You can dive straight in by forming your own group; if you are a member of a group already, you’ve taken the first step. This quick start guide more or less follows the CoCreative Learning HOWTO sequentially. The HOWTO is worth reading, paying particular attention to the Principles and Beware sections.
Step 1 Form a group
Step 2 Essential tools: Notebook, Pencil, Eraser
Step 3 Hold a meeting to agree your group Identity and your first Question(s) to be recorded in your individual MindMaps. Agree a schedule for 40 weeks of regular weekly meetings in a “neutral” venue. Decide whether you want your own group website or plan to use a free blogging platform.
Step 4 Following your first meeting, start to explore and circulate information relevant to the current focus of your discussions. See group@ Email List in the HOWTO.
Step 5 Follow the Process, paying special attention to the guidance in Principles and Beware sections in the HOWTO.
Step 6 Develop your Model of the political economy. Don’t try to create the Model, it will create itself from the Process – it will take shape and “appear” as your work progresses.
Step 7 Share your analysis by publishing your first Snapshot (Process). Don’t be in a hurry to do this. You’ll know when the time is right because you will “see” the first iteration of your Model and be able to explain it in words and pictures.
Step 8 Rinse and repeat. After you’ve created your first Snapshot of the political economy, you can put events and issues into context and test its validity and refine it. There will come a time when you feel it needs updating and a second Snapshot is required to contextualise information. If you are producing a new Snapshot more than once a year, you’re either making phenomenal progress or you’re not exploring issues deeply enough. Snapshots need to evolve rather than keep changing because the foundational analysis is deficient.
Step 9. At the risk of repetition, don’t rush the Process. Like nature and the universe, co-creative learning is fluid, dynamic and circular, not static and linear. In a world that is constantly evolving, our learning too must evolve if we are to adapt and thrive.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step