Intentional Society: Evolving with scale
Newcomers, our next Orientation call is this Saturday May 7th, 1:00-1:55pm Pacific Daylight Time (4pm Eastern, 8pm UTC)
We were over 20 people together last Sunday, and while attendance has been gradually increasing (and fluctuates week to week), the last three weeks or so (going back to the final week of last season) has felt to me like traveling over a threshold in terms of facilitation and group-size-feel. To use a human-body analogy, it's less like "growing pains" in one's shins/femurs, and more like "oh look how tall you are now, you can reach that cupboard yourself." Some shifts I'm noticing or doing:
- "Large group" check-ins still require breakout rooms, can't do full-group check-ins and hear everyone's voice. (We tend to alternate smaller-or-larger check-in groups)
- No longer practical for me to review random breakout assignments while facilitating. This was minimal (ensuring new folks aren't clustered alone, occasionally gender balance) and I don't feel a need to react to regain it now, but would need a role split to a 2nd person to do so.
- I've tried keeping the breakout groups steady throughout a session, rather than randomly mixing each time. This forgoes "I have a sense of knowing everyone" in favor of supporting at least some closer connections developing.
- Noticing/Meta time might be changing in feel? I mean, everything always changes, but the question is still open here re how much the dynamic has shifted/is shifting with more of a stage/wall-of-faces presence reducing the intimacy of one's potentially-vulnerable sharing of awareness.
That "Noticing time" is our last significant full-group open-mic practice, aside from some practice-debrief sharing spots. I do want to keep it that way until scale markedly changes the experience, because that felt sense of "we-space shared consciousness" and group attunement seems quite important to our overall vibe of connectedness. Even that could be split, but we'll see how to do that whenever it ends up being the next logical step.
This Sunday we'll bring back our "House Party" practice inspired by Open Space to help us further integrate our growth and enrich the depth of our knowledge and trust connected to the faces on our screens.
Cheers,
James