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i didn’t want this day to end without having taken a serious look at where i have been in the past year and when i want to go next. i criticize myself horribly and never feel like i’m doing enough, so i decided to do a review of the past 12 months and show myself a bit of kindness and gratitude for what i *did* manage to accomplish. i feel insanely optimistic about 2012 being the year i finally align my energy and passion and go supernova.
so, here’s where i’ve been so far in 2011, and the experiences i plan to share with you this epic year of 2012. 🙂
2011
January
– launched Future of Facebook Project (FOFB) with futurist friend & colleague Alvis Brigis
– asked by Douglas Rushkoff to help him organize a conference/bazaar/festival to feature and promote social technologies to shape the world; this became the Contact Summit (aka ContactCon)
– started thinking about the Resilient City Project
February
– got to interview amazing thought leaders & people I respect in the tech industry for FOFB project – Howard Rheingold, Kevin Kelly, Doc Searls, Om Malik, Brett King, JP Rangaswami, to name a few
– started learning about wireless mesh networks
March
– announced Future of Facebook Project & Open Foresight framework to the public
– interview on BBC radio about Open Foresight framework
– interview on FastForward Radio about Future of Facebook Project & Open Foresight
– started noticing the emergence of a superfluid economy
– spoke at SOFA event in NYC hosted by SWIFT/Innotribe
April
– managed to exceed goal of crowdfunding $5,000 on kickstarter to support FOFB development; reached $6,737 with 98 backers
– started thinking more deeply about the important of online identity & data ownership
– did a deep dive into identity & data ownership projects/initiaitves
– wrote a post about the ‘bank of facebook’ on Forbes.com
– wrote a post about trends shaping the emergent ‘superfluid’ economy on CNN.com
May
– identified over 100+ inspiring change agents i’ve found via twitter
– spoke at the Privacy Identity Innovation Conference in Silicon Valley
June
– spoke at Amplify Festival in Sydney & Melbourne
– did a deep dive to identify over 60 online peer-to-peer exchange marketplaces
– published in shareable.net’s ebook Share or Die
– did a 2 week roadtrip/camping trip through Rocky Mountain, Grand Teton, Yellowstone, Glacier, & Banff National Parks (pics)
– organized a ‘community stimulus’ Local Currencies & Barter Networks workshop in Beacon
– wrote article on Shareable about ‘10 projects to liberate the web’
– did a deep dive into identity management providers
– spoke at Austen Riggs about ‘social media & the evolution of consciousness’
– joined Constellation Researchas Resident Futurist
– envisioned a ‘superhero school’ for Beacon (now conceived as a ‘Collaboratory’)
– went to an amazing fusion event to shift myself into action-orientation in life
– did a deep dive into self-analysis tools
– went on enlightening ‘blazing wisdom’ dzogchen buddhist retreat in vermont
– got halfway through blog series that will become a book in 2012 about the creative economy
– started a wikito build database of tools, methodologies & practices to bootstrap business ventures, incubate ideas, and impact lasting systemic change in our systems & institutionsphew!ok, looking at it like this actually makes me feel like i’ve done a lot since my december 2010 grad school graduation.now, on to 2012! intentions i have:1. “Upgrade” blog – i’d like to start having guest posters and to create more focused themes about the creative economy. (ie – future of work, future of money, dialogue & junto, lifehacks, etc.) also plan to set up a ‘patronage’ section for those that want to support my artistic expression via monthly donation. also need to give options of how people can retain my services – speaking, advisory, research. plan to do this by end of january.
2. Thought Architecture Newsletter – been wondering for a long time if people would pay $ to have access to a daily (or bi-weekly) newsletter where i basically write about my creative process and insights that come to me. (may also do short 1-3 minute videos of me just riffing on stuff.). putting together a format and plan to begin this by end of january.
3. Monthly Public Online Juntos – using buzzumi.com, plan to do a livestream Junto on either a once a week basis or once a month basis. will consist of 4 people total engaged in generative dialogue around a particular topic area or deep dive question (ie – asking 3 experts in local food sustainability to talk about their projects and learnings; or getting more specific – what are the cultural and cognitive/emotional shifts that need to take place, in your experience, in order to impact lasting systemic innovation and change?). starting 2nd week of january.
4. Continue to Build & Support the Next Edge community – earlier this year, i helped start an online community (dubbed “The Next Edge”) consisting of systems innovators and change agent. now we have over 1,300 members. i want to continue to surface the community’s needs and provide solutions.
5. Write a Book – working title: Superfluid.; story about creative economy 3.0. it’s happening right now. plan to integrate the ‘12 essential skills for 21st century survival’ blog series into it.
6. Build a ‘Platform’ for Creative Economy 3.0 – how does this nation of creative entrepreneurs and freelancers get paid, while doing work born of passion and bounded by commitment, creating solutions that often become gifts/assets of the commons, and still get paid a sustainable income? huge nut to crack. been talking to several hundred smart people about how to make this happen. i believe we can, and the time is now.
7. Launch Resilient City Project – title i chose just to frame my own involvement and tracking of how to help make Beacon a national/international example of a resilient city. already tons going on here. want to have some sort of online site (purchased beacondashboard.com a while back, as well as resilientcityproject.com) where we could make transparent all the amazing things already happening in our city and the Hudson Valley region….. then a way to show projects that are launching or in formation (for example, working with Stowe Boyd right now to launch a Food Coop in our city. i plan to be documenting that process so people are aware/can follow how we did it.)
8. Open a Collaboratory – this may be too ambitious to happen in 2012, but i want to make serious progress towards opening a live/work hacker/maker/sustainability innovation center in beacon. i already found a gorgeous building and location.
9. Committed Yoga Practice – i find that i function at my highest levels when i go to yoga at least 4-5 times a week. keeps me grounded, mentally clear, and physically toned. and gets me out of the house. and gets me interacting with actual humans in meatspace. all good things.
10. Medicine Spiral Training – i committed to a 16 month medicine spiral training, designed to pass on spiritual/facilitation methods/teachings from the andean peruvian tradition. a bit of woo to it, but fundamentally it communicates universal principles of life, understanding and creation. it’s about healing work. i love it. i’m way into concepts of ‘shamanic leadership’
11. Dzogchen Tibetan Buddhism Practice – i just attended my first dzogchen buddhist retreat a few weeks ago and found it really inspiring and valuable for learning how to practice conscious awareness and take note of and remedy ‘cognitive obfuscations and afflictive emotions.’ the philosophies are very aligned with the way i currently think.
12. Go to Vegas, Grand Canyon & Bryce National Park – we try to do a national parks roadtrip every year. this will be spring break 2012.
13. Go to Croatia & Latvia – ah, the homeland. i haven’t been back in over 10 years and the family wants me to come for a visit. so july 2012, trip up the adriatic coast of croatia to explore and reconnect to the roots. then off to husband’s homeland, latvia.
14. Lifehacking – ok, so all this stuff isn’t going to just happen on its own. i need to become uber-effective and Get Shit Done [GSD] while still having fun and playing infinite games. i will be documenting the techniques i discover to make this work for me.
And that’s “it!”
Very ambitious year for me, but all feels completely do-able, interconnected, and timely.
What are your reflections of the past year and goals for your near future?
emergent by design 
Congratulations on a year of enormous achievement Venessa! I hope that you hit your targets for 2012.
thanks tim! congrats to you too for making the top 10 list of innovation bloggers!
i would pay for your thought architecture newsletter. i might ask you to buy some of my thoughts in some form as well; either as data, or narrative. we will be producing some interesting stuff.
thanks for the confidence, kevin. we can barter memes. 🙂
Dear Vanessa, happy new year and thanks for all the fantastic work that you done during 2011, congratulations.
Very truly yours.
Gonzalo Granados.
you and your mother should both be proud.
Venessa, what a great year you had! And you did not even mention how many you inspired! You know I am always a bit critical of too bubbly a language and any drift that reminds me of sales-speak… the phraseology. But all this could never hide the content you spread and the inspiration that results from agreement as well as disagreement.
Thanks for being in my timeline 😉
Tres bien, v.m! We may all be looking forward to your year nearly as much as you now, thanks to all the candid transcripts you log here…bravely done 😉
I’m wondering though if your January is somehow twice or thrice the apparent duration of mine? Very greedy! But you’ll ace it all, no doubt. Will have to shake a few contingencies out of my own plot to feel in league.
On the subject of community hubbing you raise, I have for a while held the notion of a slightly tweaked Drupal Commons distribution that integrates matslat’s Mutual Credit (“economy in a box”) module. Could be a powerful open starter kit for this sort of application, along with a few example implementations and tutorials. I’m helping to activate something similar at creativechangecenter.com for my home base, although currently tied to BuddyPress with that. It’s been a huge boon to have a physical interface-space as well on this project, that serves as a gallery, venue, and cowork zone. Go for it!
..here’s to meta-tasking. Have a blast! Oh, and i’ve a hot tip there will be one giant dome tent landing on MOMA lawn for a while this spring, with a few openings for outside special events (complementary, if copacetic). Think about it! Salud.
I was taught by a Rabbi of mine that a wise person will always look to the right and a fool to the left. His explanation (I don’t recall his sources – apologies!) was that, in Hebrew, we read from right to left, so that to look right is to see what we have accomplished and how far we have come, rather than to focus on what we have still to do.
May the year be filled with wisdom, love and joy for all of us!
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