A Great Group is a team or organization which accomplishes great feats. Feats which seem impossible to any other group — which push the very limits of what human organization is capable of accomplishing.
The Apollo Project
Bell Labs
The Manhattan Project
Xerox PARC
DARPA
Skunk Works
A Great Context is a fertile environment from which Great Groups seem bound to organize, recruit, and emerge. Like a Nebula for stars... an incubator that appears at the fringes of culture, at the very frontier of society, great things seem bound to come out of those who were a part of the context. Often, especially in the case of Art Contexts, Great "Individuals" emerge, as well.
MIT Hacker Culture
1800s Revolutionaries
The Homebrew Computer Club
Young Hegelians
Vienna Cafe Culture
Black Mountain College
Silicon Valley 60s/70s
The Inklings
Great Groups and Great Contexts have totally different rulesets, different starting conditions, different objectives, and different social structures. This document is an early attempt to begin laying out those differences. Many others have gone about trying to document clubs, scenes, or great groups... but this approach of separating them between Contexts and Groups seems novel. For other lists, see:
The best Great Groups seem to be organized around achieving the impossible. And they tend to need social organizational tools/technologies which help them do so. The word "organization" is particularly apt, as these groups tend to need focus across a large org, but also need raw creativity to succeed**.** The central tension to a Great Group is often the balancing of chaotic, bottom-up brilliance with focused, effective organization. Here are some of the tools they often use to strike that balance:
Social Technologies of Great Groups (Organizations):
On the other hand, the best Great Contexts seem to be organized around a shared ethos (values). They tend to be more inclusive, and to focus less on genius, instead caring about passion and *good will*. They tend to have less structure, and tend to be emergent, often explicitly rebuking attempts at authoritarian or top-down organization. They tend to be collaborative and participatory. Therefore, the central tension to a Great Context is often the balance between staying together and falling apart, since there is no structure which inherently keeps them together, except their shared passion + values. They tend to need social tools/technologies which help them share their passion and stay together:
Social Technologies of Great Contexts (Scenes):