So many folks around here know cool shit

I've been able to be apart of so many interesting/strange/lovely communities in my time in the cities. Playing pick up baseball, screen printing movement art, feeding neighbors, seeing weird theater. There is an incredible wealth of knowledge and skill and mutual aid and community in these parts. There's also a wealth of folks looking to build their understanding. People who want to plug in, learn how to feed a crowd, learn how to play second base. It's a thriving push and pull and the feeling of a friend interested in exploring an idea and knowing exactly who they should talk to is fulfilling (especially when you're that person!).

There was a great meeting at Resource MPLS focusing on building out the future of their skill sharing workshops, on a big piece of paper, we wrote out all the things we'd love to learn about and the things we'd love to share our expertise (or novice understanding of). It ended up being a giant map, filled with areas of thought across many disciplines (construction, gardening, medicine, computational thinking, toy making, &c.) It was a great excersice, a room of folks I didn't know (except Jake! thanks for the invite) turned from strangers into a corpus of community driven education.

Not every skill had someone in the space that knew enough to teach a primer, but folks either knew

A friend (of a friend of a friend) who knows about the topic

A great resource related to the topic

An org in the area that focuses on teaching that topic

As the map grew, the page felt too small, and there were so many folks who I wished would have been their to add their own ideas and skills. On the bike ride home I decided that a map like this needed a permanent home on the web, a directory of twin cities folks/orgs/books/zines/gardens/myths ready to share what they know and a sister map of requests, what folks are interested in learning, what feels like missing segments, uncharted waters.

I'd love to know, what do you know that you'd love to share? What are you looking to learn from the community? How would you visualize such a directory? (email me!)

This is all ideas currently, but think of this as an initial dev log for the project. More to come!

Fair winds and following seas

JT (jt@yet.earth)