HOW TO BASECAMP
We don’t need better answers.
We need better beginnings.
You sense it: the conversations we’re having aren’t the ones we need. The paths we’re walking don’t lead where we hoped. The maps we’ve inherited no longer make sense of the territory we’re in. This is my field guide for anyone who feels the need to begin again, differently.
Inside the guide
The guide begins inside you, with the realization that there’s got to be another way to deal with the important thing you’re dealing with. It ends with you surrounded by diverse others who are ready to try a brave new way.
It’s a journey in three parts.
1
Make your map
Map the territory as you see it now, so you can share how you see things with the rest of the world.
2
The power of convening
Discover who to invite, how to invite them, and how to sense and signpost the things you must explore together.
3
Where brave new ways begin
Create, hold and curate the space where discoveries happen and new expeditions form up.
Here are situations we’ve found where braving a new way improved things.
Do any of them feel familiar?
- You or your team have begun to sense that we can’t stay here, or on the path we’ve been going.
- You fear you’re failing to see something big, but you don’t know what it is.
- Too much time, energy and human potential is going into serving the system instead of its purpose.
- You doubt how to navigate the tensions between what drives your people and what drives the organization.
- You’re looking for a way that no expert can teach you because it hasn’t been found yet.
- You see no clear path forward, or no good options.
If you recognize one or more of these, and you’re ready to move past it, this guide may help you make an unexpected discovery.
A word of warning: don’t tread lightly. There is a comforting familiarity about each of these situations. The guide is meant to help you leave them.
What readers say
The most useful book I’ve read on getting people to do the impossible—really listen to each other.
A compelling invitation to think and lead differently.
So much gold in it!
A gateway to human help
This guide is the output of hundreds of in-person and virtual experiments in bringing forth the collective intelligence a complex world asks for.
Everything in it you can do yourself.
But if you would rather not go it alone, Campfire is where I convene rooms like the ones the guide describes: peers from different worlds carrying similar weight, a question none of them can answer alone, and the space to really listen to each other.
How to take part: the next Campfire 
If what you need is a Basecamp of your own, for your team, your company or your community, I do that too: from helping you design one you will run yourself, to convening and running the whole thing. I’ve done it for groups of five and of five hundred, for an hour and for years.