communities of practice
People are an essential ingredient of social infrastructure.
New_ Public • 🤔 Revisiting Discord, libraries, and Somewhere Good
What counts as social infrastructure? I define it capaciously. Public institutions, such as libraries, schools, playgrounds, parks, athletic fields, and swimming pools, are vital parts of the social infrastructure. So too are sidewalks, courtyards, community gardens, and other green spaces that invite people into the public realm. Community
... See moreEric Klinenberg • Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life
This infrastructure will be more than a set of foundations or a scaffold. It will look, in fact, more like a playground: which exists, not subordinate to or below some other, more important work, but as a structure in its own right, one which supports, co-creates, and constantly re-produces play, creativity, imagination. Not something which can be
... See moreOlivia Oldham • Imagination Infrastructure — What Do We Mean?
And if communities are spaces for belonging, cohorts are spaces for becoming.
Brian Dell • LF11 - Cohort Futures
If we want a better democracy, we need the same for community entrepreneurs. For too long now, these people have done this work without being paid, recognized, or even acknowledged. On Facebook, they are called group admins; on Reddit, they are moderators. But they aren’t just admins or moderators. They are leaders. They are entrepreneurs - forging
... See moreNew_ Public • Celebrating the labor that holds up our democracy: the community entrepreneur
Building these types of environments isn’t easy. Unlike an app, your members can’t be programmed to consistently deliver valuable experiences for one another. That’s why it’s critical to thoughtfully design your community’s social architecture to maximize the value that gets exchanged between members.
Nick deWilde • The Social Architecture of Impactful Communities
the best ways to imagine may be the ones that position this work as a collaboration—done with people rather than to or for them—giving people and communities the freedom to learn by doing and to adapt the general into the particular.
Geoff Mulgan • Another World Is Possible: How to Reignite Social and Political Imagination
How do fragments of affinity and interest become "socially scalable"?
Richard Kim • From Nothing to Something with R.N.G.
Relational infrastructure is only really seen when you know what you're looking for - much like the web of mycelium connecting trees in our forests that make the flow of communication, resources, and mutual intermingling possible, and enable life to thrive.