The Faces of Scenius
Culture, politics, and more than a thousand miles separate Columbia, Missouri from Brooklyn, New York. As diverse and disparate as these cities may seem, they have one thing in common. Both have one resident working on the same puzzle. These two men are looking for the best way to unite curious people with a common goal of learning, pushing each other, and making meaningful impacts on the world. These men are Packy McCormick and Clayton Dorge, and they are the faces of scenius.
After a decade working in investment banking and growing a start-up in New York City, Packy McCormick realized he was boring.
The realization hit him in late 2018 while reflecting on the past year and planning the next. He resolved to spend 2019 becoming less boring. Packy started a debate club, traveled more, joined a book club, and began writing a weekly newsletter.
“We work so hard on one particular thing [our jobs],” wrote Packy, “that we fail to develop the skills, passions, and interests that open up the universe of potentially much more interesting things.”
Packy sought to change that, so he spoke with hundreds of people and found some common themes:
Extra curriculars were a favorite part of college, but adult life doesn’t have a good equivalent.
Meeting people is easy. Getting to know them is hard.
Curious people want to make friends and build networks around their curiosities.
A great way to build relationships is through repeated interaction around common goals.
Many people hate the question, “What do you do outside of work?”
After spending most of the year having these conversations and becoming less boring himself, Packy left his job to tackle a new venture: building the Not Boring Club.
Packy describes it as “a roaming social club for people who never stop learning and want to start learning together.”
Five states away and across the Mississippi River, Clayton Dorge was working on a similar challenge. Every year, Clayton and his wife took a weekend retreat to check in with each other and on their goals. He also planned annual trips with friends to do things like mission work or learning to surf. Clayton decided to combine the best of both into a bigger event, and the Good People Summit was born.
In Clayton’s words, “It’s easy to find oneself floating aimlessly down a river of routine. Once in a while, it’s beneficial to rethink where that river is heading. I believe this reflecting time is even more powerful alongside a group of awesome people.”
Clayton handpicked 12 people from different times and places in his life. They were people with whom he had worked, knew from college, high school, and grade school, or met traveling. He was the common thread amongst the group, but most members didn’t know each other.
“The purpose of Good People Summit,” said Clayton, “was to create time. Most of the participants came with a very clear project…things they had talked about or held on the back burner for months or years. If it’s not their full time or dedicated role, it’s difficult to find time to work on passion projects. So with this event we created a time and space to explore these ideas.”
Clayton planned the weekend to be a perfect environment for creation. He booked a beautiful Airbnb in Colorado, hired a professional chef, and organized airport transportation. He also facilitated conversation and creativity without any “weird icebreakers.”
Half a country apart, and unbeknownst to each other, Packy and Clayton sought to create the magic generated by the same idea: scenius.
Scenius is a term coined by Brian Eno and refined by Kevin Kelly more than a decade ago. It’s the idea of communal genius. It’s the idea of combining intellect to exceed the sum of its parts. It’s the idea that most societal progress stemmed from groups.
Scenius is also the topic of Packy’s recent long form essay.
Packy identified eight ingredients that, when combined, have a high chance of producing a scenius. A few of the best are place based ritual, non-zero-sum competition, and network effects of success.
Some of the most famous scenia – Motown, Benjamin Franklin’s Junto, and the Inklings – all had a place-based ritual. They met in the same location, usually at the same time, and at a regular cadence. Having a meeting place – often a bar – provides an informal setting where societal barriers break down and people collaborate regardless of professional or social stature.
Clayton nailed the place-based ritual with his beautiful Colorado Airbnb. Getting 12 creative and ambitious people in the same place for four days allowed collaboration and creativity to flow. One of the attendees used Good People Summit to outline a plan for a book. Then he executed his plan over the subsequent 12 weeks and completed a manuscript which he’s looking to publish.
In addition to place-based ritual, non-zero-sum competition and network effects of success are two elements of scenius that go hand in hand.
“Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown Records, intentionally used competition among his artists to bring out the best in them,” wrote Packy in his essay, Conjuring Scenius. “He [Gordy] held weekly meetings in which the team voted to release certain artists’ songs while holding others’ back until they got it up to their friendly competitor’s level.”
The artists competed against each other to have their songs released, but the success of one artist didn’t mean the failure of the others. It meant more collaboration between peers to produce the best music possible. The friendly competition made the songs better, and each artist benefited when it was his time.
Packy has done a good job of facilitating competition within the Not Boring Club. In addition to a Debate Club, which is directly competitive, he built a blog and newsletter directory for the writers in the group. While it’s not explicitly competitive, I feel a twinge of friendly competition each time I scroll through the authors.
With friendly competition comes the network effects of success. By virtue of being part of a group, any individual’s success elevates the group. As Clayton said in our podcast conversation, “I’m a big fan of the idea that a rising tide raises all ships.”
Here’s how it works in practice. Packy has seen tremendous success growing his newsletter. Since Packy and I are connected through Not Boring, he came on my podcast to discuss his essay and help me write this article. By doing so, he’s using his success to promote my work, which will likely increase my success as well – the beauty of scenius.
At a moment in history when news of death and quarantine weighs our spirits with grief, it’s uplifting to learn about the people working toward progress. It’s uplifting to see people distilling the ingredients of groups who change society and combining them to create their own recipe. It’s uplifting to find two wonderful people working on the same thing – independent of and unbeknownst to one another.
It reassures us that progress is still happening. It will never stop happening. And good people exist everywhere if you take the time to look.
If you enjoyed this article, you’ll love the podcast conversations it’s based on. Check them out here:
