experiential tron monk money-flow

Went to tuttle again yesterday, and useful engagement with five of seven. Amazed yet again by the abstraction that is the confluence model, the different levels to the game of tron, and the alternative consultancy process seeded in tuttle itself. Since I have played a relatively normal game this year, and got nowhere fast, with so many alternative good ideas, I am playing around with the idea of integrating them all into one practice: tron monk. A playful move. Why not? Could be an interesting experience.

It began with a chap called David who runs two companies, one of them a consultancy. I outlined the alternative economic consultancy, and he asked what this would achieve that he could not induce within his own company. I pointed out that he framed his question in a military metaphor in order to emphasise competition whereas I believe my model induces a deep level of collaboration which might deeply influence in how capitalism and corporations work. He didn't like this answer as much as Graham whom I met briefly two weeks before and Mari-anne who dipped in at the end of the discussion. Graham came up with an almost throw-away notion of guerilla PR, to walk into offices without an appointment. This resonated deeply with my 'opportunistic walk-ins' which I conducted in summer 2007 with Sonya and the 24weeks bunch. I could speak from experience, Graham said he'd want to do it, and we shook hands on it! Mari-anne again slipped into our conversation and wanted to know what the buzz was all about and proceded to talk about her consultancy and the simple processural model she had distilled from her experience. A couple of positive notes, enough to begin composing with.

I then stood alone for a while, which most people don't seem to do much, huddled into little groups. I admired the wind and the trees, since we were meeting on the roof terrace of the restaurant in St James park. This older guy named Toby came up and we began talking about how people were ignorant of the amazing quality of this meeting space. I always thought it strange that environmentalists produce a lot of their policies and have their meetings in boxes in cities. Toby and I engaged rather well to start with, since he validated that there was a lot more communication between what he called silos, the specialised hierarchies of academia, corporations, government bodies. He owned a computer games company working on a project for Sony Playstation. I took this as an invitation to talk about Tron. After our initial two-part engagement, I was most disheartened that he ignored my statement to his advice: I was not going to network and push the game in various educational circles, which he estimated would take a year or two. I thought it was good enough that I had noticed this strategic nexus and it was for others to move on it. That was the end of that.

Finally, I talked with Robert. A strange conversation ensued where I circumscribed endlessly, until I eventually described the confluence model as a tool/utility/device/vessel that could reflect the social body. Robert's high quality of attention impressed me with how unique the solution of the confluence model really was back in 2007 and remains to this day. It really is so simple. As simple as twitter, but at a system level, one of which element's is like twitter. During our conversation, we were interrupted by a number of people passing by.

One was a very bright soul called Donal, so bright that I challenged him almost immediately to participate in Graham's guerrilla PR idea. He was took a step back, partly because I suspect he does not meet that many people who have more trust-engagement than he does; it might be an almost inevitable response of mind. Anyhow, his business card had 'bringing new ideas to old problems for better outcomes', and on the back 'Learning UnLtd: Engaging learning in people, organisations and in unpromising circumstances'. Wow! I was right about his brightness!

A second was another chap called David. He was promoting his start-up, which was a non-individual version of lulu; self-publishing for groups, collectives, for example, producing a shared document like a photo album. He was clearly motivated by an interest in motivating collectives, and for some reason I pitched him with Tron as a minimal team game. I encouraged him to take a look at the game as a parallel path to his own business venture.

I was really excited again and this triggered an excitement in Robert who then described this minimal team game he had thought of for facebook. Robert told me a game had recently gone from zero to 10 million players in three months! ZOMG!

So, an interesting time for sure. A good tuttle, with some potential for action. And what does this mean for me? Well, how about I integrate all these different things into one 'persona', or action? I playfully came up with the idea of Tron Monk years ago, and even wrote it up in the social art booklet while in thailand last year. I've been playing tron a lot recently, Tav got involved a week ago and has been playing off-and-on, and the 23rd Tronic Ladle is happening this weekend. So, can this 'role' carry everything that I am interested in? Tron as a strategic nexus, the moneyflow model associated with the tronic progression, the game as metaphor for alignment and confluence, the monkish practice of XQ, and an instance of social art and experiential nights by association?

At the instigation of Sofia, I've been saying I am writing a book, about psycho-social dynamics,

which has served its purpose: to provide people with a category by which to frame what I do. I have written enough up on blogs, as well as began composing a rough draft on google docs. Perhaps my primary experiment is to be a Tron Monk? Hope I don't go down the path of That Tron Guy.