I was about to mention the (2) note, I've lived in communities for many years, and I've seen unequal power distribution mess things up.
I like the "small annoyance" system, and think it might be good to have a "gratitude" system as well, to balance the vibes/salience long-term
Another key factor is group sizes. Groups tend to morph as they hit limits. Limits are roughly 7-8, 30-33, 150. Expect a huge change as you grow from 7 to 10 people, due to the combinatorial growth in # relationships.
Also, FIRO model stages, the ephemeral nature of the experiment likely led to most time being spent in honeymoon vibes, expect to iterate when things cohere over time. Also expect reset when people churn.
Finally, the kitchen is the heart of the home. Two kitchens = two groups. Having one kitchen means that everyone will bump into each other regularly. If you want to design a system based on subgroups (possibly needed past 7-8), multiple kitchens might be a way. I have always kept to 4-5 people, so scaling considerations are mainly based on startup experience
It's lovely to see how you and Nati ran this experiment. Thanks for sharing your learnings.
I'm also amazed by hoe it resembles a few experiments we're doing in Brazil we call "learning residencies". Me and a friend (Luis Sérgio) created the concept and started hosting the first experiences – one-month living together with a group of 4-10 people and doing periodic rituals and processes for enabling intentional learning, individually and collectively, and deep human connection.
We're writing a PDF Guide for people who want to host similar experiences. It will be only in Portuguese at first, but maybe in the near future we can translate it to English and other languages!
Very nice to see that we're having similar ideas in two different parts of the world :)
Sharing the practicals is so vital and useful. Rekindles my spirit for a rich library of protocol common goods.
For trusting yourselves and others, and leading with grace. You’re both finding a sweet spot of service and joyful expression, that’s so well earned, that lifts all boats.
For the company you keep. Good souls. I was lucky to spend a week with them all.
And a note of yewww:
Sounds like the experiment showed you a clear next chapter, personally. Enjoy the bounty! ❤️🔥
This is great! I love all the details and I am feeling motivated to document our own 3 months experiment at Elkenmist. I would love it if there was a nice discussion of the articles in here on substack rather than on twitter but I don't know how to bring everyone over here.
Congratulations on doing a beautiful thing, and especially well done for all the many years of careful inquisitive learning that it rested on. I feel so glad to have been part of it 😻
thank you so much for sharing so honestly about your experience. It was a fascinating read. We run on similar principles ;-) But always love to learn from others! I will dive into the mastery board now
I’m trying to do very similar things (currently on a much smaller community trip in Cape Town), and just found your Substack so looking forward to checking out your other writing as well.
One note on the purchasing, is that it might make sense to do it with similar people with a timeshare model. I’ve considered it as well, but for only ~2-3 months per year, and I’m not sure the overheads make sense for that.
If you team up with other folk you can get a lot of the benefits of purchasing, at a fraction of the price… with a lot more risk obviously, but that can be reduced with thought out agreements.
Definitely interested in checking it out when you host another one of these!
Wow! A lot of good wisdom here, Rich! Great good luck to you! One thing I would recommend thinking about if you decide to buy with more than you and Nati (from watching other groups doing joint land/co-owning endeavors): it's important to have a clear and well thought out "exit strategy" for co-owners. People may want to leave, and may want to get their investment back (every group I've seen has experienced this). And this can bring stress to everyone in the situation.
Richard this is fantastic and I took away a lot of key insights that I'm gonna be sharing with a group that I'm talking to about community living in the near future, so this is a really insightful article to help me structure a conversation to get us started.
I really like the focus on "resentment minimisation" and the expression itself. Did you focus on that mostly inside the hosting team with Nati and Gui and then re-adjusted or re-designed the systems? Did you check in individually with other people when you sensed potential for resentment buildup in guests or other collaborators? Did you do any open larger group discussions on how to share work and contributions to make space for frustrations to come up? Or did that just get addressed automatically by having the list of chores posted somewhere with the post its of the tasks and the columns for names?
I was about to mention the (2) note, I've lived in communities for many years, and I've seen unequal power distribution mess things up.
I like the "small annoyance" system, and think it might be good to have a "gratitude" system as well, to balance the vibes/salience long-term
Another key factor is group sizes. Groups tend to morph as they hit limits. Limits are roughly 7-8, 30-33, 150. Expect a huge change as you grow from 7 to 10 people, due to the combinatorial growth in # relationships.
Also, FIRO model stages, the ephemeral nature of the experiment likely led to most time being spent in honeymoon vibes, expect to iterate when things cohere over time. Also expect reset when people churn.
Finally, the kitchen is the heart of the home. Two kitchens = two groups. Having one kitchen means that everyone will bump into each other regularly. If you want to design a system based on subgroups (possibly needed past 7-8), multiple kitchens might be a way. I have always kept to 4-5 people, so scaling considerations are mainly based on startup experience
Hi Richard!
It's lovely to see how you and Nati ran this experiment. Thanks for sharing your learnings.
I'm also amazed by hoe it resembles a few experiments we're doing in Brazil we call "learning residencies". Me and a friend (Luis Sérgio) created the concept and started hosting the first experiences – one-month living together with a group of 4-10 people and doing periodic rituals and processes for enabling intentional learning, individually and collectively, and deep human connection.
We're writing a PDF Guide for people who want to host similar experiences. It will be only in Portuguese at first, but maybe in the near future we can translate it to English and other languages!
Very nice to see that we're having similar ideas in two different parts of the world :)
this is great, Rich - really appreciate the sharing out loud
Beautiful. A few notes of thanks:
Sharing the practicals is so vital and useful. Rekindles my spirit for a rich library of protocol common goods.
For trusting yourselves and others, and leading with grace. You’re both finding a sweet spot of service and joyful expression, that’s so well earned, that lifts all boats.
For the company you keep. Good souls. I was lucky to spend a week with them all.
And a note of yewww:
Sounds like the experiment showed you a clear next chapter, personally. Enjoy the bounty! ❤️🔥
This is great! I love all the details and I am feeling motivated to document our own 3 months experiment at Elkenmist. I would love it if there was a nice discussion of the articles in here on substack rather than on twitter but I don't know how to bring everyone over here.
Congratulations on doing a beautiful thing, and especially well done for all the many years of careful inquisitive learning that it rested on. I feel so glad to have been part of it 😻
thank you so much for sharing so honestly about your experience. It was a fascinating read. We run on similar principles ;-) But always love to learn from others! I will dive into the mastery board now
Thanks for the write up!
I’m trying to do very similar things (currently on a much smaller community trip in Cape Town), and just found your Substack so looking forward to checking out your other writing as well.
One note on the purchasing, is that it might make sense to do it with similar people with a timeshare model. I’ve considered it as well, but for only ~2-3 months per year, and I’m not sure the overheads make sense for that.
If you team up with other folk you can get a lot of the benefits of purchasing, at a fraction of the price… with a lot more risk obviously, but that can be reduced with thought out agreements.
Definitely interested in checking it out when you host another one of these!
Wow! A lot of good wisdom here, Rich! Great good luck to you! One thing I would recommend thinking about if you decide to buy with more than you and Nati (from watching other groups doing joint land/co-owning endeavors): it's important to have a clear and well thought out "exit strategy" for co-owners. People may want to leave, and may want to get their investment back (every group I've seen has experienced this). And this can bring stress to everyone in the situation.
Richard this is fantastic and I took away a lot of key insights that I'm gonna be sharing with a group that I'm talking to about community living in the near future, so this is a really insightful article to help me structure a conversation to get us started.
Wow what a great write up. I’m so sad I didn’t make it down! Next time!!!
I really like the focus on "resentment minimisation" and the expression itself. Did you focus on that mostly inside the hosting team with Nati and Gui and then re-adjusted or re-designed the systems? Did you check in individually with other people when you sensed potential for resentment buildup in guests or other collaborators? Did you do any open larger group discussions on how to share work and contributions to make space for frustrations to come up? Or did that just get addressed automatically by having the list of chores posted somewhere with the post its of the tasks and the columns for names?
I want to be invited 😂😂 love this 💕
Clarifiyng question re. "90% of the guests were people we had met before". Met in person or you count online encounters as "met" too? :)
Love it!