communities of practice

Relational infrastructure is only really seen when you know what you're looking for - much like the web of mycelium connecting trees in our forests that make the flow of communication, resources, and mutual intermingling possible, and enable life to thrive.

Critical connections between future-builders matter more than critical mass in long-term transformative work: without these, nothing new can emerge. Networks are the lifeblood of emergence, and yet so much of the way life is organised gets in the way of pioneers connecting

the best ways to imagine may be the ones that position this work as a collaboration—done with people rather than to or for them—giving people and communities the freedom to learn by doing and to adapt the general into the particular.

community, like any relationship, is an aggregate of multiple narratives. Intimacy in turn can be described as the work of finding alignment across these multiple narratives.  Measured, thoughtful growth creates the spaciousness to cultivate intimacy, and determines which community narratives will persist over time.

This infrastructure will be more than a set of foundations or a scaffold. It will look, in fact, more like a playground: which exists, not subordinate to or below some other, more important work, but as a structure in its own right, one which supports, co-creates, and constantly re-produces play, creativity, imagination. Not something which can be

these are all types of relational infrastructure too:

• Peer-to-peer journeys and learning crews - topic as focus

• Communities of practice - practice as a focus

• Participatory ecosystems - place as a focus

• Labs - social, living, innovation and more - process as a focus