An initiative of the Network-First Poetics project, led by founding member Sarah de Sousa
Language shapes systems.
The words we use to describe work, leadership, and collaboration quietly encode assumptions about power, agency, and belonging.
The Network-First Glossary is a living body of definitions that helps us name emerging patterns of collaboration without defaulting to hierarchy-first metaphors. It supports shared understanding across the Network-First Manifesto community and provides language that makes networked ways of working legible, repeatable, and teachable.
This glossary is part of the Network-First Poetics project, which explores how language can better reflect how work actually happens in networks, not org charts.
Collaborative Freedom
We believe people can do their best work when they’re connected to purpose, surrounded by those who inspire them, and empowered to contribute from anywhere, at any time. We call these conditions: collaborative freedom.
Collaborative freedom is a shared responsibility shaped by how participation is invited, how accountability is practiced, and how value is shared as the network evolves. It names a practiced balance between individual agency and collective commitment within a living network. Collaborative freedom holds the tension between openness and accountability, enabling participation without defaulting to hierarchy-first control or collapsing into market individualism.
Beyond the lived expression embodied by individual members, collaborative freedom is sustained by network architecture that creates space for shared ownership, emergent value, and participation that is chosen rather than compelled. Both aspirational and lived, collaborative freedom deepens as trust, clarity, and commitment grow across the network.
Collaborative freedom invites perpetual attention to how our everyday choices shape the systems we inhabit and co-create. It asks us to notice how collaboration is structured, how power moves, and how care is practiced at every scale. When this attention is held, collaboration becomes intentional, authentic, and creative; work allows people to feel seen, connected, and meaningfully engaged in something larger than themselves; value reflects not only what is efficient or scalable, but what is distinctly human.
Network Convergence
A Network Convergence is a gathering of the network designed to increase visibility, coherence, and connection across active work.
During a Convergence, Project Catalysts share updates to make their efforts legible to the whole network. New project proposals are surfaced and explored in the open, and time is intentionally created for organic connection through conversation and shared reflection.
Unlike a traditional “all hands” meeting, a Network Convergence does not center top-down communication or passive attendance. It is designed as a convergence of founding members, where transparency replaces reporting, and shared context enables new nodes of collaboration to form.
The current format typically includes:
- Project Catalysts sharing updates to increase network-wide visibility
- Space for new project proposals to be presented and explored
- Breakout conversations that support organic connection and emergence
The term Network Convergence reflects a deliberate move away from hierarchy-first assumptions about who calls the meeting, who speaks, and how others engage. It emphasizes coming together as a network of peers, rather than assembling under a chain of command.
Network Guide
Network Guiding is a function that supports entry and movement within a network. It may be performed by a person, shared artifact, or agent, often in combination. A Network Guide helps people orient, translate shared language and norms, and discover pathways for meaningful connection and contribution. This is not a fixed role or centralized authority, but a fluid practice that can be taken up at different moments and edges of the network. Guiding relies on mutual consent and responsiveness, honoring agency on both sides of the connection. The Guide functions as a living interface, helping people move from curiosity to participation while preserving the distributed, self-organizing nature of the system.
Project Catalyst
In a network-first paradigm, a Project Catalyst is the person who initiates and stewards a shared body of work without defaulting to hierarchy-first assumptions.
Rather than directing people or assigning tasks, the Catalyst builds the container for collaboration. They clarify intent, articulate the shared north star, and tend the conditions that allow diverse contributors to move together with coherence.
While the role may include responsibility, ownership, and limited decision rights, its purpose is not control. A Catalyst balances momentum and stability, manages collaborative demand, and protects the integrity of the work so participation remains generative rather than extractive.
The term Catalyst intentionally disrupts the language of “project lead.” It signals a shift from managing people to enabling emergence, and from authority derived from position to stewardship earned through care for the work and the network around it.