Before I dive into Freedom and how it relates to responsibility, I have to confess that George Michel’s Freedom! song runs through my head as I type. In it he sings “you got to give for what you take.” and while much of the song might only poorly relate to what I am about to […]
Summary: We live in a complex emergent world. When you put energy into nurturing a larger space – one beyond your control and possibly even your influence, be wary of assuming causal connections. Look for probabilities and correlations. When looking for metrics: use multiple perspectives to help develop measures that go beyond your assumed (and […]
Helping others to thrive sounds lovely and idealistic, right? Turns out to be hugely practical. If you are developing social software and looking for investors, you can be sure they are going to ask how you are building community. Who has done this well? Those who created a space for others to thrive. I was […]
Thrivability is participating in something great together again. Thrivability asks us – what might we achieve together that is great? What might we do to flourish? It asks us to move beyond the contraction and fear that resides in “sustainability” framing and create something fun, engaging, lively, creative, agile, resilient, enduring, and evolving. We teeter […]
Entry Point 1: Individuals What is the story we tell about people in this Darwinian world where capitalism dominates the ideology? Traditional western economics, dating back to Adam Smith describes humans as rational self-interested creatures. Being kind to others is assumed to be driven by selfish motivations, for example, creating obligations of reciprocity. However, neuroscience […]
The purpose of this series is to frame the shifts culture, business, and the world move through now. We present a story about how we arrived here, what breakthroughs we notice, and how this creates the greater possibility of a thrivable world at this time. We invite your feedback, because, as we will explain later, […]
I am picturing some very driven inspired individuals under a warming light. But we know it takes a lot more than that. Co-creating the world we want and doing so in new ways takes a network of people and some great mentorship, resource sharing, and support. This weekend we will be incubating some social innovation […]
Today I dropped a whole series of tweets that are part of an understanding I am working on. Each nuggets lives alone, but the whole, I hope, is greater than the parts, and thus I post it in whole here. Hybridity. Transcend and include. Hard to see, wearing attributes of past paradigms when useful, past […]
I am super excited to be organizing the Chicago event of COSI10. We will be gathering on November 6th and 7th to learn, share, and breakthrough together. We welcome social innovators from nonprofits, for profits, and blended hybrid efforts as well as those who champion social innovation. Together, we will discuss the field of social […]
or how Thrivability: A Collabortive Sketch happened. People have asked: How did you get that done? So, I’ll tell you. First and foremost, I lucked out. I worked with amazing, generous, patient, inspired, and brilliant people. 70 of them. I wish I could have included more, and yet, it is too much already. Two of my […]