šŸ‘‹ Life Itself Research Hackathon May 2024 (live notes and outputs)

Events
1

:waving_hand: Life Itself Research Hackathon May 2024

:telescope: :microscope:

Start here!

graph TD

start("Start here šŸŸ¢ ...")
meditation("Meditation šŸ§˜")
intro("Introduce yourself on Discord šŸ¤")
choose("Choose what you want to do šŸ”±")
own["I already have a project to work on "]
donthave["I don't have a project to work on"]
effort["We got you! Come do 'researching orgs' šŸ“š"]

start --> meditation
meditation --> intro
intro --> choose
choose --> own
choose --> donthave
donthave --> effort
own --> yay["Great! Get collaborating & shipping šŸš¢"]
effort --> next["Next step: read instructions below ā­ļø"]
next --> yay
yay --> checkin
checkin("Check-in regularly šŸ‘‹")

First steps

:person_in_lotus_position: Meditation / Silence (optional)

Take a moment to breath, come back to the present moment and relax. Thank-you for joining us :folded_hands:

:handshake: Introduce yourself and share you intention

Say hello on Discord and take a moment to reflect on what youā€™d like to contribute and receive from your participation today :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

Example:

  • Rathin: I am interested to learn more about the ideas and philosophies surrounding the hub, specifically about conscious food practices. Today, I want to assist in the hackathon proceedings as much as I can.

Put yours here:

  • Rufus: Iā€™m a co-founder at Life Itself and want to see a second renaissance and awakening societies. I want to work on mapping emerging ecosystem and sharing and learning with others.
  • Simon: poly-affiliated deep systems thinker and writer (retired from paid work) wanting to do more than just writing and talking. Particular interests with Life Itself are creating a Regenerative Research Knowledge Commons as a evolving prototype of a resource that links lots of research together ā€” and from the L I perspective this will of course include the Second Renaissance (wiki) and Deliberately Developmental Spaces (DDS). On the DDS front I have been a school teacher and university lecturer and later have had a keen professional interest in personal development and electronic portfolios. My real core passion project is called ReGenCHOICE. But here I want to work on the 2R wiki.
  • Thomas: . Really interested in community development. Iā€™m interested in understanding the scope of this project, and where contributions would make a difference. Iā€™m still trying to get a grasp of whatā€™s needed and next - as well as the long term vision. I care about the meta-capacity to communicate. This leads me to have interest in community, and systemic conversations about how to approach integrating relevant-capacities into a larger context. I think this work would benefit from mindful conversations that turn into structural ā€œconversational technologyā€ - something that I canā€™t do alone and also canā€™t do without competent creative collaborators.
  • Stephane: Iā€™m a community organiser, permaculture farmer and capacity development specialist. Iā€™m coming to the Second Renaissance which I find very inspiring. I want to support the mapping of the emergent ecosystem. Iā€™m am part of a Sufi Muslim community in Ottawa, Canada. I also have a blog with some essays on community, farming, and other thoughts called The Sufi Gardener.
  • Cesar Jeronimo: nomad that loves ecological and cultural diversity. Interested in nourishing spaces and praxis leading us towards more desirable futures, co-founder of Cambio Natural where others sharing this interest encounter. Want to support the mapping of the emerging ecosystem and learn about other experiences.
  • Danielle: This is my first Hackathon, but excihttps://wiki.secondrenaissance.net/wiki/Main_Pageted to be here. I am interested in building the larger field as well as a midwest node.
  • Rebecca: By training I am a modern applied cultural anthropologist. I tend to research and work on emerging projects, social structures from a systems thinking perspective and lean in anywhere I see positive change. Iā€™d like to meet more people in this space, contrinute research to the bigger project, listen to and help make sense of anyoneā€™s current projects and generally see what is going on in different arenas. I am also building a compassion based prjoect of my own through my org Sapient Living with my husband Thomas.
  • Andrea: Im interested in researching & designing technologies for a regenerative civilization. Working on a research project defining regenerative technology as a paradogm.
  • Bettina: I am part of the EU Project Cohere+ with Catherine and curious. I am new to the format of a Hackathon, and am curious to which extent the format of the hackathon could inform the learning journeys that we are developing during the project. I have never done any programming, and am usually upset, if a new software is not intuitive and requires me to enter the brain structure of the programmer ;-( But I am curious to see where I can contribute, certainly meaning and perspective, not so much ā€œstuffā€. I might have time tomorrow afternoon and will happily check in with however would like an outside/naive perspective.
  • Trip: Iā€™m focused on connecting more people to vehicles for cultural transformation (inner development of individuals and collectives), and operating from a cross-paradigmatic view that enables and promotes a diversity of paths. I have deep experience with intentional communities / eco villages, community empowerment through collective art, transformational spaces (residential and festival), and training / education combining paradigms (e.g. psychotherapy, contemplative practices, etc). Iā€™m seeking to create relationships for ongoing thought partnership and creation of projects to support more people financially in contributing to 2nd renaissance development.
  • James (Founder Intentional Society, member 2nd Ren launch project): Might pull out my quiz/survey project a bit (a ā€œwhere do you live on the Second Renaissance mapā€ thing), but also want to liberally meet and talk with people, and continue connecting passions and efforts in this space. Will be around in the Pacific zone evening. Doing a few Intentional Ventures meetings this morning, may come back with some project-y inspiration on that front.
  • Matthew: Involved in Life Itself Research and the DDS Project, also a student at Vrije Universieit Brussel. Hoping to brainstorm ways to further communicate our research to a wider audience
  • Martin: Interested in exploring wiser future and wiser people - practical and theorical research - building new social paradigms - I think it would be interested to do introspection into what kind of animal we are - as a community or a teamā€¦
  • Catherine: Working at Life Itself since Jan 2022 - research and co-hosting/facilitating residencies in the Bergerac Hub. Academic background is in Literature and Cultural Narratives. Iā€™m interested in what it means to be an ecologically response-able being on Earth. Have lived ~14m in the Berlin and Bergerac Life Itself Hubs in the past couple of years ā€“ interested in community spaces and structures which facilitate and support individual and collective development. Looking forward to working on research to map the emerging ecosystem of paradigmatic, inner-led changemakers. Curious to see the creativity that comes out of this group in the next couple of days :slight_smile:
  • Lauren: Comms at Life Itself, background in acting, and Psychology, emotional wellbeing practitioner and program/event management. I would like to gain a better understanding and insight of the research projects people are working on and meet more members of the research community. And feel a sense of inspiration. Iā€™m unlikely to be able to contribute a massive amount of time during the 24hours as Iā€™m working on other LI tasks. Personal interests Iā€™d love to link in at some future point are related to vulnerability (I applied to do a PhD in this), and the mysteries of being human, emotions and energetic systems. Qualitative research.
  • Ola: I am interested in researching and connecting dots and potential collaborative efforts between emerging ecosystems as well as building bridges for people who may not understand the ecosystem writ large.

:telescope: More about the Life Itself research community (optional)

If you are curious to know a bit more about us here is some material

What is a hackathon?

Weā€™re using hackathon to mean an informal collaboration session to build and ship something together! Here, we will be working on projects related to the Life Itself research community.

Hackathon as a term comes from tech community:

A hackathon (also known as a hack day; a portmanteau of hacking and marathon) is an event where people engage in rapid and collaborative engineering over a relatively short period of time such as 24 or 48 hours.

Online structure

Weā€™ll have breakout rooms per project and a main room. The main room may be empty if everyone is in breakouts!

If youā€™re not too familiar with zoom, donā€™t worry weā€™ll walk through this with you.

Resources folder

Google drive folder for the hackathon: Research Hackathon May 2024 - Google Drive

Please create docs and upload material here :folded_hands:

Brainstorm what you want to work on

Take 10m to brainstorm what you want to work on or read about the existing options.

What people plan to work on

Put your name here with an idea of what you want to work on ā€¦

Projects section

Profiling Paradigmatic Inner-led Changemakers (aka 2nd Renaissance / Liminal Web / Metacrisis etc)

  • Initiator: Catherine

Background

  • Context: Building a database of organisations in the ā€œParadigmatic Inner-led Changemakingā€ ecosystem (aka second renaissance / liminal web / metamodern / ā€¦)
  • [Why? Read this post: Mapping For Emergence: Announcing a Collaboration to Chart the Emerging Metamodern Ecosystem]
  • What we want your help with: gathering info on organizations we have short-listed e.g. description, where they are based, what they focus on etc.
    • Also feel free to suggest new organizations - see info on that below.

Instructions

Bonus: Suggesting new organizations

  • You can also suggest additional organizations (super-useful)

UX Journeys through Map-lands

  • Initiator: Trip
  • Context: Folks are building maps towards practical outcomes of ā€œactivatingā€ ecosystems in a variety of ways. How might we make more useful maps by exploring different peopleā€™s intentions and ways of using the maps?
  • Possible Outputs:
    • Personas
    • Sketches of different peopleā€™s UX journeys through 2nd Ren. spaces
    • Creative brainstorming of ideal UX journeys
    • Lightweight interviews to gather data / inspiration
  • Getting involved: This is an open exploration / discussion.
    • Asynchronous:
      • Contribute your thoughts directly to the Guiding Questions below. Feel free to add other Guiding Questions.
      • Add other thoughts / ideas in Misc Thoughts
    • Synchronous:
      • Hackathon Zoom breakout today 10 March @ 12pm PST / 3pm EST / 9pm CEST
      • Might schedule other times
    • Excalidraw Canvas Excalidraw | Hand-drawn look & feel ā€¢ Collaborative ā€¢ Secure

Hackathon Takeaways

  • Sharing each otherā€™s journeys:
    • builds connection through solidarity of struggles
    • gives hope of whatā€™s possible by hearing others who have made it past where you are currently struggling
    • gives you new ideas for how to get through places where you feel stuck
  • Following journeys from different perspectives does feed creative ideation for helpful tools / experiences for enabling people within the space
  • Ideas for next steps:
    • Aggregate a few story archetypes
    • Gather existing story resources and map to archetypes for going deeper (Ordinary People)
    • Connect each archetype to a few guides willing to chat with people about their personal experience
    • How can we make it co-curated?

Guiding Questions

Feel free to add your contributions directly to here.

Who are people that might want to use these maps? What are their goals / intentions?

  • Organizations seeking aligned partnerships
    • Inner transformation trainers seeking more clients
    • Businesses looking for mutually beneficial partnerships to share customers / grow revenue and reach
  • Employees looking for potential jobs with aligned organizations
  • Self-initiators looking for funding for their projects
  • People who have heard the inner call and are seeking community, solidarity, thought partnership, how to orient self within the ā€œmovementā€
  • Curious minds who want to hear more discussions, podcasts to understand whatā€™s emerging
  • Add more stuff here

What map information or data is relevant / irrelevant to whom?

  • How do I personally relate to these orgs? How do I search through the sea of options without getting overwhelmed?
  • What are points of engagement with these organizations? Which are accesible to me?
  • Is there a gap between an orgā€™s vision and actual material work? Is this just an idea, or is stuff really happening?
  • What are their assumptions / orientation? Where do I agree and disagree?
  • Add more stuff here

What is the broader experience / journey that maps sit within?

  • Sensemaking podcasts
  • In-person and virtual gatherings
    • Limicon
    • Life Itself Gatherings
    • Enspiral Gatherings
    • Conferences
    • Unconferences
  • Residential experiences
    • Temporary co-living
    • Ongoing co-living
  • Employment / funding your life
  • Communities of practice
  • Add stuff here

What do maps uniquely provide in the journey? What other things do they rely upon to be useful?

  • Add more stuff here

Place for Misc Thoughts

Feel free to add your general thoughts without need to organize them here.

  • Add more stuff here

My Project

ā€¦

  • Martin: I think it would be interested to do introspection into what kind of animal we are - as a community or a teamā€¦ just to dig deeper into ourselves in the context of what weā€™re working on. Capacity building exercise
  • Simon: (see above as well) would like here and now to test out models for putting useful research and learning resources and materials onto the wiki.
    • Question: what information would help you with your research (related to Life Itself)?
    • How can we make that information / knowledge most accessible; findable, cross-linked?

Wikis

Process question

  • Who chooses re the wiki?

What are the criteria of choice

  • High level
    • Usability for likely contributors
    • Features we would like
    • Ease / cost of maintenance
  • What are the features we care about
    • Editing language
    • Editor experience

What are the options

  • Mediawiki
  • Dokuwiki
  • Markdown-based on github
  • Use discourse

Shaping re 2R wiki (or a Life Itself wiki?)

see Simonā€™s piece on Regenerative research knowledge commons

Summary

  • We want classic wiki features
  • Discourse is close but it doesnā€™t have nice linking
  • Git(hub) + Flowershow is out because the edit process it too cumbersome (from web)
  • Leaves Mediawiki and Dokuwiki atm as main contenders
  • We have Mediawiki setup and will use that for now
  • Meanwhile, Simon does a trial of dokuwiki and sees if there are co-admins. If he is confident about that we can move to that ā€¦ (and he can choose!)
    • We can also research what (if any) wiki platform people are familiar with

Next actions

  • Keep working on the mediawiki ā€¦
  • Simon to ask whether 2 other people will co-admin dokuwiki
    • If not stick with MediaWiki for now ā€¦

Situation

We are choosing a ā€œwikiā€

Brainstorm

  • Our need: We want something ā€œwiki-likeā€. What does that mean?
    • MUST:
    • NICE:
    • We want it to be public
  • What exists in the world
    • There are many wiki platforms - none of them are perfect!
    • Popular ones are e.g.
      • mediawiki
      • dokuwiki
      • ā€¦
  • We will also likely have a forum ā€¦

Problem

  • We donā€™t have a wiki
  • We arenā€™t sure which one to choose
  • We are sure of the need e.g.
    • What users
    • What features are needed

Question

  • What are the job stories
  • Do we combine forum and wiki
  • What information / knowledge commons will facilitate good quality collaborative research around 2R and DDS?
    • What tech helps with that ā€¦
  • What will make it easy for people to ā€œget involvedā€
    • Will that many people ā€œget involvedā€

Solution / Hypothesis

Rabbit holes

No Goes

Analysis of github discussions

  • What are the affordances for what you want to do ā€¦

[Simon] Letā€™s take github discussions

  • There is no perfect forum software
  • Itā€™s not a good experience when you land ā€¦
  • Thereā€™s a bunch of UX not relevant to a forum (e.g. open, closed, locked, unlocked, ā€¦). Labels arenā€™t used.
    • Labels are shared between discussions and issues.
  • Very adapted to ā€œbug issuesā€ to ā€œideasā€ to queries.
  • Threaded replies
  • Answer stuff is confusing: what is difference between writing a reply and writing an answer.
  • Itā€™s for software/project Q&A

Job stories re a forum

  • I want to see latest posts
  • I want to ask a question and get help
  • I want to ā€¦

Re: a wiki

  1. Super-easy to edit: Can go straight in and want to do something and itā€™s click to edit, click to write, click save and done ā€¦
  2. Ease of linking: donā€™t have to go search for some url etc
  3. And ā€¦ red-linking i.e. you can link to non-existent pages and then have those pages created ā€¦
  4. And from point (1) you need good access control and spam protection

Letā€™s evaluate against these https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VbMvdy_pPzdREsAsXxONZWbPWS0rLxsy-NWJCg1cYDw/edit#gid=720636459

Appendix: UX analysis

Presenting the directory

:white_check_mark: https://cohereplus.glide.page

Analysis

KISS

  • Convert spreadsheet to markdown files
  • Index page

Ways to go ā€¦

  • Use simple markdown and DataHub/Flowershow cloud
    • :+1: really fast and simple
    • :-1: Donā€™t get nice profile pages
  • Use DataHub/Flowershow framework to build own site (as we are on second renaissance)
    • :+1: know it can work (can copy/paste)
    • :+1: clean separation of this in progress work
    • :-1: another thing to maintain. still some work to build anew
  • Build in second renaissance where everything already setup
    • :+1: everything already all setup and running.
    • :-1: bloat the repo, have rebuilds ā€¦ :cross_mark: doesnā€™t seem such a big deal for now. we already have the other profile sets
  • DIY with e.g. svelte-kit and
    • :+1: easy to roll your own and you get exactly what you need
    • :-1: have to roll your own.
    • :-1: inevitably new things to invent
  • Use no/low-code solution like glide

Outputs

Second Renaissance Wiki

Paradigmatic, Inner-Led Changemakers Database