Seem to have sur­vived the first day (actu­ally a mere 6pm–11pm) of Startup Week­end Ann Arbor.

So far it’s been falling together sur­pris­ingly well. Some­where between 80 and 90 peo­ple arrived, sat and pitched on the order of thirty ideas for projects, com­pa­nies, ill-​​formed ideas, work-​​for-​​hire “help my pre-​​existing ven­ture” and the like, and man­aged col­lec­tively to orga­nize into about a dozen teams.

No vot­ing, no for­mal processes, no points or markets.

No god­damned boss.

And (Cf. below) no coor­di­na­tor of facil­i­ta­tor to speak of.

Peo­ple talk­ing to one another can do work.

Peo­ple sit­ting in rows of chairs can­not do work. They are delayed from doing work. You can­not pro­duc­tively help peo­ple by sit­ting them in rows of chairs and talk­ing to all of them at once. Not in this sit­u­a­tion, which is inno­vat­ing. Cre­at­ing real stuff.

If you haven’t been pay­ing atten­tion for 25 years, you might view this as a “sup­port” for the prin­ci­ple of emer­gence and self-​​organized community-​​building in large groups with dif­fuse shared goals and values.

There were a num­ber of naysay­ers and explicit skep­tics in the tra­di­tional busi­ness devel­op­ment com­mu­nity. Fuck ‘em. I don’t hon­estly care what they think about the rel­a­tive mer­its of their “tra­di­tional” process—golf or other sports, dili­gent appli­ca­tion of chi­nos and polo shirts, sit­ting in innu­mer­able audi­ences to be told What Works for Your Brand!!1!, plead­ing and pitch­ing and being falsely upbeat to VC and angels who are stu­pider than you can imag­ine for merely “lik­ing the cut of your jib”. Don’t care about the whole stul­ti­fied time-​​tested pile of crap that these folks assume is nec­es­sary and uni­ver­sally applicable.

I don’t care because I don’t want eco­nomic devel­op­ment. All that rit­u­al­ized crap is how you build and sup­port eco­nomic devel­op­ment insti­tu­tions them­selves, not com­pa­nies. Not new peo­ple. Not small peo­ple. Not the long tail of economics.

Because that’s what this is. We—small busi­nesses, star­tups, independents—taken as a whole we’re more than all the large-​​scale cor­po­ra­tions com­bined. Maybe not in rev­enue, but that’s a hedge until I see the num­bers. But in terms of work and knowl­edge and agility, we win.

Don’t care what those peo­ple in the big Old world think. That’s not a slangy lyric miss­ing its pro­noun, it’s a fuck­ing imper­a­tive. Stop car­ing about what those peo­ple think. Stop golf­ing. Stop going to dawn break­fasts to rub shoul­ders with peo­ple who just got lucky and think being rich is proof of their acu­men. Stop going to sem­i­nars. Stop asking.

Bet­ter you ask 100 ran­dom peo­ple for help—at the same time they’re ask­ing you—than ask one Pro­fes­sional for Expen­sive Advice.

The suc­cess (so far) of SWA2 is espe­cially note­wor­thy because it’s come entirely out of Ann Arbor. This event, the com­mu­nity and energy and all the prac­ti­cal­i­ties addressed already, these aren’t some tes­ta­ment to the great minds from the Startup Week­end Brand. The Startup Week­end com­pany (as such) has suf­fered a sad series of dis­ap­point­ments and restruc­tur­ings over the last few months, and as a result the fel­low now sit­ting at the helm is cut adrift. On his own. Untrained, untried, but earnest and in his way dili­gent. He’s a good kid; he can go far if he adapts and thinks and par­tic­i­pates. He needs to learn about Open Space instead of doing a half-​​assed job rein­vent­ing it from stu­pid mis­takes; about what “facil­i­tat­ing” and “leav­ing things open” actu­ally means to a mob of strangers. But he may—and his “com­pany” may, just barely—survive encoun­ters with peo­ple meaner than we are.

To be hon­est, I hope he does. Then the things he could learn and pass along would have some value. You want lega­cies, after all. Peo­ple learn­ing and talk­ing, that’s the only real legacy the world allows us.

But in this case, it’s 100% us. This is 100% pure-​​D home-​​grown Ann Arbor effort, inno­v­a­tive results, com­mu­nity and expe­ri­ence brought to bear on a “non­tra­di­tional” thing that “shouldn’t” work. Just like all the rest of the open-​​access, emer­gent com­mu­ni­tar­ian events.

We make this hap­pen. We’re not the medium, we’re not the raw mate­r­ial, we didn’t get molded or shaped. We did it to ourselves.

This is life. Life is boot­strap­ping, not ask­ing for per­mis­sion or molded out of clay. Life is inter­ac­tion and hor­i­zon­tal con­ver­sa­tions and ecolo­gies of rein­ven­tion, not respect paid and tra­di­tions long held. Life isn’t rebel­lion or com­pe­ti­tion, it’s sim­ply ignor­ing filled niches and hier­ar­chies and seek­ing or cre­at­ing new ones. It’s par­al­lelism, and con­cur­rency, and nobody watch­ing from the top of the pyra­mid in the center.

So this here, this nasty con­fus­ing roil of igno­rance, is life. In both senses. Not just sym­bolic, but a pre­scrip­tion. It’s how we can live, in this crapped-​​up old region of ours in this crapped-​​up old nation of ours, with not much to do with our resources, and so lit­tle money left on hand.

This is life. Life isn’t progress, it isn’t about amphib­ians crawl­ing up and get­ting lungs and stand­ing up and start­ing to type on com­put­ers. It isn’t any of those myths you rely on.

It’s just dynam­ics. How things inter­act with one another.

Fig­ure out, in these times of trou­ble, what the other things are. The other ways, so time-​​tested and “reli­able”. By com­par­i­son to what I’m call­ing “life”. Right? Know what I mean, eh? This is me wink­ing, wag­ging my fin­ger with my mouth hang­ing open.

Life, here. What’s that other thing?

Now pick.