renaissance.network ▚ The network around the.salon · By invitation
MMXXVII · Membership by invitation

A community
of thinkers,
doers and
leaders.

renaissance.network is the membership around the.salon: the people who can be invited to a room, the map of rooms and hosts, and the Letter that carries what each room concluded to everyone who was not there.

I · By invitation Request an introduction → Vetted weekly · Fridays II · The Letter Read the public Letters Public edition · 30 days after
3Rooms at launch
12Seats at most
1Voucher, and one host
48Hours to the Letter
N°01 · Who is in the network

A room of eight
investors is
a meeting.

A host composes each circle for heterogeneity of role, and the network is where the roles come from. Membership is in the network, not in a room: a technologist can sit in the Art room. Outside the room the directory shows titles and affiliations. Inside it, first names and nothing else.

The founding role sets

Technology, Art and Society each seat five roles and one practitioner from another domain. The host sets each room's set; the network supplies the people.

Thinkers

  • Researcher
  • Academic
  • Critic
  • Journalist
  • Curator

Doers

  • Founder
  • Operator
  • Artist
  • Entrepreneur
  • Civic organiser

Leaders

  • Investor
  • Regulator
  • Policymaker
  • Institution director
  • Collector
N°02 · What membership gives

The network is
what persists
between evenings.

Members pay nothing.
A seat is earned by invitation and kept by returning.
I · The Letter

Every Letter, within 48 hours.

By email and on your member home, with a spoken reading. What the circle concluded, what moved and the argument that moved it, the crux, dissent by name.

II · The seat

A seat in any room.

Request a seat in a future series, in your domain or outside it. A seat is for a whole series: four evenings, the same circle, the roster unchanged.

III · The directory

The map of rooms and hosts.

Members, hosts, rooms with their days and open seats. Titles and affiliations live here, outside the room, where rank is invisible.

IV · The voucher

A say in who joins.

Vouch for a candidate. One vouching member and one host's acceptance admit them, and vetting is weekly, on Fridays.

No scores.
Standing is being
asked back.

A member's standing accrues from return invitations and from being named in a Letter as the argument that moved someone. Hosts keep private notes. None of it is shown as a number: the salon's own mechanism was reputation by being invited back, and the network keeps it there.

What counts

Being invited back.
Being named in a Letter as the argument that moved someone.
A host's private note.

What is absent

Scores. Leaderboards. Follower counts. Time spent. Audience size.

N°03 · How you get in

The only way in is an invitation
  1. I · A member vouches

    Someone in the network puts their name next to yours.

    Nobody applies cold. If you know no member, request an introduction below and name who could vouch for you.

  2. II · A host accepts

    A host composing a circle takes you for a whole series, or passes.

    The host reads the one position you would defend and looks at what the room is missing. Acceptance is the host's alone.

  3. III · Vetted on Friday

    Requests are vetted weekly. Your seat is for the whole series.

    You are expected at every evening, and the roster does not change between them. Members pay nothing; rooms are paid for by their hosts and patrons.

N°04 · The map of rooms

Three rooms
at launch.

A room never exceeds twelve. A series never runs past five evenings.
Scale comes from the number of rooms and hosts.

Technology

[Tuesdays] 21:00 CET

How technology gets built and governed.

Host J. Romefort Seats [2 of 10] Open

Art

[Wednesdays] 21:00 CET

How art gets made, valued and shown.

Host J. Romefort Seats [0 of 10] Members

Society

[Thursdays] 21:00 CET

How institutions and public life adapt to change.

Host J. Romefort Seats [1 of 10] Limited
III · Host a room Open a room of your own From the network · After three series

Guests of one salon became the hosts of the next.

A member who has sat in three or more series may open a room on their own day, with their own question and their own circle. A host may run several rooms, each on its own day. The patron who pays for a room buys the room and nothing about its content: the question, the circle and the Letter stay the host's.

N°05 · The Letter

What the room concluded, to everyone who was not there.

One Letter per series, edited and signed by the host, 800 to 1,500 words. It reaches every member within 48 hours of the final evening, by email and on the member home, with a spoken reading. Its contents are fixed: the question, the positions at the pre-vote, what moved and the argument that moved it, the crux, the provisional conclusion, dissent by name, and what would change the circle's mind. The public edition follows after 30 days, names removed. The recording stays with the circle.

Read the public Letters →
Specimen · Letter · Technology · S-01 Members' edition · Within 48 h
The question

Should a company under fifty people have a CTO at all?

What moved

Four of ten moved toward no. The argument named most often: the title buys a person, and the person is what the company needed, at a third of the cost of the title.

The crux

Whether the constraint at fifty people is capability or authority.

Dissent

Two held for yes: an investor and the outsider, on the grounds that the board needs one name to call.

What would change the circle’s mind

One case where the absence of the title, rather than the absence of the person, cost a round.

Pre
Post
Against · For Moved 4 of 10
Signed by the host 1,240 words · Spoken reading 9:40

Three tiers · The walls between them are structural, not settings

Anything that crosses a wall outward does so by a host's action

The room

The host · The circle · The Conductor

Live voice, the opening statements, the recording, pre- and post-votes by name. First names only.

The network

Members

The Letter, the map of rooms and hosts with days and open seats, the directory, seat requests, vouching.

The public

Anyone

This site and the public edition of each Letter, 30 days after the series, names removed. No live audience, ever.

The work happens
in the room.
The network
carries it out.

For four centuries a salon's guests read what other rooms concluded, asked for a seat, and vouched for the next guest; and the guests of one salon became the hosts of the next. renaissance.network is that machinery and nothing more: the membership, the map of rooms, the Letter.

Request an introduction →
N°06 · Request an introduction

Name who could vouch for you.

Requests are vetted on Fridays. One member vouches, one host accepts, and the seat is for a whole series. If you know nobody in the network yet, say so: a host may still read the position you would defend.

Nobody yet? Say so.
Vetted Fridays · One voucher · One host's acceptance