In one day, trainees, volunteers and residents transform a lawn into a permaculture garden.

A collaborative learning experience, participants practice systems thinking. As they plant and as the garden evolves, participants learn about local food systems and food justice while also developing green job skills.

In the San Quentin prison community garden project, gardeners who volunteered as prison inmates then can re-enter the community with part-time gardening jobs at Planting Justice.

In Dreamfish, a great discussion has started about Learned Helplessness, started by Grant Bowman, inspired by Edward Cherlin and Rick Moen. This got me thinking about Learned Helpfulness…

A story of Learned Helpfulness

Wangari Maathai tells a story about the humming bird who saw a fire in the forest. The humming bird, with its little beak and little wings, chose to do something about the fire. She carried water from the pond to the fire. Back and forth, again and again, she carried drop by drop of water and dropped each drop on the massive raging fire. All the other animals had already decided that it was hopeless to put out the fire. After all, they had learned that fires burn down forests and that’s how life is. They stood by, watching their world burn around them. They stood by, watching the hummingbird carry water to and fro. They stood by, criticizing her for choosing to do something so small, while they chose to do nothing. The hummingbird just kept on carrying water. She did the best she could.

Now, imagine how this story might continue….. As the animals stood by, they watched the humming bird carry the drops of water. As a monkey watched the hummingbird, he imagined himself carrying water in a coconut shell. The elephant, turning his head to watch the hummingbird, felt the swing of his powerful trunk and thought “Well, I can carry water with my big trunk”. Soon, one by one, in small groups, each animal followed the hummingbird in their own way. As more animals saw their friends carrying water, they too began to carry water. Drop by drop, together, they put out the fire. They did the best they could.

Let us each have the courage to carry a drop of water.

Thanks to Urusa Fahim for sharing this video.

Ubuntu, the dog, and Ndoto, the cat, were enemies when they first met. After four months, they are now best friends. How did this relationship evolve?

Their very favorite play is Wrestling. They will do it for hours. Here is a video clip of wrestling.

( Check out the new short cut of the Dreamfish Tech Dance video)

I want to share with you the kickoff of our online community technology project and the upcoming improvements you will experience.

Why do this project now?

Now is the time because great people have stepped up and open source software is available to support the project. In addition, we create impact by using this project as a training ground for African young professionals. Here are the needs that we’re addressing:

1. Do more of what we do well
Our core competency is helping people to develop themselves and develop their enterprises through practice in relationship. A few examples of Dreamfish at work – facilitating a One Laptop Per Child Kenya Summit; a web developer in Ohio collaborating with a startup entrepreneur in Ghana; an LGBT activist working with an artist on digital storytelling, a leadership consultant in Taiwan facilitating strategic planning for a grassroots nonprofit benefiting homeless children in Kenya, a transgender youth creating their life with professional skills and income, an executive coach in US to support a young woman CEO to build a tool empowering rural farmers in Africa.  Given the small resources invested in Dreamfish, these are great results AND with better tools for connection, we can do much more. Imagine millions of people having the same opportunities.

2. Mobilizing our diversity
Diversity is both our strength and our challenge. How do we hold space for engaging the richness of our diversity for our members’ benefit? How do we enable individuals to customize their participation for their unique goals and interests?
To give you an idea of our diversity in action, my estimate is that about 40% of our community are youth and live on less than $4 a day, 20% live on more than $100 a day, about 40% are over 40 yr. We are of many faiths, and cultural norms. Our new technology will allow people to follow the topics that are most of interest and filter out what they don’t need.

3. Shifting from “give me work” to “we are doing it!”
With the new technology design, our goal is to shift from passive transactions to pro-active relationship-building as the foundation for work in Dreamfish. Behind this is a larger agenda of societal change to help people shift from institutionally-learned apathy to empowerment. it is critical that we support individuals to pro-actively create support systems for their own development, rather than wait or resign. The way our tech is setup now, people in the Dreamfish network tend to wait for something to happen rather than initiate interaction. The tech is getting in the way – it is hard for anyone to know how to start, how to interact and how to achieve goals. This is changing. We are designing our new tech to facilitate people connecting around “What are you working on?” as the starting point for interaction.

Harison Wamani, 2011 Dreamfish Intern, learning to use the command line as he works on the Community Tech Project

Currently, it is not easy to connect with Dreamfish members in a rural village or without a computer. In our new tech plan, you will be able to select whether you use your phone, sms, or sit at your computer to interact with Dreamfish people. You will also be able to more easily initiate local face-to-face events.

4. Easier Knowledge sharing
Finding information that you want and sharing has been hard in our current platform. We are making the act of sharing to be front and center. We also are making a friendly section to explain what Dreamfish is and how to get started.

What are we working on?

Our team includes Grant Bowman and me as project co-leads, 2011 Dreamfish Interns and Mentors. The project has three sub-teams – Community Leadership, Back-end Development, and Front-end Design.  We welcome volunteers to get involved. Here’s what we are working on…

Community Leadership is working on the Community HelpDesk, community digital art and performance, social media communication, improving online documentation, online admin, and the campaign to fund the project.

Backend Development is working on developing software functionality, server administration, wifi network and maintaining hardware for the project. The team has now got a server up, prepared hardware for development, installed and configured software for prototyping. Team members work alongside Grant and include Harison Wamani and Peter Masuman.

Front-end Design and Development is working on user experience/ interaction design, product management, graphic design, CSS and HTML. We have been interviewing Dreamfish members on how Dreamfish tech can help them, researching the problems with current tools, prototyping solutions and testing different open source social software.

Our mentors include Bernard Owuor, Jamila Abass for development, Bridget Mcgraw for design, Jonas Kolben for networking and Polly Bodegener for communication. Thanks to Nancy White and Peter Kaminski, Dreamfish Advisors, for helping on strategy.

All of this will take time and is due to the committed efforts of contributors to the project. As we get farther along, we’ll ask you to try what we’re building and give feedback. I would like to invite you to get involved in any way that you like with your expertise, funds and cheers

What can you do?

• Fund the project – Every bit counts. We have 12 days left in our campaign to raise $5,500, which pays for simple living and tools for the team in Nairobi during the project. In exchange, we can give you things like B&B accomodation or an iPad. 
• Volunteer – Senior professionals, developers, designers, testers, fundraisers and community managers – please, you are welcome to join in. Contact Grant, me or jump in…

Thank you, Dreamfishers, for your pioneering spirit, your patience and all your efforts to build Dreamfish.

Tiff

A Dreamfish member asked me yesterday, “what is Dreamfish? Why are we doing this? Why did you start Dreamfish?”, And I realized I had been disconnecting and not sharing my love, in the exhaustive scramble of finding resources to keep us going. So, I want to stop that behavior. Breathe. Reach out to you. And tell you why Dreamfish matters to me.

What makes my heart sing is people, coming to life. Developing growthful environments where people empower themselves to do their dreams. Moving from isolated experiences of self to passionate “yes, i can!” use of self. Dreamfish facilitates growth through connection – this is the heartbeat of Dreamfish.

But, what drove me to starting Dreamfish is experiencing people’s suffering – People who don’t fit inside a box determined by institutions, giving up on themselves, their dreams, in order to survive. And forget what it feels like to thrive. If for example, you are a senior professional who can’t find a consulting project, the micro-enterprise development model wasn’t designed to serve you. If you are starting a new kind of organization, no go. If you are young, live in a developing country and your lifework is in fuzzy exploration, tough going. Isolated and disconnected, we don’t grow.

Dreamfish’s aim is to connect us up to generate our own development practices in community. Connected, we free up the brilliant abundant value among us. Connected, we become aware and choiceful with the tons of creativity and skills among us.

One of my biggest personal challenges is that I disconnect when I am in pain, tired, and in fear. But, really, I know the thing to do is to connect. Maybe you can relate? Many of us are working on personal dreams, ie startups, finding jobs, and such, and have trouble finding time to help others. Yet, if we all show up and serve as support systems for each other, we can each go much farther! Disconnection is vicious cycle. But, so is connection! When we feel inspired and energized in our community, we connect more. So, I am connecting now with you.

Connection is the first step.

To tell you about the project, we made this fun video. You’ll see a campy skit about “what is Dreamfish?”, an experience of peer-to-peer development, in which two young professionals work together on a client project supported by their peer group. Then the group rocks out in a shimmy and shake!

Dreamfish Tech Dance from Dreamfish on Vimeo.

The project team includes youth web developers and designers, recently graduating from Nairobits, a training program for youth from Nairobi settlements, working alongside senior professionals that want to make a difference. To facilitate, Grant Bowman, open source community leader, will serve as Dreamfish’s first Technologist-in-Residence and travel from San Francisco Bay, California to Dreamfish Place Nairobi to manage the project team from September through November.

While working on the project, the youth are also receiving training and mentorship from Dreamfishers in professional communication, consulting skills, software development, collaboration and eco-product design. Thank you to Bernard Owuor, software developer, Polly Bodegener, adult educator, Susaneve Oguya, CTO of MFarm, and Jenny, recycled art product designer, for volunteering as trainers.

Your help matters!
Our big challenge is that our youth are living in rough conditions in Nairobi settlements and need tools to work with. Your financial contributions will provide living expenses, better housing, laptops and mentorship to support this empowering project. Any size gift makes a meaningful difference. Learn more.

As a thank you, contributors receive cool perks, donated by Dreamfish members – a free iPad, a weekend in a California guesthouse near the beach, hand-made cups, and more. Check out the perks.

Come to the party
Tonight, September 2nd, 11am-5pm, Caffe La Scala, Walnut Creek, California, US

If you are a developer or designer and might want to help out, terrific! Please let Grant or me know.
@grantbow
@tiffanyvonemmel

“If you were a grown up right now, what would you do?” Charlie Seashore

The core tool of a network organization is not software. It is the Use of Self. A network of individuals working together requires that each of us acts as an agent of interrelatedness. Use of Self is actively practicing empathy with our relations, exercising awareness of our own assumptions and behavior in an interconnected world, and then making conscious choices in relationship. 

Using a metaphor of a vital network in our lives, an ocean, when you see plastic bits of trash in your ocean, what do you do? do you empathize with the ocean creatures as part of yourself?  do you organize a Swim Fundraiser? stop using plastic bags from the store? make art with plastic trash? Create public policy about plastic? Share a link? Do you build a trash picking tool? What is your Use of Self?

Network organizations work similarly. In a network, there is no boss or parent to tell us what to do. A network is not an institutional organization or family, where it is easy to regress into a passive state. A network can enable life to be richer for each individual. But, if we all expect someone else to be the one, to fix stuff, to pay for what we each use, then we end up with the Tragedy of the Commons. Our commons starts to look like a dump.

In a network, what you get reflects what you put in. And, what you get also reflects what others put in. For example, Dreamfish is a network of individuals working on a common dream to work like humans to realize our dreams. Out of thousands connecting to this vision, a few people are caring for the whole network: 5% of us are contributing time, energy and creativity to the whole network. But, we could do so much more if all of us exercised our Use of Self.

Part of the reason that the network stats look like this is that I needed to shift my use of self as a leader. To remember that in this school of fish, I do not need to swim alone. So, I am reaching out to you and asking you to swim with me.

My appeal is especially directed to you who swim in Dreamfish and networks supporting human development. Imagine shifting from a network of followers to a network of leaders. Imagine if 100% of us contributed a small bit of our time, money, energy and creativity to a network to build the support system that we each need. Imagine if each of us was responsible for building capacity that could support our individual work. Folks organizing local events. Senior consultants mentoring women and youth entrepreneurs in rural villages. Folks teaching online workshops. Developers building tools that help us connect. We hire each other. We volunteer to help do something that is easy for us, but may be hard for another. Imagine the value that would be liberated, the impact we could make!

Swim swim Self!

Ubuntu is my name.

Yesterday, I adopted a dog from the shelter. The shelter rescued the dog from a puppy mill, where it was isolated and living in filthy conditions. There’s an example of an un-human economy at work. (Don Bushnell describes the rescue of his dog from a puppy mill as a “liberation from sex slavery”.) But, is this the only story of this dog’s life? Nope. Let’s start the dog off on a new story line. Walking with the dog, I wondered what to name it.

It isn’t the name per se but the performance of a name that matters. Calling a name is an interaction. A name is an opportunity in the thousands of times the name is called, in the conversations that it sparks up, in what could the name might evoke in hearts, minds and actions. Each time an utterance is performed in the world, that micro-action helps create a world. What world did I want this name to perform?

If naming a dog were like software production, how might I go about this?….For the project, Naming a Dog, I develop a couple User Stories:

Story 1: When a human first hears the dog’s name, new connections are sparked.

Story 2: When two humans interact in relation to the name, it would inspire conversation about interactivism.

Edie and Charlie teaching a Use of Self workshop

With these stories, I started to prototype. The first idea that came to me was to name the dog “Kuja Hapa”, which means “Come Here” in Swahili after Edie Seashore and Charlie Seashore‘s dog, “Khamon Khameer” (sounds like “Come On Come Here”), who passed away a couple years ago. What would the micro-action of calling the dog bring forth? It would promote that the self is an interaction, rather than a noun.

The name might connect people across bridges – Africa and California, Swahili and English, and software and Human and Organization Development. The name would also spread more of Charlie and Edie, whom I love, their work in the use of Self, and memories of both profound and fun moments with them. It would be fun to say, too. Hmm. What else?…

Then, I thought of “Ubuntu”. Ubuntu is a classic African concept for an open collaborative society. It means “I am because we all are”. It essentially is a core idea behind calling the dog “come here” but more to the point.  Ubuntu is also an open source linux distribution, founded in Africa and developed by a global community of thousands of individuals. So, when anyone calls the dog, Ubuntu, what will that micro-action create?  Cool.

Watching Steve Krug's usability testing workshop

What happened in usability testing? I took this story and connected with users…. Before engraving the name into a doggy tag, I first tried an “AB test” with the primary user, the dog, and secondary users, humans.  I compared the performance of A,”Kuja Hapa” with B, “Ubuntu”. I called the dog each in different contexts (house, walking) with different goals (food and exercise). Then, I did a hallway test, having two different humans interact with the dog and telling them the name of the dog.

Calling “Kuja Hapa” was more fun to say and evoked new connections in people’s minds. People focused on their interaction with the dog. Deeper meanings didn’t pop forth in the few conversations. Calling “Ubuntu” led to connecting people to themselves as well as to the dog and me. Interestingly, the dog seemed to respond more quickly to “Ubuntu” in the AB test. (OK, yes, this says something about me as the researcher more than the research)

One conversation about the dog led to watching this video of Nelson Mandela explaining Ubuntu and about working in a global network of collaboration…

Calling the dog Ubuntu offers thousands of opportunities to talk about Ubuntu, networks of production in cultures of respect and accountability. And good thoughts, like “I’d like to install Ubuntu on my computer.” It makes the connection between the dream of “we are interconnected” and fishing the dream in our everyday work.

Who wouldn’t want to call and be called Ubuntu?

Why Dreamfish Fellows Program?

Sietske, Helen and Nancy learning together. Maasai land, Kenya

The efforts to support one entrepreneur at the margin can be quite extensive, although hard to see from the outside. In twenty years of  micro-entrepreneurship development, the biggest challenges the industry faces is that the human side of development is expensive and programs are hard to scale. In Dreamfish, we are changing the game with a peer-to-peer network organization.

To illustrate, here is one example of success. Recently a homeless Dreamfish member gained a paid contract job.  This enabled the person to pay for rent and food and then get other contract work. Now, what most people saw was only the transaction of employment. They didn’t know the person was homeless or how tough this person’s life situation was, because those working with the person didn’t want to share a narrative that could potentially be self-defeating. But, here I want to make visible the work that Dreamfish Fellows do to help individual to create the support system they need to realize their dream. In this case, Dreamfish contributors gave:

• 16 hours of project management training
• 4 hours of financial coaching
• 10 hours of coaching in self-confidence, agency and interpersonal skills
• research and introductions to social services resources
• lodging and access to internet at another Dreamfish member’s house during contract job

One of our areas for improvement for 2011 will be to make visible and measure the impact of Dreamfish Fellows activities. Relational practices, “soft” technology of human and organization development, are often not perceived as creating value in small organizations, and especially “disappeared” in engineering organizations. But, research indicates that for both affluent and low-income entrepreneurs, supporting human development in individuals is correlated to economic success and venture resilience.  (Scott McNeally of Sun and Nick Nesbitt of Kencall will also tell you that the course from their Stanford MBA program that most impacted their career was Interpersonal Dynamics, aka Touchy Feely, a course that founding Dreamfishers facilitate).  Growth is built in connection.

Whereas most Fellowships are designed for college kids, this program is for self-directed life-long learners of any age.

Thanks to all our first Dreamfish Fellows who courageously went where no Fellow had gone before! They applied their decades of experience in human and organization development in a new virtual territory of network organization.

During their tenure, this first group carried out community development projects as they trained in online community management, network facilitation, social media, multicultural communication and distributed organization development.

Thank you to 2010 Dreamfish Fellows

Charlyn Fareed Green, entrepeneur coach
Dan Bashaw, web gardener
Kate McAlpine, coach and strategic planner
Jamie Talbott, leadership educator
Jim MacQueen, OD consultant
Monica Evans, theology student

As many of the 2010 Fellows are now seeking contract jobs, please reach out to them if you might want to work together.

How did the program start up?
There are many people who helped the program come to life, all social innovators! The seed of the idea started with Julie Anding, a Fielding alum, philanthropist and Director of  Organization Development at a major corporation. Julie creatively thought about how to make as a big an impact as possible.

Marie-Anne Haour, now of Kiva en Francais, Elizabeth Montgomery, entrepreneur in Shenzhen, China and Lisa Abbott, marketer, then joined our effort to develop the first design of the program.

Fielding Graduate University‘s Katrina Rogers and Charles McClintock then collaborated on creating a partnership that both serves the learning community of Fielding and our mutual goals to create social impact. Julie Anding, Fielding alum, and her partner, Lisa Kornetsky, founded the Fielding Dreamfish Fellows Fund with generous donation of $10,000. Charlyn Fareed Green additionally donated $1500.

Dreamfish mentors, Nancy White, co-author of Digital Habitats, and Mary Ann Huckabay, Director of Women in Management program at Stanford, then contributed their teaching and coaching to Dreamfish Fellows.

Nnenna Nwakanma, Chair of Free Open Source Software Foundation for Africa, then stepped up to lead the community team in 2010 and support the first Fellows.

And, with the efforts of much love, the program was born!

What did the Fellows accomplish?
Each Fellow had a different focus, depending on their skills and learning interests. Micro-entrepreneurship development in Dreamfish involves development of three system levels -  individuals, their projects, and the network of Dreamfish itself.

To give you insight into what this looks like, here are a few of their many contributions over the past months:

• coaching Dreamfish members in leadership and entrepreneurship skills
• facilitating in Dreamfish Pool
• welcoming new members
• making introductions between members
• managing our mailing lists
• facilitating strategic planning
• writing news
• building relationships across networks
• hosting conference call meetings
• hosting learning events
• designing processes
• contributing to strategic conversations

Special thanks to Fellows who are continuing on. Charlyn Fareed Green in Atlanta is coaching a social entrepreneur who serves rural women in Kenya. Kate McAlpine is facilitating strategic planning and using Dreamfish to support Caucus for Children’s Rights projects in Tanzania.

Program Evaluation

In order to design, staff and fund 2011 program, we are now in the process of gathering Fellows feedback and reviewing accomplishments and challenges. We, Dreamfish contributors, will then collaborate with Fielding and funders to implement next year’s program. In the future, the program could be expanded to financially support developer projects and operations projects as there are more funding partners to fuel the program.

Funding

How did we use the first funds? Fielding gave two awards to the first two Fellows chosen. We then used the funds to support Fellows with training and community management. In 2011, we are expanding funding to create a stronger foundation and hire full-time core staff.  To kick off fundraising for 2011, Scott Turner is giving a matching pledge of $5,000 if we match the pledge by January 30th. Don Bushnell is hosting an event January 14th in which to rally support and has pledged $1,000.

How to get involved in 2011
If you are interested in helping to grow Dreamfish, I welcome you to get involved. Dreamfish operations are carried out by individuals in Dreamfish network.

To offer ideas, here are a few possible projects you might want to do…

• identify projects among membership in Dreamfish that would benefit from Fellows skills
• build tools to help Fellows do their work
• propose opportunities for Fellows program in 2011
• make a pledge
• help create an online fundraiser
• give airline miles to Fellows
• build the program for developers, creatives and business people
• Apply to become a 2011 Fellow. Watch for the application

Thanks again to all of you who helped to realize the 2010 Dreamfish Fellows program. I’ll keep you posted on new deveopments for the 2011 program. May we together further our dreams of work in 2011.

-Tiff