Wondering why things have been so quiet here lately? It’s because Evan and I are working on taking things to the next level - building upon the ideas about community entrepreneurship explored here at hivethrive and our former work at the Rockridge Institute. The expanded focus of our new enterprise is the application [...]

The science section of today’s New York Times highlights an organization called InnoCentive that seeks to solve the most challenging problems by inviting a large number of people from different walks of life to participate in the process. The article, If You Have a Problem, Use Incentive to Ask Everyone, describes the process of [...]

The great innovations of the 21st Century will be social. I predict that the solutions to our greatest challenges will emerge through new ways of coming together. Case in point, the Drake Landing Solar Community is a fully integrated housing development that takes solar to the next level. Solar panels channel heat [...]

Last week I was in Yosemite National Park with my family. It is such a beautiful place, filled with massive granite domes and a vibrant natural setting for experiencing the wonders of nature. It is also the home of many black bears.
As we entered the park I noticed the sign photographed here. [...]

We are living in a time of tremendous injustice. The majority of people in the U.S. (and the world) lack the basic securities necessary for psychological and material well-being. All the while, a tiny minority of people have amassed huge piles of money. This gap between rich and poor demonstrates an absence [...]

Where does genius come from? Is it an innate quality of exceptional individuals? Perhaps in some instances. But there is another kind of genius that emerges through the exchanges of people in a special place - a pub filled with poets, the coffee house at the edge of campus, or Silicon Valley.
This [...]

Once again, I’m out to show that the Lone Hero does not typically save the community from peril. When problems arise, it is the coming together of people - the community itself - that is the real hero. Take the small town of Felton, CA as an exemplar of this phenomenon. In [...]

I just watched an inspiring video that reminds me of what I know deep inside, that social change is a team effort. The old adage says that “change comes from within.” When the change is a societal transformation, this is a golden insight that captures something truly profound:
A society changes from within - [...]

A few weeks ago, Evan wrote about the awesome box of veggies he gets from a local farm each week. My wife and I subscribe to the same community supported agriculture program at Full Belly Farm. We are very lucky to have something like this where we live (Berkeley, CA).
For those of you [...]

A common habit in the Western world is to consider words to be one-to-one mappings of thoughts onto the world. By this reckoning, the word community would have just one meaning that is correct. That would imply that there is only one correct set of ideas about what a community is.
How does this [...]