Hi Jonathan,
Thank you so much for taking the time to respond. I really appreciate your thoughtful comments—they’re both generous and sharp, and they’ve helped me see the path ahead more clearly.
You’re absolutely right in identifying that I’m trying to develop a taxonomy of coordination, one where power is not just an effect of structure but emerges through the patterned dynamics of coordination itself. I’ve been thinking of it less as a fixed model and more as a kind of scaffold that might evolve through application and critique.
Your first point—about the difficulty of quantifying qualities—has been a persistent challenge. My idea of the “Thread” is meant to be a minimal, traceable unit of coordination that can still hold onto qualitative richness across multiple dimensions. But I hear your concern clearly: the more we try to measure, the more we risk reducing what makes coordination meaningful. I’m now thinking more seriously about hybrid approaches, possibly using ideas like dimensional mapping, narrative embedding, or even visual topology rather than pure quantification. If there are any frameworks you’ve found helpful in balancing this tension, I’d be very eager to learn.
Your second point—empirical grounding—is especially well taken. I agree that the best way to keep the model honest is to put it to work. I’m currently looking for solid case studies to investigate like Amazon’s logistics networks, coordination under revolutionary transitions (e.g., Cuba or Spain), and the divergence between federated vs. centralized platforms (Mastodon and Twitter). If you or others in the community have suggestions—especially examples that might break or stretch the model—I’d be grateful.
I see this project as iterative and dialogical. Your comments have already shifted how I think about the next steps. If it makes sense, I’d love to keep the conversation going as the framework develops, and I’m very open to being pointed toward prior work I might be overlooking.
Thanks again for helping orient me as I take these early steps.
Pieter