Please fill out this form or email Andrew if interested in participating!
How can we practice creating and living in this new way together?
When I published the Ethical Startup Playbook in November 2021, there were a number of possible routes I could lean into. Community of Practice feels the most natural and synergistic based on my conversations and interests this winter. There is no universal curriculum, Sangha is critical, we are all walking each other home. We have so much to learn from each other and need accountability structures to do the work.
What are Communities of Practice?
Groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly. This CoP is for idea and very early stage founders (not exclusive to tech startups) who feel clear that they want to create in a more ethical way. They are ready to take the next steps on a lifelong journey of grounded personal growth in service of balanced action.
We are going to embark on a little adventure together. I think of it as Women’s Circle meets Office Hours meets Book Club. It’s a space to ask questions, invite support, connect with others on the path, identify areas of growth.
This initial constellation of 5 students (+ me) with diverse life experiences will come together for a short season of facilitated conversations. At the end of our time together, my goal is that each of us is more clear on the Learning Journey that awaits, and have a sense of how to take the next steps on it. That we feel more closely connected to a community of creators in inquiry around similar questions.
Key Logistics
- Content: Focused discussions on each of the dimensions outlined in the Ethical Startup Playbook, and that which arises emergently. Personalized recommendations for additional resources.
- One 1:1 call midway through
- Possible guest speakers
- Time: 6 bi-weekly Zoom sessions, to be scheduled through a When2Meet
- 60min with extra 30 optional
- Starting January 2022
- Cost: Sliding Scale $400 - 800, with scholarships available.
- Commitment: ~ one hour of HW content per session, additional resources optional. Light participation in WhatsApp group encouraged.
Additional Details
- Intentions: Presence, embodiment, integration, questioning
- Flow: Logistics and anatomy of each session are subject to change slightly, based on participant needs and feedback.
- e.g. we may choose to do deep dives on one participant's project per session
- Session 1 will be more introductory, Session 6 will be more sharing Learning Journey
- Privacy: Sessions will be recorded and may be accessed only by CoP participants
- Open Source: We are all co-creating this experiment, that I hope may craft a template that can be shared with tangentially related communities in unique spaces and places.
- Leadership: I (Andrew) will be coordinating, facilitating and stewarding this community. I am working to bring myself up to speed in terms of facilitation skills and progressive education modalities, drawing inspiration from Ecoversities Alliance and Zak Stein’s Education in a Time Between Worlds.
Please fill out this form or email Andrew if interested in participating!
More on Community of Practice
- Communities of practice often focus on sharing best practices and creating new knowledge to advance a domain of professional practice. Interaction on an ongoing basis is an important part of this.
- They develop a shared repertoire of resources: experiences, stories, tools, questions, support, ways of addressing recurring problems. This takes time and sustained interaction.
- There are three characteristics of a community of practice:
- Domain: Community members have a shared domain of interest, competence and commitment that distinguishes them from others. This shared domain creates common ground, inspires members to participate, guides their learning, and gives meaning to their actions.
- Community: Members pursue this interest through joint activities, discussions, problem-solving opportunities, information sharing and relationship building. The notion of a community creates the social fabric for enabling collective learning. A strong community fosters interaction and encourages a willingness to share ideas.
- Practice: Community members are actual practitioners in this domain of interest, and build a shared repertoire of resources and ideas that they take back to their practice. While the domain provides the general area of interest for the community, the practice is the specific focus around which the community develops, shares and maintains its core of collective knowledge.
