Matterness

It's been a little while since my last post, but now that I'm back from Philadelphia, Seattle, and Costa Rica, I have a little more than a month until my next trip. More on my trips later. It's a lot of traveling, but so worth it.

I went to the launch of Allison Fine's book MATTERNESS. Mind blown. Here are a few of my takeaways from the event.

• Matterness is reversing the traditional notion of leadership, where the leader was the most important person, and replacing it with a new definition where the focus is on making other people matter.
• Even though networks are largely powered by social media, nothing is going to change entirely online, it needs to happen on land. 
• We spend too much time thinking about "what could go wrong?" This is a fear-based culture.
• Call to action: making the world better means making the people in it better. PARTICIPATE. Don't think about "they" or outsourcing it.
• We need organizations. They just need to be better. Volunteer-led networks need someone paid.
• #givingtuesday: What can make the most people inspired to share their cause? Empower people in the network rather than empowering yourself.
• What people are most scared of doesn't actually exist.
• People shared why they were there and the stories changed the work.

I think I lot of these apply to the work we're doing at Diversability.