We are writing a book!

Societal Forms for the Twenty-First Century

Introduction

Our “forms” (societal norms, laws, apps, traditions, habits, local and and broadly accepted ways of doing things, yet not omitting roads, buildings, food production and etc.; in other words society’s non-physical and physical infrastructure, and the institutions that have grown up around them), provide lasting structural frameworks upon which society pivots and adapts. Many of our institutions, both for-profit and non-profit, have had an undeniably positive effect. They have facilitated improved technology and communication across the globe, rebuilt communities devastated by disaster and war, created a stable platform for charitable donations and volunteer aid, and innovated toward increased comfort and quality of life across all social strata.

Yet with all this positive progress, we still see deeply troubling problems:  substance abuse, divorce, pornography, sex trafficking, corruption in business and government, poor personal time management skills and domestic habits; materialism, and debt are destroying lives, families, and communities. Despite promising strides forward in freedoms for women, racial equality, and the treatment of young people and children, we still see disturbing reports of rampant misogyny, racism, and abuse.

These issues, not the forms that are failing to address them, seem to be our main societal focus. We throw money at visible issues—the symptoms of problems—funding top-down solutions that never seem to eradicate the problem. Despite our myriad freedoms, we seem trapped in trends of corruption and degeneracy. A deeper, more fundamental shift in the underpinnings of our society must occur to better reverse these trends, regain lost ground, and create more upward momentum. 

The traditional freedom argument and solution will not work this time. We need to double down on freedom. Institutions will not save us, even small commercial institutions. We’ve degenerated too far and our capacity has increased too much. How do we propose twice as much freedom as the founders of the USA proposed in their day? We need every inch of it. So how can this be done?

First, I believe we need to improve our population density, or rather improve our “engagement density”.  This new kind of density referenced here, engagement density, means more than just the number of particles (or people) in a space. This density is also the organization and harmony that defines the engagement or interaction between people and groups of people. Despite the increasing ease of our technological connection, we find ourselves drifting further apart, neighbors often know less about each other. Even family members know less about what family members feel than they would random peeps on social media. It is suggested in this book that without correct engagement density, our potential for change in society is severely limited. Sustainable progress as described below must be situated in a better person-to-person, family-to-family, and community-to-community engagement density. The only long-term solution which seems to provide the best path moving forward is to engage in groups of four individuals, four families and four neighborhoods. We need strong new societal forms in the space between the institution and the individual that will tap personal gifts, whole-person capacity, and scalable modular agility all of which will be introduced or and explained in the succeeding chapters including the reason for the number four group size.

The whole person, whole family, and whole neighborhood can only be understood and supported with great customization in such small intimate groups. It is only this that will empower the people with enough confidence in their own choices to stand against one-size-fits-all expert decision making and fake news rumor (a lesson from Henry V part II ). When we foster and better engage with meaningful personal relationships, love becomes a more powerful motivating force than fear or even self-interest.

Let a candid world pose this question: how do we correctly infuse love as the primary motivator behind good governance and, in so doing, infuse love into the fundamental infrastructure of law, government, business and other less prominent societal forms? What freedom has been in the past is not enough without integrated love. New structural forms, both cultural and constitutional, which allow and empower this integration to take place must emerge. As they do, the very nature and purpose of past forms of freedom will transform and shift away from force. This is what we will introduce in the following chapters; this new integration of love through new forms and a new engagement density.

In this book, we propose societal forms that more easily shed the burdens of debt, dependence, victimization, and commercialism. These forms help people return to the land, better enjoying time with personal relations and labors, providing leisure with natural responsibility, recapturing a healthy way of life and maintaining peace. These and similar forms can integrate love and choice, recapturing and instilling past and new sovereignties, rolling back dependence without individualizing, so that our personal relations—the people whom we love and who matter most, who are together our voluntary safety net—are strong, rich and optimally engaged. 

Three primary components, or catalysts, will provide the framework for establishing new, less rigid, even liquid forms:

1. Personal relations, in modules of four at the base
2. Experiential learning, rather than traditional techniques and expertise
3. New visual media, enhancing the quantity and quality of eye-to-eye engagement.

These three forms of engagement will allow us to create a society based in love. A new mantra must be demanded of our institutions: “we work our way out of a job as we enable families and communities to do it better than we can.” Will this require sacrifice? Certainly, but not as much as one might think. We believe this attitude will be contagious and preferable to the current dog-eat-dog norms. 

What is it that we need to do better? What is the change in relation to us and institutions that would make a new, more desirable system work? What would it look like when we are done? How do we organize the resources to build new cities where a better society can flourish? As you read the coming chapters, please be thinking about how you can help us work through and fill in the gaps.

Chapter 1

The John And Abigail Center For Social Change

We certainly have our work cut out for us. If we are going to accomplish real, lasting social change, perhaps rethinking everything we do. How do we change our relationships with other people so they are meaningful and productive? How do we fix our educational systems so they treat students as whole people and prepare them for actual progress and fulfillment? How do we employ technology without falling victim to addiction, misinformation, and distractions? How do we navigate all of the bureaucracy and red tape in all of our existing forms?

It is easy to feel overwhelmed or powerless in the face of such massive changes. After all, can one person really stem the tide of apathy, greed, and selfishness in our current institutions?

The short answer is, not really alone. But you don’t have to stand alone. Change starts with individuals who want to make a difference. But change sticks when partners, families, and communities join in the effort. The goal of the John and Abigail Center for Social Change is to support these groups. 

The Center is named after John and Abigail Adams because they were famous for their loving, equitable marriage. In surviving letters, we can see a relationship that relied on mutual trust and a vested interest in each other’s priorities. They wrote to each other about household finances, family relationships, military strategy, and politics. John and Abigail worked arm in arm to resolve problems that ranged from family squabbles to national crises and they did it with the best the world and God had to offer at the time. Each were intelligent, passionate individuals with unique gifts. They were also deeply committed to their relationship, lifting each other up and accomplishing more together than either could alone.

John and Abigail worked to improve their relationship so they could tackle problems together. They built their family using the same methods. And by working with others to build their community and nation, they had a direct impact on millions of lives. 

We at the John and Abigail Center for Social Change are inspired by this pattern. Too many institutions seem to believe their main objective is to have more money and more influence so they can hire more people to make even more money. The John and Abigail Center is firmly of the mind that institutions should work themselves out of a job. Real change starts at the smallest level: individuals, their families, and the communities in which they live. If the Center can empower people to improve their lives at this level, there won’t be a need for large organizations to dictate how they live and what they do.

Think of the Center as a warehouse for all of the ideas and organizations for social change. When new ideas come in, Center personnel can help connect them to like-minded people and support organizations to make those ideas happen. They help package, brand, and distribute these ideas to people and communities who need them. They can also identify redundancies so people don’t waste effort creating something that already exists.

How it’s Organized 

Center staff will include leaders and advocates for social change with the experience and background to help guide and expand the vision of social change organizations. These consultants will mentor organization leaders and help them work together to bring about large-scale change while maintaining the focus on individuals and families. Because the Center will cover the full spectrum of societal forms, members will be able to consult in sectors that other organizations can’t cover alone. These could include education, health, religion, military, banking, insurance, infrastructure, morality, secularism, materialism, and institutionalism. 

Under the Center umbrella, you’ll find 16 organizations that focus on education (college-aged young adults, families, and those 55+), relationships, hands-on learning, new visual media, community development, how capable cities and neighborhoods are to adapt to change, and more. Each of these organizations will have a unique vision, curriculum, assets, and methods. You’ll learn more about these in the coming chapters. 

In a way, the Center will be the connective tissue for the other organizations that combines their efforts and unites those working with different age groups, genders, and sectors. The Center will energize these organizations, ensuring optimal performance and communication. 

The Center will also provide some common resources that the organizations may struggle to provide for themselves. For example, the Center could have a situation room where organizations come together to discover needs, work through issues, present ideas, and run through simulations to determine the best course of action. They will also maintain a database of contacts and resources to help organizations network and work together to improve. The Center will be positioned to consider issues on a global scale while also consulting locally. The board of directors may open a rating and ranking system to help organizations increase their transparency and accountability.

The Center is currently in the early stages of development. But what will it look like when it is fully operational?

First 12 Months

Initially, the Center will be primarily concerned with helping the J & A social change organizations outlined in this book become fully operational, financially sustainable, and successful in serving individuals, families, and communities. This will include recruiting leaders, consulting on business models, and assisting in content development and production. As these and other social change organizations develop, the Center will be more capable of serving their needs. 

Five Years

After five years, the J & A social change organizations will be established and more self-reliant, allowing the Center to focus more energy on building and filling new community spaces with the best engagement density and significant social change.

First, the Center will help stabilize J &A social change organizations. This will happen as more people engage with and spread each organization’s principles and methods. This will include financial stability and sustainability as the organizations either support themselves or are subsidized by other organizations as necessary. Some of the organizations are designed to generate more revenue than others, but all are meant to work together to not only be independently self-sufficient, but to generate the income necessary to move onto the next phase of social change: community land development.

Within five years, the Center will begin building City Plat campuses to optimize engagement density and provide a more ideal setting for the social change organizations to work and thrive. In the City Plat (or Family Campus), families will take their rightful place as the center of communities. Individuals and families who choose to participate will find a more efficient, sustainable way of life. We go into more detail on the City Plat in chapter 10. 

Once the City Plat model is going, the Center and those living in the City Plat will be able to expand their attention to other communities to help others grow and change for the better as well.

Twenty Years

After twenty years of successful, grassroots social change, the Center will have helped bring about incredible changes. With meaningful, personal relationships at the center of societal forms, poverty will have dramatically decreased, as will conflict and crime. More communities will choose to follow the engagement density model as they see the harmony and prosperity it can bring about for local residents. Technological advancements will continue at a rapid pace, though in a stable, community-serving way.

Why the Center Matters

Without a catalyst to create social change, we will likely continue on our current trajectory, watching our world deteriorate as we lose freedoms under the weight of social problems. We will sink under debt, degeneracy and loss of freedom as we attempt to use old forms to solve new problems. 

With widespread social change, inspired and supported by the John and Abigail Center for Social Change, people will see there is a better way. They will begin to examine and improve their own capacity for change. Individuals, families, and communities will be more happy and less dependent on organizations that don’t seek their happiness or are weak in helping them attain it. Social entrepreneurs will help us recognize our own responsibility in the problems we face and help us make positive changes. 

It is easy for individuals and even social change organizations to become myopic. The Center will help them see a way ahead and have hope for social change in their personal lives, family, community, and even in international circumstances. 

The Center and You

But what is your part in all of this? The Center will only be successful if motivated, compassionate individuals are willing to step up and call for change. If you want to be involved in the fulfillment of this vision, there are a couple things you can do right now.

You can become a sponsor for the the “step #1” project, healing relationships and the generation gap, working with ages 55+ who are our greatest often unsupported asset for social change through the Hearts To Children system. The John and Abigail Center will need resources to organize the right people and produce materials. If you’re interested in contributing to the vision, let us know.

Or, if you want to be more directly involved, join a market research group or launch team. Each of the social change organizations will need people to brainstorm content, work on structure, and steer its development. If, as you read this book, you find an area that you feel passionate about and could contribute, join the team to have a direct role in its development using the JohnAndAbigail.com website’s floating ribbon on each page.  

No matter what level of engagement you choose, some key principles will always remain in place. First, the Center is committed to have agency be part of everything we do. There are no one-size-fits-all solutions to social problems. All Center solutions can and should be customized based on local (individual, family, and neighborhood) needs. You will always be in the driver’s seat. Second, the relationship is one of mutual trust and contribution. You will help shape the Center through suggestions and proposals while the Center supports you in your endeavors. And if we can’t help you, we’ll do our best to find someone who can. Third, we want to be a broad resource, so there is no commitment required to engage with us, financial or otherwise. Many of our materials are free so you can try them out for yourself.

Where will you be after you join the Center?

Chapter 2

Three Traditions

Before we dive into the three catalysts of social change today, we need to understand more of the historical context that has shaped our current world. For the purposes of this book, we will roughly divide history into three sections: oral tradition, written tradition and visual tradition.

Oral Tradition

For 5500+ years, societal forms, traditions, and knowledge were substantively communicated and passed down through word of mouth. When we speak of the oral tradition, we usually think of cultural traditions going back to ancient Greece, when bards and minstrels mastered the art of memorizing and recounting culturally significant tales. Stories by traveling minstrels established the common ground for interrelations between different nations and tribes. 

For many of us, the oral tradition seems an ancient, foreign thing. However, many of the aspects of the oral tradition are still operating in cultures today. In some ethnic and religious communities, members memorize passages or entire books of scripture. In some Native American cultures, elders and medicine men are still the keepers of history, expected to explain the meaning of ceremonies to youth as they come of age. Druids, Pythagoreans and other brotherhoods are also known to have uniquely employed the oral tradition.

Written Tradition

In 1475 AD, oral tradition changed to written tradition thanks to the printing press. This shift moved interpersonal exchange away from the in-person dimension of pre-Renaissance and ancient society. In ancient times there was an eyeball-to-eyeball quality of social interaction with very little mobility within the social structure. This immobility was maintained by natural constraints affecting time, labor, assets and distance. For example, copying books by hand was tiresome and complex, so the practice was confined to master craftsmen, making books and literacy rare. With the printing press, people could copy and distribute written laws, news and treatises, allowing for a new level of public scrutiny. As this new type of social accountability found its place, the role of the oral tradition in maintaining cultural order seems to have diminished.

The US Constitution can be considered the summit of the written tradition. This linchpin document was written in 1787, about 300 years after the Gutenberg press transformed knowledge and improved widespread literacy. The press and the Constitution seem to have increased the frequency of the iterative cycles of innovation and the breadth of scope for the next big shift to the visual tradition. 

Visual Tradition

The written tradition lasted about 400 years, from 1475 to 1900, even to the current post 2020 years. The transition to the new visual tradition was spurred in part by the invention of the television, followed by the computer, internet, smartphone and most recently, augmented reality. The visual tradition has now held some sway for 120 years. 

In 1985, Neil Postman identified the visual media as a new epistemology, stating, “print is now merely a residual epistemology and will remain so.” Today, we find society poised to use the internet as a personal-relations based model of information sharing for teaching, accessing the news, purchasing, entertaining and transacting business. I expect the visual tradition will become a primary procedural epistemology, used in both self and collective governance.

The two main differences making the internet more than just a very impressive digital printing press are the innovative uses of the database and the possibility of publishing change using experiential learning. With a book, we extend time by leveraging scrutiny out into the future for the populace. Now we can do even more, publishing a dynamic process that individuals and communities can customize to fit their circumstances and facilitate the process of change in a community.

The new visual tradition comes from the new capabilities of the internet, which has the raw ability to broadcast and transfer information instantaneously to the whole world. The way the internet is capable of personally transferring and sifting information has not received enough attention. The internet ought to serve the people by optimizing what happens in local, in-person interactions. It needs to increase the effectiveness of local dialogue, optimizing the time that we spend together with our communities. What we offer and receive using the tools of the visual tradition should include our best instructions and success stories regarding what we do when we are not using the internet. We should only spend 10-20% of our time accessing this information. The other 80-90% of our time should be off the internet, in-person, having prepared individually for an event, which though very personal, is an integral part of a larger process of growth and change.

Unfortunately, that is not how we currently engage with the visual tradition. Instead, we spend the majority of our time glued to screens and devices. This dependence on the new visual media for entertainment and education is crushing the written tradition, making it more difficult for people to read and absorb long blocks of text. Too often we are only looking for headlines and soundbytes, losing the ideas and progress from previous generations and our own peers because we are unwilling to put in the time and effort to read them. 

We have also found ourselves spending so much time in online interactions that we are losing our ability to form meaningful relationships through face-to-face interactions. We call people friends then only process their lives in pictures and brief glimpses. 

The oral tradition of meaningful, in-person communication is suffering as we grow more comfortable with short emails and shorter text messages instead of phone calls and face-to-face visits. This communication style may seem easier and more convenient, but it is also driving wedges between us and de-stabilizing society.

The way to combat this destabilization is to re-engage the oral and written traditions, which are both being crushed by the weight of new visual media. At the same time, we must acknowledge the power of the new visual tradition to bring about wide-scale social change faster. As long as our priorities are in order, the oral and written traditions can be optimized by the vast capabilities of the new visual tradition to create change. As we learn to engage the new visual media, all three traditions will go up in their productive utility, and we hope to cut out waste in the process. 

One of the key ways we intend to optimize these traditions is by improving our engagement density and employing whole-person relationships. The catalysts and organizations outlined in coming chapters will work to accomplish this.

Chapter 3

The “Personal-Relations” Catalyst And 3D-Learning Organization

We need to create real, meaningful social change to re-engage the oral and written traditions and combat the spiraling consequences of the mismanaged visual tradition. But where can we start? The next three chapters introduce three catalysts for change that when well infused with societal forms both our capacity and attainment of social change become possible.

In terms of the new visual media, we are more connected now than we have ever been. According to Pew Research, 90% of Americans use the internet and 81% own a smartphone. A recent Deloitte survey showed that the average American household has 11 connected devices, even though the average household size is only 2.6 people nationwide. The vast majority of us can connect to information, causes, and people in a matter of a few seconds and even fewer clicks. 

So why do so many feel disconnected?

Social media friends are good but it may be best to take a deeper look at what it takes to build personal eye-to-eye friendships and perform what may be called a personal friendship audit. Text message strings are unknowingly considered conversations. Have we become increasingly conditioned to replacing old oral and written traditions with their visual counterparts and are therefore losing vital ground with relationships in the process?

The first catalyst for social change is a new engagement with personal relations. If we can successfully strengthen and increase personal relations, we will go a long way toward stabilizing the power of the new visual tradition and inspiring meaningful change. The John and Abigail Center and partner organizations will work to build personal-relations among all ages, but the best place to teach relationships is at the youngest possible age. To accomplish this, we’re introducing 3D Learning, which is in-part a model for education that puts personal relations at the heart of the learning process.

There are other ways to integrate personal relations into social change and the J&A 3D-Learning team will also help develop their personal relations components; several of these solutions will be introduced in coming chapters. Personal relations with children and youth are of first importance but it may take a strong example and a deep realization in the minds of adults to teach them and pull off the bigger scope social change during our current window of opportunity as answers are in high demand in society. But let’s start with introducing it to young people.

How it Works:

First, 3D learning changes the roles in education, placing the primary role on the student instead of the teacher. The student becomes the pivot point, the rotating hub of education. On one side of the student you have a group of personal-relations, from parents and siblings to mentors, neighbors, and acquaintances. On the other side of the student is the teacher (who we now call a consultant), whose focus includes helping the student strengthen those relationships and bring them into the learning conversation.

The goal of 3D learning is to provide success, fulfillment, and joy to our children. The keys to make this happen are to instill principles of self-reliance, help students identify and accomplish their unique purpose in life, and inspire students to help their loved ones find happiness as well. 

In traditional education models, learning is contained in and usually confined by four classroom walls. Learning tends to be captive in those walls. Students see the classroom as the place to sit and learn and the rest of the world as a place to be free from that tedium. 

In Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig describes the difference between traveling on a motorcycle and riding in a car:

“You see things vacationing on a motorcycle in a way that is completely different from any other. In a car you’re always in a compartment, and because you’re used to it you don’t realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You’re a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame. 

On a cycle the frame is gone. You’re completely in contact with it all. You’re in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming.

That concrete whizzing by five inches below your foot is the real thing, the same stuff you walk on; it’s right there, so blurred you can’t focus on it, yet you can put your foot down and touch it anytime, and the whole thing, the whole experience, is never removed from immediate consciousness.”

This comparison is a perfect parallel to students learning from within the four walls of the classroom versus those who learn beyond those walls through their relationships. The current educational systems (public, private, and home school), struggle with the four walls problem. Bill Gates said of our current system: “America’s high schools are obsolete. By obsolete, I don’t mean that our high schools are broken, flawed, and underfunded. . . . By obsolete, I mean that our high schools—even when they’re working exactly as designed—cannot teach our kids what they need to know today. . . . This isn’t an accident or a flaw in the system; it is the system.”

3D learning is like riding a motorcycle. Students will find themselves really living their education as they share the experience and involve those who matter most to them. As students work on projects and learn new things, they will publish their work to a network of personal relations who will decide how deeply and how often they want to connect with the student’s work. They become a large writing group with experience, expertise, and concern for the student’s success. Students will benefit from their feedback and be more engaged in what they learn because they will live it each day as they interact with those around them. Learning will not be contained by the classroom walls.

Within 3D Learning, students will be placed in a group of four. This group will provide peer support and discussion for the students. Most importantly, this group provides the optimal engagement density for students to be treated as whole people. Too often, students find themselves grouped into clubs or cliques and are always viewed through the lens of that group. 

Students will create their own list of relations by brainstorming through a series of categories: mentors, colleagues, benefactors, connectors, specialists, and personal relations. They will also rate these connections based on how often they would like to be in contact with them.

Students will benefit greatly from this model in several ways:

1) Technology: students will learn to harness technology without the addiction and disconnect plaguing so many of today’s youth.

2) Quality: through self-assessment and polishing through publishing, students develop a natural accountability. They will be motivated to produce quality work for themselves and for their personal relations.

3) Networking: as students work through and build on their network of personal relations, they’ll build connections in multiple fields who can help them throughout their lives. 

4) Meaning: students will find value in developing and sharing their gifts, serving others, and building their relationship with God.

5) Funding: with the support of their personal relations, students will learn how their work can be an investment in their future and understand how a financial relationship can improve their experience with some personal relations with regard to what they are learning. 

To cover the costs of some of their learning experiences, students can fundraise through dinners, read-a-thons, subscription services, events, product sales, contests, or starting their own business. Not only will this broaden their educational options, it will also increase financial capacity.

3D Learning for Parents

Parents take a much more active role in 3D learning than they do in traditional education models. Parents are the original stewards of their children’s personal-relations, so the school cannot take their place. Parents act as personal and public relations cheerleaders for their children as they help them navigate their education. In practice, this means that at younger ages, parents project or broadcast their children’s work to their personal relations for them, sharing with and involving all those who are interested in their child’s education. As the child grows and can project their own work, parents remain a critical sounding board and connector to resources and relationships. Throughout the process, parents have a third-person perspective. They aren’t pushing the student one way or another. The student is the driver. 

With the extra work and involvement in 3D learning for parents come significant benefits. Because they are intimately involved in what their child is learning, writing, and creating, parents will connect more with their child than ever before. Students learn accountability in 3D learning, not only to the school and teacher, but to their parents and personal-relations as well. Family relations are improved as you work together. Children’s attitudes and energy levels are better because they have more of a say in their education and are motivated by the things they are learning and people they are sharing with. 

Something parents may find difficult is allowing their students to fail, but this, too, is an important part of 3D learning. Giving students a safe place to fail, reset, and try again is key to their self-reliance and future success. 

Throughout the process, parents will work with students to keep them safe, help them decide how often to communicate and to whom, and act as a coach.  Read the corresponding pages on the website to learn more about the concept and the organization that does this. 

We will need a broad shift toward this new engagement with personal relations in all sectors of society. The 3D Learning organization will help facilitate this shift by consulting other parts of the J&A Center For Social Change.

Chapter 4

The “Experiential Learning” Catalyst and J&A’s Simulation Center

The first catalyst for social change is all about engaging personal relations, improving engagement density, and creating a learning environment that builds personal relationships. The second catalyst is part of the how of education. We’re calling it experiential learning.

Picture a stereotypical high school classroom at 1:00 on a Monday afternoon. The teacher writes “Pearl Harbor and U.S. involvement in WWII” on the board. One student groans and few more laugh, but silently agree. There’s a student in the back corner with his hood pulled over his head, apparently too worn out from lunch to focus. As the teacher begins lecturing, two girls come in the door with fast food bags and vague apologies for their tardiness. A few students take notes during the lecture. When the teacher asks questions, the same couple hands go up. Trying to engage a larger percentage of the class, the teacher calls on a student who rarely participates. The student offers a half-hearted response, then says “I don’t get what this has to do with us anyway. It’s not like something that happened in Hawaii 80 years ago matters in my life.” The motivated students are shocked, the unmotivated students agree, and the teacher wonders again how all those inspirational movies about teaching America’s youth got it so wrong. 

We can’t pretend to know what will motivate every student. But we have found that helping students view their education as a lived experience helps immensely.

Imagine if the same teacher covered the same material, but in the form of a simulation. When the students get to class, they are each given a title and a specific role in the 1941 U.S. government. They are told they are in Washington, D.C. and have just been informed of the bombings at Pearl Harbor. They now have to decide how to proceed, knowing that lives are at stake, the country is grieving, and threats that seemed to be an ocean away are suddenly immediate. Students have to discuss, debate, make plans, and decide what to say to the world. After several tense, emotional days in class, the students finish the simulation and come back to debrief. In the process of going over what happened, they also hear about how the U.S. government actually handled Pearl Harbor, but now they have a vested interest.

This is the power of experiential learning. Not only do students remember material far better, they have also practiced reacting to situations and creating solutions in real time. The more they practice in simulations, the more able they will be to react well and find solutions when they encounter issues in their own lives. 

Experiential learning follows the concept taught in Matthew 7:20: “by their fruits ye shall know them.” Students (of all ages) will learn to observe, collect data, and suspend judgment until they see the fruits. 

Experiential learning can be done at all ages, but the sooner we start the better. After all, children do this naturally. They imagine stories and solutions and then roleplay to see how things work out. Instead of suppressing that creativity by demanding cramming and memorization from them in school, we can encourage their natural invention. The more students turn their learning into lived experience, the better their epiphany rate. Epiphanies are moments of profound insight, when we discover deep truths and principles that will shape attitudes and actions. Simulations are built to spur epiphanies at a much higher rate than traditional lecture-style education.

Of course, this increased effectiveness comes at a price. Simulations are difficult to implement and emotionally draining. They require a lot of prep work and support to be effective. They can also be painful for participants, who have to get to a point of raw honesty to make the simulation work. 

The Simulation Center

The John and Abigail Center will help streamline this process through the Simulations Center, an organization dedicated to creating and incorporating experiential learning including simulations into not only education, but every part of society. They will have the resources and expertise necessary to help groups carry out successful simulations regardless of their previous experience. 

One of the most significant benefits of simulations is that they speed up the iterative cycle for personal change. Without significant epiphanies, it can take someone 6-10 years to really change their perspective. In the intense focus of a simulation, we can knock this cycle down to a few weeks. In our current climate, we desperately need to speed up this iterative cycle if we want to create meaningful social change. 

The second benefit of simulations is observability. We can’t personally participate in every part of the human experience, but with simulations we can, in part, live vicariously through others’ experiences. Simulations are the visual tradition version of reading War and Peace. It’s not an easy experience, but as you read the book you are increasing your life experience. By the end, you have essentially lived the lives of 10-20 other people and have gained wisdom, experience and perspective. You have become something new, more capable and powerful. 

The visual tradition gives us the tools to scale up the War and Peace experience. We have the technology to bring simulations and lived experiences into 3D and then spread them across the globe instantly. 

3D Learning stabilizes education by creating a support network of personal relations. Experiential learning and simulations build on that stable base to allow for more experimenting and faster epiphany rates. Together, they have the power to transform our educational procedures.

Of course, there is far more to society than just education, which is just one of society’s five main functions or sectors:

1) Family

2) Religion

3) Business

4) Government

5) Education

The Simulations Center will improve each of these functions through experiential learning. Families can use simulations to make decisions together, set goals, and face problems. They will grow stronger and closer together, allowing them to stabilize despite divisive influences. More stable families means more stable communities and a more stable society. Religion, business, government, and education will all benefit from the increased epiphany rates that come with experiential learning.  Read the corresponding pages on the website to learn more about the concept and the organization that does this.

Chapter 5

The “New Visual Media” Catalyst and the J&A “Social Change Studio”

The third catalyst for social change is new visual media. Personal relations and experiential learning are powerful tools made more powerful by the real-time, far-reaching effects of new visual media. Of course, while we use the tools of this new tradition, we have to be careful to make sure new media doesn’t decrease face-to-face interactions (weakening relationships) or replace experiential learning with passive, time-wasting content. Most of that stabilization will happen on an individual, family, and neighborhood basis. 

With proper balance and stabilization, visual media has the unique ability to spread messages in innovative ways almost instantaneously. This form can take local solutions and ideas and apply them globally, allowing for sweeping social change at a much faster rate. 

The John and Abigail center will partner with the Social Change Studio to harness the power of the new visual media for social change, 

Social Change Studio

The main goal of the Social Change Studio is to leverage societal solutions by formatting and publishing the messages and services of social entrepreneurs in innovative ways. Social entrepreneurs recognize a problem in society and create solutions and organizations to address these problems. Instead of focusing on profit and the bottom line, social entrepreneurs focus on the amount of positive social change their ventures accomplish.

The trouble is, social entrepreneurs often don’t have time to build and run a business with all the marketing, hours, and equipment necessary to spread their ideas. There is often a disconnect between social entrepreneurs working to create change and people who are looking for ways to have a more meaningful life but don’t know where to start. 

That is where the Social Change Studio comes in. It is first a production studio, where societal solutions are developed and produced. Social entrepreneurs will bring their ideas and content to the Studio for help with production and distribution. They will be able to film, create podcasts, build simulations, and produce written content with the help of Studio experts. The Studio website offers an online portal for exposure and access to the materials the social entrepreneurs create. 

Of course, social entrepreneurs will be compensated for their work. Unlike other studios that take a large margin of the profits and retain the rights to intellectual property, Social Change Studio only retains 15% of the proceeds of any given product to fund operations. The social entrepreneur maintains the rights to their own intellectual property. 

Social entrepreneurs are unique in that they not only need to inform and inspire, but to help people follow through, improving their quality of life. This kind of social transformation requires consistent initiative over a period of time and is seldom easy to stimulate and facilitate with success. The Studio website, studio and method overcome some of the greatest challenges social entrepreneurs face and provide tailored solutions to fulfill their needs.

It is basically a given at this point that if you want to know something you can look it up online (today’s digital printing press). But what if you want to become something? What if you want your community to become better? The Studio will provide solutions from social entrepreneurs to engage community members and affect a transformation. Instead of using the internet for industrial age classroom-style learning of facts, people will take self-education to a whole new level of application and understanding. The Studio website will include step-by-step introductions and the preliminary steps needed for effective and exciting group interaction. The dynamic interface also provides role instruction for those who are facilitating the process. Participants can prepare themselves at home and meet together to move the initiative forward.

The Social Change Studio will work closely with 3D Learning and the Simulations Center to record and distribute material. The Studio will connect students, families, and communities with experts who can help them as they work to improve, learn, and move forward together. Instead of creating one-size-fits-all solutions, the methods of the Studio help people tailor materials and simulations to individual circumstances. The Studio will also help social entrepreneurs by providing them with the new tools and methods that 3D Learning and Simulation Center are creating. 

Because the Studio will compile information on a vast array of topics, it will offer interdisciplinary cooperation in an unprecedented way. Groups can bring together music and architecture, or astronomy, quantum physics, and cooking in such a way that participants can make principle-based connections between subjects. 

It was stated earlier that the new mantra for the institution needs to switch from the dog-eat-dog notion of “gains above all”, to “working themselves out of a job as families and communities do their job better than they can”. This very real shift will be part of the purpose of these three catalysts. The Social Change Studio will play a vital role in this. There are 6 critical methods infused into each social change solution by the Studio to help stabilize social change at this primary levels reducing dependence on institutions, helping the change self-regulate and self-improve without the need for institutional involvement. 

For the Studio to be successful, we’ll need social entrepreneurs. Think of your purpose in life and your objectives. How do you want to serve people? How can you change the world with what you have to offer? With the Studio to help, you can learn, share, and change the world. There are really no limits to this. We will introduce the concept of dividing the division of labor as a subcatalyst later. Every industry from plumbing to pedicures will go through a transformation involving the primary catalysts and subcatalysts. At this time we have begun the discussion of subcatalyst on the J&A website here.

Apply at the Social Change Studio to explore applications in your industry and specialty. Read the corresponding pages on the website to learn more about the concept and the organization that does this.

Chapter 6

Social Change-U

3D Learning, the Simulations Center, and the Archive Studio will benefit from widespread understanding and participation to effectively bring about social change. In the following three chapters, we’ll introduce three educational organizations that will increase this understanding and participation among three critical social groups.

Social Change-U is a supplement for higher learning education that is scalable, personally customizable, and self-driven by students. Like the 3D Learning model, Social Change-U moves the focus of education squarely on the student, what they are interested in learning; second, what they need to build what we call a “living portfolio”; and third, how they develop as an individual.

The most immediate change to traditional methods comes through improved engagement density. In the current college atmosphere, students are often lost in a sea of other faces in a huge lecture hall. Even in smaller classes, teachers have 20-30 students to worry about, making it easy for individual needs and ideas to fall through the cracks. This system is oriented toward the institution, checking boxes and creating workers to fill roles in organizations. There is little room in this model to discover the genius and gifts of individual students and apply their learning to the benefit of their whole life. Worse, even after they have chiseled off pieces of themselves or allowed gifts to atrophy, they aren’t necessarily better off. Students too often find themselves deep in debt without the promised job prospects to show for it.

Social Change-U is built on groups of four students who set their own supplemental learning path based on their experience and goals. This group of four creates the ideal engagement density for students to be heard, understood, and recognized as a whole person. In the SC-U model, students are able to leverage the power of the groups of 4 before and after they approach a professor/consultant optimizing the quality and quantity of their interaction together.  

What is the benefit of small groups seeing each other as whole people? In the traditional model, students only begin to have familiar faces in their classes once they reach the upper-level portion of their program. When they are assigned small groups for specific projects, students only work together for a short time and end up viewing each other in the context of what each of them bring to the table. Too often, more able or willing group members are exploited while those whose contributions are less apparent sit back. They meet only often enough to complete the assignment, resent the others’ perceived lack of participation, and breathe a sigh of relief once they turn in the project.

Contrast that with the Social Change-U model, where groups of four students work together throughout their educational experience. These students see much more than just a snapshot of another person in the context of a specific course or particular assignment. They help each other grow, review each other’s work, and consult with each other on their educational goals and aspirations. These young adults see each group member as a whole person, helping and interacting with them accordingly.

One of the chief benefits of this kind of whole-person group dynamic is that it drastically increases the epiphany rate among participating students. The groundwork for conversations and learning experiences is laid in advance. Students are already comfortable with each other and aware of each other’s gifts, shortcomings, priorities, and interests. With that background, students are far enough along in trust and understanding that they gain insight and epiphanies at a much faster pace.

How it Works

Social Change-U is an eight-year supplemental program that takes young adults through the transition into higher education, a robust liberal arts program, and graduate-style experiences that prepare them for success in their families, careers, and personal goals.

Graduating In

For the first two years, students will be forming habits of learning, working to create a source of income for themselves, and building and nurturing personal relationships that will be critical in their education and life.

Each young adult who opts into the program will find or be assigned to a group of four. These groups will begin working together immediately, helping each other with tasks and assignments and reviewing each other’s work. Students will choose their own topics of study, but will have assignments, including substantial writing and reading projects, in common. Throughout these initial two years, students will increase their capacity to think critically, express themselves, write persuasively, and work with others.

Meanwhile, each student will work to create an income stream. Some of this could be work for one of the John and Abigail Institute organizations. Some of this work will be entrepreneurial, creating a source of future income that can support the student through school and beyond. The goal is to have a significant source of income through the next critical decade as students work on their own education and start families. Not only will Social Change-U students come out of their program debt-free, they’ll be ahead with significant financial savings and a source of income that will sustain them into the future.

Education

Students will spend the middle four years pursuing a rigorous liberal arts education program as a supplement to their college experiences. By the time they reach this point, they will have financial independence thanks to the revenue streams they’ve created in the “graduating in” process. They will now be free to focus on their personal educational goals.

Though there will be a list of recommended books and materials, students will choose what they want to study and when. The course of study is highly self-tailored, so students select subject matter according to their own goals and interests.  If students are interested in software engineering, writing, history, or a combination of all three, they are empowered to pursue those interests. Once they have selected a topic, groups of four engage consultants, experts in their field, to work with the students and mentor them through material. Students will come to the consultant meeting well-prepared, having studied the expert’s material and ready with questions and discussion topics. Consultants will help the students engage more fully with the material and see how it affects everything else they are learning and accomplishing.

As they engage with consultants and master material, students will use scenario forecasting and simulations to increase understanding and improve application. They will complete projects and write material that will become a living portfolio of what they’ve learned and are learning. Social Change-U also includes student advocates who will discover and introduce resources, outside relationships, and consultants.

As in 3D Learning, each student’s personal relationships will be key in their education. Students will report on their progress, ask for advice, and send out materials for review and comment. By engaging these relationships, students will build a powerful network of support and growth.

One of the key principles students will learn in this program is that the things they actively measure will grow and improve. At Social Change-U, they will learn to measure their epiphany rates, personal relationships, and capacity to change and influence the world.

Graduating Out

The last two years of the Social Change-U program will be spent in real-world application and experiences that will build on and apply what students are learning. They will travel, find internships, try different things, and decide where to go next.

Most critically during this time, students will add to their living portfolio and contribute to the world in positive, meaningful ways.

Students will find a community that they feel they can influence. At first, it will likely be difficult; students won’t have deep personal relationships in this community and will have to work to build trust. They will draw on their experiences and education to select several sectors of the community that they hope to have an impact on and get to work.

Of course, these students will never really be alone. They have spent the past six years building relationships and working with mentors who will still be available to help, advise, and offer resources.  Read the corresponding page in the J&A website and the Social Change-U website

Chapter 7

J&A Family Academy

This chapter falls in the center of the book and its fitting that families are also the center of society and the organization upon which all meaningful social change hinges. Unfortunately, a variety of factors have contributed to the decentralization, dissolution, and disenfranchisement of families. If we stabilize the family, we will have a much better chance of stabilizing individuals, neighborhoods, and larger communities. 

Family units are unique in the educational paradigm because unlike SC-U students, who are of necessity, always focusing outward, family members, in order for a family to be stable, happy, and productive, also focus on the needs and happiness of other family members. In this environment, families can get the best understanding of the whole-person identity of each family member. Family units also look outward to other families, since they are built within and in relation to their community. 

There is immense power in the family dynamic. Each family has their own rate or factor of safety, security, and sanctuary. Highly-functioning families provide a safe place to fail, a nurturing incubator for ideas and growth, and a built-in peer review and support system. The J&A Family Academy aims to help families reach this point while maintaining their unique personality, momentum, and trust. 

The J&A Family Academy is an educational institution because its primary goal is to help family units learn and grow together. Families will learn to recognize where they need to change and then go down different scenario paths to make these changes happen. The Academy is made up of groups of four families working together to strengthen and develop the family unit. 

Together, family groups of 4 will explore and work on the main family unit needs, including:

• Education
• Self-improvement
• Spiritual well-being
• Financial well-being
• Interpersonal behavior (manners, etiquette, speech, posture, etc.)
• Rejuvenation
• Health
• Social life
• Personal relations
• Inter-family relations
• Community relations
• Children and God’s plan
• And more

Families will select between 10-12 topics each month, overlapping topics to provide interdisciplinary perspectives. The initial phases will include get-to-know-you surveys and activities to help families determine where they are and where they hope to go. Success in the family is about far more than surviving, obtaining things, having fun, and being comfortable. Each family unit will discuss what they are really here for and what they hope to accomplish. They will also examine the existing gaps between family members within the unit and between them and other family units. 

Like the 3D Learning and SC-U models, the J&A Family Academy will help family units better incorporate their personal relations into their daily life and education. They will discuss their capacity for growth and then communicate their progress and development with those who matter most. Each family will decide for themselves how to be appropriately vulnerable, operate as a unit, and work in family councils. Families will decide together how and how often to communicate with their relations.

Much of the work of family building will be done within each individual family unit. But imagine for a moment the power that can come by being part of a group of families as well. What if your group decided to combine forces on meal planning, for example. Each family could take one day every week where they prepare a large enough meal for all four families. That means there are three days a week where each family doesn’t have to worry about meal preparation and can focus on other goals. This could also create a social opportunity to engage, or a combined group effort to form healthier habits. 

Educational experiences are also enhanced by multiple perspectives. Four families will be able to run simulations that a single family wouldn’t have the bandwidth for. Educational topics will be broadened by the experiences of those outside of your immediate family circle. 

Finances can be a point of tension in family relationships, but in a group of four, families will have people they trust to go to for advice and an outside perspective. Families could also decide to share costs and resources as appropriate. 

The closer the group of families grows, the more they can support each other. The groups of four provide friendship and perspective through critical growth periods. In the New Vista and city plat models (discussed in chapter 10), these groups of families can even choose to live in close proximity for more immediate support and interaction. 

If families can strengthen themselves and strengthen the families they work with, they will be able to take the place of the institutions that are stalling or crumbling around them. We have grown dependent on specialists, educators, media, retirement homes, and the entertainment industry, and many other social constructs, many of which have proven unreliable. Stable families can provide better value without the pitfalls of the unreliable institutions. 

J&A Family Academy and the John and Abigail Center

The J&A Family Academy deals with two major questions: 

1. What does the family unit need to be successful?
2. What does a successful society need the family unit to be?

The relationship between the Academy and the Center for Social Change can also be framed by these two questions. 

First, the Academy will provide support to help family units be successful. The Academy and partner organizations will provide forms and procedures to help families get started and stay connected. Social entrepreneurs will create content available through the Social Change Studio with family unit best practices and provide resources for success. The Center will provide ways for families to connect with other families and form their groups of four. They will also promote observability by providing a place for family units to tell stories, find templates, and find solutions that are highly rated. 

Second, the Center needs the family to be stable. When it is working well, the family unit is the most stabilizing force in society. Individuals in highly-functioning families are more grounded, more highly educated, and more capable of producing positive social change. Communities made up of stable families have more capacity to change for the better because they are able to adapt quickly to new and better ways of doing things. Groups of stable families also add diversity and unique value to their community.

Society is only as strong as its families. If we can get this piece right, true, deep social change can follow.  Read the corresponding page in the website and then go to the www.JAFamilyAcademy.com website to read a little more and start your family journey.

Chapter 8

Hearts to Children

Have you ever wondered how we can call, text, email, video chat, and communicate in unprecedented ways, but still be disconnected? Despite our rapidly-expanding technology, we seem to find it difficult to communicate what matters most with those who matter most. As the generation gap widens and the pace of life accelerates, loneliness and social disconnect are happening at epic levels.

Take Evelyn, for example. Evelyn is a former college English professor. She spent her entire life teaching people to take a hard look at difficult issues, empathize with others, read critically, and communicate compassionately. She is well-read, brilliant, and residing in an assisted living facility so her husband, Mark, can get the help he needs for his advanced Alzheimers. Evelyn is doing her best to remain engaged. She started a short story club for her neighbors and does monthly lectures on family history, culture, and other topics. But her world and sphere of influence have shrunk dramatically. When her family comes to visit, they spend much of their time answering Mark’s questions.

Andrew and Tara have found themselves facing the rest of their lives five years earlier than planned. Andrew’s company offered him a generous early retirement package to make room for rising young talent. The offer seemed too good to pass up at the time, but now Andrew finds himself unemployed for the first time in his adult life. He feels too young to do any of the stereotypical retiree activities, and he doesn’t like to golf. He and Tara, used to long to-do lists and pressing deadlines, are now facing empty schedules and too much time.

At first, Richard found it really easy to be involved in his kids’ and grandkids’ lives. When they were young, the grandkids thought a visit from Grandpa was the best part of their day. But the families grew, and moved. Now his teenage grandchildren don’t seem all that interested in Richard’s stories. And his high school and military buddies all seem to be either sick or too busy to talk. Looking through picture albums reminds him of all the friends he’s lost touch with and the close relationships he used to have with his family.

Does this sound familiar to you? Are you aware of similar circumstances? 

We are facing a communication and relationship crisis among our older generations. We continue to isolate, marginalize, and ignore our most experienced friends and family members. Increasingly, younger generations use their technological prowess to feel superior to those who came before them, even turning the monikers of older generations into insults. The more we rely on technology that has to be replaced every two years, the easier it is to see a huge portion of our population as irrelevant or obsolete. 

There is something deeply wrong with a society that shuns one of its most important resources. These older couples and individuals often have stores of experience, untapped skills, and free time to help and lift others. We have to unleash their potential for good and heal the generation gap if we want to stabilize our rapidly-crumbling society. 

What if instead of slowly losing friends and influence as years went by, people were able to increase communication and heal relationships? What would happen if everyone had a well-connected network with whom to share ideas, work on problems, and grow? What if older generations learned to use trending technology to enhance their lives and the lives of those they love? These answers may not completely heal the generation gap, but they are a good place to start. 

The Hearts to Children course is designed to help those 55 and older heal and build relationships by adopting new rhythms of communication. The course embraces communication technology without diminishing the importance of meaningful personal connections. Participants will create groups of four (two couples or four individuals) that will work closely together as they complete course materials. Because they will help each other through personal changes and epiphanies, these groups will create lifelong relationships of trust. As they grow individually and as a group, participants will begin communicating their discoveries with their personal relations. Individuals will feel empowered to reach out to friends and loved ones and help them engage. They will take their place as mentors, supporters, and cherished friends. Groups will learn self-reliance and establish habits for regular communication with their personal relations.

Older generations aren’t the only ones who are disconnected. The generation gap goes both ways. In fact, the more connected young people are to digital media and devices, the less connected they are to what makes life truly meaningful. How often have you heard complaints that the younger generation has no understanding about hard work, ethics, morality, and the wisdom of those who came before? In most cases, these misunderstandings aren’t malicious. Young people are victims of our industrial social norms and obsession with convenience. In the past, children and youth were given serious responsibilities from a young age. They had to regularly communicate with peers and adults to ensure those responsibilities were carried out to avoid serious negative consequences. Youth today face different challenges than their predecessors, but there seems to be a growing trend to remove as much responsibility as possible. If we continue to provide youth with myriad distractions and no responsibility, they will be unprepared to deal with life’s challenges and requirements. 

The Hearts to Children model is built to help younger generations as well as their older counterparts. Young adults (17-25) will serve as consultants to help course participants navigate their digital assets. The YA consultants can use the income from Hearts to Children to save money for college or missions. They will gain experience in teaching, public speaking, and customer service. They will learn critical life lessons alongside course participants as 55+ers learn critical life lessons and start broadcasting them to their relationships.  And most importantly, they will build relationships with older generations and benefit from their insight.

Our goal is to heal the generation gap. As we do that, we believe we will also see drastic changes in individual people. Older participants will feel empowered to take an active role in their lives and relationships. They will feel more connected to their world and able to make a real difference. Their expertise will no longer be wasted or allowed to deteriorate. 

Some of the young people who participate may think they are already fully connected and engaged with their world. After all, they have the latest smartphone and hundreds of friends on social media. They may be surprised at how difficult it is to communicate with real people about real things without the lens of their smart device. Their work with Hearts to Children and the groups of four that sponsor them will help them naturally overcome what has become an epidemic of ineptitude. They will learn to form meaningful relationships and engage with their world on a much less superficial level.

The more people participate in Hearts to Children, the more their circles of family and friends will hear about it and join in. The more meaningful relationships we are able to form between and among different age groups, the sooner we can heal the generation gap and move forward together.  Read the corresponding page in the J&A website and then go to the Hearts To Children website https://heartstochildren.com/ to see how you can help J&A Center For Social Change take step #1 in society’s deep fix.

Chapter 9

Lifecast App

We have introduced three catalysts for social change and three educational organizations that employ these catalysts. In the next three chapters, we will talk about infrastructure: the forms we will work to put in place to support the social change organizations

The first of these infrastructure solutions is a digital one: the Lifecast App. Participants in each of the three educational organizations will rely on new visual media and digital solutions to communicate, receive information, and publish their work to their personal relations. The Lifecast App will help them streamline this process.

Lifecast is a social media platform that works to combat the issues that social media and new visual media have caused in society. First, Lifecast will show a whole-person view of someone’s past, present, and future. Instead of cherry-picking the most sterilized or positive moments of their lives to showcase, users will use the app to show their real situation, goals, and current projects. Because Lifecast will offer secure connections to personal relations, users can be vulnerable and straightforward. Their connections will see them as an entire person with faults, talents, goals, problems, and successes in all areas of their life. 

Second, Lifecast is built to enhance personal, face-to-face relationships, not replace them. Users will publish their ideas and projects to Lifecast so their personal relations can see what they are working on, then call or visit those relations to discuss. Instead of providing an endless feed of distraction and entertainment, Lifecast gives users more reasons to talk to people in person, create, write, and connect.

Third, Lifecast will help you focus on what matters most: your personal and spiritual gifts and the relationships that most influence your life.

What does Lifecast include?

A personal page on lifecast will include some key sections to help accomplish the whole-person view we’re looking for:

Quick Facts

This section provides an overview of a person’s life and progress. It can include books that they recommend or have been inspired by, links to articles they’ve written, life-changing colloquia and simulations they’ve participated in, speaking engagements they have coming up, an RSS feed of news from their colleagues, and areas of the world they have influence in. 

Personal Bio

This section will include biographical information about a person’s background, family, and experiences. Users can use this section to help their relations know them better. 

Current Online Colloquia

Keeps connections up-to-date on the colloquia a user is currently participating in

“Make a difference” Initiatives

Users will be able to keep a record of the social change projects they are working on, including their next steps and ways other people can help.

Key Relations

Users will have a list of key relations that are most influential in their lives. This will not only add context to the overall view of their life and accomplishments, it will also remind them of which relationships they should spend the most time cultivating offline.

Suggestion Box

This will require some trust and vulnerability from users. We can accomplish significant personal growth by listening to advice and feedback from those we trust who have our best interest at heart. This section allows a user’s relations to provide feedback.

Calendar

A user page will include a calendar of their commitments and upcoming events so their personal relations can plan face-to-face interaction accordingly.

Epiphanies

As users experience epiphanies in their educational organizations or social change efforts, they will post those epiphanies on their page. This will help them articulate those epiphanies in a meaningful way and involve their relations in their discoveries. 

Needs, Networking, Funding

If users need more support, funding, or connections, they will post their needs on their page so their connections and other social entrepreneurs can engage and help. Users can also post their ideas for solutions to social issues.

A Living Portfolio

Lifecast serves as a living portfolio, showcasing the best projects, writing, and accomplishments of the user. At the same time, Lifecast is far more than a snapshot of only positive moments. Users must be willing to be vulnerable in the present so they can engage with their relations and receive help and advice. The Lifecast app will also encourage users to look outside of themselves and strive for social change. 

Lifecast should never become an end in itself. Because it is a portfolio, it highlights the accomplishments and hurdles users face in their life offline. We should spend 80% of our time in eye-to-eye interaction and the other 20% on our devices, not vice versa. Think of Lifecast as the dashboard for your life. It displays some critical information that you should pay attention to, but if you spend all of your time staring at your dashboard, you’ll ignore the road in front of you.   Read the corresponding page in the website.

Chapter 10

City Plat, the Family Campus

The second infrastructure solution is physical, and is an extensive undertaking. If the Lifecast App is the digital warehouse for social change concepts and ideas, the City Plat, or Family Campus, is the lab where those ideas can be carried out and experimented with. 

Most of our current infrastructure is designed for the sake of our institutions. Schools and businesses are built to industrial-era standards. Housing and transportation infrastructure is built for individuals without any consideration for community needs (which, ironically, also makes things more difficult and less comfortable for individuals who require long commutes, school buses, and a maze of routes to complete weekly errands). Too many buildings are single-use, sitting empty much of the time. Increasingly, natural spaces are being covered by concrete to accommodate urban sprawl. 

To optimize the social change solutions presented by the John and Abigail Center for Social Change and partner organizations, we need a more optimal setting.

The City Plat community is a post-industrial, modular solution that focuses on engagement density and the importance of the family as the center of society. The City Plat will focus on sustainable living, decreasing our dependence on cars and improving community self-reliance through permaculture-style local food production and industry. Families will live in multi-family housing, drawing support and inspiration from others. 

This may sound familiar to any of you who have studied David Hall’s work on the NewVista urban development model (see NewVistaFoundation.org for more information). The City Plat principles developed by the John and Abigail Center work well with the NewVista model and Center founders look forward to the development of a NewVista community when David does it. We will also be building our own versions with some common principles.

The City Plat offers communities a chance to start fresh, without the assumptions, baggage, and waste of past methods and institutions. Communities can base their layout and infrastructure on what families need to thrive. 

The heart of the City Plat community is the home. By providing a place for learning, entertainment, industry, and growth, City Plat homes will eliminate the need for so many outside influences and structures. Each home will have a circular area in the center that will serve as a library, meeting room, dance hall, and connective area for the rest of the home. Other spaces on the main floor facilitate business, music, and formal entertaining. Downstairs, the house will have large spaces for play, laundry, food processing (including a large kitchen), a theater, etc. Other living spaces and bedrooms are upstairs, in the corners of the house. The home is practical and luxurious, large enough to provide privacy and space for four families with communal space. Because families will share space, they will be able to have amenities they may not be able to afford or justify on their own. Children and adults alike will have friends to confide in and work with. 

Groups of homes will share garden space and other communal areas that aren’t part of the house structure that families can access as they desire. Vital community buildings will be close enough together to eliminate the need for cars or long commutes so families have more time to spend together and individuals have time for play, practice, and recreation. Though this structure does promote self-reliance, families can outsource or provide services as necessary and desired. 

Each City Plat will have a population of about 20,000 and will include the businesses and industry most necessary for the community. This is not to say that each Plat will be entirely self contained; some City Plats will specialize in specific industries and provide services to neighboring Plats as necessary. 

This will be a significant change from our current way of life, so there will be a graduating-in phase. Groups of families could decide they are stable enough to spearhead this effort and begin building a community. Ideally, these families would have the means to start the community debt-free, thanks to their own resources and support from the John and Abigail Center and partner organizations (see chapter 12 on the Million Dreams Conference for more information on this funding model). Once a community is up and running, they can turn outward, helping other groups of families join the City Plat or build their own.

The beauty of this organizational structure is that most problems or issues can be dealt with at the most local levels. Families and groups of families can solve problems for themselves, instead of relying on a bloated bureaucracy to do it for them. With stable families at the center of things, local structure is the most important. 

Key Benefits of the City Plat model:

Scalability and sustainability: communities are built to grow and sustain themselves. With more community needs focused on the home, the community can scale at a much better rate than our modern industrial communities with their need for increasing infrastructure. 

Not dependent on industrial norms and overspecialization.

By sharing resources, all families will live in large, luxurious houses with access to amenities currently reserved for the upper levels of economic success. 

Eliminates the need for extensive freeway systems and hundreds of single-use buildings. 

Better harmony between spiritual and physical things. 

Better stewardship of natural resources and lowered dependence on cars will improve environmental impact.

A faster rate of social change is possible in this setting.

Next Steps

We hope to break ground on the first City Plat by the end of 2022, with bigger facilities following each year after that. Much needs to happen to make that a reality. John and Abigail staff will meet with social entrepreneurs, the market research group, and the launch team to discuss logistics, answer questions, and come up with solutions (if you’d like to be part of these groups, sign up below). Ideally, they will form a team of people interested in the legalities of the Plat, sustainability, energy, social framework and structure, and other critical areas. 

This group will need to research several key elements, including land purchases, mineral and water rights, and community charters before selecting a site. They will also need to arrange the community application process for interested families. They will need to plan the infrastructure and create a curriculum for a boot camp to acclimate people to the new way of living. 

There is a lot of work to do. We look forward to working with other social entrepreneurs to more fully conceptualize the City Plat and work toward more sustainable communities that facilitate social change.  Read the corresponding page on the website.

Chapter 11

Capacity for Change

The third infrastructure solution is actually a framework for individuals, families, and communities to take inventory of where they are and where they want to go. This tool, called Capacity for Change, is a method for analysis that prompts change for communities and shows them the path forward. 

We say we thrive on change. So many of us can’t wait to try the next great gadget or diet or exercise routine. We expect constant updates to our software and new models of cars. Every year, we set new goals to make new changes to become a whole new person. Our businesses and communities make five-year and ten-year and twenty-year plans to improve. Yet even though we seem to know what needs to change and even how to make it change, we never quite reach the mark. And no matter how much we say we want change, isn’t it easier to maintain the status quo and seek stability?

Have you ever thought that we should take a step back and measure our capacity to change first? Before you set goals, imagine if you asked yourself, what is keeping me from making meaningful changes? What factors are constraining me? What barriers are inherent in the system? What things need to change before I can really make a difference? If you can increase your capacity for change, you can increase the rate and improve the direction of change. 

For our purposes, we are going to talk about a community’s capacity for change, but the same principles apply to individuals and families. 

The first step of Capacity for Change will consist of a rubric that communities can use to rate themselves. This will likely be a software-driven survey that helps them gauge their vision, need, processes, level of innovation, habits, subliminal thinking, resources, and more. The survey will also give them three or more scenarios to consider. In these scenarios, people will have to ask themselves what their current capacity for change is, what they want it to be, and how they would react to different situations. 

Take, for example, the scenario that there is a large number of refugees that need a new home. As a community, would they be able to welcome and accommodate this group? As they consider the scenario, community members may ask themselves questions like these:

• Could we raise the necessary funds and complete the prep work necessary to get the refugees here?
• Could we get government permission to bring the refugees to our community?
• Could we mitigate community concerns and overcome distribution issues?
• How would our community change if we were generous, caring, and selfless enough to do it?
• What effect would this powerful expression of service and caring teach our youth?

Some communities may find that they are capable of making this change. They would be prepared to present the solution to the city and show how it would create real, powerful, positive change. In the process of making this change, they would also increase their capacity for further change by showing the community the positive effects of their actions.  Other communities may find that they are not prepared for such a scenario. They may set smaller goals to increase their capacity for change to prepare for future opportunities. 

The Archive Studio and a social entrepreneur will likely be involved in this process, chiefly to help community members break through assumptions of what is possible. They will help paint the vision for the community, who will then run with it. 

One of the benefits of using simulations as part of this process is that it is impossible to maintain a facade during a simulation. This means that individuals in the community will be able to present their full selves instead of the most acceptable pieces.

Once communities have participated in the Capacity for Change process, they can create a profile with their results for other community members to see. Together, they can set goals to improve their capacity for change and move forward. If they choose, they can publish their findings and the solutions they come up with to inspire other communities. 

This survey will help communities imagine the kinds of changes they could make if their capacity were higher. This is especially critical as changes come at an increasing rate. Are communities prepared to deal with the repercussions of bio- and nanotech, artificial intelligence, new toxins, implications of nuclear energy technology, natural disasters, culture shifts, and the increasing isolation that comes with our digital age? 

Capacity for Change is a key element of every part of the John and Abigail Center. Imagine the needs of the City Plat. Any family or group interested in living in the Plat will need to have a significant capacity for change. Participants in 3D Learning, SC-U, the J&A Family Academy and Hearts to Children will need to be prepared to approach learning and relationships in a new way. Significant social change will require increased capacity from all of us. 

Once a community has evaluated their capacity for change and practiced increasing it, they will find that they can improve their infrastructure and forms at an accelerated rate. A major part of this is that instead of feeling helpless in the face of major problems, communities will take the steps necessary to address them. They will have increased faith in themselves and their communities.  Read the corresponding page on the website.

Chapter 12

Million Dreams Conference

We’ve covered catalysts, educational institutions, and infrastructure solutions to accomplish social change. The next three chapters are all about action. Where do we go from here? What are the next steps to accomplish these monumental goals?

The first thing we need to do is gather social entrepreneurs together to build the John and Abigail Center for Social Change and create partner organizations to get boots on the ground. We will accomplish this in part by holding a Million Dreams Conference. 

A New Kind of Conference

In a typical conference setting, attendees are passive observers, listening to presenters and occasionally participating in a Q&A. The Million Dreams Conference inverts this paradigm. Instead of a conference speaker presenting to an audience, the Million Dreams audience is presenting to the speaker. All presenters (subject matter experts and J&A Center personnel) will deliver all of their materials to conference participants beforehand in a series of processes and engagements. 

Conference participants will be well-versed in the material before Million Dreams starts. 

At the conference, attendees will work in groups of four. In each session, groups of four will discuss their questions and suggestions with each other and with the subject matter expert. Instead of making a presentation, the speaker will address topics brought up by the groups of four, likely learning new information and refining their methods in the process. While this is happening, the groups of four are aware that they will take this material and use it to build businesses and help the J&A Center long after the conference is over. In this way, Million Dreams is much less about the conference itself and more about the procedure—what happens before the event and what they accomplish after. The event is meant to focus on the overall process. Participants will work to more deeply understand the purpose of the sponsoring organization.

As part of their preparation for the conference, attendees will examine their own epiphany rate and capacity for change and decide what they need to do to prepare and which sessions they should attend to build themselves and move forward.

Simulations will also play a significant role in the Million Dreams Conference. Organizers can build procedures/simulations into the event and/or have participants build their own. Attendees can choose to be a participant, mastermind, or observer of a simulation. Presentations will also be broadcast to reach more people, significantly including personal relations of those attending. 

The Million Dreams Conference has three main goals:

1. Demonstrate the new kind of conference
2. Fund the Community Plat
3. Introduce the John and Abigail Center at a deep level and have people engage with their main interest

The Conference will occur in two parts.

Conference Part 1

First, those who plan to build the Center will come together to review and create 1,000 business proposals, each of which will help the Center accomplish its mission. Attendees will be familiar with the Center’s founding principles and will come with ideas and proposals to discuss. These social Entrepreneurs will propose solutions in several areas of need. For example:

• Government (see J&A Elections 360° as one of the 16 solutions on the J&A website)
• Nation state sovereignty
• Local governance
• Elections and legislative reform
• Law reform

For those interested in this section, there is some further written material about the collaborating new forms of government that will be generated using the 3 catalysts and the scenarios regarding the roll out of the City Plats in relation to government. Please join the group that is helping flesh this out. Just call me 8O1 54O 544I   —Allen

• Education
• Optimal collaboration, polishing, correct reach
• Gifts, assets, engagement, might
• Conventions and conference
• Population density, mobilization, empowerment
• Human capital constraint
• Economy
• Dividing the Division of Labor
• Finance
• Banks
• Currency
• Religion
• Food, water, utilities and sustainability
• Pollution
• Housing
• Cars and transportation
• Culture
• Western American situation and how to penetrate inspiring change
• Family
• Media
• Community
• Infrastructure
• Business and Institutions
• Institutionalism
• Health
• Detox
• Habits
• Prevention
• Living
• Teeth
• Technology
• Algorithm threat

As the group discusses and fleshes out these ideas, social entrepreneurs will select and take ownership of the proposals that are best suited to their expertise and interest. The entire conference is a creative business incubator. Through presentations, discussion in groups of four, and simulations, these social entrepreneurs will build a significant portion of these businesses at the conference itself. 

All of the businesses that arise from the first conference will be part of the John and Abigail Center for Social Change. The goal is for all of these businesses to be capable of 5 million dollars in liquid capital within two years, allowing them to support the J&A Center and help fund the first City Plat. 

Conference Part 2

The second part of the conference is both a follow-up to the first and an expansion. Attendees from the first conference will be invited to observe the second event and perhaps choose to help fund the business ideas that arise. 

The structure of the second conference will be similar to the first, though the list of attendees will be expanded to include people who want to discuss business ideas that may or may not fall under the John and Abigail Center. The conference will still aim to help them create businesses that will generate five million plus in the first two years. Participants will be invited (though not required) to give some of that money back to the Center to further their goals. 

By the end of the conference, there will be a large group of close-knit social entrepreneurs ready to move forward with the Center to create meaningful social change and fund the first City Plat.  Read the corresponding page on the website

If you’re interested in joining the mastermind group or launch team for the John and Abigail Center or any of the partner organizations, contact us.

Download the PDF version of the book here.