The Anti-Fragile Playbook (Kent Dahlgren)

An interesting paradox exists whereas those most impoverished tend to be the most generous with their donations of hard capital.

Why is that?

This phenomenon is so persistent, it’s almost as if the “poor” are eager to convert hard capital (cash) into alternative expressions of wealth (soft capital) that are more highly valued within their hyper-local community.

Counter to intuition, when the economy gets worse, those who are typically dismissed as poor become more generous, creating soft capital "pockets" that boast immense potential to effect change.

"Experts" scold us for this behavior, but what if there is a perfectly rational reason for this?

What if "the poor" recognize something that the middle class has been taught to ignore?

When hard capital is exchanged into forms of soft capital through acts of service and generosity, it becomes more valuable when times get hard.

Maybe "the poor" know something that we don’t?

And more to the point: are there ways to identify and activate these "pockets" of soft capital to accelerate community redevelopment, leveraging locally-sourced leadership? 

And money doesn't always solve problems; if you've failed to invest in a foundation of soft capital, more money brings more problems, and chaos ensues.

In this episode, Ruth Glendinning and Kent Dahlgren discuss how activation of these pockets of soft capital unlocks your potential to generate hard capital as well as creates a foundation that mitigates risk and chaos as your redevelopment effort grows.

In their most recent episode, Ruth Glendinning and Kent Dahlgren sprang into action, announcing the launch of an Anti-Fragile pilot community close to home, and in their own neighborhood.

In that discussion, Ruth and Kent introduced the Community Activation and Launch Methodology (C.A.L.M.)'s first step ("outrage"), and how an investment in exploring a community's outrage informs the efficacy and staying power of the solutions defined in the C.A.L.M. model's second step ("Vision"), to be discussed in a coming episode.

In this episode, Ruth and Kent discuss a few beneficial examples of why one may seek to explore "a third way" between two opposing extremes, which they generally refer to as "limiting vs activating energies":

• Cult vs culture
• Complications vs complexity
• Costs vs Investments
• Making a living vs making a life
• Failure vs success
• Dystopia/utopia vs protopia
• Transaction vs transformation

An embrace of this "third way" unlocks and reveals significant opportunities and resources for those ordinarily stymied in their efforts to effect positive change.

Ruth and Kent discuss various lenses for how the audience may come to embrace this perspective, including an exploration of South American shamanic tradition and its acknowledgement of what's called the "ayni," which reveals hidden opportunity by holding the center and incorporating the seemingly opposing influences of four extremes.

Upon conclusion of this episode, the listener will come to see the world through a different set of lenses, for opportunity and wealth is abundantly available.

A basket cannot be woven but from the bottom-up. So it is with our communities, rooted inside the home, for if we lose the home, we lose the community.

Thus begins a discussion opening with a reference to 'Braiding Sweetgrass' by Robin Wall Kimmerer, and seamlessly merges with guidance on how to define and maintain a management-friendly report card that quantifies progress, through the following three lenses:

• Economic justice (create opportunities for every person to have a dignified, productive and creative life that extends beyond simple economics)
• Social justice (the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society)
• Restorative justice (a system of criminal justice that focuses on the rehabilitation of offenders through reconciliation with victims and their community)

Imagine that as an activist you are called upon to define a "neighborhood revival plan," and are expected to provide quantitative reporting regarding current state, projected priorities, and project status to an executive-level governing body.

In our model for anti-fragility, the neighborhoods of a city or town would be split into discrete communities numbering no more than 1,000-1,200 citizens, inclusive to those who are houseless. Over the course of 12 months, they progress through three phases:

• Buy local first
• Stimulate local producers
• Source inventory from within the community

Leveraging best practices from private industry, inclusive to the manufacturing and security industries, Ruth Glendinning and Kent Dahlgren introduce the use of a maturity model for triaging a community's evolving state, through the lens of aspired anti-fragility, and describe how the maturity model could serve as a lens for connecting high-level to "in the streets" project management reporting.

A maturity model is a tool that aids in the assessment of a community’s current state of effectiveness and the determination of which capabilities they need to improve, and in their design, this three-lens maturity model helps community activists rapidly evaluate, report upon, and prioritize services.

Visual aid: this illustration is referenced during this podcast episode.

With a respectful tip of the hat in honor of activist Zilphia Horton, the title of this episode speaks to how one might harness an ember's kinetic potential, use its heat to rekindle the hearth, and its light to serve as a beacon, so others might find a way home, within a spirit of forgiveness and redemption.

While the original hymn proclaimed "this little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine!," within this anti-fragile model, the "me" is transformed into "we."

Ruth and Kent are creating an Anti-Fragile Playbook; a step-by-step guide for those seeking to deliver a self-funded economic revival that addresses the root causes of generational poverty and trauma.

An anti-fragile system benefits from hardship and stress, which means the model improves even as things become worse, and in this podcast series it's been discussed how a step-by-step plan has been defined (following the Community Activation and Launch Methodology as a baseline framework) for igniting a rooted community activation that thrives in the context of difficulty.

Examples include:

- intentionally source and activate existing local leadership (rather than rely upon "experts" from outside the community)

- educate community members as "kitchen table capitalists" or "household entrepreneurs," optimizing productive capacity to tapping into existing fonts of great creative potential

- identify and activate soft capitals like time, attention, relationship, trust and wisdom for stronger communities - the foundation of any thriving gift economy)

- promote a philosophy of inclusivity for all, such as the economically disadvantaged, explicitly the houseless, single parents and the racially diverse, through a philosophy of otherhood to brotherhood

- promoting locally-sourced food and nutritional educational opportunities for expanding health as wealth

Because the authors of the AntiFragile Playbook are using themselves as test subjects, (igniting and launching a pilot community), the Anti-Fragile Playbook is continuing its continued evolution and improvement, and consistent with the Anti-Fragile Playbook: one activist became two, and soon afterwards were joined by a third to create a sustained grass-roots advocacy.

As the three (Ruth, Trudy, and Kent) continued to synthesize the model, they found that they've irresistibly attracted two additional persons (as well as a growing number of client communities), and so the "administrative committee" now numbers five, all serving as peers.

In this discussion, Ruth Glendinning and Kent Dahlgren share their direct experience with this "point of inflection" (from three to five), referencing various pertinent examples from adjacent domains, such as activism, parenting, management, and mentorship.

Ruth and Kent discuss how to curate an authentic sense of ownership, shared attribution, and stewardship, through a nuanced and subtle application of wisdom, and provide examples of why Ruth, Trudy, and Kent invest so deeply in broadening and deepening an investment among those typically described as the elderly: the value of wisdom capital is transcendent to that of ordinary money.

In this episode, Ruth Glendinning and Kent Dahlgren report upon progress within three representative 214 Alpha communities, including activities within the Anti-Fragile "living laboratory," calibrated to a local watershed, in Austin, Texas.

Ruth and Kent discuss outreach at a farmers market (validating solution statements defined by community activists to address root conditions of outrage), as well as the first meaty governance discussions within a recent in-person community meeting.

From Alchemy to Xerosere: Ruth and Kent additionally discuss the transformational nature of community activation at the local level, inviting people to embrace a spirit of hope to displace a sense of outrage and despair, by embracing wealth that's right beneath our noses.

The Anti-Fragile Neighborhood Wealth Production model is designed to bring forward the hidden wealth of neighborhoods, creating an accessible, inclusive story of the future for all, no exceptions.

What’s in the package?

• An easy-to-follow playbook for replicating our model
• The software necessary to replicate a financially self-supporting neighborhood (an app)
• A franchise for expanding other communities’ self-sufficiency

The Anti-Fragile Playbook is an easy to follow guide for self-governance, and features a neighborhood franchise, where the neighborhood goes into business with itself to create a citizens assembly that’s entirely self-supporting and regenerative. 

And in this Podcast, you'll hear how the insights gained by Kent while sleeping in his truck and walking the homeless camps deeply informed the design of the self-sustaining microeconomy and self-governance framework which serves as the foundation of the Anti-Fragile Playbook.

Within days of being homeless, it didn't take long for Kent to connect with fellow vets on the streets, and it was through using the services at Right 2 Dream Too, Kent was able to watch the functions of a self-governing community, managed by the homeless, many of whom are veterans.

Some of these veterans shared well-informed ideas for how the community could come to manage their own affairs, on their terms, and in so doing move away from being treated as dependents, few of whom expect a hand-out. Thus: financial self-sufficiency is a baseline goal for a community seeking to reclaim its dignity.

Months later Kent was hired as CTO for Bitnation, which aspired to create a decentralized self-governance solution for stateless people and refugees. For context: in 2017 Bitnation was awarded recognition by UNESCO for their services to Syrian refugees.

Self-governance makes sense when you've been ejected by your own country, when you're on the edge of a war zone, or your community has experienced a natural disaster, and these fringe expressions of self-governance are "brought back down to earth" when viewed through the lens of a veteran forced to live on the streets; survival is an essential challenge, and "governance" isn't a theoretical or escapist exercise.

It's through all of these experiences that Kent settled upon his vision with 214 Alpha, providing human-based and technology services to help people self-govern, and in so doing: reclaim their dignity, on their terms, with a particular emphasis upon the most vulnerable among us.

It was from fellow veterans living in the streets Kent was reminded of the rich gift economy, where the selfless gift of generosity often makes the difference between life and death.

It's from these experiences that we have the highest confidence that we are all going to be ok, just as soon as we get over our sense of decadent entitlement and assumption that we can afford to continue throwing people away, and rediscover the wealth with surrounds us, beginning with the person asking for a dollar at an intersection.

As Kent says: "three years ago, that person was me, thank God."

Paraphrasing Ruth: "in our pursuit of wisdom we transform from otherhood to brotherhood, because we are each other's keeper."

In this podcast, Ruth Glendinning and Kent Dahlgren discuss not only how they learned how to recognize opportunity where others see chaos, but how (and why) they invest in leaving a legacy of opportunity which might encourage others to do so as well.

There's plenty of reason to feel an authentic sense of optimism. 

Podcast began at 10:10, and ended at precisely 11:11.

There’s plenty of reasons to be upset, but remaining in a state of outrage isn’t going to change a thing, and while it's important to eventually move out of outrage towards a solution, don't forget your roots! 

Because remember: the deeper you root, the higher you rise!

Ruth Glendinning, Kent Dahlgren, and Trudy Martinez are creating an Anti-Fragile Wealth Production pilot within their own neighborhood, and this week expanded their small circle to a fourth: a receptive neighbor. 

As discussed in this episode; the results were impressive, electrifying, and infectious, laying the foundation towards the second step of the Community Activation and Launch Methodology (C.A.L.M.): Vision.

As you move out of planning and begin to socialize your vision with others, it's important to use your outrage to light the way to root the solution in why your vision is important, which unlocks the "keystone capitals" of:

• Attention capital 
• Relationship capital
• Time capital
• Trust capital
• Wisdom capital

These five keystone capitals were discussed in a prior podcast episode, and unlocking these forms of soft capital will bring forward unexpected complexity that enriches your investment in neighborhood economics.

What are "keystone capitals?" 

Well, think about keystone species within an ecosystem: "a species on which other species in an ecosystem largely depend, such that if it were removed the ecosystem would change drastically." 

For example, squirrels spend the entire summer and fall burying nuts and seeds in preparation for the winter months, but they don't actually keep track or remember precisely where they've buried the food; their survival strategy is contingent upon how much food is buried.

There are obviously a broad variety of inadvertent beneficiaries: the squirrels not only feed a large number of other species, they also plant seeds necessary to ensure new tree growth, as alluded to in a recent article by Ruth.

So too it is within our communities, our neighborhoods, and our own households.

In this episode, Ruth Glendinning and Kent Dahlgren delve into the important differences between productivity and productive capacity. 

These terms are often used interchangeably, but are actually quite different when used in the context of sustainable, inclusive local economy that may evolve to become one that's truly anti-fragile.

What is the value of work? Or time? 

Productivity is generally mapped using transactional measures, as in how valuable are your actions to the desired outcome of the person paying you. 

On the other hand, Productive Capacity refers to other gifts or talents that you have that are less easily measured, and often hidden until the right conditions are created and bring them forward.

Ultimately, we’re all much more complex & interesting than we’ve been entrained to believe.  To create truly anti-fragile communities, need places in which we can all bring our whole selves to bear when we seek to bring forward new stories of the world we want to live in.

The bottom line is that there’s more to everybody than the current system allows, one that's often built upon the extractive, destructive quality of predatory capitalism and its counterpart: corporatism.

We are trained and conditioned to believe we are a cost, and not worth very much, as alluded to in one of our prior podcast episodes: "Weaponizing Language."

The Anti-Fragile Wealth Production model is designed to emerge those gifts and allow a richly diversified collaboration that inspires the sustained functioning of a community that delivers improved health, wealth, prosperity, and safety.

An embrace of anti-fragile best practices aspires to unlock the potential for rooting and growing strong neighborhoods in which integrated economic and community development is practiced as organized collaborative action to:

• coordinate the local capacities for learning & earning, activating the potential of technology, arts, crafts, food production and funding assets
• with the mission of triggering a continual stream of commercially viable innovative products and integrated systems
  

With the advent of ‘work anywhere’ technology, there is a growing opportunity for deeply rooted urban populations to activate the invisible capitals of trust, relationship, community, history and commitment to a shared future, leading to a higher quality of life and better opportunity to develop community-rooted value-based business.

In this podcast, Ruth and Kent jump immediately into action, and this episode discusses the role of "outrage" in defining a capitating and effective "vision."

The episode concludes with a splash: an example of how the Texas Cottage Food Law helps home-based entrepreneurs generate up to $60,000/year in a food-related business, without the necessity to secure permits or food inspections.

The 11 podcasts to date have introduced language essential to unlocking the Anti-Fragile Playbook's fullest potential, and Ruth and Kent have shared their respective applicable experiences. They've interviewed Tanya Golden - a saffron farmer and "accidental advocate" - and novel funding options have been discussed, with Chris Cain, of Alternatives Federal Credit Union.

Now it's time for execution.

Working with Trudy Martinez (of 214 Alpha), Ruth Glendinning and Kent Dahlgren begin their own pilot community - an Anti-Fragile living laboratory - right in their neighborhood.

The Anti-Fragile Playbook will be a printed, step-by-step guide that walks an advocate from outrage to stewardship, through service that's community-oriented, and at its heart is the Community Activation and Launch Methodology (C.A.L.M.) process.

The C.A.L.M. process activates local leadership and bootstraps adoption of the Anti-Fragile Wealth Production Ecosystem including the 214 Alpha Community Activation mobile app, and distills decades of best practices in grassroots community activation into seven phases, beginning with "outrage" - the topic discussed during this episode.

One may have a vision (C.A.L.M. phase two), but unless the vision is solidly rooted in expressions of outrage that people feel on a personal level, at best may be difficult to sustain people's attention, and (at worst) will fail to short-circuit the multi-generational cycles of trauma and poverty.

Regarding "vision," here's a preview of what's right around the corner:

At the conclusion of the six-month project milestone, 1,000 people could be active within the community activation app’s marketplace with, maybe, 100 of whom are sellers, 900 are buyers.

The 100 sellers average 20 sales (transactions) per month, at $20 per sale.

They may be selling crafts, small food items, or simple services in a home-based entrepreneurial effort that’s operating below the threshold of a formally-structured business.

In this hypothetical example, and at this volume, each seller generates almost $400 additional gross household revenue per month.

In this projection, total marketplace revenues from sales in the community activation app would amount to $40,000/month, enriching the community of aspiring entrepreneurs.

And, at 5% per transaction, $2,000/month of transaction fee based revenue is automatically deposited to the community account, which goes towards self-funding the effort.

Much of what Ruth Glendinning and Kent Dahlgren aspire to deliver with the Anti-Fragile Wealth Production Engine is focused upon keeping people and families rooted within their communities, centered in their homes.

"From placeholder to place-makers," as they like to say.

Sooner or later, the question emerges: "how can we get more money?"

In the Podcast "How can we gain access to the money we need," Ruth and Kent provided a preview to the topic in an interview with Chris Cain, of Alternatives Federal Credit Union where they discussed various innovative funding models, including "character-based lending."

This podcast episode goes deeper, exploring alternative and complementary currencies as a foundation to a topic that will be discussed in much greater detail as Ruth and Kent evolve their own neighborhood pilot.

Is this about crypto (short for crypto-currencies, such as Bitcoin)? No, although the topic of "alternative currencies" is briefly discussed.

What's more appealing from the perspective of "placeholders to place-makers" are complementary currencies, such as the farinet - a complementary currency used in the Swiss city of Sion, valued at the same rate of the Swiss franc, and the Detroit Community Scrip, created in 2009 to help restore local financial confidence following decades of economic decline. 

Ruth Glendinning and Kent Dahlgren have defined a novel, anti-fragile solution for community impact organizations (such as non-profits, churches, mutual aid organizations) to secure a lucrative stream of recurring revenue that deepens and roots these institutions within community.

Community impact organizations deliver a "buy and produce local" marketplace that enables "household entrepreneurs" to launch a home-based microbusiness as easily as creating a listing, and enables "kitchen table capitalists" to utilize the services of a self-funded "community impact co-op" that helps their endeavors launch, sustain, and thrive.

More to the point: the emphasis upon "anti-fragility" means the community's solution thrives in the context of increased stress.

How?

In this podcast episode, Ruth and Kent discuss how they've quantified the following attributes of community anti-fragility within their own community pilot, as well as how these same attributes are being embraced within other communities:

• The solution sources and activates existing local leadership
• It educates community members as kitchen table capitalists or household entrepreneurs, optimizing household productive capacity
• It identifies and activates forms of soft capital such as: (investing) time, (paying) attention, (building) relationships, (earning) trust and (tapping into) wisdom for stronger and more rooted communities
• The solution explicitly declares an inclusivity for all, such as the economically disadvantaged, the houseless, single parents and the racially diverse, through a philosophy of otherhood to brotherhood
• And the anti-fragile methodology promotes locally-sourced food and nutritional educational opportunities for expanding health as wealth

In one noteworthy example, Kent and Ruth discuss Cloud Room Botanicals, which serves as an excellent example of creative, household-based entrepreneurship.

Finally, they discuss the Community Activation and Launch Methodology, which steps local activists from outrage to stewardship, through action.

In our latest Podcast – “Just Say Cheese" - Ruth Glendinning and Kent Dahlgren have a special guest: Sandy Burky of Helvetia West Virginia. 

This small community is located in the verdant mountains of West Virginia, where it was established by Sandy’s ancestors in 1869. In the midst of the huge extractive coal and timber industries, Helvetia has kept its cultural identity alive through the Helvetia Thriving organization and Mountain Roots Markets, developed to provide local markets offering local produce, foods, arts, and crafts.

Sandy’s mission is to re-establish Helvetia as the home for Helvetia cheese for present and future generations. The know-how and local original recipes are still available. The existing, emerging and returning generations want to locate in Helvetia, but need an economic pathway as to how to make that happen. There is already a consumer market desiring local Helvetia cheese and distribution channels ready to receive. This is where 214 Alpha and Future Story Lab enter the picture as we work with Sandy to put a new container around the expansive potential that’s been activated by Sandy and her neighbors.

In our last podcast we discussed 5 keystone capitals: 

• Attention
• Relationships
• Time
• Trust
• Wisdom

All of these are in play in the Helvetia story and in this conversation among friends. Ruth has been developing the story supporting Sandy's vision since 2018, and we love that the 'E-Cow-Nomy' is emerging. For us this is a great way to demonstrate S.L.O.W. Tech, in which technology is used to activate & amplify the human scale story. In this case, 214 Alpha is the tech and will be used to create a local marketplace bringing forward both monetary & non-monetary capital to root & grow the Helvetia community, improving fiscal & physical health. It's what we call the Anti-Fragile Wealth Production model & Helvetia will be a prominent example in the Anti-Fragile Playbook we're developing.

This podcast discusses how the activists responsible for the Anti-Fragile “living laboratory” (the Austin-based “Tannehill Marketville Collective”) were able to make significant progress through the holidays of Thanksgiving, Christmas/Chanukah, and New Years, and without funding, through the daily stresses of financial challenges, COVID illness, and attrition from within the team.

It’s now mid-February, and the small, unfunded activist committee responsible for delivering the Anti-Fragile “living laboratory” is on the cusp of announcing their vision and plan to the community (a formal “launch”), and through the holidays was able to define and deliver upon a professional and capable “go to market plan.”

In this podcast episode, Ruth Glendinning and Kent Dahlgren discuss attributes of what Kent once called the “hive mind operating system” for activating a sustained collective effort, and with creative continuity, through periods of hardship and attrition, and without formal modes of compensation.

The “hive mind operating system” (later known as “org,” for “organizational competency” as it was tuned through on-the-streets activism, and now known as the 214 Community Activation and Launch Methodology, or C.A.L.M.) is a step-by-step program for guiding activists from a state of outrage to sustained stewardship, through action.

It’s at this precise intersection that Ruth and Kent have merged their respective visions for, as Ruth calls it: “transacting transformation,” or as Kent elaborates (borrowing from the domain of interaction / user experience design): constructing a series of transactions / interactions to bring about transformational change, relying entirely upon soft capital (gift economy) for compensation.

The following tactile deliverables were creatively defined and delivered by a small, unfunded group of committed volunteers. Through the holidays, through COVID, and through inevitable attrition:

(Visual identity / Branding)

• A newly-created logo, icon, and style guide, ensuring consistent and professional brand presentation across all materials and online platforms.

(Audience)

• Defined audience engagement categories of “sellers” and “members,” which mixes the benefits for "buyers" and "community"
• Defined “what’s in it for me?” options for "members"

(Materials)

• Draft informational email
• Informational video
• Definition for "engagement packages" (defined as Seed, Root, Grow, Sustain, and Flourish
• Logos for “Seed, Root, Grow, Sustain, and Flourish” are done and added to materials
• Brief presentation for those who want more info (vision and step-by-step plan)
• New handout flier design: messaging and logos

(Operations)

• Corporate / Co-op structure
• Governance and operational decisions regarding financials

About a decade ago "attorney, alchemist, and activist" M. Renée Orth was seized with the conviction of rightness as she received a vision: how to optimize capitalism such that it can be leveraged as a tool (rather than a weapon) to transform the present exploitive and extractive system to one rooted in the sacredness of life.

With substantially applicable legal experience under her belt, Renée first set out to deliver her vision by authoring a book - Conspiracy of Dreamers: Capitalism at the Service of Humanity. Kent will tell you it's a worthy investment and an engaging read.

In the decade hence, Renée has been busy putting her words into action, which reveals her vision as nearly prescient, considering the current economic and cultural conditions.

Renée has helped launch the Stone Soup Collective, whose mission is to “align the efforts of the Lowcountry to nourish our community through a buy one, give one plant-based soup collective.” Additionally, she is in the midst of launching Chrysalis Forest - an eco-monastery which aspires to "emphasize a gifting economy rather than a transactional, commodified one, contributing our unique gifts to the creation of a more just, sustainable and vital world and supporting others to do the same, and achieving a higher understanding of others through conscious empathy, humanism, and rejection of simplistic attributions."

Clearly, Renée is all about execution in alignment of her vision, and in this episode, Ruth Glendinning and Kent Dahlgren listen as she describes her journey, her values, her inspirations, and her intended path forward.

As shared in prior podcasts; the Anti-Fragile approach begins with a virtual community as a low-cost, light-weight method for establishing a beachhead, and leverages revenues generated as well as community engagement to accelerate the acquisition of any physical amenities that the community may define as necessary to community growth.

And consistent with Anti-Fragile best practices: community engagement itself is accelerated through activation of various forms of soft capital (as briefly illustrated in this short video), inclusive to time, attention, relationship, and trust capitals, which reduces the necessity to secure upfront hard capital to “buy” people’s time and engagement.

The result is a low-cost entry that begins virtually, designed to reach those who are in a state of outrage, so they might transition into lasting stewardship, through step-by-step action.

Kent Dahlgren (of 214 Alpha) created this brief introductory video about Bene Esse to share the story, we also discuss it on the most recent podcast and in this Medium article written by Kent. An added bonus is that both Ruth Glendinning's company (Future Story Lab) and 214 Alpha have developed a 'copy and paste' franchise model that can be customized to the land owner's existing revenue streams, as illustrated in this brief “behind the scenes” video.

Existing landowners stand to gain the following benefits:

• Recurring revenue with minimal liability
• Mobile and portable; a minimal dependency upon fixed infrastructure
• Reduction in costs (such as tax breaks)
• Greater power autonomy and improved soil quality
• Creating a legacy of opportunity for others

In this manner, a small disciplined team of community activists might negotiate with existing landowners to address the root conditions of generational poverty and trauma by delivering upon a mutually-beneficial model designed to both elevate the value of existing land while creating the basis of growing generational wealth, which strengthens our connections to our roots.

Think about a well, used to provide water.

Did you know that the word "well" was once used to quantify the beneficial "halo effect" provided by access to safe drinking water? The size of a community was limited to the number of those the community's well could serve - a great example of a "commons."

Additionally, the well (west Saxon: wielle) is the root of the word "welcome," which sounds very cozy when one thinks about the word printed on a welcome mat, but in fact: water will find its own way, with little regard for levees, dams, rail, freeways, and sometimes homes.

Indeed, recent research has demonstrated that ancient migratory routes mirrored subterranean waterways. As Ruth says: "waterways formed the first paths to market," and so it's not impossible to imagine how an embrace of these ancient waterways might form the basis of introducing a disruptive model for technological innovation.

Let's define this. Disruptive technology is an innovation that significantly alters the way that consumers, industries, or businesses operate. A disruptive technology sweeps away the systems or habits it replaces because it has attributes that are recognizably superior.

In this episode, Ruth Glendinning and Kent Dahlgren discuss the status of two local "living laboratory" pilot communities which have chosen to join forces so they can better focus upon calibrating a local economic footprint to their local watershed.

In this manner, the community can launch a hyper-local marketplace to self-fund social programs, while setting aside resources for improving the ecological quality of the watershed within which they live.

A focus upon watershed transcends freeway and arbitrary neighborhood boundaries, and weaves together people from across the social and economic spectrum.

Also discussed is how this same "network effect" extends beyond Austin: because communities in other geographies (such as in Canada and North Carolina) aren't competitive, there's every reason for them to share innovations with one another, thus delivering upon the philosophy that the "rising tide lifts all boats."

This technology innovation thus introduces a model for what Ruth calls a "peace economy" which may serve to augment and potentially rival the existing war-based economy in a manner which may someday be acknowledged as "disruptive."

In this podcast, Ruth Glendinning shares her experience as founder of Community Renaissance Market: an innovative incubator containing 40+ microbusinesses that met the criteria of sustainable, local, organic work.

Ruth's hard work delivered significant impact and earned some recognition for the value it provided.

• Nationally recognized on ABC World News as an economic solution (Oct 1 2010)
• Picked by Austin Chronicle as "Best Micro Business Incubator" in 2011

Additionally, the City of Austin issued a proclamation, celebrating Ruth's spirit of service to her community by observing "...during the current economic downturn, Community Renaissance Market is on an upswing, revitalizing an old building, creating community and positioning more people for a sustainable financial future."

Project genesis: 

In 2009 a 60,000 square foot Albertson’s grocery store closed in Ruth's south-Austin neighborhood.

Through a series of conversations, Ruth had the unexpected opportunity to test out her ideas about growing community based microbusinesses when she was handed the keys and the freedom to use her imagination.

This was the chance for Ruth to test out her model of cultural strategy which promoted the importance of creating a balance between community, culture and commerce for a sustainable economy.

Community Renaissance Market became the pilot project needed to move from ideation to actualization as it was repurposed into a microbusiness incubator containing 40+ microbusinesses that met the criteria of sustainable, local, organic work.

Community Renaissance Market was ahead of its time and, as such, was not a financial winner in the short term, but the stories begun in an abandoned grocery store have continued to grow, and in the decade since, Ruth's relationships with the community she helped foster have deepened to reflect our shared journey as we contemplate what's next.

Many of the businesses originally incubated at  Community Renaissance Market  are still operating in new locations, lifelong connections between those brave souls who took a chance on themselves and others are flourishing and the seed of an idea has continued to blossom & grow.

Imagine a pop-up market that funds hyper-local self-governance.

Imagine a self-funded, hyper-local, self-governing committee that breaks the cycles of generational trauma.

Anticipating a retreat in formal government that will leave the vulnerable behind, Ruth Glendinning and Kent Dahlgren have partnered to create an Anti-Fragile Playbook that will guide people through the steps necessary to launch and sustain their own renegade “pop-up” market that funds their community’s self-governance.

This self-governance model delivers hyper-local “earn and learn” programs encouraging people to become producers instead of just consumers, with an explicit focus on regenerative best practices.

In so doing, people become place-makers instead of just placeholders, producing their own wealth, on their terms.

At the heart of the whole thing is a model for short-circuiting the cycles of generational trauma, poverty, and abuse, designed by Ruth herself, and explicitly acknowledging the value of soft capital.

In Ruth’s words, this plan helps people “transact transformation.”

This community activation app was designed to address the challenges faced by charities seeking to secure hard capital in pursuit of their visions.

We do so by:

• helping the community generate hard capital themselves through a built-in business model that delivers economic rejuvenation and
  
• quantifying forms of soft capital, such as trust, wisdom, and attention.
  

In this episode:

Ruth Glendinning and Kent Dahlgren elaborate upon certain key topics regarding forms of soft and hard capital, and conclude with a brief overview of the Burnside Skatepark (an illegal skateboard park that's currently celebrating its 30th anniversary), as well as Ruth's experience with Community Renaissance Market, which landed her on ABC Nightly News for incubating several dozen local, organic businesses.

Success is fleeting, and does not exist absent the context of failure. Those who embrace failure as a source of wisdom, from a place of humility and honesty, are more adept at successfully navigating extreme circumstances.

In this episode, CEO Kent Dahlgren shares his experience with a concrete skateboard park, originally built illegally in the heart of Portland, Oregon, but today still operating in a state of semi-autonomous self-governance for 30 years.

The Burnside Skatepark is considered a watershed event in the world of skateboarding, broadly considered the catalyst for birthing what’s been called the “Second Coming of the Skatepark;” the boom of public and private skateboard parks built in the decades after skateboarding's rumored demise, following the failure of for-profit skateboard parks in the 1970's.

Asked what he’d call a book about his experiences with Burnside, Kent says “I’d either call it ‘Five years of failure,’ because we could not have done it if not for the lessons learned in the five years prior to our eventual success,” or “one bag at a time,’ because that’s how you build a 9,000 square foot concrete skatepark: one bag at a time.”

The key to the project’s success was in the intense lobbying and negotiations made with the local business community, neighbor association, local law enforcement, local businesses, parents, parks and recreation, etc.

Construction of the park was not endorsed and was therefore illegal, but by the time the city rallied with resources sufficient to destroy the park, the skaters, including Kent, had constructed an air-tight coalition of public and private entities.

In 1991 resolution 1179 was agreed to deliver a community policing agreement, outlining key players, and roles and responsibilities.

Again: this agreement has ensure the park has remained viable and continued its evolution for 30 years.

Kent has been pursuing these pragmatic solutions since the mid-1980’s, and has learned a great deal about what it takes to succeed in the context of extraordinary challenges.

These same insights have come to inform Kent’s vision about self-governance, agency, and community sovereignty, and it’s from this place of wisdom that we are all pleased by the opportunity to work with Ruth Glendinning of FutureStory Labs on an Anti-Fragile Playbook, which provides a step-by-step guide on how community advocates can deliver an autonomous, self-funded economic revival, on their terms, and in alignment with their values.

Ruth Glendinning, Kent Dahlgren, and Trudy Martinez are bringing forth an Anti-Fragile Playbook; a step-by-step guide for those seeking to deliver a self-funded economic revival that addresses the root causes of generational poverty and trauma, and are concurrently launching a "living laboratory" launched within their own neighborhood.

And this week, a "once a generation snowstorm" demonstrated the merit of the anti-fragile model, accelerating the project dramatically, thanks to an explicit embrace and investment in various forms of soft capital.

Let's elaborate upon this just a little, because it's important.

The Anti-Fragile Wealth Production Model delivers a self-funded economic stimulus, using money that normally remains "under the table," and activating locally-sourced leadership to eventually deliver social services ordinarily expected from centralized governments, inclusive to:

• Childcare (co-op)
• Health care (co-op)
• Basic income (co-op)
• Earn and learn vocational education 
• Assistance launching and sustaining home-based business

But close to the ground, where it's of greatest value and addressing the greatest need, utilizing a model that dramatically offsets operating expenses, using an innovative micro-economy that rewards the community for buying and producing locally.

There's a reason we've chosen to invest in a foundation of anti-fragility, vs mere resiliency: resilient systems maintain current state, but an anti-fragile system is one that profits from external and internal stresses that would bring an insufficiently resilient system to its knees.

It's for this reason Ruth and Kent have invested so deeply in an explicit embrace of various forms of soft capital, which boasts a value transcendent of forms of hard capital (normally known as money).

Therefore, when the system came to a standstill, and a deterioration of top-down services resulted in a humanitarian disaster, the anti-fragile "living laboratory" evolved quickly.

Is this communism?

No, as discussed in a prior podcast, and detailed in an accompanying article.

We all know that technology moves fast, but in this podcast Ruth Glendinning and Kent Dahlgren discuss an unusual example of technological innovation that will help us save ourselves: language.

To begin: think about your first cell phone; try and recall its shape, its size, and its features.

Now, compare it to the one you have today.

There's been dramatic progress in cell phone technology in the past 10-20 years, wouldn't you agree?

10 to 20 years.

Now. Try and imagine this: language (our most advanced technology) has been evolving for 200,000 years, and at a more rapid pace.

Think hard about the words you use to express your needs, wishes, and desires.

Q: are you activating this high technology?

Q: do your words launch your ideas? Or do they keep you locked in a cage?

This is not a theoretical discussion; this podcast is about immediately effecting change.

We assure you: those in power are using this activating language to full effect, and to your detriment. And it's intended for you to remain helpless, awaiting a savior.

Time to level up.

Right now, there are brothers and sisters among us making difficult choices about the relationships they are in, frequently placing them in abusive situations, just so their kids have a place to sleep.

Ruth and Kent speak of "weaponizing" language on purpose, for the proper role of a warrior is to protect and serve, with an explicit emphasis upon the least of our brethren, so to speak.

The Anti-Fragile Playbook is focused upon the necessity to source and activate local leadership, and one of the first things these grassroots leaders need to do is break the chains of their own stifled potential.

In this podcast, Ruth and Kent share several engaging anecdotes, such as an example of how the deft use of language secured the capture and conviction of a hacker for federal industrial espionage, outpacing the potential of so-called high-tech to capture the bad guy. 

This podcast is all about action - how to identify your strength, step into your power, and use it with subtlety, from a place of service, and to great effect.

It's 11:11 local time.

In the lush and fecund Willamette Valley soil, within two greenhouses backing up to an ancient temporal rainforest running for hundreds of miles in all directions, Oregon native Tanya Golden has built and launched her own saffron farm.

Yes. I said saffron; at $5,000 per kg, it's the most expensive spice on earth.

Saffron is a spice derived from the flower of Crocus sativus, commonly known as the "saffron crocus," and its high retail value is maintained on world markets because of labor-intensive harvesting methods, which require some 200,000 saffron stigmas to be hand-picked from 70,000 crocus flowers for each 1 pound (0.45 kg) of saffron product - work traditionally performed by women.

A great example of what Anti-Fragile Playbook co-author Ruth Glendinning refers to as "women's work" - the high-value labor typically devalued, demeaned, and ignored.

While it's believed that saffron originated in Iran, researchers may have been domesticated in or near Greece during the Bronze Age.

Saffron's recorded history is attested in a 7th-century BC Assyrian botanical treatise, and has been traded and used for thousands of years. Its use in food, medicine, and art remain central to Iran's culture; one of the oldest and richest continuous civilizations on earth.

Interesting aside: Tanya boasts deep roots in skateboard culture, and has been featured in books, articles, and videos due to her participation in the Burnside skateboard park; a 30-year experiment in semi-autonomous self-governance, cited by author Keith Hamm as heralding "the second coming of the skatepark," and discussed in prior Anti-Fragile Playbook podcast episodes. 

Several years ago, a fellow skateboarder contacted Tanya if there was anything she might want from Israel. He was in the region building a community skateboard park. High-quality concrete skateboard parks are a high-prestige global export from America's Pacific Northwest, built by craftsmen and women who have cut their teeth for 30 years building and maintaining the Burnside skatepark; a depth of experience and skill found nowhere else on earth.

A natural healer deeply in touch with her own family's indigenous traditions, a girl taught by her grandmothers why it's proper to walk with reverence while barefoot at the feet of 200-foot trees, in open communion with the forest's ageless voices, foraging with reverence for berries and mushrooms, Tanya recognized an opportunity to pursue a vision which had restlessly eaten at her imagination:

How to inspire a community to collaborate on a solution that benefits all, beginning with the women.

As Tanya says with great poignancy: "just how hard to I have to work to have the right to say no?"

Tanya's vision pairs indigenous and vulnerable women with a female mentor to learn valuable skills and crafts, in time graduating to become part of the matronage to extend the benefit to others, thus allowing her to transition her business into a 501(c)(3), using the community activation app by 214 Alpha.

She aspires to sponsor a self-sufficient, self-governing community for indigenous and vulnerable women, inspiring threads of cross-cultural pollination and support.

This podcast challenges you to rethink the co-op. 

It's not just some hippy thing, and within the Anti-Fragile Wealth Production Engine, it's not the same as "the REI Co-op," which is little more than a marketing program which biases rewards to the most loyal customers.

Imagine a neighborhood co-op where benefits might include:

• assistance launching and sustaining a home-based microbusiness that could help generate $400/month in additional revenue
• vocational educational services designed to help these same microbusinesses expand their operations (and revenue)
• access to local and high-trust child care
• access to low-cost and high-quality health care (1/3 the cost of ACA, without the need to disclose pre-existing conditions)
• basic income (for those in need)

Imagine: instead of making a living, you can make a life.

Wait, is this communism?

As discussed in this Podcast, and detailed in this article: no, it is not.

In this episode, Ruth Glendinning and Kent Dahlgren describe how private-sector best practices, existing technology, and currently-available wisdom capital can activate some extremely innovative solutions that will reinvigorate our communities, from the ground-up.

Imagine a pop-up market that funds hyper-local self-governance.

Imagine a self-funded, hyper-local, self-governing committee that breaks the cycles of generational trauma.

Anticipating a retreat in formal government that will leave the vulnerable behind, Ruth Glendinning and Kent Dahlgren have partnered to create an Anti-Fragile Playbook that will guide people through the steps necessary to launch and sustain their own renegade “pop-up” market that funds their community’s self-governance.

This self-governance model delivers hyper-local “earn and learn” programs encouraging people to become producers instead of just consumers, with an explicit focus on regenerative best practices.

In so doing, people become place-makers instead of just placeholders, producing their own wealth, on their terms.

At the heart of the whole thing is a model for short-circuiting the cycles of generational trauma, poverty, and abuse, designed by Ruth herself, and explicitly acknowledging the value of soft capital.

In Ruth’s words, this plan helps people “transact transformation.”

This community activation app was designed to address the challenges faced by charities seeking to secure hard capital in pursuit of their visions.

We do so by:

• helping the community generate hard capital themselves through a built-in business model that delivers economic rejuvenation and
• quantifying forms of soft capital, such as trust, wisdom, and attention.

In this episode, Ruth Glendinning and Kent Dahlgren discuss forms of soft capital that are ordinarily overlooked as a person considers how to step out of the cycle and begin to effect change for the better.

Satisfied that the administrative team for the local "Anti-Fragile living laboratory" was up and running, one of core members did something healthy by saying:

"I need to press pause and take a break."

Again, this is healthy; activists cannot be expected to run non-stop for an extended period, because overwork leads to burnout, and this team member in particular had been running non-stop for years in support of a large network of "buy nothing" communities.

She took the time to document her current status, went above and beyond by sharing key insights, giving the rest of the team more than enough of a hand-off as she took her well-deserved break.

And so in this manner the admin team for the local "Anti-Fragile living laboratory" managed the unexpected (temporary) absence of a key core member, while concurrently processing feedback which flowed real-time from Kent's approximately 50 in-person conversations within the community.

Central to the Anti-Fragile Playbook, the Community Activation and Launch Methodology (or C.A.L.M. model) walks activists from outrage to stewardship through action, and an important part of the Anti-Fragile model is Ruth Glendinning's framework for constantly refreshing the screen, inviting us to ask the following four questions:

• Is it true?
• Has it ever been true?
• Could it be true?
• Should it be true?

It's in this manner the team was able to quickly and nimbly move through the events of the past week, while deepening (and complexifying) its engagement with its community.

Many benefits flow from an investment in a small, but properly-diversified and empowered core team, and one is: execution continuity in the context of growth and periodic attrition (even if temporary).

In summary: the team didn't skip a beat, even while a critical teammate took a well-deserved break.

In this episode, Kent Dahlgren & Ruth Glendinning have a far-ranging conversation about their influences and envisioned potentials for communities, all grounded in gratitude for this year that changed everything for everybody.

As you can see in this recent Fast Company article, the world has finally slowed down enough to catch up with S.L.O.W. Tech™. 

Back in 2010, Ruth watched an interview with the editor of the Austin Business Journal in which he dismissed the value of the CRM concept as ‘low tech’ and, therefore, not important to the future of Austin as it was envisioned by the people with money & power.

At first she was angry, but then inspired to create S.L.O.W. Tech™: Sustainable Local Organic Work + Technology = inclusive sustainable community which is only now becoming clear to folks as the missing piece. 

Ultimately, S.L.O.W. Tech is about using technology to improve the human experience, not distract from it.

As envisioned the purpose of the S.L.O.W. Tech™ model is to add specific technology to no or low tech community-based culturally-rooted human-scale businesses to better equip them for sustainability. In this model, businesses are designed to reflect and meet the local community needs.

This dovetails with the purpose and power of the 214 Alpha platform for community activation which provides the 'how' to the 'why' of creating an accessible, inclusive economic opportunity for all, no exceptions.

Ruth's new venture, Future Story Lab, was formed for the purpose to identify & emerge sense making tools around the evolving future. Combined with the power of Kent's 214 Alpha platform for community activation, we are providing the 'how' to the 'why' of creating an accessible, inclusive economic opportunity for all, no exceptions. It is this power combo that is evolving the Anti-Fragile Playbook, a roadmap to guide the journey to what's next.

In our fourth Podcast - "It Takes Money to Make Money  -  the Soft Capital Edition" - Ruth and Kent discussed how one can accelerate the acquisition of hard capital by recognizing and activating forms of soft capital that are ordinarily overlooked.

Wisdom, attention, trust, values, and character - these and more serve as examples of soft capital that are absolutely necessary for a grassroots effort to succeed.

In this interview with Chris Cain, of Alternatives Federal Credit Union in Ithaca, New York, we discuss various innovative programs for community activists seeking hard capital for their neighborhood or community, as well as explore the subtle nuances which exist between hard and soft capital.

Lending institutions don't always have a good name, but it's refreshing to hear of programs such as "character based lending" offered by Alternatives Federal Credit Union.

The abundance necessary to rejuvenate our communities already exists in ample quantity, hidden in plain sight and unrecognized, and not all of it hard capital.

To make this work, we’ll need both sides of the coin, including hard and soft capital.

There's every reason to feel optimistic about our shared future. 

The reason for creating this very podcast is to discuss the creation of a playbook that would help people apply Anti-Fragile principles to community design, so they might realize benefits in a manner inversely proportional to declining conditions.

The worse things become, the more an Anti-Fragile solution realizes benefit.

The book is centered around the creation and launch of a living laboratory in the same community where Ruth Glendinning and Kent Dahlgren reside, and that community is calibrated to the local watershed, which is named Tannehill.

The team has used the Community Activation and Launch Methodology on themselves, and the team have navigated the first six steps, which has brought them to "launch."

And so as the Tannehill living laboratory begins socializing its vision and its plan, as well as enlisting participants, the Anti-Fragile team has been able to pivot to discussing how anti-fragile principles might be of benefit to related domains.

In this podcast Ruth and Kent discuss a product Ruth designed called S.P.R.O.U.T., as well as a application of the S.P.R.O.U.T. product called "Bene Esse," which is Latin for "well being."

The S.P.R.O.U.T. Anti-Fragile plan for real estate ownership aspires to deliver benefit to the property owner, relative to declining economic and ecological conditions, consistent with the principles of Anti-Fragility.

Sound product design follows this same framework:

• Who is the target?
• Why does this matter to them?
• What is the solution?
• How does it work?
  

In this podcast Ruth and Kent discuss "who" might be interested in this plan (property owners and public policymakers), and "why" it matters to them.

They introduced a few key performance indicators (KPIs) which would help quantify and qualify their progress, as well as "what" elements are critical to the plan, and they follow up with a couple of high-level examples of "how" the plan works, which will be elaborated upon further in a future episode.

It's the funniest thing: each time Ruth, Trudy, and Kent experience hardship, the Anti-Fragile Playbook project plan advances beyond that which should otherwise make sense.

This same thing happened during the snowstorm of 2/14, where the project accelerated seemingly in response to historic power outages and hardship.

As you may recall, an anti-fragile system is one that thrives in the context of stress and hardship, and once again this serves as an example of what happens when one explicitly invests in forms of soft capital to make a project truly anti-fragile, eg: able to thrive in the context of stress and difficulty.

This week the team launched not one, but two pilot communities in Austin, released a highly-refined brochure, and realized the software can run on desktops and laptops.

Additionally, the team of three grew now to seven core members, all while Ruth, Trudy, and Kent navigated significant hardship.

Topics discussed include project updates, as well as how an investment in "faith" really fuels a project's success.

Separate aside: this podcast episode length: 1:11:11.

Money isn't always the answer - at least not as it's normally recognized (hard capital).

However, full-spectrum capital plays a central role in the Anti-Fragile Wealth Production Engine, which acknowledges and quantifies other forms of capital necessary for community revival.

The discussion opens with a story about how Ed Daniel's investment in attention capital helped a locally-focused advocacy effort rapidly blossom.

Eddie Daniels, a bus operator for a West Virginia school district, proposed the county implement a “Farm to School” program that help to ensure no children go hungry. says Ed:

“As I drive the school bus, one of the things I’m seeing at the stops is grandparents,” Daniels said. “They are on a fixed income and may not have the money to feed these kids, so I am trying to implement a program with the Food and Farm Coalition called ‘Farm to School.’ We are going to invite farmers in the area, and the (agriculture) programs in the schools, to grow some food for your students here in Randolph County.”

In this example and others, Ruth Glendinning and Kent Dahlgren discuss how an investment of attention capital inspires the creation of relationships which magnifies the value of the time invested, building trust, and unlocking normally-overlooked pockets of wisdom, which flowers as a benefit that cannot be purchased with cash.

In this episode, building upon that which was discussed in the prior "Placeholder to Place-maker" podcast episode on alternative and complementary currencies, Ruth and Kent talk about how an investment in five forms of soft capital accelerate a community advocate's return on investment:

1. Attention capital
2. Relationship capital
3. Time capital
4. Trust capital ("hard to earn, easy to lose, and impossible to buy")
5. Wisdom capital

These discussions lay the foundation for upcoming topics on how the Anti-Fragile Wealth Production Engine, built upon the Community Activation App by 214 Alpha, encourage those who are naturally-generous to help bootstrap a hyper-local economy.

This same hyper-local economy, in turn, soon delivers a self-funded economic revival, using money which normally remains "under the table," and leaves in its wake a self-governing community, using leadership which was sourced and activated from within the community itself.

We provide the tools necessary for advocates to deliver self-funded economic revival, with built-in governance, for local communities?

Q: is this communism?

Quick answer: no, it is not. Nor is is socialism - neither definition makes sense, in the context of our solution.

As more people learn of our vision, people are trying to reconcile our vision with their lens upon the world. This podcast discusses a series of questions and answers regarding our project. 

Quoting Kevin Doyle Jones in a recent post:

The anti fragile playbook’s story is becoming clearer. This explanation of what it is not, chips away at the stone to reveal the sculpture beneath.

In this podcast Ruth and Kent discuss the following questions we've received:

• What kind of community?
• Are you talking about an intentional community?
• Are you creating communes?
• Is it a co-op?
• Is it an example of a commons?
• Wait. Is this communism?
• Is this an example of socialism?
• Is this anarchy?
• Does your system reject capitalism?
• Ok, does it support a free market economy?
• What about corporatism?
• Is it an example of voluntarism?
• Is it a charity?
• Is it a non-profit organization?
• Is it a 501(c)(3)?
• This sure sounds anarcho-capitalist
• Is it anarcho-communist?
• What’s communitarianism?
• This sounds like an Ashram, inspired by Gandhi
• What’s the tragedy of the commons?

Let’s go back and review our vision statement:

What is your solution?

The Anti-Fragile Neighborhood Wealth Production model is designed to bring forward the hidden wealth of neighborhoods, creating an accessible, inclusive story of the future for all, no exceptions.

What’s in the package?

• An easy-to-follow playbook for replicating our model
• The software necessary to replicate a financially self-supporting neighborhood (an app)
• A franchise for expanding other communities’ self-sufficiency

The Anti-Fragile Playbook is an easy to follow guide for self-governance, and features a neighborhood franchise, where the neighborhood goes into business with itself to create a citizens assembly that’s entirely self-supporting and regenerative.

We’re building a (1) handbook, (2) people-based professional services that are sourced in the community, and are using (3) a mobile app) for self-funded economic revival that leverages an exclusive marketplace to deliver an economic and social stimulus on the community’s terms.

The Gordian Knot is a legend associated with Alexander the Great, and is often used as a metaphor for an intractable problem solved by finding an approach to the problem that renders moot the problem's perceived constraints.

Legend holds that Alexander the Great "solved" the knot by simply using his sword to cut it, and for generations and as it pertains to execution, the use of kinetic violence has passed for wisdom, typically the bigger the better.

But what if there were such a thing as a knot made of a material that resists cutting?

And what if the knot itself were contrived in such a manner that attempts to sever its cords through violent means only made it stronger?

Finally, how do we solve this "knot" while juggling all the other things in our already busy lives? Kids, families, work, personal life, etc? 

Discussed: how does one fix a truck while it continues driving, so to speak?

In this discussion, Ruth Glendinning (Founder, Future Story Lab) and Kent Dahlgren (CEO, 214 Alpha) describe a third way, rooted in real-world examples, and deliver an easy-to-remember recipe for high-functioning "holons" (small, autonomous teams), using language widely understood across industries, domains, and cultures, summarized as:

1. Create a core "holon" of three complementary personality types
2. Declare and maintain a singleness of purpose
3. Invest in the regular, ongoing creation and maintenance of a shared work product through brief "sprints" or releases
4. Philosophies and beliefs (various)

Imagine a product in a store named "Seed," which will:

• Preserve community
• Create economic opportunity
• and leverage technology to define the future

What's in the box?

• 150 hours of hands-on community activation
• 24/7 virtual community marketplace, where creating a job is as easy as creating a listing
• Additional household revenue, and access to assistance to launch and sustain a home-based business.

But "Seed" is not an actual product.

"Seed" is the product of a single day's collaboration, using less than $3 in materials (cardboard box, printouts from the Internet, no more than 50 words, and ordinary Scotch tape).

In this podcast, Ruth Glendinning and Kent Dahlgren discuss the use of low-fidelity prototyping tools (such as hypothetical retail products like the imagined "Seed") to secure and retain the attention of new team members, enlisting their assistance to bring about the desired outcome, while refining the project's aspired vision.

As discussed in the prior podcast, the three core team members (Ruth, Trudy, and Kent) have been joined by two additional contributors, but it’s important for the new team members to hit the ground running, and from a place of ownership and an authentic spirit of shared attribution.

This podcast introduces the methodology for rapid and streamlined onboarding of management-level collaboration, because the team might have not the luxury to invest months or even years for new team members to acquire all of the requisite background and context.

Low-fidelity prototyping: using an empty cardboard box, printouts from the Internet, no more than about 50 words, and scotch tape, Ruth, Kent, and Trudy created a physical prototype, representing what they would hoped to deliver to their pilot community in the first three months.

This crude, “low fidelity“ prototype stimulated within the team significant and high context discussions around how the concept and the plan might be further streamlined, the overall message further refined.

For this is vital and important: these core team members will be “training the trainer“ of those who will join at a later date, and those “third generation“ participants will be on the front line for community members seeking a safe refuge where they can vent their sense of justified anguish and outrage.

For the local Anti-Fragile pilot, things are coming together in a very real way.

This podcast discusses a variety of practical, battle-tested, and accessible tools for navigating a community activation process worthy the investment.

Further, Ruth and Kent discuss pragmatic reasons why activists might want to actually recruit "the broken" to participate as peers, so the collective effort is able to deftly navigate the community engagement process as it evolves.

Therefore, it's discussed why the core activist team may care to invest in a spirit of forgiveness and redemption, in reference to the Japanese art of Kintsugi (金継ぎ), where a broken dish is repaired with gold, creating something new, and of transcendent value.

Ultimately, this plan delivers a structured series of transactions and interactions to bring about a transformational experience.