Loomio
Wed 6 Aug 2014 7:36PM

Should #pieshare2 just focus on 'why'?

T tim Public Seen by 12

The suggestion at the end was to focus the next session on answering 'why' to help agree the how, and the what.

Sound like a plan?

AA

Alex Arnes Wed 6 Aug 2014 9:05PM

Absolutely! Solid philosophical foundation before attempting to do anything else > Why?. It was clear from the comments on the #pieshare1 that there are many resources, agencies, initiatives out there... why another one? why is this one needed? why is it different?

AW

Andrew Wilson Thu 7 Aug 2014 9:06AM

What is the pie? (or what are all the things that the people involved think of as the pie in this case??) Money, reputation, professional advancement, earnings potential, job satisfaction, personal satisfaction, a better world...?

Who ate all the pies? Who eats pie at the moment, and how do they get it? Is the pie unfairly shared out? Is it the wrong people at the table? Are enough people at the table?

Flavours of pie? There were people from lots of different kinds of work at the first event, and the specifics of their working practices, ways of earning money, personal and professional satisfaction, and pies that they share in, are likely to be very different. Where and what is the pay-off that will motivate collective action among that group of people, or an even wider group (there are lots of possible pay-offs, some money, some not).

What is a guild, and what does it offer as an organisational structure or as a metaphor?

What resources and reference points are already out there to draw on?

Why sharing as a method of exchange? Is there any distinction between sharing, gift giving, and fair exchange?

When is sharing and openness naivety? Even within the room, there were people with different levels of wealth, power, social and professional connections and so on. Are we really all in it together?

All that and much more is interesting to me. All good stuff, and thanks to Tim for making a space for discussion :-)

AW

Andrew Wilson Thu 7 Aug 2014 9:17AM

"A guild is an association of artisans or merchants who control the practice of their craft in a particular town."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guild

T

tim Thu 7 Aug 2014 9:25AM

Fantastic jumping off points Andrew. Many thanks.

MD

Miz DeShannon Thu 7 Aug 2014 10:03AM

My thoughts are that as a group the objectives and outcomes should focus on our collective abilities, thus giving coming together a purpose, rather than focussing on personal advancement - so revolving around what we can do as a group, how we can collectively assist in a wider good for the city and the advancement of projects within the city. Personal development will come with that for people involved, but if the group focusses on personal development we may end up going down the road of tailored training and risking losing people who could have some collective merit. Personal development is something which can be sought by an individual through an established organisation.

The idea discussed of having a small set of objectives as guidelines was good (why?), then outcomes (what is pie?) can vary from financial to reputation to a better world as long as projects sit within the guidelines. Does that make sense?

VB

Vivien Badaut Sun 10 Aug 2014 10:15PM

I think we indeed need to spend time thinking about the "why".
Our problem might be that we risk to derive a bit from the original question. The content that is currently on the website is a good starting point to avoid this.

The goal is to empower both the city and the members of the guild. If the idea is to grow and to share the pie, then the pie might the the actual ability to DO and to CHANGE things in Leeds.

From there, in my mind, the guild would be a network of individuals working together to achieve/transform something, submitted by a member.
Being a member would then mean being able to submit an idea and, should it be accepted by the Guild, to find in our network the means to realise it.
Maybe if we could find an idea that would federate the current members of the Guild, the "why" would be more obvious?

Let's take an exemple. I lived in Hyde Park for a while, I often heard that the park was insecure at night. And yet there's no public lightning in it, which is obviously is the main reason why.
That's something we could change.
Is it worth pursuing? -yes
What could the Guild gain from it? -reputation
What members could gain from it? -...? <= so maybe not a suitable project for the guild, as we don't put pie on the member's tables.

Maybe it could be good to ask the members to put ideas on the table?