we out here. mostly we’re on the web, occassionally we’re in meatspace using our limbs. either which way, we’re having a gay old time.
Over the past four years, alongside a group of friends I'd now consider as family, we've co-created a self-funded social technology R&D lab. What started as a foray into building software and bootstrapping a tech company, has evolved into something much more prescient, alive, and valuable.
Entering into "tech" was an opportunity for me to explore and experience a world completely outside of my known universe. My expertise in social architecture, organizational design, and peopling emerged almost completely absent the influence of digital technology; for this I'll forever be grateful - human connection and relationality is my first and most foundational mode of being.
I've come to find there's a balance between the social and the technical; the human and her tools. When it comes to humanity, there's no division between these purportedly distinct concepts - sociotechnical is a unique whole unto itself. It's from this very human frame that our R&D lab has developed, and where we derive the meaning of our name: Relational.
Beyond a simple definiton of connectedness, Relational is a participatory experience of being human in the world. It's a constant, incessant call we answer to discover new tools, products and experiences that hang in the balance of the social and the technic. To play with emergent technologies, and in the process create novel forms of being in the world.
Our call to adventure is through innovative technologies; currently we live at the intersection of the blockchain and AI ecosystems. Our vision is not, however, for the future of the technologies themselves. Our vision is for the future of humanity. We are crafting this future through ritual practices of ideation, design, development, and experimentation.
We’re at an exciting juncture, where Relational is finding structure and an organizational form of its own volition. An embodied desire to be in the world, to grow, to expand. As her stewards, the team heeds the Relational call by telling our story, and providing on-ramps for others to join us.
We're structured as an R&D lab and product studio; our bread and butter is in-house and external collab projects. Relational specializes in innovative complexity—we thrive when working on something that has never been done before. Everything we do is bespoke: Relational is a dynamic process of co-creation with the people we’re collaborating with, in whatever contexts we find ourselves.
We’re currently employing a proof-of-work and proof-of-stake approach: majority of our projects are based on active participation in the full lifecycle of our projects. This helps us intimately understand the nature of the work itself, ourselves as collaborators and peers, and the world through the lens of the projects we take on. We invest financially in both our internal practices and projects, and sometimes in our external productions.
We're slowly progressively decentralizating: we're in no rush to scale, though we are keen on growing and expanding our reach into the world. What started between just Dave and I has grown to include a number of full-time, part-time, and orbiting co-conspirators.
Ultimately, Relational is an invitation to participate in the future of our humanity by contributing in the ways only you can. To congregate in a community where we emerge art, public goods and services, infrastructure, games and fun. We aspire to live in a world where we’re more connected and empowered to manifest a more interdependent reality.
Musings crafted on 4/13/23 around 10K feet elevation, somewhere above Arizona, on an iphone. I’m warming up to marketing Relational, thanks for taking the time. ✌️