I have been following the growth of crowdfunding for a long time, and I've been particularly intrigued by the potential for crowdfunded real estate development. But so far truly broad based crowdfunding in real estate has been rare, with the most widely known examples coming from the Prodigy Network based in Bogota, Columbia. Imagine my …
Continue reading From the Good Ideas File: Crowdsourced Real Estate Deals
This Good Idea come with a personal stamp of approval. Mini Maker Faires have been popping up all over the country, and, well, they're awesome. Initially developed by Make Magazine, Mini Maker Faires are typically locally-orgainzed events that allow anyone who, well, makes stuff, to show off what they can do. What does that have to …
Continue reading From the Good Ideas File: Mini Maker Faire!
This article focuses on national policy, but in the process it gives a great insight into the challenges and the unknowns of what I referred to in the book as the 1099 Economy, after the United States tax form used to report income from freelance work. And it highlights a key problem: since at the …
Every week, I open The Local Economy Revolution to a random spot and give you a selection here from the book. Intrigued by what you read? Get the whole book here. One of the biggest, often overlooked challenges we are facing today is that our traditional debate model of public involvement isn’t working, and it’s …
Continue reading Random Excerpt: The three main barriers to meaningful public engagement
One of the major themes in the book revolves around the risks -- and our tendency to overlook the risks -- of the unintended consequences of the big ideas we come up with to try to make our communities better. As I've noted a bunch of times, including here and here, a huge number of …
Continue reading From the Good Ideas file: South Carolina’s Abandoned Building Revitalization Act
It's hard for people who work in local governments and nonprofits (or many old-line employers, for that matter) to grasp the incredible changes going on in how more and more people do their work. Don't get caught up in the gee-whiz technology mentioned in this article, but look closely at how this work is getting done …
Continue reading From the Good Ideas file: Work at WikiSpeed is not work like it used to be
This passage is from Todd Henry's The Accidental Creative, an excellent read and podcast listen: I spent much of my life as a paid amateur. I was doing what I needed to do to get the work done, but I was secretly waiting for someone to come along and “pick” me. I was saving myself for a …
I just received this note from the printer who produces the hard copy version of The Local Economy Revolution --apparently, the groundhog saw his shadow this morning and Lulu is feeling as lousy as the rest of us about this winter dragging on.... As we all hunker down, Lulu wanted to share the warmth with …
Continue reading Free Shipping on Print Copies of The Local Economy Revolution — For a short time!
This Good Idea is for both us as people, as professionals ... and for how we manage our communities. This article is written for educators talking about their students, but it applies to all of us who are saying, "how the hell do we survive in this tumultuous, constant-change economy?" The answer: we …
Continue reading From the Good Ideas File: How 21st Century Thinking Is Just Different
Sometimes the Good Ideas file throws me a surprise. Today's Good Idea is a great follow-on to the challenge to magic -bullet thinking around vacant lots that dominated yesterday's post. According to this article, Louisville, Kentucky, is trying to figure out the vacant lot question themselves -- and they're doing it in a way that both …
Continue reading From the Good Ideas file: Louisville’s Lots of Possibility
The Local Economy Revolution Has Arrived 