Liminal Decade

Australia burns; China is infectious; the UK got a divorce; Iran is considering its next move; and the US remains utterly divided.

The first month of this decade has shown us that we are all liminal now; well past the point of no return; in permanent transition to new and uncertain realities that have yet to present themselves.

In these turbulent times it can be easy to become despondent. Yet this moment also presents unprecedented opportunities for innovation and transformation that we simply cannot afford to ignore. And whilst it is only natural to be anxious, I am also determined to be pragmatically optimistic for the future.

This may sound odd but in essence all it really means is a relentless focus upon working towards nudging people, places and things onto a more promising trajectory. To try to make things better - for my children, for my friends, and with everyone with whom we share this fragile planet and our precious time. What it does not mean is striving for perfection, as that is also an impossibly corrosive aspiration. But just to cultivate an alertness to see the possibilities and avoid the pitfalls all around us.

“Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen. In the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act.” Rebecca Solnit

Over the past few years I’ve been on my own personal exodus from certainty, to something much less well defined and in search of something more purposeful. Exasperation with politics meant I seriously entertained the prospect of becoming a politician for a short while. I also applied for a few big jobs that in hindsight I realise I probably would have hated. And I worked on some big and ambitious projects where I felt I could learn and make a bit of a contribution. Most important of all, I have now had conversations with over a thousand people. As a result, my learning curve is steeper than ever, and it’s been an utterly joyful experience because of the connection and collaborations that have resulted from it.

One consequence has been that 61 people have become part of this community called Liminal. It is a network of creative and entrepreneurial people with a restless energy, combined with big dreams and bigger hearts. We’ve tried to pin down exactly what it is and how it works, but for now decided to stop aiming for precision and just set it free and see what emerges instead.

“You’re the Borg, but if the Borg were fun and nice, and creative. Right?” Jude Pullen

We have flirted with the idea of turning Liminal into a niche consultancy focussing on collective intelligence, or a subscription-based membership community for people and organisations in transition, or perhaps a sensor network to spot new trends, people and organisations. All of these routes forward remain viable and possible.

However these ideas were partially motivated by our collective need to earn a living. So for now we’ve now put in place a different mechanism for managing that which takes the financial pressure off Liminal directly, and gives us the opportunity for it to be more playful and experimental, and to explore its potential.

As it stands we host monthly online meet-ups and quarterly face to face gatherings in London, simply as a way to start to mix and match the people and possibilities. And there is also Slack community which we use to exchange recommendations, collaboration opportunities and anything else that could be relevant and interesting. If you are interested in being part of the community then please do get in touch.

I’ve also really enjoyed talking to people who inspire me as part of the On The Edge podcast which has been fascinating and inspiring, and I look forward to picking that up again soon after a brief pause. This has resulted in a surprisingly emotional response to those that have heard it, much more so than I ever imagined.

Lastly, I am pleased to have started working closely with a very interesting company called IOVIA. We’ve collaborated previously on many projects and I’m delighted to be part of the team there to build people-powered sustainable businesses. For me this is an opportunity to work with commercial companies and meaningfully work with them to make a positive social impact through their core business. Watch this space for how we evolve and grow that proposition in the weeks and months to come.

“The complex challenges we face can only be tackled if we fully engage with the multinational companies that have so much power and influence but are not yet sufficiently held to account for their actions.”

What I don’t have a lot of, is time, as I have a young family that is very important to me. And in addition, I retain an insatiable curiosity together with a tendency to say yes to a few too many things. But I’ve learned that I also need to do less and sometimes get out of the way too to allow creativity and collaboration to flourish.

If we are to work together then I do know that we need to look out for and help each other. So over the next few years there are a few things that I believe are critical that we must aspire to and work tirelessly for which I would summarise simply as sustainability, equality and empathy.

My personal requests for help right now are aligned with three criteria for the types of people and projects we at Liminal want to work with and for, namely:

If you know of people or opportunities that fulfil these these three criteria then please get in touch so we can embrace the unknown with you, harness our collective intelligence, and surf the liminal spaces together.

And if we can all strive to embed a little more authenticity, accountability and action into our collective psyche, society and economy, then I remain hopefully for what we might build together over the next decade.

Thank you for reading this post and please keep on connecting people and ideas. If you do, you never know what might happen.

#weareliminal

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Thanks to Louisa Harris for the inspiration to write this post.

This post was first published on the Liminal blog here.