This text gathers some reflections I had after the symposium, tells the story on how we organised before and during, and proposes future avenues. I know it is quite lengthy, so feel free to skip to the parts that interest you (for example, just the summary, the part about the symposium itself or the future), or use your favorite LLM to distill and bring in the form you want. This is my own very biased view and is not complete. I know I often tend to focus on what didn't work and can be critical; so don't feel attacked, I tried to look at the processes. Of course, everyone's view is important; to make a written text a collective document is hard, so I propose that you can add your own views in Reflections on the May ‘25 symposium , and can leave comments in this text if you have anything popping up while reading. I've added Notion links so that you can also look at all we did before; if you do not have access to those pages yet (but are part of this initiative in some way), do ask for access!
The symposium came to be by different streams that started to flow together. I already had the idea for a while, working on complexity and anarchism myself, and stumbling on some individuals on the internet who also did - but who always seemed quite isolated, even though the combination looked quite logical to me. But the first time I dared to express the idea out loud and envision it as a reality, was during the Systems at Play 'self-organising symposium', where some activists interested in systems' thinking were also present. The sparkle that actually made this a thing, was me meeting S, which happened during/after a talk at an anarchist gathering that gave an (in our view superficial) critique on cybernetics. Of course, all the cybernetics and complexity kids had shown up 😄. I love how this moment of tension became a spark giving rise to the symposium - how disagreement, even conflict, can generate energy. To me it is a reminder that we shouldn't try to avoid all tension, but that it is precisely that voltage between different positions that can drive things forward, if navigated well.
So S. knew some people, I knew some people through CLEA and Systems at Play, and I decided to send an invitation around for a first open meeting for who was interested in such a symposium. Several people were present, some of them remained until the actualisation, some couldn't or we lost contact with; while others joined along the way. The following chronicle is largely based on meeting notes. Soon, during the first meeting already, a first decision presented: there was the proposal to do this project under the "systems at play" umbrella. That was a hard decision to take for a group that was not yet formed, and we inferred that we also needed a decision-making structure. For the systems-at-play (SAP) decision: we decided to not do it completely under the systems-at-play umbrella to let this project develop on its own, but still keep a connection to SAP, and see over time how exactly this overlap takes form. For the decision-making structure, we decided to go for a sort-of do-ocracy with feedback mechanisms and stigmergy, working both synchronously and asynchronously. Concretely, everybody could list the decisions they wanted to be involved in and the ones they didn't need to be involved with, so that we could see who we still needed to check in on and when we could go on. We tried to keep track of all decisions taken in ‣. We went for three structures of organisation: meetings, a documentation platform (Notion), and a communication channel. Meetings evolved to bi-weekly meetings. We used Notion so that people that rather preferred to work asynchronously (and maybe less than bi-weekly meetings), could also do so; and to document what we were doing. The Notion was organised in different projects (Organisation, Content&Design, Practical, Outreach, Adjustments), so that people could focus on the aspects they wanted to. They were 'Tasks' and 'Decisions' (that could be classified according to project), to keep track of what needed to be done and what we decided. And of course we kept notules of meetings. Notion was the place where we especially applied stigmergy: to leave traces where others can build upon, rather than direct interactions through meetings. Besides meetings and Notions, we also used an online communication platform. We first decided to use discord, but in practice, this was almost not used, and I continued to do most communication one-to-one (as I knew people didn't check the discord). To unburden me and make the communication less central, a Signal group soon emerged.
We soon started to brainstorm and share how we envisioned this event exactly in a miro board - and had quite some agreements on the the content and type of the event (preferably in nature, where we could also live together). But also some differences, specifically on how open and diverse vs enough shared values we wanted it to be.
From October on, and surely from November-December on, we started to get more concrete, and things became more intense: decide and find a location and date, write an open call, invite people, search and apply for funding,... End of November we held an open meeting, which brought some fresh blood in. Things started to roll, but I also felt like we were always a bit behind on where we should be: we wanted to have a call ready by the end of December to be able to make promo on time, but in the end it was only ready by beginning of February; for funding, we missed some deadlines, and only had a concrete enough proposal and people who had energy to apply for funds from March on or so; deciding and finding a location and date took some time and energy; we only got a poster ready by the end of April. Partly I think it is normal for such a newly formed group and initiative that it takes time. People were also doing this voluntarily, often besides other activities, so I'm really grateful for all the effort people have put in. But I felt also quite some indecisiveness, in the first place in myself (I really have a hard time taking decisions :) ), but this also translated to the group. Both in my own head as within the group, nobody really had a strong preference, or there were things to say for each option; or the preferences even shifted from one meeting or moment to another. In the spirit of a do-ocracy, there was a trust in me that I could decide in these manners, but honestly, I also didn't know what to decide. I felt like this indecisiveness created an unclarity and even more indecisiveness: decisions depended on other still unknown factors, in seemingly impossible to untangle loops of vagueness. Interested people and people organising wanted clarity on certain aspects which we couldn't provide because of unclarity from these very same people. But we also did move forward in this uncertainty, being aware that some uncertainty is always an aspect of a complex system, and making guesstimates and predictions that got updated as more information was created (for example in the budget and participant list, but also in more qualitative aspects).
This was also the moment when different roles started to emerge in a rather organic way: some people focused on inviting and onboarding others, some on writing the call and the funding proposals, others on the budget or creating a poster, or on communicating with all (potential) participants,...
In March, we finally organised a weekend together, the first time we actually saw each other in real life! (Some met already, but most didn't.) This was also the start of the final stretch: we made a planning for the coming months. Meetings took longer than thought (recurring thing :) ); but the breaks also, so in a way we also had the time to get to know each other. After the weekend, we started to organise in different working groups, with also people involved that just wanted to help in specific aspects: most notably the design (programme) working group, the logistics working group and the communication working group. We tried to have overlap between the working groups, with people being in multiple working groups acting as communication person. But in the end, I was the one most aware of what was going on overall, and so especially in the last weeks, I felt a bit too much in the role of central person/'boss' that needed to make everyone aware of what needed to be done. There was also just too little time for the group formation of these groups and the on-boarding of new people. The design group was still in the getting-to-know-each-other phase when the program already had to be there the week before. People also were getting lost navigating Notion; in the design group the decision was made to use Sessionlab for scheduling, but that created a double role and complication with the proposals still being in Notion, which made it harder to understand what exactly existed. For the problems navigating Notion, I decided to make a page for the new working groups, and a page per working group - so that the new people in the working groups only needed to look there. Not sure if it eased things or mostly made an extra layer :) . The logistics group consisted of people who happened to live in Brussels, and the engagement of the people inside fluctuated, with also some communication issues. But despite these obstacles, we got all practical stuff sorted out, the program was there, with people putting in lots of effort; and we were ready for the symposium!
After 2-3 days of preparing the places for the event, on Monday finally the thing kicked off, seeing all those names in the Form for the first time :) ! Through the week, we moved from more 'input' to more open formats (or that was the idea); but I'm not going to dive into the content here (for now), but focus on the organisation and reflect on that. Just like before, three structures of organisation emerged, from similar types. There were the meetings with the whole group (especially the opening circle, similar to the bi-weekly online meetings), there were the 'boards' (all the papers on the walls - similar to the Notion, our 'stigmergic medium'), and there were more informal chats to arrange things (kinda similar to the Signal group(s), but also different in structure). We also used different care structures: the care groups - smaller groups that checked in on each other daily, an awareness team and a 'guardian angel' game.
Just like before, different roles were taken. Each morning, we went over the roles and people could say which role they wanted to take for that day; with some roles staying for more days, and some roles forming as a working group (like the technical crew). But I also felt there were some issues with how we organised this (though I'm not sure yet what would be better). There was the issue that people in a certain role (especially the facilitators) got overwhelmed by everyone wanting to have their little say in the matter (I think this is the 'backseat facilitator'?), but also that people couldn't commit in the moment to a certain role, or were too uncertain on what it exactly meant, but still had some value to add to the process. There was also some unclarity of what exactly a role entailed, for example the facilitators started to not only facilitate the opening circle, but also the navigation throughout the day. It was also sometimes unclearly decided who was going to facilitate a certain session. Certain roles were more invisible to me on what they were exactly doing. So how could we do better? For start, maybe roles shouldn't be taken on primarily in the opening circle. We can put up the flipcharts for the roles (for the whole week), and then people can put a post-it with their name on the role they want to take on a certain day - and also take it away again if they realise they can no longer take something on. People can ask someone that they for example actually also want to do a certain role already taken by someone, and if they could switch? In the opening circle, we then only need to go over the missing ones. Such a process gives people more time to think on what they want to take on, and can shorten the opening circle. But of course, this also creates another more interactive board, and people were already overwhelmed by all the boards right now. Besides, roles can be more clearly defined, split up, and new ones created. Especially the facilitating and coordinating roles could be split in different functions and periods, to avoid the "too many chefs in the kitchen" phenomenon, while also making sure we don't end up with just one chef. One role I was often taking (but others too, in other ways), is "space holder" or "process navigator" (still looking for a good name): to observe the processes happening, and notice where there are some gaps or issues, and intervene there. I know it is a tricky role, as it can be(come) a centralized position (but I see it more as trying to make and keep the ground fertile for things to grow on); and it can also be like the 'backseat facilitator' that takes over from people doing things (yeah, I'm using this backseat facilitator critique without completely understanding what is meant by it).
As an example of those different roles at play and positions I took, lets look at the network methodology we created to schedule the open space proposals in the program. To me, this was one of the highlights, as it was a beautiful example of the ideas at work; but there were also some tensions in the process. So the issue was to put the different proposals of people in the different open spaces created in the program for it, in such a way that people can follow their preferred sessions. Mathematically this is the sort of problem that is often really hard to solve, without even taken into account social ambiguity that cannot be put into a mathematical model. I had an idea on how to organise it, but I also didn't want to interfere with the facilitators too much (as I felt that before I bothered them with a plan after they already made one). So I shyly presented my idea after checking if they already had one (together with someone else who had another idea); and I secretly was really happy that my idea was chosen. The idea was to make a network of the sessions, let people draw lines between sessions they both wanted to do, and then put the sessions with no or little lines at the same time. Details started to be worked out, more and more people gathered around giving their ideas on how to do things, or just FOMO-stressing out on which choices they would make, and it became hard to actually finalise this. Unfortunately an emotional break was necessary to make us aware of this, calming down the situation again so that the algorithm was ready and people drew their lines. So when the assignment needed to happen based on that, I decided to step back and not really participate in this decision-making, but rather focusing on that it didn't became too overexcited again, trying to not have too many folks on that table and diverting people away that didn't really had anything to add at that moment, giving them the information they needed (I thought of proposing to move the table to a quieter place to decide, but that would have been too much of a disturbance). Sessions were put in the schedule, all looked fine - until someone raised a time constraint, and I was afraid the whole algorithm would fall apart, but apparently it was also no problem to adapt to such social complication. And we had a schedule everyone was happy with (not sure if it was because people were happy of the process and just didn't knew what they would prefer anymore, or if it really was a great division ;) ). I just wanted to give this example to put light to the different facilitation/coordinating functions there are, but also to the tensions to them.
But so we could clarify more which roles or functions or tasks can only be done by the assigned people, and for which other input is welcome (and it is more that certain people are responsible, but others can also help or do it). We could have certain input moments (during which people can for example share their ideas on how to organise a session to the facilitators), and after that moment, it is just to those facilitators, and people can no longer jump in with their view without knowing all the details. But we should also make sure not to formalise and solidify this even more; the roles are mostly about who does what, and if we put that in stone, people can no longer spontaneously aid somewhere, and need to know what they will do completely from before. Actually, already in September, we had a discussion about roles, concluding we would rather work with "responsibilities" (what the project needs and who makes sure it happens) than "roles". Maybe we forgot too much of this feedback along the route. We could also rather make it more visible what functions people are taking in the group and what place everyone takes within the group. To make hidden contributions more visible, and to get a better perspective on where you are in the group dynamics (because as K.V. points out, it is hard to see yourself completely). Z proposed such a methodology to me (to let people take position with respect to a certain function). By making group dynamics explicit in this way, we can see what functions in the dynamic are missing or are too present, or which positions could change.
But I also don't want to sound too negative on the role-methodology we used - this division into roles did also make that a lot of people played a vital role in the organisation, and that it didn't just stayed within few; and overall it was not bad.