This is an SCQH (situation, complication, question, hypothesis) to prompt reflection on where we are, what we could improve and where next for the group.

Situation

The Life Itself research group (https://lifeitself.org/research) is a para-academic collective and community focusing on pathways to a radically wiser world and a second renaissance, with a focus on themes like cultural evolution and ontological/inner development. The aim is to produce summary research and, potentially, novel work, whilst developing sense-making capacity within the group. Finally, the aim is to disseminate this research in order to inform and influence the broader community and society.

The group has been operating in an informal, ad hoc manner since 2016. It was largely in abeyance from 2019-2022. It was specifically rebooted as a more community-based effort in Jan 2023 and today consists of 10-20 participants.

Complication - what could we improve?

The group is not producing the outputs or attracting the attention (both for itself and its outputs) that it could do … with the result that it does not contribute (as much as it could) to wider sensemaking or attract as much new participation and contribution.

Specifically …

• Challenge in showcasing the group's work and impact, for example it is hard to see what the outputs are on lifeitself.org/research
  • Secondarily, unclarity regarding the criteria (e.g. of quality or relevance) for being considered an output of the research community. E.g. is any piece of work (co-)delivered by a member of the community considered an output of the community?
• Issues with producing outputs relative to the collective potential of the group …
  • [? Challenge of "grassroots" self-organising. How do we make decisions and make things happen? Who has what responsibilities and what decision-making powers and responsibilities in the group?]
  • Plus maybe unclarity around what this group wants to create or produce. + who can source or define projects and how.
• Lack an overall, “agreed” research plan (though note recent progress thanks to Jonah and others …) or, rather, lacks a plausible and effective strategy for encouraging and supporting the development of particular pieces of research work, output and dissemination.

More specifically:

• Insufficient visibility of significant outputs¹, members, and activities which means that people don’t use the outputs, don’t see that they could join and generally don’t see the group and how awesome it is …
• Unclear pathways for participation and membership criteria.
  • Unclear what requirements/responsibilities/rights of membership are? (More clear agreements or commitments around engagement might support accountability and production of outputs?)
• Insufficient publicity and documentation of the group’s activities (e.g. we don’t even have a news page linking to members recent outputs or activities).
• Absence of a clear and widely-agreed vision or organizing framework that both communicates the group’s purpose and coheres the groups efforts (structuring ongoing research and aligning efforts)
• It is not clear how members can organise, develop, or contribute to research outputs (e.g. hackathons are rare)

More minor

• Lack of a clear name and identity, which creates confusion
• (?) A lack of clarity in governance and decision-making within the group. [See appendix for specific examples e.g. re setting of the research agenda/framework]

Question

How can Life Itself Research improve its structure and visibility so as to more effectively produce and disseminate research (and secondarily build collaborative sense-making capacity within its members) … whilst remaining an informal group composed primarily of people contributing in their own time?

Sub-questions

• What name and identity would best represent the group’s goals and ethos? 🔑 Life Itself Research [see notes below]
• What are the goals of the group? Ans: 🔑
  • 1) Produce research work, even if that's summary research work, that can build towards the larger inquiry (what is a second renaissance and how can it come about and how can people contribute to that).
  • 2) to build sense-gathering capacity in the group, that is a group who are able to collaborate together and do sensemaking on complex topics in an effective way. (That's a bit vaguer and I'm not quite sure actually what that so much means e.g. what does effective mean … arriving at some kind of consensus or at least clarity on agreements/disagreements)
• How can the group effectively showcase its members, outputs, and activities on its website (including wiki as appropriate)?
• What should the group’s vision statement include to communicate its purpose and focus areas clearly? How could this best be developed, in order to incorporate the existing vision/focus of Life Itself generally (e.g. around 2R, lay awakening), the existing vision (on lifeitself.org/research) and the collective sense of the group?
• What kinds of events or activities would best encourage member participation and output creation? E.g. hackathons. In person events etc.
• What kind of environment, culture and norms would best encourage member participation and output creation?
• How can the group most effectively disseminate thematic research e.g. by having a regular publication? Or, more generally, a regular rhythm/deadline for publishing research (e.g. brown bag talks)?
• What organizing framework would help structure research questions and align ongoing efforts?
• What specific financial or resource support can Life Itself (or others) provide?
• What are the hypothesised sources of the lack of production?
• What are the hypothesised sources of the lack of visibility?

Hypothesis

To enhance coherence, visibility, and impact, the Life Itself research group should promote its presence with a clear name, a website presence listing members and outputs, and pathways for involvement.

A well-defined vision, structured events like hackathons, and the creation of a journal or biannual publication would encourage output and engagement. Additionally, an SCQH framework and issue tree (or similar) could help organize and align the group’s efforts.

Key for classifying proposed actions against following action areas:

• V = visibility
• G = governance/participation
• P = Production

Specifically:

1. [V] Name and Identity: Establish a clear name for the group 🔑Life Itself Research
2. [V] Website Presence: List members and outputs in ways that present well to the outside world, and members are in control of.
3. [G,P] Provide clear pathways for involvement on the website and elsewhere
4. [V,G,P] Vision Statement: have a clear vision for the group stated both in terms of the Frankfurt School analogy (see Inspirations below) and in terms of what we're working towards in terms of sensemaking. 🚧 in terms of second point we already have Draft Second Renaissance Research Plan [Discussion below in appendix]
   • Previous: https://lifeitself.org/research (updated/simplified late 2023) and https://lifeitself.org/research-community (original early 2023)
5. [V,P] Regular Events: Host hackathons or similar events to foster output production beyond regular meetings.
6. [V,P] Annual Journal / Essay compendium(?): Maybe create a journal or some kind of annual or even twice yearly special output that contains essays that people have written on particular themes and have that particularly printed and promoted
   • Jonah created separate doc: Research Dissemination Ideas [and folks agree this seems good and recommendations there supersede any specific suggestion here]
7. [P] Organizing Framework: Create a research plan and perhaps specific SCQH (Situation-Complication-Question-Hypothesis) with structured set of questions to structure the inquiry we are engaging in … and use it to organize research efforts and track how individual outputs contribute to overarching questions (e.g. in any given session, talk or paper we could see what part of the inquiry it relates to) Note we already haveDraft Second Renaissance Research Plan [Discussion below in appendix]

Additionally

• [P] Continue with community-led sessions in our Friday meetings.
• [P] Continue to invite people to propose study groups or smaller group dialogue opportunities which can organise themselves
• Consider whether to have outside presenters and presentations at Friday meetings, or at another time, which get published to the website. [Discussion below]
• Have a single, clear (public) forum location for sensemaking discussions DONE. Have https://forum.secondrenaissance.net/
• (?) Develop a collegiate or guild-like approach to membership? for decision-making, can we aim towards something more like sociocracy, and not simply do-ocracy though that's also an element. Encourage grass-roots PLUS open constructive critique-friendly feedback, and consensus-oriented decisions (which some people refer to as "consent").

Appendix

Research collective vision for itself

Research program / agenda / organizing framework discussion

Hypothesis: Create a research plan and perhaps specific SCQH (Situation Complication Question Hypothesis) with structured set of questions to structure the inquiry we are engaging in … and use it to organize research efforts and track how individual outputs contribute to overarching questions (e.g. in any given session, talk or paper we could see what part of the inquiry it relates to)

Note we already have Draft Second Renaissance Research Plan

What is status of Jonah’s draft doc (which people have reviewed/commented on)?

Qu (from Nicholas) What is the status - or the authority - of Jonah's document?

Rufus view: I take it as someone doing a great job trying to distill an outline and soliciting input from people. So, yes it would be an official document, updating what we have on lifeitself.org/research etc (added some material to hypothesis on this).

How does the research agenda influence/determine what people work on?

Nicholas asked: If it is agreed (by who?) that [some topic] isn't relevant to the research agenda, then what happens? Or is that the wrong way of thinking entirely. Should we be starting from the research agenda and working out what research would need to be done and if we can do it? These are the kinds of confusions that I personally have. I can often miss stuff.

Ans: IMO people can work on what they wish within the group and the research agenda/framework is useful for people arriving to have a sense of what is generally worked on and what people are generally interested in. And yes, that will naturally select for people interested in that stuff so I imagine over time most stuff is somehow connected to the research agenda. And, finally when it comes to the group making choices – perhaps about speakers to invite or joint projects to work on the agenda will be relevant.

• So … nothing specific happens if something someone is working isn’t relevant to the research framework (they can keep working on it)
• And the framework/agenda may influence what is worked on.

How is this set/evolved (and who is involved, in what capacities)?

Originally from statement in complication: “A lack of clarity in governance and decision-making within the group.” [copying here so we have the comment thread, especially the latter parts of it]

Discussion: Having outside presenters at Friday meetings or otherwise

Consider whether to have outside presenters and presentations at Friday meetings, or at another time, which get published to the website.

Life Itself Research naming? What is the name?

Use Life Itself Research (LIRe) (👍x2) to retain the sense of an open, collective, and flexible initiative. "Institute" risks signaling formality and institutional hierarchy that may conflict with the organic and community-driven nature of the group.

• Life Itself Research:
  • Implies an active, ongoing process of inquiry.
  • Emphasizes openness, collective participation, and exploration.
  • Fits the informal, community-oriented collective you describe.
• Life Itself Institute: Suggests a more formal, institutionalized entity.
  • Aligns with a long-term vision or gravitas associated with an "institute."
  • May imply structure and hierarchy, which might not align with the collective nature of the group.

What is the difference between Life Itself Research and the Life Itself Sensemaking Studio?

We should emphasize that at this point (Jan 2025) it is early days for both Life Itself Studio and Life Itself Research. Thus, at this moment, it is premature to specify in any great detail how the two will inter-relate. The table below is simply an outline, at this stage, of how the two are distinct.

In short, Life Itself Research is an intellectual, collective initiative, whereas the Sensemaking Studio is a professional, service-oriented consultancy.

Rufus notes: First, for historical context, it [what is now Research] originally started with something we called the Research Community (in 2016). Then it got a bit more formalized and became called Life Itself Institute, then the Institute evolved into what was called Life Itself Labs. And then, in early 2023 there was a reboot and it got called Life Itself Research.

Second is the relationship of Life Itself Research/Institute with what we're calling the Life Itself Sensemaking Studio. So originally I would say the studio and what is now Life Itself Research were one thing. They were an area for doing kind of research and some degree of consulting or grant getting within Life Itself. For me now, the studio is where we do consulting and potentially also apply for grants possibly, but it's more for doing consulting, providing sensemaking capacity and so on to third parties, to clients. So it's money's involved, it's professional, it's quite formal. We might put out sometimes our own work there to advertise, but in general we don't. We're more about showing what work we've done for clients. Life Itself Research, by contrast, I feel is much more, it's an informal collective. It's kind of community oriented. It is about producing reasonable quality work, but it's much more the work we want to produce, be it Life Itself or the people in that group. And it's like a collective for scholars, people interested in this topic, people wanting to do sensemaking in the area who want to join. And it's reasonably high caliber still, many of the people have PhDs and so on. But that's the kind of criteria, it's much more of an informal collective doing our own stuff with a specific interest. So it's kind of about the second renaissance.

Simon’s suggestions around the relationship between Life Itself Research (“LIRe”) and Life Itself Sensemaking Studio (“LISS”)

… clear articulation of the relationship here will be vital to the overall success of the venture as a whole.

Purpose*: As with much interest-driven research, the secondary purpose of LIRe is to produce output that one day may be valuable in the context of LISS.*

Focus*: I'd really like to see a clear interplay here, with LIRe additionally focusing on developing curiosity-driven research into work that is likely to be of value to clients and/or funding bodies. LISS can pass across emergent questions that aren't yet ready to be paid for up to LIRe; and LIRe can pass across new stuff that might be developed into commercial offerings.*

Membership*: LIRe to have its membership managed collectively, with a “democratic” process to ensure as far as possible that new members are going to be adding rather than dissipating energy. This may require some kind of demonstration (not just saying) of common values, practices and inner development (to be developed). This may for example be done through a probationary period and/or personal recommendation or sponsorship.*

Funding*: Two extra possibilities here: (1) LIRe could seek funding for exploratory pre-commercial research, perhaps alongside LISS (2) Any LIRe work that is used by LISS in consultancy or contract could be rewarded with an appropriate portion. Funding allocation within LIRe to be done democratically (details to be worked out).*

Background for this SCQH: examples of why improvements are needed [in progress]

Comments from Martin in https://github.com/orgs/life-itself/discussions/1149#discussioncomment-11649804

My primary interest and the first step is analysing existing limitations in communication, relationships, collaboration, processes and structures that hinder our research collective potential. This sets the stage for the need for change and optimisation. This seems like the logical next step.
One of the frustrations⁴ in particular is the asynchronous communication which leads to a lot of loose ends.

1. Delayed responses
2. Lack of feedback
3. High volume of topics that lead to information overload
4. Lack of conclusions / closure

Idea: consulting the group on “what would encourage my creative and fruitful participation”

The obvious answer here is to ask current/past/prospective members themselves. We can all ask ourselves "what would encourage my creative and fruitful participation" and share around that.

NB: we started on this on 2025-01-10. Simon comments: “We started on this. It really needs more time, and we could design a process to facilitate this.”

Reflection on study groups

Martin

These need to be more focused, well paced, with clear objectives, expectations and agreed outputs. It would be interesting to see different study groups taking place and presenting to each other.

---

IMO the purpose of study groups (and a group study) should be to generate little flashes and glints of other people's considered reflections and reactions with view to augmenting one's own and the collective understanding, while going through a material together as a collective of minds.

A study group should aim to think beyond and build upon the work under research. When encountering new ideas we should be stimulating our own subconscious and directing it towards a new potential.

This could be done through a dialogos, but only if everyone's already consumed the material and potentially circulated a list of questions beforehand so that everyone can come optimally ready for a discourse.

I cannot see how a study group session consisting of more than 3 participants can do anything productive within an hour.

Simon comment on this

Martin I wholly agree with your last point — an hour is too short for anything but the smallest meeting to be productive. So maybe you have misunderstood me? I'm not saying that we have study groups in the Friday sessions. I am suggesting that the Friday sessions can be used, among other things, to propose a study group for a different time, as we have done before. The study group initiator and members can collectively agree, for example as you suggest, to do studying in advance, and I thoroughly support this as a good idea.

Inspirations or who we'd like to be like

For more on inspirations see this excalidraw https://link.excalidraw.com/l/9u8crB2ZmUo/5IkQ56H4ERp (NB: this is poorly embedded into lifeitself.org/research atm!)

Footnotes

Footnotes

1. For example, we have quite a few outputs in the the last few years. Just in the last year, we have 2R white papers (and more materials), we have the emergent power piece, we have the ecosystem mapping, we have various presentations (more brown-baggy but still outputs etc). We also have the work with Theo at Labs and by Liam before that many of which are not visible on the lifeitself.org/research website. We also have various threads / materials on forum that could be written up as small pieces. etc. ↩

2. Inviting continued attention to the dimension of formality/informality in LIRe, which needs more work. ↩

3. But as a commoning community we still need what some people call "membranes". Any group needs a minimal level of exclusivity to function effectively, e.g. effective moderation in a forum. ↩

4. Frustrations differ from person to person, and worth addressing through dialogue in the hope to minimize them overall. ↩