Values

The idea the project was to develop an application to help manage organisation in way which is independent of the top-down centralised approach. The project is too ambitious for any single team to accomplish, and really needs to be a "mash up" of many technologies. Over the years of refining our definition of what such an application would be like we learned some important points which allow us to quickly establish whether a particular technology is an appropriate addition to this mash-up.

These criteria are based on the philosophical principles that form the foundations of the project, and can be seen as a parallel concept to the path but applied to software instead of people. in other words, the criteria are designed to ensure growth and harmony opposing the natural entropic tendencies of the environment which would otherwise manifest as system degradation through the channelling of resource into goals other than the benefit of the organisation's members.

Awareness

Whether in the areas of personal mastery or organisational development, striving for objectivity is vital in order to assess the true situation, which then gives rise to creative tension when contrasted with the vision of where one desires to be. Lack of objectivity causes confusion and deception and hinders development and growth, both on a personal and an organisational level. The incorporation of feedback and truth tests are useful for increasing objectivity, for instance individuals may claim to value a number of things but when we see how time or money are spent, this tends to reveal more of an objective picture of what is valued. For an organisation, a transparent mechanism for incorporating feedback from all stakeholders will increase objectivity, as well as the ability for all stakeholders to verify the degree of adherence of the organisation to stated core values.

In the context of an holistic system, the axiom of awareness refers to the description of the system through which all members gain understanding of it. So the axiom of awareness in terms of systems can act as a compass needle pointing toward ever increasing accessibility, diversity and openness to the description and ever increasing accuracy and objectivity to the information it provides.

This axiom gives rise to a fundamental common "project" that all members use and contribute to which we call the Geoscope after Buckminster Fullers idea of a common publicly accessible view of the world and its state. In the modern world of information, this Geoscope would be a semantic ontology, which is essentially network of concepts described using a universal ontology language. The transformation of the web into web3 which is currently occurring global phenomena provides the perfect environment in which to collaborate at a global scale on a high level working description of our resources and systems.

Another interesting point is that from this holistic perspective, this awareness is of itself because it's the outer-most context (i.e. from the global context, global and local are one and the same). This gives rise to the recursive nature of the system and how the same system can be seen at work over all scales of operation, macrocosm and microcosm. From this perspective it really is a process of the planet becoming Self-aware, but in a very organised and intentional way.

Think Global, Act Local

Although the slogan think global, act local (TGAL) has been around for some time, we believe it has more meaning than initially meets the eye and has a number of systems implications when applied as a core value for an organisation. We have also not seen an organisation that truly understands and applies this value. It implies the ability for all participants in a system to assess the situation of the whole in terms of an objective accounting system, so that it can immediately be obvious when parts are trying to take energy from the whole, or when they are trying to change the whole in their favour. This addresses issues such as corporations internalising profits while externalising costs, as well as the tendency for powerful corporations or conglomerates to bend the law in their favour. It also allows parts, from individuals to large organisations, to assess how they can fulfil their potential in a way that increases harmony, thereby being enabled to strike that elusive balance between individual fulfilment and service to society. In terms of governance, parts are only able to change themselves (act local) but they can see the whole (think global).

All Aspects Changeable

There is an ancient saying that goes: "The only constant is change", it follows for us that all aspects, whether we are talking about personality or an organisation, need to be changeable. The value of all aspects changeable (AAC) is also vital to the proper implementation of objectivity and TGAL, since in order to incorporate feedback and respond to change we require the will and ability to change any aspect of self. While on the personal level this implies the ability to discuss (or reflect on) any aspect of self and change thoughts, words or actions in order to increase harmony and well-being, for organisations this implies, first of all transparency, so that the true structure and action of the organisation can assessed. Further, there need to be mechanisms which allow any stakeholder to easily suggest or make changes, to further compliance with the other core values.

Self containment

Self containment means editable from within, and developed from within with no downtime

Collaborative & Decentralised

Unified space that all can collaborate on in real time. Decentralised doesn't just refer to its physical robustness, but also means that the system must be part of the global web3 movement rather than being a separate solution being developed by a small group. I.e. it's about steering existing bottom-up projects which already exhibit mass community-based momentum into a unified direction.

Prototype based

Prototype/Archetype is fully OO where all classes are instances "in the field"

Peer to peer

not reliant on centralised servers for maintaining the global shared space