Celebrating the labor that holds up our democracy: the community entrepreneur

The rise of micro-communities as cultural sanctuaries is remarkable. 🪩 As Boiler Room's research reveals, 65% of young people believe true self-expression emerges through authentic community rather than individual performance. This contradicts the prevailing narrative of a narcissistic youth culture obsessed with personal branding. 🏝️ I witnessed... See more

When we shifted the conversation from, “How do you make money?” to “How do you create resources for resilience?” most people seriously engaged with this question. By the end, a lot of our builders would say things like, “I would feel better if I was paid for this work. It would make me feel like I’m valued.” It's not, “If we have resources, our pro... See more

We’ve found in our experiments with Smalltown that high quality participation on small social networks requires significant “social scaffolding.” Much of this scaffolding looks similar to what a local reporter or community organizer does. Connecting with people, asking questions, surfacing issues, building trust, and organizing. You can’t just buil... See more