Bringing back the Meritocracy International

#1

As some of you already know the Meritocracy International is one of the organisations that has been promoting, implementing and refining Meritocratic Democracy for the past couple of years.

Its virtual headquarters used to be over here: http://meritopedia.org/index.php/Meritopedia and all the original pages are intact, you just need to search for them. For example, this is the old home page. Other important pages:

A year ago we adopted a different approach after being inspired by Falkvinge’s book called Swarmwise. It’s available for free (from the author himself - just click here) and I highly recommend reading it.

The reason we adopted a different approach is because running an all-volunteer organisation is bureaucratically exhausting, not to mention that many people drift away without saying anything. Having to follow up with them constantly is a pain in the ass.

So we decided to focus on an open and collaborative platform, which is this forum and which I personally think has been working well so far. We’ve seen many meritocrats introduce themselves and seen a bunch of work produced with 2 official parties coming out of it. The forum works because there’s no commitment necessary, people can come and go and contribute when they feel like it. The ones who want to get more involved contribute more, as has always been the case.

That said, recent discussions around the forum and the formation of 2 parties and more to come in the future show us that we should indeed have an international organisation spearheading the way. That’s my thinking at least: that we should have a united front representing us globally and taking actions to grow Meritocratic Democracy everywhere possible.

With that in mind, I’ve been looking at organisational structures that could help bring the Meritocracy International back to the forefront. One of those is called Holacracy - check it out here - and I think it has a lot of potential for what we want to do and to minimise the issues that we’ve had in the past, namely:

  • Lack of commitment (people always love to join things but few follow through - although the ones that do are worth their weight in gold as the years have proven and they know who they are).
  • People leaving/not communicating - quite possibly one of the most annoying things is to spend 5-10 hours with someone for them to then leave a month later and never return.

That’s why I’m opening this thread, to gauge who would be interested in joining the Meritocracy International 2.0 and what their thoughts would be to avoid the two issues above (and any others that they can think of).

If you are someone who would indeed be interested in joining should MI come out of hibernation then please understand that (A) you need to be pro-active, (B) commit as you would to a part-time job with the key difference that © if we go with Holacracy, then it’s a Distributed Authority System and a Results-Only Work Environment. This means you’d have one or more roles with a series of responsibilities and projects that you should be working on. You can work whenever and for however long you like, as long as you deliver results!

If that sounds like too much for being a volunteer then continuing your participation via the forums is more than fine, this isn’t for everyone - only for people with the time, energy and will to commit to making Meritocratic Democracy succeed around the world.

7 Likes
#2

This idea has great potential, though I think it’s a little early just now. There seems to be a small core of ‘active members’ & the rest is mainly discussion. I also thought this was TMI & didn’t know there was an earlier version.

Maybe if the boards were split into ‘activity’ & ‘discussion’ right here, that would be a good way to gauge if 2.0 will work. You might want to add ‘projects’ and / or ‘ideas’ as categories too ( they seemed to work on Podio ) - or anything else that we deem worthwhile. ‘Videos’ / ‘Flyers’ / ‘Events’ anyone?

I also suggest splitting the whole board into 2 further sub-categories - ‘movement’ & ‘political parties.’

I couldn’t see that I’d commit to doing more because of the new MI, as I’m already working flat out to promote & organise at my end, given the relatively small amount of spare time I have. Then again I’m fairly self-motivated, though it might bring good results from others who want to do more, but aren’t sure how.

I’m not against MI ( new ) - I just think a lot more could be done here on this platform, if it was better organised with the categories, as a later launch pad for it. Podio was a good test for it as well, though I always felt these boards were ‘home’ rather than there.

If things become too regimented, it can drive people away. They might commit to things they can’t finish or don’t have enough time to complete, or just feel as if they’re back at school. Then again, projects to work on can help people get into finishing a task as well. It’s a difficult balance to find


Maybe follow-up e-mails to people who disappear off the radar might work ( if not tried already )

#3

I would agree with scotti lad above that there is more can be done using this platform, but I see no reason why this platform cannot continue and evolve in conjunction with a more official one. They would be a two tier system, one formal and one informal, and such things often work together in harmony because we get the advantages of formality with the flexibility of informality.

But if there would be a permanent thing count me the hell in anytime of the day or night!

1 Like
#4

@SeanMac What are your concerns in regards to the timing? From my perspective the timing is just right and it extends the ladder of engagement by giving people who have the time and energy a more formal structure to participate in.

It’s really important to understand the organisational environment we’re proposing though, which is Holacracy + ROWE. Things aren’t regimented in the way a typical school or company does things. Instead, people fill different roles, with each role having its own Purpose and Accountabilities (things it’s responsible for). The person filling a particular role is also responsible for breaking down their Accountabilities into Projects and Next-Actions.

Holacracy is essentially an organisational “operating system” that distributes authority in an effective way so that each individual role can push things forward in their domain without bottlenecks. The constitution is available over here: http://holacracy.org/constitution and I strongly suggest that anyone who’s interested read through the plain English parts.

Forum sub-categories

Before sub-diving further I think we need to see much more activity on the forum to the point where it becomes hard to track what’s what. I don’t think we’re at that stage yet. Also, the overall focus should always be on action.

We have a bunch of empty forums as it, e.g. check out the United States category.

Parties as members of the Meritocracy International

The other thing that I wanted to mention in the original post is that Parties can and should become members of MI, in order for everyone to agree on the Vision, Principles, guidelines and best practices.

With Holacracy, this could work by having each Party as a Circle within the Meritocracy International. As Circles can sub-divide themselves and thus grow organically, this may well prove to be a very neat solution.

It would enable whole Parties to form part of the global structure, however, there wouldn’t be any stifling bureaucracy due to the way Circles work.

@SeanMac @NiallAC @Mike_Baker What do you think of MP-ALBA and UKMP being Circles within this? They’d be able to detach themselves if it didn’t work out of course, but as an experiment I think it’s worth trying, particularly as both Parties need to develop their own organisational structures as they grow.

Visualising all of this

I think the best way to visualise all of this is to imagine a sea of activism swirling around the ships - the political parties, the Meritocracy International and other formal structures as they come into existence. The sea creates natural currents, but so do the ships, and together you want them heading into the same direction: Equal Opportunity for Every Child.

2 Likes
#5

In regards to timing, I think if you go ahead now then what you’ll see is the same small core of activists doing what they’ve always been doing, except on a new platform. We need to lead by example here on the forums to encourage others to be more active & bring in new members. I just don’t think we have enough members & more importantly active members who’re actually doing anything in practical terms, on the boards yet.

I think also it’s a bit early for political parties to be in a circle, we’re only just finding our feet at the moment. There’s nothing we can share on another platform that we can’t share here. We should focus on encouraging more parties to be formed & giving advice + help on how to do it, before moving somewhere else.

The Holocracy format in itself is good, but I don’t think we have sufficient numbers at the moment to make it work. These roles & accountabilities - who’s going to fill them apart from our people who’re already taking the initiative here already? It sounds like another talking shop making up mickey mouse projects for the sake of it. Ideas & projects should develop naturally as & when they come to an individual, who can then share the idea if they want help with it.

Just my honest opinions.

#6

ps - Okay, go ahead with this if you wish, I won’t stand in the way. Sometimes it feels like we’re only running in ‘test mode’ instead of ‘live mode’ though & I’m hoping members here will get more active either politically or with the movement, one way or another.

#7

There are people working hard who don’t have time for the forum. They’re busy with their projects. They’ll comprise some of the circles.

2 Likes