Coεmeta Public Work Log 2022.1.MSU — Cultivation & Harvest Szn

Midsummer Solstice Update (6/21/2022): building capacity, sowing & reaping in work & relation

This is the second Public Work Log entry for Coεmeta, a Public Benefit company providing data & sensemaking services with positive externalities. It’s intended as a window into our journey & playbook as it develops, in the spirit of working in public, contributing to knowledge commons, “finding the others” & leaving a trail + some resources for those that follow. I hope it inspires more folks to follow a similarly rewarding path & find similar (if modest & provisional) success. Feel free to reach out at any time, I’m happy to help however I can!

- Daniel McNichol, founder & Chief Data Scientist

This post is an excerpt of the full versions available at: Github (primary source & version control) & Roam (navigable outline format)

• comments, forks & pull requests are welcome!

It complements our Open Source Strategy repo, which offers more discrete, version-controlled resources related to the strategies & frameworks discussed here in more narrative form.

📜 Prologue: backstory & antecedents

Backstory

Coεmeta is an attempt at an infinite game. The goal of infinite games is not to win, but to keep playing.

I consider this the metagame (as opposed to endgame):

a more balanced, integrated, enriching & impactful life in greater community

To pursue this metagame indefinitely (aka “infinitely”), I needed to reclaim some agency & autonomy in my work. So Coεmeta is also currently a Pennsylvania Public Benefit LLC, serving as a vehicle for more traditional freelance & consulting work, as well as broader public-benefit oriented activities.

(My longer-term vision for Coεmeta as a formal entity is something more like a worker-owned cooperative or DAO with shared collective ownership, or at least part of a federated network of mutual aid & partnerships with other “self-sovereign” ᵋ groups or entities. This is part of the “in greater community” aspect of the metagame.)

So Coεmeta is not exactly a traditional ‘venture’ or typical small business or startup etc, but assumes some of those trappings for now. The previous log entry recaps more of the motivations & considerations underlying all of this, & our Open Source Strategy repo describes some of the strategic planning & wayfinding models used so far.

As elaborated throughout these artifacts, public work & contributing to knowledge commons are core parts of the overall metagame strategy & ethos. So these posts are part of that: figuring it out as I go, learning while doing, in public. This entry picks up where the previous left off. (The timing & titles of the first two entries should make the intended heliocentric publishing cadence clear.)

ᵋ NB: I’m generally skeptical of this terminology & its associations with neoliberal / libertarian fantasies of fully atomized “sovereign individuals”, but “independent” isn’t quite adequate either.

Antecedents & adumbration

In the previous entry, I discussed feeling good about finding some of the greater balance I was seeking, along with a more integrated, rewarding & palpably impactful work life. I discussed my gratitude for this provisional success, which was mostly due to luck & the kindness of others. And I mentioned looking forward to shifting to more of an outward focus, enabling clients & collaborators to be more impactful, & growing mutual capacities together.

In this entry, I’m happy to report on some progress towards that outward focus & mutual capacity-building, as well as new opportunities again arising primarily from luck & the kindness of others.

I also discuss how some of that prior balance has given way to seizing these opportunities (or at least has been stretched over a longer timescale). I also note a growing salience of looming risks & shadows, but how I’m nevertheless looking forward to continued cultivation & harvest, & wrestling with ideas of further scaling (or sporing) these efforts for greater impact & a greater common good.

⏳ Timeline

(This content is too long to navigate without the ability to collapse & expand sections, so see the full version on Github or Roam)

꩜ Coda: eval & checkout

Eval

I’m keeping the raw scorekeeping & evaluation metrics out of these posts in favor of a more narrative & vibey approach. And to be frank I still haven’t further developed or formalized my metrics framework, partly due to lack of time, partly due to lack of need: things are going well at a high-level & there’s not much more to evaluate. (resist vanity metrics!)

But a few snapshots of my provisional metric tracking make that story pretty clear:

I’ve more than doubled my original freelance work targets, more or less kept pace with relational & toolmaking work targets (albeit somewhat perfunctorily), all mostly at the expense of content work (& unpictured: social poasting & engagement, on which I’ve got some updated takes in store…).

And while my Q1 OKRs landed in a solid place, Q2 …not so much, mostly due to lack of need (or capacity) for further revenue experiments — plus content creation, social posting, & peer-collaboration getting crowded out by the sudden spike in client demand (which has been greater than planned since month 2 of this journey — for which I’m fortunate & grateful!).

This is a situation where I might revise OKR targets to reflect changing circumstances, or score some KRs > 100% during evaluation to reflect the overperformance in some areas which resulted in corresponding underperformance in others. But ultimately I still consider these all valid goals in the long term, & expect things to even out over the longer time-average.

Vibe Check

So getting to the vibe check…:

• I still feel really good, & immensely appreciative of my good fortune so far in this journey
• …if a bit more tired, & more alert to potential looming risks on the horizon

Some of the greater balance attained last quarter has given way to the longer days of cultivation & harvest season, & longer shadows have been cast by the growing sun:

• recession risks, inflation, war & its nth-order effects on food production & supply chains during an ongoing global pandemic, in a time of generally high volatility & civil turmoil, etc.

So I’m not taking Coεmeta’s salad days for granted, or expecting any sort of new long peace.

History never ended except for the airport literati.

But I am making the most of current opportunities & cherishing the greater independence, the variety of work itself, accelerated learning, & more palpable impact. All while staying humble in the face of unknowable & risk-laden future trajectories, maintaining alertness & requisite optionality, keeping the OODA loop looping & the strategy emergent.

I look forward to building on current momentum & leveraging this harvest for continued mutual capacity-building & an eventual return to planned vectors of more scalable & social work & impact, whether via scaling or sporing.

Which is all to say… the infinite game is made for playing, so game-on.

Thanks for reading, follow me & the Coεmeta publication for past & future posts. And comment with your thoughts, questions or suggestions!

—
Follow on twitter: @dnlmc , @co3meta
Youtube: Coεmeta channel
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/dnlmc
Web: coemeta.xyz

Coεmeta is about finding truth together

We create data & sensemaking tools & services with positive externalities: supporting commons, solidarity economies & prosocial change.

Learn more at coemeta.xyz