WayFinders Network - Core Concepts
First off, apologies for the uninspiring title of this post - you might feel like you’re back in high school about to read a boring-as-bat-shit text book! I’m trying to keep some momentum in pushing out these first few posts, and nothing sidetracks me more effectively than procrastinating over a catchy title (probably only trumped by the search for a compelling feature image).
Anyway, in the first post I put down some placeholders to pick up again. This post is going to briefly do that, acting as a gateway to subsequent posts expanding on each concept. I want to anchor these concepts to the following…
(I know, I know - just what the world needs, another concentric circles model 😁)
So the key ideas are:
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Wayfinding - the core philosophy, or if you prefer, “way of being”. Everything else that follows needs to be coherent with this philosophy (depicted as a kind of ‘bounding’ in the visual above)
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Networks - I suspect this straddles both a philosophy and approach? Will come back to this, and expand on the potential of networks.
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Action Learning - an approach that helps us navigate from the present with a general sense of direction. Following this approach dissolves some common divides in western culture - “knowing | doing”, “theory | practice”, “reflection | experience”
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Sharing Stories and “Working out Loud” - methods within the above Action Learning approach
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WayFinder Platform - a (digital) tool that enables and enhances all of the above…but it is just a tool.
I believe it is important to clearly articulate the first 4 points in order to make any claims about the value of the 5th. We are flooded with techno-utopian narratives on a daily basis (“AI & Machine Learning are THE solutions to ALL your problems”) and I have absolutely no desire to add to that.
I’ll finish this with a lovely thought from Laurence Barrett that resonates with a Wayfinding philosophy…
For everyone looking for their ‘authentic self’ I would instead suggest…focus more about the quality of the path you walk than the destination. Listen to yourself and enjoy the discovery of new ways of being, knowing that tomorrow you will discover something else.
In learning to learn, life becomes richer and more fulfilling.
Image credit - Polynesian Wayfinding
