Atelier WeekNotes w/c 27 Nov 2023
Some highlights in a shapeless week. Re-structuring the WeekNotes.
I am writing newsletter of #weeknotes of starting the Atelier of What’s Next (What’s needed, What’s ready? What can we do? What next?). For my rationale for starting the Atelier see here.
This week covers:
Some highlights in a shapeless week
Re-structuring the WeekNotes
Some highlights in a shapeless week
from the point of view of the Atelier, the week just gone was rather shapeless. Work-wise, the main thing I am up to is 'outside' the Atelier (being a tutor for the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, CISL, online short course on Sustainable Finance). This takes up a few hours each day (stimulating students in online debates, marking submissions, doing webinars).
Outside of work, both my kids needed help with school stuff this week (doing mock GCSEs, starting to choose GCSEs and more). As a single, widower dad (a bit more on that here), the responsibility sits with me. Parenting takes time and emotional energy. Plus, November fully arrived: the darkness came early and left late; there was a proper cold-snap; and, I had a cold.
All of which means, there haven't been the big activities to reflect on, or big themes across the week to write up.
Some highlights:
Competence in Complexity.
This is a peer group who have followed on from the International Futures Forum (IFF) course of the same name. We had nearly 2 hours together on Monday morning. We focused on two people, and so I was asking coaching questions.
Reflection: the power of a well-formed open question.
Undaunted start-up Mentor.
In previous WeekNotes I have said how I am mentoring a climate-tech start-up, Acer Farms (a new approach to vertical farming), which has just left the Undaunted incubator, the Greenhouse (more details here). This week we had another check-in, contents confidential.
Reflection: a founder who wants to attract funding needs to have a narrative about how get from here (small team, pre-revenue, etc) to there (lots of revenue from lots of real stuff being made in real places by real people).
Zinc Fellowship.
In early October I went to the 'missions as magnets' event by mission-orientated Venture Capital form, Zinc. This week, I had my first 'office hours', where the Founders (people trying to form businesses around the current mission of improving the health of people and planet) can ask for help. Again, contents confidential (sorry).
Reflection: always amazed by how much power people think that disclosure legislation will have (hypothesis along lines of: more requirements -> more public information -> more accountability and better decisions -> lots of cumulative impact -> mid-course correction of capitalism). Almost 20 years on from being an expert stakeholder in the third iteration of Global Reporting Initiative Guidelines ('G3' -- ask your parents), I bring a more world-weary eye (more requirements -> more obfuscation and spinning -> more confusion -> same decisions -> limited cumulative impact -> capitalism rolls on, more or less as before). Even so, the world has changed somewhat, adn now inaccurte disclosures are more likely to be used in court cases, which is something.
WHAT NEXT
Adjust to winter, and hope the kids need less parenting next week.
Re-structuring the WeekNotes
Step: 4/DEVELOPING. Theme: Atelier management.
One of my reflections from my shapeless week is how easy it is for me to lose track of my priorities. One of my ideas for addressing that is to have more structure in these Exploring What's Next WeekNotes. That way I will be forced to update on priorities, and therefore (knowing that is coming) actually pay more attention to them. Or at least, that's the idea.
Below is the template as it stands. The idea is to update on the Priorities every week, and the others when something happens (or when something should have happened but didn't). There should still be space for reflecting on the stuff I'm up to which doesn't fit neatly under these headings. But there needs to be more that is being done on all of these headings.
A reflection from writing this: there's a lot. Perhaps that is inevitable. But does make me wonder if I'm matching my priorities to my current capacity. Something I'll return to.
WHAT NEXT
Use the template below for a couple of weeks.
The template as it stands:
Priorities for the coming months (more here)
What can I lean about the Atelier's 'offering-challenge-resourcing' fit (like 'product-market' fit, but in a for-purpose organisation)?
How can the Atelier by organised for abundance?
In the Atelier
Interventions of different types which are being actively worked on (more on Topics and Methods here).
TOPICS
Using Time Well.
Initiative interoperability.
Meeting policy makers where they are with narratives they can recognise.
Living in truth during a culture war.
METHODS
The fundamental Atelier steps.
Imagining transformative pathways for decision-making.
Forming frontier consortia.
An Atelier Hour.
Nurturing social learning cycles.
SCENES
IFF Competence in Complexity
Futures community of practice in UCL
4SD Living System Leadership
Atelier operations
ReadingNotes (more here)
Theory of change (more here)
Concept: The Atelier will contribute to transformation by considering three levels for itself, and all the interventions in the studio,
Landscape. How can we accelerate deep transformations in our economies and societies towards humankind living in ways that align with nature, and where people can choose their own version of the good life?
Regime. How can we create the innovation ecosystems, political movements and appropriate governance for systemic transformation?
Niches. How can we quickly learn-by-doing, in this moment, on this specific intervention, so that it thrives by accelerating shifts at the regime and landscape levels?
Being a Co-Founder
Powerful Times (more here)
ISR Module: Innovation and Sustainability in Business (more here)
Hypotheses to be continuously iterated.