Survey Insights
As of February 2024, more than 460 people responded to the survey about the interstitium.
Here’s a glimpse at what we’re learning:
By the numbers
97% of respondents identify as an “interstitionary” kind of person.
Most would like to have these skills recognized and valued by their workplace
96% of respondents said they’d do their interstitionary work to connect people and ideas regardless of whether or not they got paid to do it. That is, this disposition is inherent.
The thing is, less than a third of respondents get paid to do this kind of work in a sustainable way.
Major Takeaways
The need to feel seen and understood. My goal in attempting to articulate the interstitium as a metaphor for society was to see if others felt like I did - stuck in between paradigms that don’t make sense and yearning to find others who transgress and transcend. Many of your responses brought me to tears. Here are but a few quotes:
“I could feel this article in my body.”
“It felt like being seen for the first time in a long time.”
“This feels like a jump in consciousness.”
“I told my mom about the Orion article. She wanted to read it because...I guess I was visibly excited? Half-way through, my Mom looked over at me, and with tears in her eyes said, “I think I understand you better now.” She was so grateful to get it, to understand. I was shocked. I got that it helped me understand me, I could see myself in the article because I know what I do, even if I feel I’ve never adequately explained it to anyone, or at least not in as compelling a way as the article did. The fact that my 95 year old mother could “see” me too, and understand me better, that was a surprise. That felt like magic sauce. Like a link to the article is a magic talisman that uncloaks my invisibility.
People are operating as interstitionaries in a variety and through a variety of lenses.
Some act as interstitionaries within the companies they work for, some do so between sectors or disciplines
Some understand it through the social sector point of view, others through a business point of view
Some are creating interstitionary businesses - like intermediary organizations to bridge, build capacity and upskill
One respondent even shared a theory of 3 types of interstitionaries!
People Collectors. The people who can connect you with everyone from their friend who works in the White House to the best hairstylist in Astoria. They seem to know everyone or be one degree of separation.
Idea Makers. The systems thinkers who see the empty space between systems and concepts. They are the river-jumpers who make new connections and ideas by jumping from one river of thinking to another, harnessing creativity and new perspectives. They are serial entrepreneurs, catalysts, and field builders.
Super Connectors. These are the boundary spanners, the ones who can operate at both the system or several systems level, and at the ground floor level, across sectors and boundaries, making both the personal and the concept connections that solve problems and achieve goals.
How Might We Make Life Easier for Interstitionary Workers?
Of course there is no silver bullet solution to unleash the magic of those working on all things in between. But here’s a start, outlining major cultural and structural themes for what respondents said is needed.
Cross-Disciplinary Approaches and Flexibility: Shifting how people perceive and approach different fields of knowledge. This includes transdisciplinary approaches and flexible roles, allowing individuals to work on diverse projects and foster collaborations across different fields. The language and perceptions around creative disciplines and their hierarchical status can affect funding opportunities and curatorial biases. This highlights the need for a change in the way such disciplines are viewed, valued and funded.
Emotional and Intellectual Openness: Enabling people to feel safe and empowered to experiment with and embrace different ways of thinking and collaborating.
Recognition and Value: This work needs to be recognized and valued, both in terms of compensation and understanding its importance. This could include formal leadership and cultural training for interstitium work, alongside creating a recognized category or designation for those doing this work.
Visible Impact and Success Stories: Making the impact of the work visible and sharing success stories to expose more people to the results and benefits of this type of work.
Space for Personal and Professional Growth: Creating space to focus on how people want to be and do their work, rather than what and how they are expected to be and do, in their professional roles.
Changing Corporate and Social Norms alongside Jobs and Role Creation: Creating more flexibility within corporate job descriptions and changing societal norms to support unconventional career paths. This can include creating more jobs that focus on connecting different departments, sectors and disciplines, and valuing the “generalist” as much as the “specialist.”
And the blunt instrument of funding undergirds it all. Respondents had a lot of thoughts around the need for stable funding and consistent resources to do the crucial work of relationship building, idea generating and collaboration, as opposed to just focusing on outputs.
Many interstitionaries are currently operating invisibly in our systems and many more have the inclination and desire to actuate their interstitionary styles but face barriers due to time, support, and agency constraints.
Imagine the benefits to business and society, if all the interstitionaries out there were supported to lean into their true potential instead of squeezing it around the edges of traditional structure? Imagine how many problems could be solved if this invisible network were recognized, valued, and supported?
Ideas for achieving this include:
Adding interstitionary budget and salaries: build into job titles and position descriptions across all levels, signaling the value of interstitionary work, and provide comparable salaries and pay structure to that of specialists or traditional leadership positions.
Building Cooperative Infrastructure: For instance, professional development support, childcare, mutual aid, transportation, so that basic needs are taken care of and people can spend more time building and optimizing for community and collaboration.
Payment for Community and Educational Work: Paying people to do community work and for providing business development resources for those carving new, undefined paths.
Grants, Fellowships and Funds for Interstitionaries: This could include funds to spin up projects, initiatives or networks or other ways to free up time for interstitionaries to focus on strengthening networks and distributing value.
Basic Income: Guaranteeing individuals periodic payments to provide stability so they can do activities that society doesn’t remunerate well or at all, allowing them to contribute to society through pursuit of their talents and interests.
What I’m Thinking About Now
For most people, life goes like this: you’re born, you go to school, you acquire skills in some subject or discipline in order to get a job at a company that pays you money to achieve its goals. There’s much that societies who have taken this approach have achieved through the companies, sectors, industries and innovations created therein. But of course, there have been trade-offs. Had we organized society in another way, in which people had their basic needs met through other means that didn’t require choosing a specific role, people could evolve and follow the opportunities most aligned with their interests, passions and talents. We don’t know what innovations or possibilities could be unleashed in this world because that experiment hasn’t yet been run at scale.
I’ve been thinking about the characteristics inherent in the ways we’ve organized our lives through work, and been curious about what other opportunities exist. And I can’t resist the power of a chart (like this one).
As Artificial Intelligence stands to completely transform our jobs, economies and lives, perhaps the time for people who who act as interstitionaries is arriving?