DHO Journey

This is an "open book" aiming to support and learn-from all that want to start a DHO Journey.

The DHO Journey is a collective exploration, it is an open invite to exploration and co-creation.

Decentralised:
- Is both a celebration of individual voice and interdependence.
- Understunds Power as an emergent property of the collective will. Power with not power over.
- Understands the complex nature of relations.

Human:
- Celebrating Life
- Celebrating human will for collective action
- Celebrating both our individual uniqueness and our interdependency

Organisation:
- Sustains our capacity for collective action
- Explores the edges of collaboration
- Mimics Nature organising wisdom

Before  starting the DHO Journey

Before  starting the DHO Journey

DHO is not a "solution for a problem"  is an evolution of our collective ways of organising.

There is a journey one need to engage in before the unfolding of DHO Possibilites.

DHO Journey Start

Initiation & Discovery

This step is key for any DHO adventurer willing to start a DHO. This would allow a good understunding of both the journey at front and the preconditions to start.

Activation Stage

DHO underlies the need for a collective. This collective needs to be fully committed to the Journey in all its dimension. Different DHO types will require different activation processes with different complexities. 

The decision forward off the future DHO collecive needs to be common. 

Pilot Stage

The Pilot Stage includes the exploration of both the readiness for a DHO Journey and clarifies its effective need. 

"Building the ship while sailing" is an expression applicable to DHOs. Exploring DHO evolutionary possibilites is an "action research" activity, we learn by doing.

DHO Archetypes

DHO Archetypes explores the different type of contexts where DHOs can operate. Contexts effluence key aspects of the DHO and are important to consider. 

DHO Archetypes defined bellow are an exploration of possibilites and not a complete set. Archetypes are sorted according to their increasing complexity.

Organisation DHO

Organisation Architype.png

Organisation DHO supports the will of an organisation adopt the DHO technology and its practices and principles. 

There are important criteria's to consider before starting:

There is no dimension criteria at this stage, nonetheless, a team of less the 10 or 15 members can organize themselfs as a DHO without the technology efforts.

Ecovillage DHO

Ecovillage.png

 

The relevant aspect of an Ecovillages from a DHO point of view is being a village where all its members conscientiously decide to be part of. This aspect allows a distinction between an Ecovillage and a Village DHO.

The following aspects are not yet informed by any concert real life application.

Inicial Clarifying criteria's:

The 3rd question is critical to determine the DHO Governance Scope. An Ecovillage can be a complex system of many organisations with different governance and members. Ecovillages might have different spaces, assets and value flow dynamics.

The 4th question determines the "applicability" of a Ecovillage DHO and also the aspects to consider. A Ecovillage can start with an "organisation DHO" to support the project team unfolding the Ecovillage project. 

The 5th aspect determines who as voice in the decisions. This element alludes to the membrane of the Ecovillage. An Eccovillage membrane can be extended to include in its decisions local communities, visitors, temporary residents, etc. 

The 5th aspect can also be guided by economic decisions. Example, the DHO transactional token result in a "inner economy" or a open economy.

Community DHO

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A community DHO can have multi-flavours as many as community types one can consider. But there are several characteristics that are important for a Community DHO to sustain the decision of a Community DHO.

Communities are frequently loosely couple structures. Meaning aspects such as membership, belonging, common action, relationships, interactions and others can be minimal or inexistent and still one can consider the existent of a community. As an exemple: if we would define the wikipedia community we would need to include any form and volume of participation, and it would be debatable if anyone using Wikipedia in a given time is part of the community or not.

For a community to become a DHO community some of these aspects need to become solid and   effective.

Inicial criteria:

The community can be seen as an intermediary step to the Village or Bioregion DHOs.

 

Village (or City) DHO

Screenshot 2021-05-09 at 13.46.09.png

Bringing a DHO to an existent Village is another big step in the complexity of DHOs.

A village is a complex social arrangement of many organisations, power structures and individuals.

One should consider the following guide Line Questions.

Inicial Conditions:

Governance:

Economics:

Legitimacy and Sense of Place:

A village DHO takes care of the all Village

The risk is that there is not a coherent movement of legitimacy and more than one DHOs are representing the Village.

 

Bioregional (or Ecoregional) DHO

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A Bioregion (also true for an ecoregion) can include various human settlements (organisations, ecovillages, villages, cities) and therefor, its complexity is necessarily higher.

The definition of an bioregion is very recent and still evolving (example https://www.oneearth.org/bioregions/).

Bioreginal understanding and term usage needs to be grounded and respectful of its importance. 

Legitimacy is there for of crucial importance.

Initiators Legitimacy:

The above should not demotivate the Initiators, hopefully they constitute a good set of guidelines for someone in the Bioregional DHO Journey.

 

New Language for new systems

New Language for new systems

Organization evolution

 

Organisation Images and Metaphors

The last 2 centuries the most used image for organisation was the Machine. Our organisational language is loaded with terminology alluding to this image.

Alternative images best inform and define our evolutionary journey:

  1. Flux and Transformation: an organisation is an ever-changing system indivisible from its environment
  2. Organism: an organisation is a collective response to its environment and, to survive, must adapt as the environment changes

If we understand a DHO is a living part of an ecosystem in a permanent flow and transformation, to concepts become important:

Autopoiesis: (from Greek αὐτo- (auto-) 'self', and ποίησις (poiesis) 'creation, production') refers to a system capable of reproducing and maintaining itself by creating its own parts and eventually further components. 

Exopoiesis: "In exopoiesis, an organism functions not for its own benefit, but rather for the benefit of something related to it, to which it is therefore of instrumental value.Tabbi, Joseph (2002) Cognitive Fictions.

A DHO Journey is a journey into decentralisation requiring new language, new thinking, new concepts, new images, new metaphors and new stories.

Also Frederic Laloux's Reinventing Organizations used Integral Theory approach to classify organisations, from which a Teal organisation seams to be relevant bases for a DHO.

More in https://reinventingorganizationswiki.com/theory/organizational-structure/

 

Self-Managing_Structures.jpgSelf-Managing_Structures nested teams.jpg

 

Both the Web of interconnected individuals or the Nested Holonic circles are  good graphical bases for the DHO organisation archetypes.

While the above are good bases for the Organisation DHO archetype they come short for the remaining archetypes.

fractal-map-of-belonging-edited.jpg

Richard D. Barlett Micro-solidarity exploration reveals some natural patterns of humans coming together. These ideas are relevant for any Type of DHO.

 

New Language for new systems

Symmatesy Living Systems Learn

 

Symmatesy Living Systems Learn

 Symmatesy results from the understanding of a livings system as a interdependent learning relation.

Symmathesy Greek prefix Syn/ Sym (together) + Mathesi, (to learn) =Learning together (Pronounced: sym- math-a-see)

Symmathesy (Noun): An entity composed by contextual mutual learning through interaction. This process of interaction and mutual learning takes place in living entities at larger or smaller scales of symmathesy.

Symmathesy (Verb): to interact within multiple variables to produce a mutual learning context.

Symmatesy concept allows us to establish a very relevant continuum for live and living systems.

The question of what is the system learning is there for revealing of its vitality.  A DHO as a Learning hedge if made explicit its implementation gains strength.

 

 

New Language for new systems

New Visual Language

 

New Visual Language

 

Manuel Lima systematises the graphical aspects of this new language in the next figure.

System Language by Manuel Lima

The above images are helpful for DHO adventurers reflections and mapping off their organisations.

What image better describes your DHO possibility?

 

 

New Language for new systems

Human Collectives Skeletons, Scaffolds & Membranes

Human Collectives Skeletons, Scaffolds & Membranes

How to evolve the idea of structure of an organisation and why is it needed?  

We humans need some sense of structure. Structures frequently bring emotional, relational stability. If every thing is fluid we might receive it as chaotic and unsafe.

In organisational context structures alude to various dynamics:

What informs the above, in the present world, is a mechanistic way of thinking. So we lay out a different, natural or ecological way of thinking proposition.

Scaffolding

Scaffolding elements are critical for healthy growth and support. In a Movement of Movements one can think of Scaffolding elements one entity can provide to the other. 

If your goal is to build a village, or a community or an organisation, what are the support structures needed for such endeavour?

Exemple and types of Scaffolding structures:

 

These are some examples of human scaffolds:

Viewing some of these systems as Scaffolds structures can help us reframe the question of what are they building pre-structures for? Are such Scaffolds pre-structures of development or do they create dependency and interference in the being.

What Scaffolding is needed to be in-place to support your journey?

 

Structure as Skeleton 

Esqueletos de animais 295180 Vetor no VecteezyDraw Ladybugs | Drawings, Elephant drawing, Tree drawing

 

 

 

 

 

In Nature, skeletons allow beings to grow, move, develop. Give support to the substance of the being.

An endoskeleton (From Greek ἔνδον, éndon = "within", "inner" + σκελετός, skeletos = "skeleton") is an internal support structure of an animal, composed of mineralized tissue.

An exoskeleton (from Greek έξω, éxō "outer" and σκελετός, skeletós "skeleton"[1]) is the external skeleton that supports and protects an animal's body, in contrast to the internal skeleton (endoskeleton) of, for example, a human. In usage, some of the larger kinds of exoskeletons are known as "shells". Examples of animals with exoskeletons include insects such as grasshoppers and cockroaches, and crustaceans such as crabs and lobsters, as well as the shells of certain sponges and the various groups of shelled molluscs, including those of snailsclamstusk shellschitons and nautilus. Some animals, such as the tortoise, have both an endoskeleton and an exoskeleton.

 

What being are you relating to and what skeleton will the being need? 

 

Membrane

 

Plasma membrane and cytoplasm (article) | Khan Academy

A membrane is a fundamental element of living beings. It defines the frontier of the being (in and out). It characterises how that being relates to its environment, what the being interchanges permanently. 

Membrane is one of the most critical elements of our collective settlements, one that needs reshaping, redefinition and new embodied thinking. It is intimately connected to our sense of belonging. 

Reflecting on some examples:

Yet, all of the above elements are not complete or accurate definitions of belonging. In fact they all are problematic in defining "belonging".

The invite is therefor to consider "belonging" as a central aspect Membrane definition.

Membrane and Belonging have a clear tangible implications when we approach complex humana settlements such as a Village, a City or a Bioregion

Please consider the following reflective meditation suggestions to expand your Membrane and Belonging understanding.

 

 

 

Preparing for DHO Unboxing

In this section we will describe what elements you need to prepare, think, discuss and define.

Preparing for DHO Unboxing

Purposing

Purposing

Preparing for DHO Unboxing

Shared Doing

 Pods, Roles, Circles, Quests, ....

Preparing for DHO Unboxing

Value Creation and Distribution

Value Creation and Distribution

 

Preparing for DHO Unboxing

Governance

Preparing for DHO Unboxing

Colective Sensing