NB: 2026-04-27 this is now probably obsoleted by more recent work.

Outflow 1

LeI guess when it comes to the internet site, the main header is like itself. On lifeitself.org, yeah. Yeah. And so then I felt like second renaissance was one initiative of like itself, maybe, and there's others, but the main, the main header is life itself. So if the movement is the second renaissance, maybe for me, it would be kind of the other way around, or that the main header would be second renaissance or the movement, and life itself is a collective and a hub that is part of that movement, not the other way around. Yeah. Yeah. So what do you mean by what would you do on lifeitself.org? Do you mean you'd make that clearer? Or because there's the second renaissance website, which is separate, but you're saying that on lifeitself.org it would even be more explicit, like the main thing is second renaissance.net or like all the second renaissance movement. That's the main thing we're doing, and we're a collective supporting that. Maybe. Sure. Maybe. I mean, for me, it wasn't clear, like when I discovered the project and I was exploring, it was like, how do these things relate? Yes. And I thought, OK, life itself is the mega header general movement, and it seemed like second renaissance was a subproject of it and that… Probably because life itself is still a better, somewhat better known maybe than second renaissance. But yeah, yeah, I mean, I don't know, what I'm saying is, does the underlying point not make sense, or are you saying that you, it's more like, I just don't quite know how we'd address the presentation part at the moment. Because there are some stuffs it's like, life itself isn't just under second renaissance either, right? Like there are going to be multiple kind of organizations or groups, and we also even do stuff that isn't just, we do initiatives that aren't just related to second renaissance or less related. So right now you have, for example, a list of members of life itself worldwide? No. No, no. Because there is no concept of membership of life itself. There's no concept of membership. Would you like to have one? I mean, depending on what you mean by I think the amount of life, if you only remember the collective, that would be pretty, it would be like the membership of the group, so it would be pretty limited. But if we have had a whole bunch of governance, I guess my question is… Something that is in the map, an idea, something like funds of like itself, for example. Yeah, like we had loads of these ideas over the years. I just don't know why do I find… So this was written years ago, like there were these kind of structures, all this kind of stuff. And my experience has been like so, so I guess our focus has to be more on the pioneers. Like we wanted people who are more… But like, what, I don't know what benefit it would have to manage all of these kind of like levels of, and we used to list like who were contributors, we have them on our website and have them over the years. I guess… It's an ecosystem. Yeah, like, I mean, I guess it's something we could do more. I mean, it's just, I guess, I guess it's been like, we kind of did a bunch of this, and we've kind of gone in that, this was written in 2017, and I guess my experience was like, what was the benefit, like, what is it that we're not going to really give any governance power to any, I mean, the collective is not designed at the moment where there's going to, members have any voting power. You're not going to have any say in anything. No, but even if you have… Recognise it. If you have 10,000 friends of like itself all over the world and think this is amazing and they contribute whatever, five euros contribution. You know what I mean? Some critical mass. That would be great, but I don't think it's anything close to that number. I mean, we've done fundraising drives and received almost no money. For now. Yeah, yeah, for now. But I'm saying it's a long journey. I mean, it would be a five or 10 year journey. Yeah. But to get there, you know, you wanna set it up from the ground and see, also, it's a way to understand the impact of the project, to know how many people are actually following, how many people are, you know. And maybe not a priority. I'm just trying to… Yeah, I've thought about such things, but I guess what I'm trying to say is my experience talking to other people with membership programs is like my guess is, like, I just, I think we have a very… I think the number of, that there are people who are like maybe core contributors. I think you wanna create a program. At the moment, I haven't planned. There's a question also just about capacity this year. Like, there's a whole bunch. I run, I've built up movements before. Yes, there's a whole bunch of things you do. There's a question at the moment about, I think a genuine question about what the volition of Sylvia and I are, and even Naima are this year, and where our energy goes. Because to do that, you wanna, like, you do, what do you wanna start with a training program, probably for people who are more, I'd call catalysts. Like, basically local leaders, and then you wanna run that, and then you, like, start local chapters and blah, blah, blah. I mean, sure. My sense is just actually building any kind of membership program. I mean, unless have you had experience of building one successfully? How large did it get? How large did it get? Not that large. I mean, a few thousand people, no more. But who contributed regularly monthly? Contributed in different ways. There were exactly the same ones you're drawing here on the screen. There were different ways, levels of contributions. Was this for the place in first book, the Partspreak? Yeah, and today it has an impact. Initially, when we started, we thought, is it really worth it? But 12 years later, it's a very important part of the project. OK. Well, I mean, it's worth considering launching something then. I mean, as I said, kind of having done this, and in a way, I guess, I guess maybe we've been a bit like… You know, maybe, I mean, there's a question at the moment, as you say, about like what life itself versus second release. I think there's a kind of question of where do we put, um, maybe you can do both, like life itself is this kind of collective and people are friends of that, but Yeah, I think that's, that's worth it just to understand, um, what you're working with, how many people are on board, what are their level of interest, how they're involved. And I mean, even in the story of N33, to be fully honest, initially, we didn't design something like this with a coalition. We designed it for legal reasons because under French law, we needed association, blah, blah, blah, you know, you know the story, right? Yeah, because we created one in Beaujolais. OK. So we have one, everyone who came to the hub is a member of the practice association. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And when we designed that initially, we were, well, well, we might as well use that to get some money in to get other type of, of support. So we created this, you know, several layers. And as it went in time, this expanded. So because people were like, oh, we love you, you're amazing, and we don't know how to participate. We want to, we want to be part of this, but we don't know what to do. So we were like, OK, let's offer them friends of the association. Yeah. Let's give them different ways that they can contribute. And it can be money or it can be something different. Yes. So one of the things we asked people to do where, would you be available for shooting videos for the art projects instead of, you know, paying a figurant? You have all these people who, you know. I mean, this is, this is, this is, this is, sure. Um. But I mean, you know, it's, I don't, I don't think that's the most important thing, but it's a nice way to understand what the ecosystem is. Yeah, I mean, it'd be interesting. I mean, it's kind of been interesting because, for example, we did a crowdfunder last autumn for this magazine, this movie magazine. I would say there was no contribution from our community. Pretty much no. Every single person who contributed was somebody who thought we might call them up. There was not a single donation from the community. Okay, I think that's interesting because that is… Because I don't think people see it like an association or like an art association. I think they see life itself and they're interested in people coming to WhatsApp because they're interested in what we're talking about. But I don't think that they see themselves as somebody a part of life itself that much. That's my guess. Um… I don't, I guess I'm a little bit like, yeah, of course I'd like to change it. And like, for example, the people in the UK, that's great. They're running the event. I guess I'm a little bit like, um… We're not at least, like, I think… I don't, I don't think I would even say for Sylvie, I don't, maybe even more than me, like, we're not gonna be, I mean, we can share more, but I don't think there's a lot of participation that people are having in life itself. We're not in that sense a very participatory model. Like the logic was about…

Distillation 1

Your exchange surfaces three structurally distinct issues: brand architecture, movement–organisation relationship, and participation model. These should be disentangled analytically.

1. Brand architecture (clarity problem)

At present, the ambiguity you describe is a classic umbrella vs. initiative confusion.

Two coherent models exist:

Option A — Life Itself as umbrella (current implicit model)

Life Itself = primary brand (platform / organisation)
Second Renaissance = flagship initiative (one of several)
Others = parallel initiatives

Issue: This weakens Second Renaissance as a movement-level identity and creates cognitive friction (“what is the main thing?”).

Option B — Second Renaissance as movement (inversion model)

Second Renaissance = overarching movement (mythos / macro-frame)
Life Itself = one institutional actor (hub / lab / steward)
Others = additional actors in the same movement

Advantage: This aligns with social movement theory: movements are typically supra-organisational (cf. Tilly, Social Movements 1768–2004, 2004).

Trade-off: Life Itself loses primacy as the entry-point identity.

Diagnosis

You are currently in a hybrid, unstable state:

Narrative implies Option B
Website structure signals Option A

This inconsistency is the root confusion—not lack of explanation.

2. Movement vs organisation (conceptual clarity)

You are implicitly mixing three layers:

Layer	Function	Example
Movement (mythos)	Meaning, narrative, direction	Second Renaissance
Organisation	Execution, coordination	Life Itself
Initiatives	Concrete programs	Courses, hubs, festivals

This triadic distinction is standard in organisational sociology (cf. McCarthy & Zald, “Resource Mobilization…”, AJS, 1977).

Key point

A movement should not be owned by an organisation. If Second Renaissance is genuinely a movement, it must sit above Life Itself.

3. Participation model (membership issue)

Your discussion reveals a second misalignment:

Current state

No formal membership
Low contribution rates
Weak identification (“people don’t see themselves as part of Life Itself”)

Interpretation

This is not primarily a funding problem—it is an identity + participation problem.

Empirically, membership systems succeed when:

There is clear identity alignment
There are meaningful participation pathways
There is perceived agency or belonging

(See Ostrom, Governing the Commons, 1990; also movement literature on “collective identity”)

At present:

Identity = unclear (Life Itself vs Second Renaissance)
Participation = minimal
Agency = explicitly low (“no governance power”)

→ Therefore, low engagement is expected.

4. Strategic interpretation

Your colleague’s intuition is directionally correct but incomplete.

What they are really pointing to:

You lack a legible ecosystem map
You lack a participation gradient
You lack a clear primary narrative anchor

5. Practical resolution (minimal viable clarity)

You do not need a full membership system yet.

You do need:

1. Explicit framing (highest leverage)

On lifeitself.org, state clearly:

“Life Itself is a collective contributing to the Second Renaissance — a broader cultural and civilisational movement.”

This alone resolves ~70% of the confusion.

2. Simple ecosystem map

Visually show:

Second Renaissance (movement)
- Life Itself (hub)
- Other actors (future)

This creates cognitive coherence.

3. Lightweight participation layer (not full membership)

Instead of “membership”, introduce:

Friends / Supporters
Contributors
Catalysts (core actors)

No governance needed—just recognition + pathways.

This follows a “participation ladder” model (Arnstein, 1969).

6. Critical point

Your current hesitation is capacity-based (“we can’t run this”), but the issue is not operational scale—it is conceptual clarity.

Without that clarity:

Branding remains confused
Participation remains weak
Fundraising remains ineffective

Bottom line

The confusion observed is real and structurally grounded
The core issue is misaligned narrative architecture, not missing features
Resolve by clearly separating:
- Movement (Second Renaissance)
- Organisation (Life Itself)
- Participation (lightweight, not governance-heavy)

If useful, I can formalise this into:

a concrete homepage rewrite, or
a one-page ecosystem diagram for Life Itself / Second Renaissance.