raw text from dsri-strategic-disco
TODO: CLEAN UP AND ORGANIZE
The 2026 Groundhog Day Resolutions continues the theme of inverted goals:
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In 2025, I started by pursuing values-first productivity while also testing my production capacity through several challenges in August when my contracts dried-up.
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In 2026, I continued that by pursuing connection-first activities in parallel with sustainable financial activities, using the Two Slot+Aux system of managing task overload.
The goal of all GHDRs has been improving motivational energy so I can start and finish projects, a classic ADHD conundrum. I’m also somewhere on the ASD scale; my mind is heavily structured around systematic principles-driven deeply emotional alignment.
The past two years of GHDR have been really testing that idea of meeting the needs of “principles-driven emotional alignment”, and this inverts the common wisdom:
- Instead of quantified production metrics, I pursued alignment with values. This includes both the principles of systems and deeply-held emotions.
The question: “if I’m aligned, will that reduce friction to doing things?”
- Instead of focusing on what value I provide to others, I’m now considering acts of hospitality and ship operations as the more innate strength.
The question: "will such acts of living expression of care produce valuable goods as a side effect?
Right now, I’m thinking about ships (which I love) and hospitality operations (which I also apparently love) and how this actually turns into an operating procedure.
Ultimately, acts related to ships and hospitality should produce stuff as a side effect, but the kind of stuff produced is not PRODUCT but CONNECTION.
The theory is that CONNECTION produces OPPORTUNITY for EXCHANGE, and EXCHANGE can be the context for COMMERCE.
I’m defining CARING as the overall context for what I’m doing, but what does this look like specifically?
There are several ideals I’ve named as desirable things:
- The Tribe of positive-minded, self-empowered, conscientious, considerate, curious, generous, and kind people that enjoy sharing their knowledge and stories
- The Meadow where “all the animals are friends”, working and playing together, growing and exploring in delighted mutual support.
- The Colony where makers create directly for their customers, and customers respond directly with their appreciation. There is a social contract that forms the backbone of a governable entity.
The Tribe, Meadow, and Colony are all fixed geographically. What changes now is that it moves to a Ship metaphor.
TRANSFORMATION OF TOP-LEVEL
- There is a Declarations of Belonging that qualifies the traits of the Tribe, The Meadow, and The Colony and the purpose that these ideally serve. There are multiple Roles that are identified that people can choose.
- A Department of Cultural Cartography provides more specific governance principles (e.g. codes of conduct, doctrinal guidelines) that operationalize the Declarations that actual people can interpret and use to participate.
- A Department of Cultural Support is tasked with projects that create the infrastructure, tools, and logistical functions that serve everyone who has signed-on to the Declarations and wish to participate.
TRANSFORMATION OF PARTICIPANTS
- There are multiple Independent Members that have chosen roles under the Declarations, which provides the parameters through which they participate with the whole.
- There can be multiple ways to exist as an independent member.
- I’ve chosen the Multi-role Ship as a metaphor for my membership, as I like hospitality, operations, and the idea of short goal-directed expeditions.
- My ship has a Charter that broadly defines why the ship exists and what roles/missions it intends to fulfill. The charter includes estimated resources, profitable sustainable parameters, and ongoing provisioning requirements.
- My ship has one or more Missions that set the goalposts for a particular period of time. GHDR is an example of such a mission. A personnel requirement is part of the mission profile, as are metrics for success that are maintained throughout the duration of the mission.
- A mission expressed through Expeditions (multi-person strategic exploration) and Sorties (individual short-term tactical tasks) that are related to their mission.
Here’s a theoretical development ladder
SRI
-> OLD FOCUS:
VALUE PROPOSITION FOR MARKETS
-> NEW FOCUS:
SHARING AS EXPRESSED CARING
CONSISTENT SHARING AS CARING
-> OPPORTUNITY FOR CONNECT
-> OPPORTUNITY FOR EXCHANGE
EXCHANGE
-> RECURRING CONNECTION
-> FAMILIARITY
-> TRUST
-> OPPORTUNITY TO COLLAB
COLLABORATION
-> ESTABLISHING CULTURE
-> SETTING PRECEDENT
-> POOLING KNOWLEDGE
-> POOLING RESOURCES
-> CREATING MUTUAL BENEFIT
MUTUAL BENEFIT
-> OPPORTUNITY TO IMPROVE
-> IDENTIFYING WHAT WORKS
-> SUSTAINABLE OPERATIONS
-> INTERNAL MARKET
-> VIRTUOUS CIRCLE
VIRTUOUS CIRCLE
-> ESTABLISHED CREDIBILITY
-> FAIR TRADE
-> PACKAGED SEED DEVELOPMENT
-> DERIVATIVE GROUPS SPAWNED
-> REFINED CULTURAL VALUES
-> COMMUNITY PRIDE
COMMUNITY PRIDE
-> GLOBAL RECOGNITION
-> GLOBAL CURIOUSITY
-> GLOBAL TRADE
-> SPREAD SEEDS OF CHANGE