Making Public: Ways & Workings

Ways & Workings (W&W) is a methodology developed by School of Commons that brings together the themes, methods, and environments shaping our learning and knowledge spaces. It works as a navigational tool — connecting different sites of work, practice, and research in ways that can be picked up, reshaped, and reused far beyond SoC itself. Our approach is deliberately informal and against-the-grain, focused on the overlooked and underrepresented ways of working that don't usually get named.

In this session, we'll explore how W&W has supported practices of self-organisation, and sit with a harder question underneath it: what does it mean to archive the in-between, the ephemeral, and the process — not just the finished outputs?

What to expect:

• An introduction to Ways & Workings — what we mean by method, environment, and theme
• A collective look through submissions from our recent Gathering in Zurich, read through navigational, supplementary, and reflective lenses
• Open discussion on archiving process and the in-between
• Space for personal reflection

This workshop is open to the public — so bring a colleague, collaborator, or anyone curious about alternative ways of working and organising.

Resources: Presentation: Ways & Workings What does it mean to archive the in-between, the ephemeral, and the process — not just the finished outputs? Miro Board: Ways & Workings Visible as a Collective: Blog post

Seeded prompts:

1. What gets lost when we only archive “outputs” and not process?

You might reflect on:

What part of your process do you protect from being made public—and why?

Which moments in your process feel most like “work” and which feel most like “living”? How do you move between them?

2. What would it mean to intentionally archive the ephemeral — the conversation, the mess, the false start?

You might consider:

If your process had a rhythm (not steps), how would you describe it? Where does it speed up, stall, loop, or break?

What does your workflow assume about your time, energy, and care? Are those assumptions true for you right now?

3. Does archiving the in‑between change how self‑organised groups can learn from each other over time?

You might think about:

Where does your workflow depend on other people’s invisible labour? How is that acknowledged, compensated, or hidden?

What would need to change for you to share more of your process—or to decide consciously not to?

4. Can we think of examples where such archiving is taking place?

You might ask yourself:

If your workflow were a space (room, corridor, threshold), what would it feel like to move through it? Where are the bottlenecks, resting places, or dead ends?

What forms of documentation already exist in your practice that capture something of this “in‑between,” even informally?

A small practice note: what is one aspect of your in‑between that you want to start noticing, naming, or lightly documenting in the coming weeks—not as a manual, but as a living trace of your practice?