a collection of over 60 essays and images crafting a topography for thriving
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Thrivable.org is a steward organization to:
- develop Thrivable principles, and in turn
- educate leaders and change agents to
- implement Thrivable practices within their organizations and circles or collaboration,
- move humanity beyond the "no-impact" frame of sustainability to the positive, regenerative aspirational possibility of a Thrivable world.
The following components support this vision:
The Foundation: The principles, processes, and practices of thrivability.
Mapping + Lab8 Process: Empowering communities to assess, visualize, and determine a course of action.
Upon these core aptitudes, Thrivable participates with clients and constituents in the following ways:
- Hosting collaboration in Thrivable "spaces" (e.g. Social Entrepreneurs; Metacurrency; Evolutionary Philanthropy)
- Coaching and Consulting Teams and Organizations in the Design and Implementation of Thrivable projects.
- In-house incubation and funding of Thrivable projects.
The Roadmap to Thrivable consists of three phases, building on successive projects to develop the capacities and resources to be a fully functional and effective agent for Thrivability.
What follows below is an outline of those Phases, which have now been submitted to the Thrivable Champions as well as other trusted advisors and interested parties, including you the reader.
Phase One: Mapping Complex Systems of Collaboration
A good map is indespensible for navigating complexity,
Additionally, Thrivable positions itself to host "conversations" between the nodes (e.g. individuals within an organization; organizations within a sector). These "conversations" are described below.
To gather the necessary data to produce the first of these field-maps, Thrivable sees an initial opportunity to partner in a joint venture with a resonant organization, Evolutionize it! (Belgian org and its project, Internet4Change) to develop a Consolidated Guide to Social Entrepreneurship. From this product, Thrivable will then produce a spatial-map of the data.
Summary: A consolidated and introductory presentation of the complete "social-ecosystem" enabling organizations (and other collaborative relationships) to understand and appropriately engage in a given field.
Estimate of Time: 6-12 Months, depending on funding availability.
Deliverables: Consolidated Guide to Social Entrepreneurship (CGSE); Resource and Organizational Map of the Field of Social Entrepreneurship.
Revenue: $25,000+ (sponsorship of the project by organizations in the space being surveyed) for CGSE, split between JV per agreement for first year.
Funding: None
Detail: Mapping Phase
Image courtesy of Valdis Krebs
Foundation
Detailed Business Plan; Development of Principles and Practice of Thrivability
1) Business planning: Thrivable has already identified a number of potential value centers for realizing revenue (some mentioned above). These will be explored in depth in market analysis and other feasability inquiries. From this process, a detailed budget and cash flow will take Thrivable.org through Phase 2, 3 and beyond.
Summary: Business Plan including market analysis and feasibility
Estimate of Time: 2.5 Months
Deliverables: Business Plan
Funding: $7500 (To this point, all costs have been either booked time or funded by the principals and a $2K round of crowdfunding among champions and evangelists).
2) Aggregation, Development, and Refinement of the Thrivable.org principles. At this point in the development of the meme of Thrivability, naming and refining the Principles of Thrivability is crucial to the meme maintaining coherence. Collaborating with the Thrivable champions on this will be another opportunity to refine the conversation process (Lab8), as well as becoming the foundation of the Thrivable.org cannon. In this way, Thrivable.org intends to begin the process of leading the development of this meme into a framework for positive organizational change and societal influence.
Summary: Evolve the living document naming Principles of Thrivability and document examples
Estimate of Time: 3 Months; Ongoing.
Deliverables: Thrivable Framework: Principles and Practices of Thrivability established in the wagn webspace. Concrete examples explained. White Paper on Thrivability.
Funding: $4,500
Phase Two: From conversations into publishable content with the Lab8 process.
Understanding the landscape is just the beginning of a process of collaboration and influence. Once there is a shared comprehension of the participatory space, the real potential of manifestation begins. This corresponds to the second touchstone of the Thrivable Process, Where are We going?
Answering this question is no small task, and many iterations of collaboration have attempted to refine this process. Social-technologies such as open space, world cafe, or numerous other collective conversation processes strive for processes that produce the desired result for a collective. Online community spaces from Bioneers (using ning) to Omidyar.net (plone), as well as millions of blogs and wikis strive for community built wisdom with mixed success.
Jean Russell has developed a collaborative process called the Thrivable Co-Learning Engine which forms the basis for the conversation process, here called Lab8. The process allows for exploration, synthesis, and refinement. It results in publishable co-authored content. Lab8 is one of Thrivable's greatest resources to date.
Summary: Development of conversation process including field testing.
Estimate of Time: 6 months of iterative testing with beta participants
Deliverables: Lab8 Tested in the field, and refined based on feedback and Thrivable observations.
Funding sought: $25,000
Detail: Lab8 Phase
Phase Three: Synthesis = Collaborative Mapping + Knowledge Development
We now see the collaborative space around us from Phase One and engage, capture, and synthesize the emerging conversations within nodes of that network via Phase Two. Phase Three allows Thrivable to reflect on what is working well and to understand what is not working so alternatives may be developed. The goal of this phase is to integrate the Mapping and Lab8 process so that organizations and networks can be facilitated in self-organizing knowledge that supports the co-creation of a thrivable world.
Phase Three also allows for expansion beyond the space introduced in Phase 1 (social entrepreneurship) to others (such as metacurrency; transformational philanthropy), thus growing the body of awareness within the meta-field of Thrivability. With this expansion, the various "sectors" or "fields" of Thrivability are defined, creating the containers for Thrivable.org to host collaboration within those spaces, as well as beginning to encourage and inspire cross-pollination among the interrelated fields.
Summary: Reflect, improve, and iterate on process. Expand focus.
Estimate of Time: A Detailed Estimate of this Phase will be Available after Phase One: Business Planning
Deliverables: An Integration of the Mapping and Lab8 processes; Development of the internet platform within which Thrivable will invite and accept membership organizations and individuals to collaborate on the development of Thrivable principles and practices.
Funding sought: TBD
Detail: Synthesis Phase Detail
Phase Four: Launch
Phases One through Three developed the capacity of Thrivabe to facilitate group understanding and collaboration in shared spaces. Phase Four, using the knowledge, tools, and processes developed in the previous Phases, now brings these resources directly to collaborative stakeholders, facilitating groups and organizations through the thrivable development process.
In addition to facilitating collaboration amongst and between groups in the collaborative spaces online and offline, Thrivable.org offers Consulting and Internal Development of Thrivable initiatives. This will be accomplished via:
- Consulting: Established organizations seeking assistance in transformation to Thrivability will solicit the expertise of Thrivable in helping them to get there.
- Incubator: Design process of application for Thrivable LAB8 Incubator rounds to take leadership-centric concepts and ideas and put them through a design and vetting process to land on-the-ground projects that meet the conditions and principles for Thrivability.
- Thrivable Fund: Finance the development of the Incubator projects, with some amicable exchange of equity in the projects. These equity interests could be passed off to VCs or kept in-house, depending on the circumstances.
Summary: Using foundation and process to transform organizations and groups co-creating a thrivable world.
Estimate of Time: A Detailed Estimate of this Phase will be Available after Foundation: Business Planning
Deliverables: Development of the Thrivable product/service mix of membership organizations and individuals to collaborate on the implementation of Thrivable principles and practices.
Funding sought: TBD
Roadmap to the Thrivable.org Model
