“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” – R. Buckminster Fuller

Dear friends,

I’m excited to give you an update on The Institute of Applied Metatheory, where we ended an incredible Q1 of foundation building and catapulted straight into Q2 with an intense focus inside the organization on the understanding and integration of AI into our operating model. Truly it’s been an extraordinary time, and I’m really proud of how the team, now approaching 40 people, has embodied our mission to operate as a Teal organization—with agility, real-time sensemaking, emotional transparency, network intelligence, and distributed innovation—amidst the ontological shock and genuine uncertainty of the emergence of The Transformation Age.    

We spent the past several months in a constant, iterative and transparent process of validation of our core mission hypotheses. They have all validated, so far, with significant progress and accomplishments across every dimension of our operating model:

• We continued to validate and receive an inflow of support for our core mission to build IAM as an Integrative Cooperative Impact Network, an “Integral Mondragon” composed of hundreds of scholars, experts, contributors, innovators, donors, and investors, all of whom collectively co-own the network, its technology platform, its assets, and its outreach and coordination capacity
• We passed the mark of 250 experts who have applied to join the network, and have recently welcomed new co-ownership partners into the network, each of whom will be leading major Applied Metatheory Initiatives (AMIs)
• We built IAM’s architecture of dozens of novel Big Picture lenses and their associated philosophical and methodological metadata
• We released the Alpha version of our Integrative Epistemology platform Context, which we’re designing in an attempt to create a network- and movement-wide, Teal-level platform for the application of Big Picture metatheories for any initiative, organization or government, in any context, at any scale
• The innovation team has built eight different integrative metatheory AI applications in the past 5 months, each of which explore (and often demonstrate) the extraordinary promise of Teal-level AI for transformative education, perspective-taking, and applied metatheory
• We welcomed our first major Big Picture mapping pilot for designing a new transformational theory of change model in the social sector, which is being funded through a major gift to the new IAM Foundation
• Our team of metatheory team scholars continues to grow, with ten new world-class scholars representing critical realism, complex thought, integral metatheory and more
• We’ve begun concepting on major new initiatives with network partners to educate integrative metatheories in foreign languages and to investigate use of a network-native cryptocurrency
• We ran a fast-fail beta test cycle on three of our AMIs (IPTI, ESoM, and SSI), demonstrating the power of cross-functional learning while also refining what will be required of our Transformational Innovation Process, where we translate transformational fulcra into precise, in-context strategic innovations

As we look to the second half of the year, we will continue to stay head-down on the challenging agile-learning cycles on Context, and continue to learn how to apply Big Pictures to any context.  We’ll also begin planning our Teal Consulting Network and recruiting for its leaders (be in touch with us here) and welcome new co-ownership partners into the network (also here). Most importantly, we’ll continue to explore how to release the innate intelligence and energy of the integral movements via a network-based, strategic intercooperation model, in which any major organization or leader in the space can become an active contributing partner within it.

The Transformation Age is here. It is an incredible time to be alive, but if we are going to meet the opportunity and calling of the moment, we need to be organized to do so. 

I truly look forward to your ongoing participation and support.

On behalf of the entire team,
All our love,

Robb Smith
Founder, Executive Team Leader