Flux Cells Update #1— Listening & prototyping based on what people need…
There’s plenty to update regarding work with our founding clients Rinse and Freeformers, the Democracy Squared book development, our recent podcast and more. We’ll do that soon, but in this post we’re only going to focus on flux cells and how we’re trying to scale our impact and ability to help our humanity thrive by liberating organisations for human & commercial benefit.
This update post will outline:
- a map of the developing flux network & cells
- an analysis of the needs we’ve heard from cells around the world
- what we’re doing with it next
Mapping out the network
The last few weeks have been really rewarding. After seeing initial interest from org designers around the world, we decided to open flux up from the very start and let people register interest in setting up a flux cell wherever they are.
We hit publish at midnight and turned our laptops off. We woke up to a load of signups (now nearing the 100 mark) in around 20 countries, from every continent. It’s been inspiring reading their messages, and humbling to see expertise & knowledge around the world ready to join in this network.
So what have we learnt?
There are loads of passionate consultants around the world. This is what they need.
- a brand to work from,
- a sense of belonging,
- learning, development, collaboration & sharing with fellow consultants,
- client leads & money (we have started prototyping a distributed profit share formula which incentivises the above points)
There are loads of passionate and knowledgeable people inside organisations wanting to create change. This is what they need.
- real practices from other companies
- a curated community to learn from
- support to implement change
- knowledge, tools, content, stories
- less talk, more doing
This is what we’re doing about it
Cells
After the initial submissions we have been conducting 1–to–1 interviews with cell enthusiasts in San Francisco, Botswana, Montreal, London and in the next week Mexico City and New York. We’re also scheduling calls with Brazil and Holland on Skype.
The people we met are incredibly talented and knowledgeable. They are motivated by creating real change inside organisations, by belonging to a genuine community of ‘doers’ and by learning from each other under a brand and network they believe in. To do that they also all need money.
This is what we’re doing about it
As well as continuing to interview cell enthusiasts, we’re going to work to create prototype projects for the cells where there seems to be most momentum. At the moment this seems to be San Francisco and London (where we should have a prototype very quickly). We will then help the teams on the ground to create a strong sense of unity and ownership over the flux philosophy and methodology starting by creating a starter pack. Our guess is that Brazil and maybe Holland will be a very close follow up to that.
So if you’re in an organisation in one of those cities (or anywhere in the world for that matter), and are looking for a team to come help you create change and gradually re-design your organisation. Please let us know (info@flux.am)
Internal changemakers
The main thing we hear from changemakers working inside organisations is that there is a load of content online but not much tangible stuff from real examples. There is also a little fatigue with consultants peddling their services or sharing millions of links on forums.
This is what we’re doing about it
Specifically there has been demand for a curated platform which is something we had started thinking about. So in 3 weeks time, flux is taking 5 days to go through an accelerator program and develop a prototype of this what this service could look like. We hope to have a few clients joining in virtually that week to help us make it match their needs. We’ll update in a month or so.
So…
We’re busy basically. We’re lucky to be doing some great work with our clients, we’re spending a week editing our book on the future of democracy and launching it online very soon, we’re trying to build a global network and then we have uncovered a new need for an internal service. Some prioritisation needed, but it’s a great problem to have and a great chance to be lean and ship quick. A former colleague asked me how I’m feeling today, my answer was: inspired & tired.
Please get in touch if you need help inside your organisation or if you have any feedback or comments for us. We’d love to support you.
Be well
Jon (& Jim)
