Thanks, Audrey and Jack for your feedback! I think you are both right on: The general goal is to create accessible, open infrastructure for listening to community members and respectfully sharing their concerns, ideas, and stories. The more specific goal would be to hear from community members about how they make a living, even more specifically what they see as challenges, resources, and vision to do better and make more. Work on that goal should direct and drive achievement of the general goal. That could encompass education, entrepreneurship/small business, independent/remote work, training, etc.
On Apr 24, 2026, at 6:26 PM, Jack Zibluk <jackzibluk@gmail.com> wrote:
building a communications network to build community and tie together existing communities is part of necessary infrastructure. And it's something eminently do-able for this group. I don't want to lose our focus on that.
Yes! That has been a consistently expressed goal for the Study Group (and, coincidentally, is my professional purpose). We have the physical infrastructure and the software infrastructure can be quite cheap and easy to deploy and own. The challenge is to build the human infrastructure, the people with the practices and skills to do the listening and connecting.
On Apr 24, 2026, at 7:57 PM, Audrey Ramsey <aramsey3@gmail.com> wrote:
My perspective has always been to listen to the needs of the community, develop a strategic and tactical plan of action based on interconnectedness and shared responsibility. What is the problem? What is the solution? And how can these solutions generate income?
Listening should definitely be first and foremost for community engagement. You can’t know if you don’t listen. People won’t engage if they don’t feel heard. The first step in digital development is to learn from the user or, in Design Thinking terms, to empathize with them. A hallmark of community venturing, a la Venture, is to it create a space for all participants to be heard without any agenda or requirement other than to show up. It is fascinating to me how the two practices overlap! The extent to which the Study Group develops a plan is to be determined. It’s a bit premature to make the decision and, really, others who are not engaged in the group should be responsible for that. We can channel the voice of the community. Then, presuming group members want to, we can facilitate and evaluate the use of that input for strategic planning by relevant leaders/organizations. Any other thoughts, folks? Do you agree? Do you know of specific means or opportunities for doing this? The way I see it, it’s all about practice—defining practices, enacting them, and improving them. My plan is to use this focus — “how might we do better and make more?” — as the object for the first Facilitator Bank cohort. If you are interested or have specific thoughts about that, email me directly at greg@eduity.net <mailto:greg@eduity.net>. — Greg Laudeman, Ed.D. Executive Officer and Principal Eduity, LLC www.eduity.net greg@eduity.net 706-271-5521