The Structure of Social Tensegrity

When you look at the SKWISH image you will see six rods:

• Two Blue rods in the X axis
• Two Green rods in the Y axis and
• Two Yellow rods in the Z axis

All the rods have a little knob at the end.
And the rods are held in place by 24 elastics.

That’s it – a complete tensegrity structure, fully functional and great to play with.

Here is a link to the toy and how to purchase it if you are so inclined.

https://www.amazon.ca/Manhattan-Toy-Classic-Grasping-Activity/dp/B000GI0S4E/

Now  lets see how we translate from the toy image via biotensegrity (the structure of living things) to Social Tensegrity Architecture (STA).

X1, the Dark Blue rod, represents the Keystone Cause of your community – it’s purpose, defined in a very specific way (more details later!)

X2, the Light Blue rod, represents the Values of your organization – the guide to decisions is what you will and will not do, where you will or will not go.

Y1, the Light Green rod, represents your Core Team – 3 people at the heart of your community who are the DNA that instructs the expanded team.

Y2, the Expanded Team, often 6 people  who get things done – equivalent to the protoplasm of a cell.

Z1, Participative Decision Making – how operational decisions are made using rounds and a consent agreement.

Z2, Polarity Decision Making – how strategic decisions are made by balancing tensions

The 24 elastics, the tensional element, represent the meetings where decisions are made – either Participative or Polar, depending  on the issues to be managed.

The telomeres at the end of the rods may be last, but they are the most important feature, enabling self regulation. In a normal cell they regulate growth.

In biological life, when they fail, you get cancer. And as you get old and your cells wear out and you become less and less useful to society, they also decrease in size and guide the end of life process.

Regular human social organizations of every shape and size lack self-regulation, which is why they grow out of control unless external regulation is imposed.

So this is why those little beads that link rods and elastics are the one critical unique structural element that ensures regulation of STA structures. And how they do that will be explained in detail in the section about practice.

So to summarize – rods, elastics, telomeres – organized in a very elegant way – are all you have to learn about, and something that has never existed before in the history of humanity.