With Platform4 in winter hibernation, the administration staff and the community is working tirelessly; not only to prepare the coming season, but also on condensing and visualizing the ideological bedrock that the Platform4 project is based on - formulating a vision statement, setting more formal strategic goals and creating road maps. This is indeed new to this adolescent organization!
From almost entirely impulsive lay-the-bricks-as-we-move-forward dynamics (almost - we have, admittedly, over the years been devising and following a strategy, although a very experimental one) towards developing a more strategic framework, without loosing the non-institutional, improvisational shoot-from-the-hip spirit of the project.
During the recent weekend, the administration staff sat down to take one of those deep, comprehensive and fun discussions of what the heck it is we're actually doing! One of the talks that require everyone to stop what they're doing, turn off their phone, put away the laptop - and sit around a table for an entire day to discuss, draw, brainstorm and put accurate words on why (and how) our daily struggle constitute the purpose of the project and creates value to our users, our community, our surroundings, our city and our society.
Ironically, this has never been done before on such a basic level, because we've been too busy inviting people inside, creating demanding projects and workspaces - and building robots! We tried once, 3 years ago, but had to shop half way to organize some big project with a deadline, and subsequently never picked up the thread, as we thought that it was too boring and that the only result of finishing the vision statement would be to constrain our wonderfully unshackled and autonomous development project. "We can do that some other time," was our thought at the time. "Let's build pixel screens instead!" (or something similar to that).
Now, however, the Platform4 project has matured enough to justify the formalization of some of the basic elements in order to let the vigorous and sprightly tree grow much higher. In 2012, we'll kick off some very ambitious projects for which we need some sturdy substructure. More on that in another blog post.
True user-involvement
The experimental, sometimes chaotic, nature of the Platform4 project has developed immensely over the last 3,5 years, and the fact that a fixed written down vision statement was never formulated, was - in our concept - the only way to insure absolute unhindered creativity and the principled feasibility of user-involvement even on strategic level. That is, that any user could influence the overall direction of the project and that the highest possible degree of transparency was the key to engage volunteer users and give everyone an almost equal ownership of the project.
Ridicolous and counterproductive?
To the more conventional organisation, this may seem ridiculous, somewhat amateurish and even counterproductive, but the DNA of the Platform4 project was and is different from most organisations on this planet. The idea is, basically, to trust that a community of creatives - students, entrepreneurs, artists, hackers, makers - will actually, when given funding and free hands (no intervention from funders), develop into an energetic self-propulsive and highly productive hub of creativity - with value on many levels: In Platform4 we've seen the growth of a learning/educational dimension that attracts students and gives amateur users unfettered belief in themselves that they can master pretty much any technology, and we've seen a distinct entrepeneural spirit emerge with people starting out playfully and eventually founding companies and developing products. But most significantly, we've seen the emergence of a new social order of sharing and collaboration, where people help each other instead of competing - in joint effort and without regard for money in that relationship.
After 3,5 years of such explorations we now retrospectively try to condense all these data and all the experiences into the manufacturing of a vision statement and from that putting much more effort into producing some strategic goals that links that vision statement to the daily tasks, by creating road maps for all staff members and thereby much more coherently becoming aware of the links between top and bottom based on bottoms up data.
The process - our guide shared
Here's how we've started the process at the first all-day session. We compiled this step-by-step plan from bits and pieces collected in books and online, so it has absolutely no academic (or even tested) weight to it - it is simply our way of trying things out:
Step 1: All participants individually and quietly (without interaction) writes down keywords on small pieces on paper (yellow notes) - one note per paper. These keywords must be representative of the organization in either the past, the present or the future - and the participant can write down whatever word she feels is right. Could be anything. Examples in our session included as different words as 'Sharing', 'Innovation' and 'Collaboration' to 'Graffiti', 'Green', 'Drunk talks', 'Limfjorden' (the dirty fjord next to our venue) and 'Sloppy'.
Step 2: In turn, each participant presents one of their notes by placing it on the table and tells a story about why she thinks this word relates to the organization. Preferably a concrete story (as in "Last year, when we were building the stage, I noticed..."), but could also be a more general contemplation about the organization in general. Additionally, the participant can express some dream for the future based on the word. Other participants can ask questions or even oppose the word or the presentation behind it, but the word still goes on the table. Someone must act as moderator to keep each presentation and feedback/discussion short. No need for full agreement at this point.
The notes eventually form a big chaotic cluster on the table. No particular organization is required.
Funny and completely needless observation: See how some participants try to form new artistic patterns when adding notes to the table, while others try to keep patterns streamlined and systematic. It's fun to watch. Make psycho-analysis comment if you like. See how the systematic placers become somewhat embarrassed :)
If any two or more participants have chosen that same word, it's is simply placed on top of each other.
Step 3: Once all notes are on the table, take a break, have a cigarette. Then each participant gets to choose 3 notes (if you're a small group - and 1 or 2 if you're a larger group) that in their view are the most descriptive of the organization. You would want to end up with 10-15 notes totally.
Instruct the participants that the notes they choose should be the ones that at best describe Platform4 to an outsider. The choosing of these notes is done one at the time, clockwise around the table. This is a way pick out the notes (and thereby keywords) which has the most weight.
Step 4: Once notes are selected, place them on a new table - widely from each other so there is space between them. Exchange them with a new colour (blue) - as in: Make new blue notes with the same word on them. Replace the yellow select keyword notes with the blue ones (we want them to be easily distinguishable from each other). Throw the yellow select keyword notes out or leave them under the blue ones.
Next, participants must move the remainding yellow notes (the unselected ones) from the first table to the second one, and place them around the blue notes in clusters that relate to that blue word. This proces is done unstructured (no turns of anything like that) - just get it done quickly. Partipants can move whatever note they want, and can even move each others notes when placed on the second table, if they want. Don't worry if a word fits in several places, or if there are disputes about the right placing - it doesn't matter too much where the note is placed, as long as general clusters around the blue notes appear. This will form what we want: A big relatively organized word cloud divided by themes as driven from the shared heart of the group of participants.
Step 5: Take a picture of the word cloud and use a computer to project it onto a nearby wall where everyone can see it. This will serve as inspiration - and a keyword synopsis for past, present and future of the organization.
Step 6: Now, move to a clear table (could be the first one). Participants should now grab pen and paper and then - with the keyword brainstorm and subsequent puzzle roaming in the subconsciousness - formulate newspaper headlines as they can imagine them 5 or 10 years from now. What will have happened in the organization when you look back 5 or 10 years from now? What amazing achievements did we manage to pull through? What projects? What will the organization be famous for? Could be anything, concrete things or something more abstract - make sure to instruct people to dream and use their imagination. Participants can make as many as they want - and once they're done drafting, they should write select headlines (or all of them, if they want) on green paper.
It is not required to use the words from the word cloud. This is simply to inspire and to ensure that people at this point are deeply insulated by the organizations universe.
To inspire this part of the process, consider making a mock-up newspaper frontpage and project it on the wall as well. Make it somewhat funny, or at least totally ambitious to set the standard high. Here is the one we used:
Step 7: Taking turns, one at the time, each newspaper headline is placed by it's maker on a board for everyone to see (we used magnets and a white board) and the creator explains her thoughts behind the headline. Now new (and, most likely, never before heard of) dreams are being presented! If not, make sure participants fully understand what they're supposed to do.
Step 8: When all headlines are up on the board, take a picture of it.
Step 9: Final stage in this process is liquidize (or craft) all these values/metadata (blue/yellow notes with keywords) and actual dreams of the future (green notes) into a coherent and covering vision statement that manages to encapsulate the gist of this big, yet rather concrete, body of data. This is not to be done in the group, as that will likely lead to heavy word-fucking (= discussing words for hours without end).
Instead, two participants should volunteer to craft the vision statement from here. Make sure it will be some that are good with words.
Also, make sure to send the two pictures of the notes to all partipants, so that they can reflect and continue thinking good visionary thoughts while the crafting duo is working.
Step 10: Once a draft statement (or several) is made by the duo, send to all participants for review and feedback. Meetup again if need be (entire group, or those wanting to take part). Take feedback into account as needed, and revise. Repeat this step as many times as needed to reach consensus.
Step 11: Your shared vision statement is finished. Hopefully.
At present we are currently in between stage 8 and 9, so the rest is (at this point) pure speculation. But we really believe it will work. We'll update this post (or make a new one) as we proceed. After the visions statement is finished, we'll do another half day session to make strategic goals and roadmaps for everyone - based on this first session and the subsequent vision statement that everyone collaborated to produce. More on that later.
Also, we do many talks and presentations about these things (as well as about tons of other organizational and strategic issues in this massively experimental project) - in order to share our experiences and engage with people and organizations who also wants to discover new grounds. Get in touch if you're interested (info@platform4.dk) - or if you have ideas for modifications of our process.
