• Dee Hock travels to the Sante Fe Institute to explore advances in complexity theory and make first speech on "chaords". Meets Joel Getzendanner, vice president of the Joyce Foundation.

• Hock articulates four conditions that would need to be met to avoid massive institutional failure.

• Hock meets with Joyce Foundation board, staff and grantees. Agrees to accept a one-year grant to explore whether any of the four conditions might be possible to achieve.
  
• Nonprofit formed under the name Alliance for Community Liberty.
  
• Hock begins work with the Appleseed Foundation and an informal group of state directors from the agricultural extension service, each considering the formation of a chaordic organization.

• Hock concludes that the four objectives are achievable if a concerted effort is made, and dedicates the rest of his life to pursuing them.
  
  
• A group of fisherman and environmentalists consider the possibility of using chaordic principles to revitalize the fisheries in the Gulf of Maine, and begin an effort to form the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance (NAMA).

• Peter Senge and the Society for Organizational Learning asks Hock to help them reconceive their governance structure along chaordic lines.

• Nonprofit renamed to The Chaordic Alliance. Offices are opened in Half Moon Bay, CA, donated by Odwalla Corporation.
  
• The Appleseed Foundation completes the redesign of its governance.

• The Chaordic Alliance begins work with the Integrated Food and Farming Systems, a project of the Kellogg Foundation, to create new organization to link ecological, economic and community concerns through the food production system, now known as Community Alliances of Interdependent AgriCulture (CAIA).
  
• Discussions begin with United Religions Initiative on the creation of a chaordic organization to end religious violence.
  
• The Society for Organizational Learning competes its design process, and begins accepting members.

• Intensive work continues with NAMA, CAIA and URI.
  
• A series of conversations within the health care field leads to discussions with the Veterans Administration and an expanding group of health care providers to explore the creation of a chaordic organization for the evolution of health care. In 1999, this effort names itself the Vvaleo initiative, and continues explorations.

• The Chaordic Alliance (TCA) establishes a satellite office in Olympia, WA.
  
• NAMA approaches completion on constitution and receives application from first community alliance member. CAIA approaches completion on constitution.
  
• Exploratory conversations begin to reconceive the National Spatial Data Infrastructure as a chaordic organization.
  
• Tom Hurley joins TCA as its first managing director.
  

• Work begins with renewal initiative of La Leche League. Chaordic workshops held worldwide. The Chaordic Alliance palns its own transformation into a self-organizing global network.
  

• Chaordic Commons founded; more than 350 people worldwide join as Owning Members.
  

• First Annual Gathering held in Virginia.

• Council of Trustees elected to develop a framework for growth of Chaordic Commons, stratagize and prioritize, develop a global communications platform, and create tools and resources for members.

• Chaordic Commons supports creation of the Augmented Social Network report, a comprehensive analysis of online community and the possibilities for future growth of trust in cyberspace.
  

• Second Annual Gathering held in California, "Making a Living by Making a Difference".
  
• Launches www.chaordicinitiatives.org to promote connection and collaboration.
  

• Owning Members Conversations Campaign launched with theme "Self Organizing Our Future" utilizing the 'gift economy'.

Four Conditions for Catalyzing Institutional Change

Creation of a dozen or more examples of new, successful chaordic organizations. Ideally, these organizations will span such diverse areas as education, government, social services, commerce, and the environment, to demonstrate that chaordic concepts have universal applicability. Develop methods and resources to help both existing and new institutions through the process of reconceiving themselves.

Creation of a global institution, itself a successful example of chaordic organization, for the sole purpose of developing, disseminating, and implementing chaordic concepts of organization, linking individuals, institutions, and groups of all kinds committed to institutional and societal reconstruction in a vast web of shared learning. It must enable people to pursue new organizational concepts in unique ways, on any scale, at anytime, for their own reasons.