Standard approaches to scaling, commercialization, and optimization are hostile to meaning. But: most of us want our projects to be lastingly meaningful AND to touch many lives!
There's only one way to proceed: defensively: with an understanding of how your project is likely to be co-opted, or made meaningless by scale, and with a clear plan to defend against that possibility.
You'll need to learn what to monitor, and how to design, to avoid the negative effects of scale. Specifically, you'll need a data science of meaning, and a set of design methods that scale up without creating meaningless funnels.
These same skills will allow us to effect a large-scale economic transformation, away from the attention and consumption economies, towards an economy that addresses meaning at every level.
We offer three courses, taken in sequence.
Each course is about 5 weeks, meets twice a week, is instructor-led, and takes place in groups of six.
For an overview of our curriculum, see this 1 hour video. The course textbook is also free and online.
If you're making something meaningful, this course is for you! We get specific about what people find meaningful, to help you make things that stay meaningful, even as they scale.
1. Learn how social expectations and goals crowd out sources of meaning. Tell sources of meaning apart from other kinds of motives.
2. Bring definition to values Break down values into their building blocks, by understanding them as attentional policies.
3. Communicate values concretely Capture and communicate sources of meaning using values cards.
4. Transform emotions to values Learn to read your emotions, decipher a value that's missing in the moment, and convey it to those around you.
