From Community Facilitator to AI Shaman
Author: George Pór Issue: 2025-03-19
From Community Facilitator to AI Shaman
Excerpts from the Log of a Learning Expedition’s Sherpa
by George Pór
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Being a sherpa on an online learning expedition is the best job I ever had. A learning expedition is a model of collaborative inquiry that scales unmapped mountains of knowledge and capabilities, leading to peaks of collective intelligence and hidden valleys of collective wisdom. It's a journey with always-new challenges that keep me practicing my beginner’s mind. It inspires and motivates the Expedition community, pushing us to reach new heights in our personal and professional growth.
The online expedition process uses a family of metaphors borrowed from bands of explorers trekking uncharted territories in the physical world. For instance, we have scouting parties exploring promising passageways and base camps, where the multi-track scouting parties come together periodically to share their findings and get outfitted for the next phase.
But an online learning expedition is more than that. It also connects us with the mythic dimension of our existence. Let me tell you more about that with a story of the specific expedition on which I serve as sherpa.
Once upon a time, there was a small country populated by people who would have deserved a better life in a fair and just society, but their corrupt rulers cared only for stuffing the money bags of their families and sycophants. Fed up, the people started organizing to vote them out of power. The movement spawned many local and online communities.
As those communities grew, so did their challenges, which stemmed from unresolved personal, relational, and community development issues. To help address these issues, members of one of their circles embarked on a learning expedition to become online community facilitators.
The first mountain they decided to climb was Self-Development because they knew they needed to strengthen their muscles to ascend to the peaks of Evolutionary Relationships and Community Development later.
As the expedition was still at the foot of Self-Development, one of the members became curious about the mythic dimension of their work. She turned to her AI mate for insights, sparking a dialogue that would deepen their understanding of the journey. The AI, a silent but powerful companion, added a layer of intrigue and curiosity to their expedition, opening doors to new perspectives and understandings.
Read its response and the sherpa's commentary on it here:
https://aishamans.substack.com/p/from-community-facilitator-to-ai
Related:
- George Pór (author)
- 2025 (year)
- Topics: Collective Intelligence, Identity and Self, Narrative and Storytelling