Here in El Manzano we are designing a regional hub of a learning organisation.This is happening in tandem with the design of the Instituto de Permacultura de Chile and various associated initiatives including a national design team. 

As we move from one anual cycle of action learning (thinking, planning, doing, reviewing and reporting) we are reviewing our progress and experience, and moving into a cycle of creative thinking about how we imagine the future of our organisation, and then a careful process of active experimentation - or planning. 

´´We are moving through a “Great Turning” from unsustainable industrial dominator dependant societies to life supporting partnership empowering societies. At the moment characteristics of both are present.  We are at the inflection point, a chaotic “flip flop” where the situation fibrillates wildly from one to the other. We are now in the zone of “Double-Power”…where the old hierarchies…have all of the power but none of the capacity to resolve problems…where the new networks…have the capacity to resolve problems but no power or legitimacy...´´ (John Croft - Dragon Dreaming Model).

We are positioning our project as strategically as we can to be a leading energy in the transiton period ahead of us. Part of this work in the moment is the exploration of existing models and experience that may enhance our effort. We have explored various models for designing organisations, finding however most information needs to be purchased by buying a book or paying a consultant. Our intention is to find ideas and tools that can help us and to test them in active experimentation at a safe scale.   

The information that most turns my wheels is;

1. Dee Hock - Creating a Chaordic Organisation Principles developed by Dee Hock when he built Visa,

2. Peter Senge - The Five Disciplines of Organizational Learning as published in The Dance of Change, and

3. John Croft - A Framework for Creating Outrageously Successful Projects.

We have come to realise that we have been intuitively applying many of these ideas to the design of our organisation, having been exposed to them through Permaculture network, Gaia University, Transition Towns and other friends. I first came accross Dee Hock at the International Permaculture Conference in Brazil 2007 through Stella and the Chaordic Institute work. I was introduced to the work of Peter Senge by Vivian Hutchinson in 2006 through a learning community called ChangeMakers in New Zealand. John Croft was introduced to us through Rob Hopkins site Transition Culture.

Watch this space for updates on our progress in 2009 as we begin a pilot project implementing these concepts. I will be publishing a weekly update here as a core part of my efforts to develop a reporting system for my Gaia University Masters Degree. The El Manzano team will also be reporting here on their experiences.