As an outsider slowly trying to scratch my way in…and as a person who was a founder and tight buddy of other founders of a former movement I was in, it is challenging and this post is encouraging. We had this same problem in my previous movement, it’s a normal thing, and it’s just one of those things you have to become aware of and work to overcome by, for example, asking you the author to write a follow-up post on some practical solutions after you’ve had some time to discuss this post with people and get some group-think wisdom going.
One obvious issue is simply that in the search for great new ideas it’s not likely that a small insular group is going to generate enough of them…outside thinking, foreign thinking has to stream in or you get stale and die. Think still water with no flow.
Anytime you can make outsiders feel heard and understood and hopeful of getting in you are doing something of great value. Thank you.
Good point. This made me think that a way to mitigate this problem (instead of trying to “solve” it) is by acknowledging the importance of being open to new acquaintances and of people who serve as “nodes” or “bridges” for different social networks.
Yes and I can say from experience that trying to “fix it” can lead to other problems, for example throwing out the old and forcing in the new…the original organic relationships are very valuable and can’t be artificially replicated…but it’s simply opening up more and that may require infrastructure modifications that add but don’t subtract.
Great point about mitigating as opposed to solving. It’s possible that my having a “solutions” section wasn’t the best framing. I definitely don’t think personal connections should be vilified or gotten rid of entirely (if that were even possible), and going too far in this direction would be really bad.
As an outsider slowly trying to scratch my way in…and as a person who was a founder and tight buddy of other founders of a former movement I was in, it is challenging and this post is encouraging. We had this same problem in my previous movement, it’s a normal thing, and it’s just one of those things you have to become aware of and work to overcome by, for example, asking you the author to write a follow-up post on some practical solutions after you’ve had some time to discuss this post with people and get some group-think wisdom going.
One obvious issue is simply that in the search for great new ideas it’s not likely that a small insular group is going to generate enough of them…outside thinking, foreign thinking has to stream in or you get stale and die. Think still water with no flow.
Anytime you can make outsiders feel heard and understood and hopeful of getting in you are doing something of great value. Thank you.
Good point. This made me think that a way to mitigate this problem (instead of trying to “solve” it) is by acknowledging the importance of being open to new acquaintances and of people who serve as “nodes” or “bridges” for different social networks.
Yes and I can say from experience that trying to “fix it” can lead to other problems, for example throwing out the old and forcing in the new…the original organic relationships are very valuable and can’t be artificially replicated…but it’s simply opening up more and that may require infrastructure modifications that add but don’t subtract.
Great point about mitigating as opposed to solving. It’s possible that my having a “solutions” section wasn’t the best framing. I definitely don’t think personal connections should be vilified or gotten rid of entirely (if that were even possible), and going too far in this direction would be really bad.