Here we bring up a framework about tools, arising from a decade or so of experimentation. It has three phases: trinity, stack and 'specials'.
We begin by starting well back from tools, with the practice - with the *organising*. The tools have to serve the practice. We can't afford to fetishise the tools. Tools for peer-to-peer collaboration and coproduction
However, we believe that we also must *infrastructure* our practice - make material provision for other times and other locations - to give it legs and to give it scope.
We propose a framework with three phases to it.
Toolstack - Three phases
First of all there's
- the Trinity. The trinity is from Rich Bartlett and Nati Lombardo. Then there's
- the Stack, a term that comes from Guerrilla Translations - the DisCO people (Distributed Cooperative Organisations). See Guerrilla Translations Handbook #5 webpage 
. Here's another source pdf
Basically, the trinity is part of the stack but it has a primary importance, which is why it's got a separate name. There are three elements in the trinity - surprise surprise. There are five in the stack. And then it seems to me necessary also to identify things that I’ve called
- Specials, which are not part of the stack, they're not sufficiently generic.
DisCO puts (some of) the specials into a third category, ‘the deck’. This is where we find we're doing something quite particular, engaged with a particular kind of stuff in the world, and need a particular kind of tool, involving quite particular skills.
> Something not dealt with in a general way, in all collaborations or communities. Means of **concrete engagement and perception**, rather than generic means of coordination.
But there may still be generic approaches to that kind of practical engagement and that kind of tool infrastructure - protocols, generic affordances. So 'specials' are generic classes of tools too.
---
> This original frame of Trinity|Stack|Specials can usefully be evolved, with some elements of the Stack and Specials promoted to an Extended trinity.
> An extended slide deck is here pdf
DOT FROM preview-next-diagram STATIC strict digraph { rankdir=LR node [style=filled fillcolor=lightyellow] "Learning space and toolstack" node [style=filled fillcolor=lightblue] node [style=filled fillcolor=white] "Learning space and toolstack" -> "Tools for peer-to-peer collaboration and coproduction" "Learning space and toolstack" -> "Digital toolstack" "Learning space and toolstack" -> "Infrastructuring aka design" "Tools for peer-to-peer collaboration and coproduction" "Tools for peer-to-peer collaboration and coproduction" -> "Digital toolstack" "Tools for peer-to-peer collaboration and coproduction" -> "Extended trinity" "Digital toolstack" "Digital toolstack" -> "Tools for peer-to-peer collaboration and coproduction" "Digital toolstack" -> "Trinity" "Digital toolstack" -> "Stack" "Digital toolstack" -> "Specials" "Digital toolstack" -> "Extnded trinity" "Infrastructuring aka design" "Infrastructuring aka design" -> "Dance of knowing" "Infrastructuring aka design" -> "Pattern language(ing) as a dance of knowing for the college" "Infrastructuring aka design" -> "Cultural landscape - Infrastructuring" "Infrastructuring aka design" -> "Labour of curating"}