Connectioning Updates: Learning to Connect

Spawning autonomous connectioning. An impromptu meeting, community fund, upcoming events!

The mid July launch newsletter was a MASSIVE success.

We had hundreds of thousands of views on the notes, thousands of new people subscribed. I had tonnes of donations come in that I’ve survived on the past few months.

But then, you might have noticed, it stopped!

Why? Because I am still housing insecure and had to move locations yet again. I am also chronically ill and have been ill most of that time.

But that’s not the issue. The issue is I was still doing it alone.

Connectioning is about connecting so we can do these things together.

So how do we solve this?

Here’s what we’ve got going on now and where your help is needed.

Creating Emergence

I love how the two loops model illustrates creating emergence. (More about that here.)

I am particularly interested in that Communities of Practice part. We need to start connecting and practicing together in order for the infrastructure to take shape within our respected communities (as I expect there are many diverse communities represented here.)

And thanks to Gary Coulton’s prompting, we started doing that yesterday with our first Connectioning Call.

By the way, I was happy to be a guest on Gary’s podcast, The Positive Echo, recently (link to that episode here) and we frequently mentioned Karl Dunn in that episode, who has a very specific framework for connecting I am a massive fan of — check out Undividing for more details.

I realised after that chat that I was trying to point at all the frameworks for connecting, as there are many, but without engaging in any of them in my own projects!

So in desperation for help a few days ago, I posted this:

And that’s when Gary reached out with his wisdom. No surprise he had some, since he is after all writing a book and course on Wisdomizing!

And so I put the call out.

And in very short order we pulled together yesterday’s first Connectioning call.

Which I didn’t realise how much I needed, thank you for coming together with me.

Connectioning Calls

So aside from introductions, the main thing we did on the call was share our offers and needs.

The idea is to nurture more autonomous groups to help each other find — each other. And co-create.

My current need is a cofounder to work regularly with, or perhaps many through these calls.

I have all these systems halfway in place to do storytelling cycles, we have the stories that need to be told, just need more help with them.

As far as connecting the people who come in off those cycles, I have on one hand I have a massive network of people who DO communities of practice, network weaving, commitment pooling, and more.

On the other I have floods of people coming in every time I do a storytelling cycle or viral post, plus all the people I’m bringing in through network effects who need the people from my networks.

But there’s no flywheel in the middle to connect the right people to the right people, which is what Connectioning is meant to be.

I need help with that. And I feel like these calls could be those flywheels — when combined with a directory so we can reference each other and what we’re working on.

LaVonne Ellis has updated her Wellbeing Economy finder prompt so we can find projects locally. (Stay tuned for that I don’t think she’s published it!)

We have all the pieces here to make something great.

Will you help co-create with me?

What’s Next

I am setting up a weekly call at 12pm EST on Sundays, so that time slot recurs. I also set up a Doodle poll for setting up another time slot. Please tell us your availability here: https://doodle.com/group-poll/participate/eVZNZz9e

For those on the last call, I’ve sent an email out asking for feedback. If you want to hop on the Sunday call, please drop me your email via DM and I’ll send you an invite.

Asynchronous chat on Discord: https://discord.gg/4X7CD4Wq

And in the Connectioning Substack chat. DM me your email if you would like to be able to start threads there, you will have to become a collaborator on this publication.

We also at the end of the last called talked about financial transparency and pooling resources in that same way Saving for Change or Liverpool Soup do (future article on the how-tos on that coming), so I am transferring over Connectioning subscriptions from the past month to a special account just for this. For US to start. It’s about $90!

I think The Society of Problem Solvers will have some incredible on insights on how to take the next steps in collective decision, so I’m going to reach out to him for feedback — and I welcome yours in the comments!

So let’s see what emerges from here!

Other Announcements

Personal Ask and Our Funding Pool

I need to start fundraising again for the end of the month. If anyone is able to chip in right now, subscriptions here go to the community pool, but you can support me via Paypal, GoFundMe, or The Saving the World Strategy Guide, my personal publication.

To contribute to the shared community fund, all paid subscriptions here go to that:

Other Events

If you are interested in commitment pooling in general, please give Will Ruddick a follow. They have meetings weekly on Tuesdays.

And for those of you trying to build community in your neighbourhood, the Hey Neighbor! guy from Tiktok is dedicated to turning 10,000 neighborhoods into communities. Here is the link to sign up on Luma. And here he is on Tiktok.

That’s all for now!

Please give us your feedback on the calls, how they should work, what you need, the funding pool, and more in the comments.

Look forward to continuing to build the new world with you all.

Xoxo

Friday