Loomio Engagement, and Transitioning Off Email

Well said @rasikanandadasa ! I think that for success you actually need a well functioning process involving both leadership - the willingness to try new things and innovate for continuous improvement - and management - effectively implementing processes and changes in a way that functionally works for everyone following that leader. Sometimes these two aspects of the process can be fulfilled by a single person, and sometimes it needs to be a team effort.

The reason email is so popular is it's a catch-all for relationship interaction. People return to facebook and email so frequently as it's the outlet for personal interaction, which is the flavor of life.

We are by nature nectar-seeking, so if difficult decisions are presented to us all the time, our appetite for them wanes.

What we celebrate becomes valued.

Where we assess we improve.

What we measure we excel in.

Creating the infrastructure to measure, assess and celebrate the value of personal interactions in the collaborative decision making process is what will propel Loomio into the long-term future.

In addition to simply the decisions themselves, creating the communication and relationship tools to aide in personal character development, interdependent relationship skills, inter-personal communication, understanding different personality natures and how they best relate, are all very important and foundational fields, which Loomio could do well to support.

Perhaps a branch of Loomio can be dedicated to providing information and education on these skills, and provide infrastructure built to facilitate them in the decision making process.

Otherwise, we may make decisions, but may not get the buy-in or follow-through of those who made them, simply from a theoretical basis. If we're committed to effecting tangible changes, the field in which those changes occur needs to be recognized, and that field is the heart.

If we care enough to go out of our way to hear, receive and care for others from our hearts, then that touches them deeper than words and graphs alone ever will. That touch is where change happens.

In that light, I'm planning an educational relationship development and management platform called GoodSouled.com

It will use the OpenID system to create a trust network, celebrating the contributions and evolution of individuals through a peer-reviewed process of awards that inspire us to live and interact by the values we hold most dear.

One of our major goals for the crowdfunding campaign is developing training resources for exactly that @rasikanandadasa

A technology tool is never the whole answer. It must be supported by culture, context, and relationships. There's a lot of amazing expertise out there in the world, such as in networks of facilitators, and Loomio could be a magnet to draw a lot of it together. @vivienmaidabornloo has thought about this a lot, and @mjkaplan

The people usually afraid of engage in something new, especially when they haven't try it and they don't know it.

The story of Pirates of Hellas, was something like yours.
In the beginning it was via facebook messages and mumble. Yes we had online communication. But those weren't stayed somewhere written and was very difficult to take decisions and to discuss on topic.

So we decided all the decisions will be through loomio or they are invalid.

After that we saw some improvement. it has passed 8 months from that decision and now is starting to have more and more discussions in loomio and not in facebook until it still is in facebook.

They need time! Someone needs to make the first step! Show them how to use it! Show them how easy it is for use! Try it! Make a discussion and invite them to engage!

I hope i helped!

Great discussion, I am increasingly thinking about technology solutions as being in the last quadrant of 4 that relate to organisational life. I have begun to develop this idea here
Love to hear what you all think:-)

Really interesting stuff @vivienmaidabornloo - actually I find a lot of it relates to the content of the recent interview we did with Nancy:

http://blog.loomio.org/2014/03/18/loomio-in-conversation-with-online-community-expert-nancy-white/

Absolutely agree Vivien. Online tools are only useful when they provide a distributed community of people with a shared place that works to help them follow their agreed processes.

Take the case of the Permaculture in NZ Council, which is a distributed group, but already had an email list, monthly Skype calls, and 3-4 face-to-face meetings a year. A Loomio group was created after somebody (not me) evangelized it, because they were excited by the idea of it, not because we had a problem to which it was a solution. Consequently, it hasn't really had much use, and has created a lot of confusion about whether a given message should be posted to the email list, on the CoActivate wiki, or on the Loomio group.

I have been encouraging the Council to open up our Loomio group to the whole membership of PINZ, with a private subgroup for the Council to use for sensitive discussions. That way we can involve more of our activists in the day-to-day running of the organisation, and get more value from our use of Loomio.

@vivienmaidabornloo i really appreciate this conversation. Loomio is a tool that requires many other components to maximize impact. Vivien's quadrants remind me of the Four Frames by Bolman and Deal that delineate 4 aspects of change - people, politics (as in power), structure (processes and tools fit here) and the aspect that i think is usually underestimated- symbolism (culture falls here).