When I hear the word “peer to peer”, it reminds me of peer to peer file sharing platforms where you could download music for free before the Apples, Netflixes and Spotifys of this world arrived. It’s spread as a way of doing things, and for many people has become the way of doing things from “lifestyle hackers” or even “post-hackers” to the collaborative economy. I share in this scenario how people developing these peer to peer networks may live in the future and how these have played out during the pandemic.
I’ve taken part in a variety of peer to peer networks, from Hub Launchpad to Good for Nothing, or facilitating them, from Communities of Practice to Made in Lambeth and U Lab, via the Local Government Innovation Network or the London Policy & Strategy Network.
One of those is @enrolyourself which has just published Huddlecraft, a field guide to pollinating peer groups, learning from three years of the network.
Reading through the guide, you can see how people have translated these principles to all walks from life, from “I have replicated peer to peer principles in the raising of my baby” to “peer to peer has become the way I look at life”.
The compass that Enrol Yourself has developed has helped me identify where I’m heading to murky waters and where I’m moving towards more ethical ways of living.
On the “murky waters” questions on the compass, I wouldn’t say I get greedy with profit but I do make the assumption that scale equals success. I don’t act in a robotic way and am not (I hope!) described as soul destroying, but I do sometimes favour analytical thought. I try to support my teams to avoid them getting stuck or stagnating, and don’t take on work I don’t care about, but am in a role where sometimes it feels like I need to have all the answers.
I try not to be hypocritical or build walls between people, but my Twitter feed does sometimes feels like an echo chamber, so I need to follow people who have different views to mine. I don’t sacrifice the wellbeing in the team for social impact with our residents, I believe the two support each other. I hope I don’t encourage distrust, but I wonder if at the moment, there are people I support who feel alone, so I need to better reach out to them
On the “north star” side of the compass, I hope that the people I’m close to feel a sense of belonging, and the decisions I take enhance connection, but I’d say that they may sometimes enhance separation if I focus too much on getting people or teams to take individual responsibility but insufficient space to collaborate.
Am I able to do what I do well, with the time I have? That’s a recurring challenge I’ve always faced is managing my time, partly due to being enthusiastic about changing the world through a multitude of small steps as I don’t believe in one big transformation, but also being a people pleaser!
I do need to focus more on what I’m grateful for and instead focus on what I want to change, but I definitely do try and “create gardeners, not just gardens”, distributing power across my team and beyond not just monopolising it. I always try and practice what I preach, but I need to be better at actively inviting different perspectives, backgrounds and voices .
I’ve tried to increase the proportion of Black, Asian and ethnic minority voices in the networks I facilitate, I need to partner up with networks who have a strong representation from other groups, as well as invite people from organisations who aren’t the most influential in my sector to those networks, the “positive deviants” let’s call them, so if you know any, do get in touch.
I try and draw on multiple of sources of intelligence, inside and outside my organisation and I create ways for people I work with feel to be learning and growing. On the final questions helping us move towards the north star here are ones that I haven’t thought about before so I’ll leave those as open questions to explore:
- Do the people you touch feel a bit of love, magic and humanity?
- Are you drawing on ancient wisdom and practices, as well as contemporary?
- Are you creating gardens not just gardens, distributive not monopolising?
