Why I'm here

Humanity and our living world are facing a perfect storm of wicked existential problems.

Worse, our systems, institutions and beliefs are constructed in such a way that in order to survive day by day, we're basically digging ourselves ever deeper into the hole.

As a species, we are by and large still not taking the kinds of actions we need to take in order to deal with these kinds of wicked challenges, even when we know they exist. 

We've been acting as if we can solve the problems from inside the box (paradigm) of tricks which created them.

We can't.

Wicked problems have no respect for the boundaries of academic disciplines or institutions or political ideologies or the lines we draw on maps and call national borders. They don't care about profits or taxes or qualifications or political correctness.

And because wicked problems have no respect for organisational boundaries or profits or economic or political borders, working on them does not naturally generate an income. For me, or for anyone else, either. 

This is where your support comes in.  

What I'm working on

Praxorium

Praxorium is an open, free online community platform for sharing questions, knowledge and tools for understanding and tackling wicked challenges. Praxorium is intended to help us harness our collective intelligence at all levels, from individuals to groups, to humankind, to life itself, and to function across (or even outside) existing institutions and paradigms.

At present, my husband and I are covering all costs (hosting etc.) and doing all of the implementation work ourselves. Once we have sufficient (gift) financial support to warrant doing so, we'll set Praxorium up formally as a not-for-profit organisation and accept donations directly through the Praxorium website rather than here on Patreon.

Global Commons Trust

Praxorium's first project is to develop a proposal to seek philanthropic funding to set up a new, opt-in, global governance body (tentatively called a Global Commons Trust, or "GCT" for short). The function of the GCT would be to help humanity shift to a stewardship paradigm and keep the sum of its activities and resource usage within safe and sustainable ecological boundaries, whilst also providing equitable and ethical foundations for universal basic income and survival security for every human being. (If you're familiar with Kate Raworth's "Doughnut Economics" you may recognise her concepts of "ecological ceiling" and "social foundation" here.)

Free-range Conversations

This is my personal experiment, intended as a gift for individuals who would like to talk to someone -- not a specialist, but a generalist -- about their values and any problems or misalignments they're feeling, and to work together towards solutions, improvements, or even just better understanding of the problem. I'm calling this an experiment because the standard approach to consulting or coaching involves pre-defining areas of specialisation and/or approaches, and possibly even outcomes ... and the one thing I have learned so far in my life is that silver bullets are no good for anything except fictional werewolves! ;) In all seriousness, until we talk, I have no idea whether I can (or am willing to!) help with a specific problem or not, and even after our conversation, I will probably never really know how valuable that assistance will be to you, or when it might prove to be valuable. How much is a conversation "worth", anyway? Maybe you really just want a general free-ranging conversation, to see what emerges during the interaction, rather than focusing in on a particular topic or problem.

Hence, I prefer to take a "pay what you think is fair, and that you can afford" approach, rather than rely on pre-defined taxonomies of consulting or coaching services and associated fee schedules. I'll also ask that anyone who thinks this is an experiment worth supporting -- even if they have nothing they want to talk about themselves -- also help out where they can. It's a bit like paying for the next person's coffee, I guess. :)

Where I've been

• I'm a neo-generalist, curious about a huge range of topics, and with specialist skills in creative problem-solving, systems, analysis, communication, strategy, transformation, complexity, psychology, typological and developmental models (e.g. Spiral Dynamics, Enneagram, MBTI), research, information architecture and management, data, project management, business and organisational structure and processes, governance, system design
• 90% autodidact, with a few formal qualifications - Bachelor of Arts (Psychology), Prince2 Foundation & Practitioner, Spiral Dynamics Level 1, Certified Colour Analyst & Image Consultant.
• 23 years experience in business and information technology, in multiple industries, across private, public and not-for-profit sectors