Discussion at Sol 2009
Participants
Summary
These notes start in the middle of the session
- A probabilistic shift is an action that doesn't have precisely knowable outcomes
- Like moving pegs in Pachinko or the similar probability demonstration device that creates a bell curve made of balls)
- Making something on the edge of the bell curve appear possible to others will draw in allies
Stream flow metaphor from The Upward Spiral
- Water moving slowly vs. quickly
- Slow movement means some water soaks into the ground rather than eroding a gully deeper
- Much of the water then re-evaporates and never makes it to the bottom of the gully
- This is equivalent to a situation where everyone involved in a project contributes creatively rather than a few leaders "letting the rest of the creativity run down the slope and leave"
- Alysia: This is hard because, having created a "space" for your project or group, it's hard to let others form their own creative "bubbles" inside it
Examples
- Chrysalis Charter School tried a model where each teacher autonomously set their budget, so that "money flowed from the bottom up"
- Didn't work, now a teacher's co-op
- AboutUs is becoming more hierarchical in order to move faster with its venture capital
- By contrast, Wikipedia grew more slowly/organically with its nonhierarchical model
- Organization of information on the Internet
- Skill that kids need to learn
- Often you don't know exactly what you're looking for
- Supersites index a bunch of sites, then other sites index the supersites: similar to how nature is organized