I am critical of the lack of transparency in our current system. Much of the inefficiency that exists under our now is because our leaders and for-profit corporations make decisions in secret, behind closed doors where they have their own conversations and then they have to sell the outcome of those conversations to the public through expensive marketing. We have grown more distrustful of advertising and marketing is becoming less effective.
I have come to realize that although I am here to dismantle this paradigm I have been recreating it by having all of the necessary conversations, alone behind the closed doors of my mind. I have tried to be transparent and explain how we dismantle the current system that is destroying us. I still have to “sell” the concept to the people that it is intended to help because they were not privy to the conversations in my head.
Up till this point in history we have needed leaders, the elite, the expert etc to gather, discuss and decide on our behalf. Allowing them this power has come with benefits but also a huge cost. Our world is led in large part by the corrupt, the greedy and the arrogant, and we have allowed it.
Now it is time for us, the people, to have our own conversations that lead to solutions that work for all of us. I have envisioned technological tools that make this possible but the perfect tool has already been here for decades.
A couple weeks ago I was introduced to the concept of a World Cafe. A World Cafe is a system for group discussion where people gather in groups of 4-5 around a table to discuss a meaningful question for 20 minutes at which point one member of the group (the host) remains at the table and everyone else moves to a different table with new people. In this way, a complex, group conversation can take place and allow insightful group intellect to emerge.
We are going to host a monthly 2 hour “Hope Cafe” using the world cafe format. These in person meetings with dozens of people will be working towards creating the technology to host these same conversations online with tens of thousands of people. We will discuss everything from how we create a corporate structure we can trust, to how to take action that moves us powerfully forward.
The people participating in the monthly Cafe can shift and change with some individuals coming to every single one and other people being a one-off contributor. People who enjoy this process of co creating will keep coming with the participation itself as the incentive. Dedicated contributors will naturally emerge and form the remaining initial board member positions.
Every week the current board members will meet for 1 hour to discuss the previous cafe’s insights and plan the next Hope Cafe structure and questions so that they have the most powerful impact. In the smaller dedicated group (board members) and in the larger participant group we will discuss what went went right and what went wrong. We will try, fail, learn, grow and repeat as needed.
Our first projects will be to move the, real life Hope Cafe with dozens of participants, into an online format with tens of thousands of participants. Together we will devise the ongoing financial strategy, one that is sustainable so that we know we have the funds to create the ideas that emerge from these conversations.
We will work together to brainstorm and implement the most powerful tools needed for mass collaboration including understanding the complex information required, project management tools, and task volunteering/monitoring as well as tools for running the cooperative itself.
We will discuss how to best implement democracy and transparency into our company so that we, the individual, can trust the company itself and the information and tools we create. We can brainstorm what will make our corporation as incorruptible as humanly possible.
Imagine a world where we have created, and own, our own social media company that facilitates deep meaningful conversations and real-world action that is implemented by the very people co-creating them together.
What is possible in such a world?
When world events occur in our news feed or when our current world leaders are acting in their own self-interest and not ours, what tools can we create to take back our power and harness it for our own and the world's greater good?
This is the world we are going to create together through powerful conversations that lead to innovative projects giving every single one of our members the abundance they need to live their lives on their own terms. With this freedom individuals create rapid innovation, that we need, to solve all of our complex problems cooperatively, and we're all better off for it.
The Hope Cafe is exactly that space; where we can dream and have the conversations to bring together our individual uniqueness into collective awesomeness and unleash innovation never before seen on this planet. We are going to create the social media platform that brings humanity together by creating the space to have conversations that lead to real-world actions that we collectively fund and get a voice in creating.
All an individual has to do is bring themselves, exactly as they are, with exactly what they know and we can save humanity and our planet together.
All I have to do is bring myself exactly as I am with exactly what I know, to ignite this process.
The brain that created this idea for a world cooperative tech company that we own and run together and enables us to dismantle capitalism and create a world that works for everyone (my brain) is my greatest asset and barrier. It does magic when I allow it and it turns off when I or the world force it to do ANYTHING else. My neurodivergent brain needs help with all of the executive functioning required to create and attend a real world event such as the Hope Cafe. I require a stress minimized life to function and doing THIS alone would be stressful. I do not need to do it alone I have faith this is possible because I have seen it so many times over the last few years. What I can not do, someone else can. I can not plan an event but I know that for someone it is their joy, their genius, what they live for or at least easy for them.
Once I find this person we will work together to host these ongoing events in order to create a world that works for everyone. A world where everyone can individually do what is easy and fun and, pieced together, we create magic.
Who is in?
Please contact me directly at collaborativedemocracy@gmail.com if you would like to help create the “Hope Cafe” directly. Local to Vancouver, BC is essential for this particular role.
Edited to add: I usually post on Mondays, this was written on Monday but I got a friend to look it over and by the time I posted it today (Tuesday) it is already out of date. The ADD meds that it took to write it kept me awake, as they do. I went on Periscope and cocreated a way to host these cafe's on Periscope. Still down with co-collaborators who wish to create a real world and online conversations such as the above. Technology and cooperation allows for rapid innovation (making blog posts obsolete before they even go live).