NFM Narrative

"As our community goes on this NFM journey together, we pick up understandings from each other organically through our 1:1 interactions, through group meetings, through reading Slack chat, through sharing links to related materials, and so on. We have elements of understanding shared in common alongside more unique insights.

PROBLEM: how do we as a community talk coherently and consistently about what NFM is to the outside world when our own involvement is unavoidably divergent? How do we respond to questions about how to operationalize the Manifesto? No single group or project today tasked with organizing and distilling both the initial intent and the evolving experience into something coherent and intuitive for the uninitiated. What we have is a number of projects (maybe all of them) that have undertaken work that may contribute in ways obvious and not so obvious to our NFM narrative. But what is the story as a whole?

Whether we are creating new material in the team or leveraging outputs from other projects - this is about weaving together something plain-spoken enough to do justice to our collective efforts and intent without requiring interested individuals to sit through months of Convergence events to absorb our arcana. Yes, this is intentionally somewhat meta. We will need participation and input from most if not all projects, as we try to pull the right language, visuals, process, storytelling, etc. into a toolkit for external use (PURPOSE). As secondary outcomes, this toolkit should also serve to help onboard new members as well as serve to surface any gaps in the narrative we should work to close. What are we not trying to do is develop a single, one-size-fits-all script. We DO want multiple tools in the toolbox that help us keep our messaging aligned so that the experience of those people and organizations interested in NFM won't be one of potentially 700+ substantively different versions of the story.

I am hopeful this effort will attract catalysts and those already participating in multiple projects, but I am just as hopeful that those with experience in developing comms and marketing will join us as well. And of course, if this strikes a chord of calling to you personally, your involvement is likewise welcome!"