(2021-11-20) Edelman: Funnel, Tube, Or Field: On Planting Fields

Joe Edelman: On Planting Fields. Here's a simple model, which can explain a lot of what's going wrong in the world, and what'd be needed to set things right. You can apply the model to many things in life: relationships, products, social activities—even physical spaces like offices and living rooms.

You take one of those things, and ask: is it a funnel, a tube, or a field?

Funnels are when you're part of a goal someone else invented. (aka sales funnel, task-completion funnel)

What ties these things together is that someone (not you) designed something to push people towards a goal or vision.

Tubes are things which accelerate each person towards their own goal.

If you work for an org that gets malaria bed nets to as many people as possible, that's a funnel too

Funnels and tubes eliminate surprise and minimize relationality.

Fields aren't about getting a clear goal accomplished. A field is a place for non-goal directed, exploratory activity. Like jazz jam sessions, art studios, or conversations with friends.

Online spaces like Roblox and Minecraft are fields.

Funnels and tubes are not for staying in.

The point of funnels and tubes is to be over, so we can get back to our fields. So, when there's a shortage of fields, it's a problem.

Fields are the main dish of life. (enabling environment)

Too many funnels and tubes is wasteful

Illegibility and its Consequences

Here, I'll cover why funnels and tubes have so far outpaced fields, and drowned them out.

I think the heart of it is that it's easier to measure the success of funnels or tubes, and this gives them a big advantage with funding, discovery, and best practices

I think we can reverse these problems with a community of field-makers. I'll present what that community could do, in three stages:
Stage 1 Mapping What We Want to Explore Together
Stage 2 Becoming "Rabbit Holes"
Stage 3 Addressing Funding, Discovery, and Learning

Mapping What We Want to Explore Together

To build fields, we need to know what we want to explore with each other. This can be very simple: sit with someone you care about, find something that's meaningful to them, and make space to explore it together.

Becoming "Rabbit Holes"

People often accidentally turn their relationships into funnels or tubes

I think the opposite of this is being a "rabbit hole". A rabbit hole helps people get in touch with their sources of meaning, and invents activities together to explore them

I imagine this community can help us become rabbit holes, although I don't know exactly how yet.

Addressing Funding, Discovery, and Learning

you may need support to make it a field, or to fund and populate it while it stays a field.

One thing we'd need to avoid is using standard behavioral metrics. Using a behavioral metric in a field turns it into a funnel!

The value cards I mentioned in "Mapping What We Want to Explore Together" can help. Writing such a card is a way to be specific about what's meant by vulnerability. You can then ask: is your field a good place for that exact kind of vulnerability? That's better than measuring tears!

For more detail, you can collect stories about that type of vulnerability, and break them into specific things that need to be possible in a field, for people to be vulnerable—the "hard steps" of vulnerability.

You can ask: are these hard steps better supported in your field, compared to others?

This is a scalable, survey-based way to measure and compare the success of fields.

Conclusion

Think about recent business trends, like web3, the "creator economy", the idea that every business is a community, even the sharing economy. All these trends are about pretending to build a field, but instead ramping a funnel.