As for the roots of the ungluing, you are partly right. But it really had more to do with size and the magnification of individual excess made possible by email. Really.

As for multiple generations, the mixture of wisdom and experience and energy and insight that comes with multigenerational projects is stunningly powerful AND inherently unstable. Leadership, humility, and generosity are what it takes to overcome that instability — oh, and embracing that instability/ambiguity as an asset rather than a liability!

As to the un-gluing of the group, do you think some of that had to do with the high turnover of home schooling families? Kids grow up and parents lose interest, then new families come in and have no memory of how things were…

I think one of the most important aspects of an industry community is presence of multiple generations of community members. With NY tech, folks who were around in Web 1.0 have a lot to share and teach and invest, as the web 2.0 generation works their collective butts off to out do the previous generation (and return their investment).

There must be a lesson on multiple generational involvement here…

The second item has to do with governance: HSN was organized by a small group who immediately ceded authority to…everybody. The governance board was comprised of whomever showed up at governance meetings. Structurally, four people each year (a treasurer, the newsletter editor, the phone contact person, and one other) committed to showing up at each meeting but decisions were made by consensus by all comers. Each meeting started with a statement of inclusive principles and a reminder of the responsibilities of the consensus process.

The final success of the model was that as soon as it grew to big and unwieldy, it spawned new inclusive (and exclusive) organizations founded on similar principles. Self-organization run amuck!

One final note: THis utopian model DID eventually come unglued. It was always unstable and subject to the excesses of certain individuals. These individuals excesses were magnified as the organization grew. But they were also magnified by new technology — namely email. Email allowed folks to distribute their “grievances” quickly and widely. Small items of contention became big. And big ones became unmanageable. C'est la vie, eh?

I mean, I don't think private groups are a bad thing, as long as there
is also plenty of public organizing going on.

I quite enjoy hanging out with particular private crew on a regular
basis, and I don't see a need to Tweet it out and invite more people.
If fact, I think get-togethers like that are important elements of a
healthy ecosystem.

However, Open culture has been fundamental to our industry and
community's advancement. The more folks meet the more they can connect
and the more efficient our system/ecosystem becomes.

I think we can be more a more efficient community, and I think we'll
get there by being more inclusive. It's to the community's benefit to
do it!

As for the roots of the ungluing, you are partly right. But it really had more to do with size and the magnification of individual excess made possible by email. Really.

As for multiple generations, the mixture of wisdom and experience and energy and insight that comes with multigenerational projects is stunningly powerful AND inherently unstable. Leadership, humility, and generosity are what it takes to overcome that instability — oh, and embracing that instability/ambiguity as an asset rather than a liability!