say my agent. And that agent knows who Michael is, and always grants Michael certain privileges that I deem appropriate, no matter what services we are using. And that same agent should also allow for connecting Myspace with Zaadz. Or Google photos with Flickr. And on and on…

Sometimes thinking is just you giving yourself time to feel.
Sometimes feeling is just you giving yourself time to think.

People (holons) collecting together pull the overall development of all persons within that collective up to where the ‘norm’ is. (Or in not so ideal cases, pulls them down.) The communal aspect of a person (a holon) is intrinsic to the evolutionary drive. It could be said that it is a determinant of the directionality of evolution itself.

If we allow for the emergence of integral in the collective, and let that grow, it would eventually become bigger than what is dominant now, and actually ‘pull’ others into integral. [‘grabs you by the neck and pulls you to that level’ KW in KC.] Both movement (or evolutionary drive), and the development of holons go hand in hand; they occur simultaneously. So if we desire to see integral succeed, (i.e. we want movement) then the people (holons) need to be given room to grow.

There is another aspect of community development that is also equally important but may be difficult to understand, which is leadership. I believe addressing leadership gets at the heart of integral organizational development. (Unlike the crap presented at IOL by applying the quadrants to (non-existent) social holons.)

There are three aspects to organizational or community development. The individual holons, the container for the collection of holons, and the leadership. All three have an influence on how the organization develops. The individual holons need to be developed individually (ILP), the container needs to be healthy (good systems/processes, adequate functions, etc.), and the leaders need tools to help along the other two.

WHO ARE THE LEADERS?
There are persons (holons) that are (or either naturally become) the ‘hubs’ or leaders of their community. These people must be given attention, and an extra set of tools to navigate new terrain as movement occurs. Perhaps we can also determine the hubs and nodes of the community by looking at the relationships between the holons and plotting those. The individuals that have not only the most number of connection, but also the most influential connections are the hubs.

A week ago paul and dan wrote a few posts on integral salons. I'd love to see a continuation on this subject from all ye bloggers out there.. any takers? My own thoughts relate to the intent of salons in  particular. Why salons, what are people seeking? Could the proclaiming of what we are looking for as salons actually limit the emergence of what could be, of what is being sought after with a craving so deep, that it has me wondering how I could even want something I've never tasted?

For the past year or so I've loosely held on to the overarching intent that we created for iNOW. And while it still rings as authentic, it doesn't point to what I feel must be conveyed in the meaning and weight of what I am now understanding as a necessary step in radical commitment. The first thing I have to address is this word salon, which seems to imply a mere gathering of people with loose intentions that are largely (and usually) of an intellectual nature.  No, this is not what I am looking for.  This I can accomplish with a casual dinner party of eight at my place.  And in the online sphere, it is totally tiresome to join Yet Another Yahoo! group, or social network, or forum or other antiquated form of collaboration.  I mean, hello!  Welcome to blogs, RSS and the amazing usage of hyperlinks!

Okay so salons are out for me. Yes! I mean it!

And so perhaps all this talk of integral salons is besides the point. We need constellations of happenings, events, ceremonies, single chaotic puncture-points in the vast blank sheet of boredom draped over all of us...

Well see now, that's not it for me either. I mean that's certainly part of it, but not quite the big concept. If all we had were these one-time events, I feel that we would lack the intimacy of challenging each other.  Every encounter between us would be a flurry of greetings and kisses in the air, with beautiful states of creativity and a smattering of small jabs here and there.  There must be a deeper commitment to each other, a stretch for each of us, and an endeavor to sustain the connections between us.  We grow to learn who we are chiefly through contact with others. 

So what would be a word on the spectrum of commitment beyond salons? Culture? Community? I should hope it includes some form of both culture and community... What is the balance between the individual and collective behaviors? How does one allow for both freedom and security?  What would be the values, norms and artifacts?  And what of my generation of screenagers, how is technology all a part of this concept?

I have no answers yet, but I feel like ongoing posts like these are the first explorations of an accurate picture.