Context

You have been setting up your own “publishing stack” and mobilising your local communities. Many of you are quickly becoming familiar with the docs, and how that provides basically a blank canvas to rapidly update networked information that can contain all kinds of media embeds - videos, photos, custom components, third-party integrations etc. Some of your are now leveraging timelining as a way for distributed local task-forces to record insights (and ground truths etc…) from field excursions with the ease and accessibility of sending a voice note from your own mobile phone. We’ve already seen hubs with almost 500 contributions. Remember this  image? Now, it’s time to bring all of that to the surface.

Why

Why bother? Why go through all that effort? What’s in it for me? We’ve heard these questions many times over the course of the last 6 weeks. We’ve done our best to offer something tangible in response, but the true answer is far greater, and has yet to reveal itself. For those that were curious, that listened in to their context, it’s very likely that they became the sowers of seeds of hope that, beneath the surface, have slowly started to take root. These new beginnings are not coming from elsewhere, made by recycling the latest trending concepts, or as part of someone else’s distant future. They’re here and now, on the soils beneath your feet, between the houses in your own neighbourhoods. This is tangible potential, so real you can almost see it. When these seeds sprout, and something in the air changes, this is called emergence. When your teams act together, and their movements form one whole, this is called aligned action. When your aims unlock new capabilities and new potentials, you’re creating system transition pathways. You are living your region’s story into being.

Your First Publication

Stories, regions, systems, pathways. These are all complex systems. Complexity can be disorienting, especially for those that aren’t familiar with how to navigate a particular terrain. Hubs are a centre in this swirling dynamism. Their role is to be there, in the centre, as time passes, listening in, and guiding others to hear what might otherwise go unnoticed: how these systems are evolving.

Your first publication is your first chance to connect the dots for your audience, in such a way that it clicks. After that, if they would like to connect more dots for themselves, they can read the docs, dive into the data, or reach out in the chat, but their journey into exploring more of your hub’s territory starts with your top-level story.

Practical

It will take the form of a linear sequence of pages: 1, 2, 3, 4… These pages will come from the docs, mostly. You may like to add more context in and amongst. You are free to select those pages yourselves, and they can contain whatever content you like.

The emphasis of the story should be the process of your organising. Your stories are going to be more powerful when you can tap into “the why” and “the how” as well as “the what.”

The submission process will be a form that structures things for you. All you need to do is complete the form to link your docs pages, and stay in touch for any further changes.

For more of the thinking behind this, from the Prisma angle, see publishing .