- Cvsg - list.chattanooga.digital

Are you interested in community visioning?
by Greg Laudeman Aug. 26, 2026

Aug. 26, 2026

Are you interested in engaging community members for inclusive, positive, sustainable change? Do you want to learn about or help apply lessons from the initiatives that so radically improved our community 40 years ago?Do you know of others who are or might be? Please, let me know! Specifically, are you interested in: * Piloting the Do It Yourself Visioning Kit or otherwise helping with the methodology, practice, and tools. Specifically... o Will you help pilot it on Tuesday, September 1st, at noon? If so, please RSVP at https://luma.com/vkzcimjx. Participation is limited. I am inviting others who have not participated in the Study Group, so please do so ASAP. There is an option to attend virtually but it won't be practical to accommodate active participation by online attendees. * Facilitating community visioning meetings * Convening community visioning meetings (includes selecting a topic and recruiting participants) Do you think any of this is helpful or important for reducing fragmentation and strengthening our community? Is it important or useful, in your view, to learn from Venture? Please let me know via direct reply or to the group, cvsg(a)list.chattanooga.digital. Your response will determine how/whether we continue with this group. Thanks! -- Greg Laudeman, Ed.D., Instigator Chattanooga.Digital <https://chattanooga.digital/> greg(a)chattanooga.digital <mailto:greg.laudeman@chattanooga.digital> 706-271-5521

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Sept 1
by Deconstruction Advisory Board Aug. 24, 2026

Aug. 24, 2026

Greg, I plan to attend Sept 1st. I apologize for not getting back with you after the last meeting. The feedback I had was about identifying different groups such as a neighborhood association and begin to attend their meetings and listen and get to know people before we do a "formal" vision night, which may be what you had in mind anyway. And making sure the group is given the worksheet perhaps months ahead to collect their thoughts and write them down. I personally have a difficult time completing a sheet like that at a single setting. Just thoughts Pat

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Piloting DIY Visioning
by Greg Laudeman, Ed.D. Aug. 20, 2026

Aug. 20, 2026

We will do another pilot of the DIY Visioning Kit on Tuesday, September 1, at noon. I’ll stick to the process this time! More details on that soon. I would also like to pilot it with an “organic” group. If you might be interested in convening a visioning session, let me know. — Greg Laudeman, Ed.D. Executive Officer and Principal Eduity, LLC www.eduity.net greg(a)eduity.net 706-271-5521

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Piloting the Chattanooga Venturing DIY Visioning Kit
by Greg Laudeman, Ed.D. Aug. 5, 2026

Aug. 5, 2026

One of our participants had an issue that caused us to have to cut the pilot session short. They are fine! Thank you to everyone who helped out! We will reschedule the pilot. Actually, I think we need to do a few pilot sessions, including at least one that is totally virtual. It would be great to have other conveners. Who might be willing to convene a pilot session? Generally, recruiting conveners will be a major challenge/task for crowdsourcing visioning. This will be critical to get broad, diverse, representative participation and really tap the community potential. What are your thoughts about that? Even though we barely got started with the process, there were a few clear lessons from the session: Choose a general topic: People, Place, Play, Prosper, or Public Have a clear, meaningful question. The original kit was strongly oriented toward “what” — What do you want in the community (that’s missing)? What does the community need? I also think “how” is important but that should probably be a separate session or step in the process after visioning. Follow the protocol; review and enforce the rules. Keep the process focused and on track and ensure everyone is heard. We have a number of talkers in the group (including me). Facilitators will have to rein such folks in. It is important to have less outgoing, talkative people participate. This should probably be an objective, to include people who don’t participate in much and hear from people who don’t talk much. Keep introductions brief. It’s my habit to allow a lot of discussion in study group meetings because that’s basically what the group is for. As we refocus on applied learning, “turning talk into action,” we need to be more intentional and structured. Telling myself. 😉 I’m bcc’ing several folks who participated/were interested in the session but have not joined the Chattanooga Venturing Study Group email list. Y’all feel free to reply directly to me — Greg Laudeman, Ed.D. Executive Officer and Principal Eduity, LLC www.eduity.net greg(a)eduity.net 706-271-5521

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DIY Visioning
by Greg Laudeman, Ed.D. July 31, 2026

July 31, 2026

Just a reminder that we will pilot the updated DIY Visioning Kit at our next regular meeting this Tuesday, noon, at the City’s Small Business Resource Center on ML King Jr Blvd. Get details and RSVP at https://luma.com/azkbyo1j. You can find the initial version of the Kit at https://venturing.chattanooga.digital/t/diy-visioning-kit/33. You have to log in to access it. If you have registered on the platform yet, you can do so via https://venturing.chattanooga.digital/invites/pUjPDGxXxq. More generally, we are focused on applying lessons from Venture to reduce division and fragmentation in our community by working toward a shared vision. There seems to be strong, although diffuse, desire for this but no clear support from our local institutions. A key insight from Venture is that, while such support is helpful, it is not essential. ANYONE can do visioning, easily and at no cost, for any purpose. In modern terms, visioning can be crowdsourced. It simply takes a bit of coordination. The DIY Visioning Kit is a tool for that. Personally, I’d like to have a shared vision for digital technology — what do we want for it in our lives and work — particularly for entrepreneurs and small businesses. The starting point for that is decidedly non-technical — common goals, issues, needs, and opportunities — so I’m more than open to collaborate with anyone on visioning. — Greg Laudeman, Ed.D. Executive Officer and Principal Eduity, LLC www.eduity.net greg(a)eduity.net 706-271-5521

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DIY Visioning Kit
by Greg Laudeman, Ed.D. July 29, 2026

July 29, 2026

An initial version of a DIY Vision Kit is now available online at https://venturing.chattanooga.digital/t/diy-visioning-kit/33?u=drl. There are two PDFs, one that explains the rationale and provides instructions and another that is a worksheet for participants. There is also a spreadsheet for facilitators to capture inputs from participants. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! Because this is a work in progress, it is only accessible to registered, logged in users. If you have not yet registered, you can do so via https://venturing.chattanooga.digital/invites/pUjPDGxXxq. Let me know if you have any difficulties with any of the above. — Greg Laudeman, Ed.D. Executive Officer and Principal Eduity, LLC www.eduity.net greg(a)eduity.net 706-271-5521

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Piloting Visioning at next regular meeting, 7/4, noon
by Greg Laudeman, Ed.D. July 22, 2026

July 22, 2026

During our next regular meeting we will pilot our visioning process, based on the VISIONS ’86 Do It Yourself Kit, and discuss how to promote and support crowdsourced visioning. Please RSVP at https://luma.com/azkbyo1j so I know how many to expect. If you do want to participate, please register ASAP because I plan to let the larger group know and have some other folks I’m going to ask to participate. Thanks! — Greg Laudeman, Ed.D. Executive Officer and Principal Eduity, LLC www.eduity.net greg(a)eduity.net 706-271-5521

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Envisioning Prosperity
by Greg Laudeman July 8, 2026

July 8, 2026

We had good discussion in the last Regular Meeting that confirmed our direction and focus. Basically, we're embracing visioning as a community activity and practice. The goal for the group is to apply what we’ve learned by convening, facilitating, hosting, and participating in visioning meetings. Results of the meetings will be shared and summarized. We will crowdsource visioning by adapting the /VISIONS '86 Do It Yourself Kit/ for our purpose since we don't have resources for a formal effort. This is essentially about listening to community members about what they want for the future. This is important for Chattanooga.Digital: We need to know what the community needs so we can provide software that fits those needs. I will be participating as a representative of Chattanooga.Digital. Visioning meetings may be on any general topic, but we’re going to focus on/Prosperity/ — how people earn money, generate income, and make a living (other general BTW topics are People, Places, Play, and Public). Chattanooga.Digital will focus on entrepreneurs and small business, including non-profits, by sponsoring dialogues as visioning meeting to be podcast. Ideally, these will have simultaneous "satellite" meetings. We'll see. The crowdsourcing will require conveners, facilitators, and hosts/locations, along with participants. If you or someone you know might be willing to do any of that, please complete our interest form online here! <https://go.eduity.net/apps/forms/s/ACYKwmKw5Y3axWfBCWAWgb2q> I'll work on a "toolkit," which shouldn't take long because it's basically a really simple spreadsheet template. All of this will be on venturing.chattanooga.digital <https://venturing.chattanooga.digital/> so set up an account there to participate in the discussion. Let's set up some private topics about how to proceed, especially recruiting and on-boarding facilitators. -- Greg Laudeman, Ed.D. Instigator Chattanooga.Digital

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CVSG Regular Meeting 7/7/26: Visioning
by Greg Laudeman, Ed.D. July 6, 2026

July 6, 2026

My thinking about what the Study Group can/should do has evolved. I recommend that we embrace visioning. We should make it a practice and use creating a community vision from the grassroots up as a goal for engaging and listening to community members. We can do this pretty easily by adapting Venture’s VISIONS 86 Do It Yourself Kit to current situation and capitalize on current technology. The big question is how (and whether you want) to: (a) convene and/or facilitate visioning meetings, (b) encourage, identify, and/or recruit others, particularly young adults, to do so, and/or (c) hear from community members about their goals, issues, needs, and opportunities. Our regular meeting tomorrow will focus on answering each part of this question. Specifically, I’ll review the “DIY Kit” and we’ll discuss how to crowdsource “Envision Chattanooga.” Chattanooga.Digital is definitely interested in all of the above, and we’ll provide the tools. Going forward, I’ll be engaging in the study group from that perspective, as a representative of Chattanooga.Digital. If you feel the community is fragmented, not effectively addressing key issues, and we need a shared vision for the community that comes from the people… Please join the meeting or follow-up. Your input is vital! Tomorrow, Tuesday, July 7, 12:00 PM, in person at 332 E M L King Blvd or online at https://go.eduity.net/call/3hmzaw47. — Greg Laudeman, Ed.D. Executive Officer and Principal Eduity, LLC www.eduity.net greg(a)eduity.net 706-271-5521

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Chattanooga Visioning
by Greg Laudeman, Ed.D. July 1, 2026

July 1, 2026

As you know, we've been wrestling with what the Study Group should be when it grows up. The purpose has always been to learn about community engagement. We're evolving from passive to active learning. So what is it we're doing? On one level, listening. To what end? What's going to come of it? The first step in the community venturing is to envision what we want for the future. We're listening to hear about people's vision. We also an issue of "branding" for folks to easily grasp what it's all about. How do we talk about it? So... I think we should embrace "Visioning"! We're "crowdsourcing visioning." That's what Venture called it and we're using their methodology. What do you think? -- Greg Laudeman, Ed.D. *Executive Officer and Principal* Eduity, LLC www.eduity.net greg(a)eduity.net 706-271-5521

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