Wise Economy Workshop

01/05/2026

Future Here Now: Future Here Now: Pervasive Externalities

We were taught that the side effects of our decisions don’t really matter.
That they disappear.
That someone else will deal with them.

They don’t.
They accumulate. And they come back. 🌍⚙️🧠

From climate change to toxic team dynamics, the biggest risks we face today aren’t always “out there.”
They’re embedded in our organizations, meetings, homes—and heads.

⚠️ The most dangerous externalities?

Things we think but don’t say 🤐
Things we say but don’t mean 🎭
Feelings we sense but can’t name 🌫️
Behaviors we repeat without realizing 🔁

In a post-industrial, post-normal world defined by uncertainty and ambiguity, ignoring these “undiscussables” is no longer an option. Once we stop questioning assumptions—and silence those who do—we lose our way through the fog.

🧭 That’s what Future Here Now explores:
How to see what we’ve been trained to ignore—and act before the costs compound.

🚀 Take the next step
📘 Buy the books
📰 Subscribe to Future Here Now (2–3x weekly insights)
🎤 Bring this conversation to your organization through talks & workshops

👉 Subscribe now (25% off for a limited time):
www.wiseeconomy.substack.com

💬 If this resonates, let’s talk about how your team can surface the undiscussables—before they become your biggest risk.

01/05/2026

A reflection on the hidden consequences of our decisions—and why the most dangerous risks today are the ones we refuse to talk about.

01/03/2026

Future Here Now: Don’t Future Proof. Get Future Ready

I saw this sign on the streetcar this weekend:
“Future Proof your Career!!”

It made me mad. 😡

We keep trying to shield ourselves from change — lightning, robbers, inflation… and now, the future. But here’s the thing: you can’t future proof against the massive era-change happening right now.

We’re entering a future that won’t look like the past. Future proofing? That’s like planting your feet on the seafloor as the tide rises. It won’t work.

Future Ready? That’s different.
✅ Accept change
✅ Understand change
✅ Work with change — surf the wave instead of fighting it 🌊

Are you building defenses against the future, or are you learning to ride it?

📚 Dive deeper: Subscribe to Future Here Now — my subscriber-only series exploring the early signs of the next era.

✨ Explore more: Get my books, join workshops, or bring me in for talks that help you and your organization become truly Future Ready.

Icons/graphics suggestions:
🌊 Wave icon — change/surfing the future
🚀 Rocket — forward-looking mindset
🛡️ Broken shield — the limits of future-proofing
📚 Book stack — call to subscribe/read more
🎯 Target/arrow — action/call to growth

💡 Call to Action Buttons:
“Subscribe to Future Here Now”
“Buy Books & Resources”
“Book a Workshop or Speaking Session”

01/03/2026

Why trying to future-proof your career won’t work — and how adopting a Future Ready mindset helps you thrive in a world of constant change.

01/02/2026

StriveTogether: What Can They Teach the Rest of Us Local Futurists?

What if community change worked more like a bee hive 🐝 or neural network 🧠—alive, adaptive, and constantly learning—rather than isolated projects connected by thin telegraph wires?

That’s what caught my attention about StriveTogether.

They’re best known for “Cradle to Career” work—from early childhood to workforce development—but what really stands out is how they operate:
✨ deep community decision-making
✨ intentional national network-building
✨ systematic learning across places
✨ sharing real, on-the-ground insights at scale

Too often, community work falls into one of two traps:
📌 national convenings that don’t truly help people learn from each other
📌 local fights where we reinvent the wheel, alone

StriveTogether seems to be experimenting with a third path—a living, learning network that helps places co-create solutions and share them meaningfully. For those of us thinking about the Fusion Economy and the future of place-based work, there’s a lot to learn here.

This reflection is from Future Here Now, a newsletter by Wise Economy Workshop / Wise Fool Press, for people who care deeply about the places they call home—and want better tools to shape what comes next.

👉 for weekly insights that help you prepare for what’s ahead
https://wiseeconomy.substack.com
📚 Buy our books to go deeper on local futures and community transformation
🎤 Contact us to explore speaking, workshops, and strategy sessions for your organization or community

Let’s build networks that actually think, learn, and act together.

The future of place depends on it. 🚀

01/02/2026

01/02/2026

12/26/2025

New Observations On Life As An Adult — And What That Means For Communities

Adulthood doesn’t look like it did 30 years ago.

But too many of our rules, policies, workplaces, and public meetings still assume it does.

🔹 People 30–45 are in the career-and-care crush — essential to our communities, yet effectively locked out of civic participation
🔹 20-somethings are often dismissed as “not ready,” even though they may be our most adaptive problem-solvers
🔹 Older adults aren’t “winding down” — they’re expected to keep contributing, learning, and reinventing themselves for decades

If life stages have changed, shouldn’t our institutions change too?
Public engagement, leadership, education, and local economies must evolve — or they’ll keep failing the very people they depend on.

✨ This post is adapted from Future Here Now, a weekly newsletter from Wise Economy Workshop / Wise Fool Press, focused on helping communities prepare for the Fusion Economy — where old industrial-era solutions no longer work.

👉 Take the next step:
📚 Buy the books on public engagement, crowdsourcing wisdom, and the local economic revolution
📩 Subscribe to Future Here Now for weekly insights you can actually use
https://wiseeconomy.substack.com

🎤 Contact us to explore speaking engagements, workshops, and strategic support for your organization or community

🚀 If you care about building communities that work for real people at every stage of life, this work is for you.

🔗 Follow, share, and join the conversation.

12/24/2025

To Pay or Not to Pay? Dilemmas in Public Engagement

Should communities pay people to participate in public feedback?

On a practical level—yes. People have real opportunity costs. Corporations pay for focus groups all the time. Why wouldn’t cities, especially when we’re asking participation from people already stretched thin?

But here’s the harder truth ⚠️
💳 A gift card doesn’t fix a broken social contract.

Paying people is necessary—and ethical.
But it’s also insufficient.

Real public engagement requires:
👶 Childcare
🚌 Transit & parking support
🍽️ Food & accessibility
🗣️ Multiple ways to participate—not just a mic at a podium
❤️ And most importantly: shared power and follow-through

Incentives can signal goodwill.
They cannot replace trust.

That tension—and what it means for cities, institutions, and communities—is explored in Future Here Now, our weekly newsletter on preparing for the Fusion Economy where technology, governance, and lived experience collide.

📩 Subscribe to Future Here Now for:

🔮 Emerging ideas & technologies
🏙️ Lessons from communities doing it better
🛠️ Practical steps you can take now

📚 Buy our books to go deeper
🎤 Book us for talks & workshops on public engagement, futures thinking, and community-centered decision-making
📬 Reach out if your organization is ready to move beyond performative participation

👉 Paying people is a start.
👉 Building trust is the work.

Let’s do the work—together.

12/22/2025

Don’t settle if you can help it. And don’t do it alone.

I was recently interviewed by One Source Direct, and re-reading my own answers surprised me more than I expected.

From accidentally becoming an entrepreneur…
to learning hard lessons about failure, focus, and partnership…
to the advice I wish every woman starting a business could hear sooner:

💡 Your business can be bigger than survival.
💡 Your vision doesn’t have to stop at “flexibility.”
💡 And you don’t have to carry it all by yourself.

Entrepreneurship is powerful—but it can also be isolating. That’s why community, tools, and shared learning matter as much as grit.

📚 If this resonates:

Explore my books on entrepreneurship, innovation, and building better systems

Subscribe to Future Here Now on Substack for weekly insights on work, economy, and community 👉 wiseeconomy.substack.com

Reach out to explore speaking, workshops, or strategic conversations for your organization or community

🚀 Let’s stop settling.
🤝 Let’s stop doing it alone.
🌍 Let’s build the kinds of businesses—and futures—that actually work for everyone.
Graphic / icon ideas to boost engagement:
✨ Lightbulb = insight
📚 Book stack = resources
🤝 People/circle = community
🚀 Arrow/rocket = growth
💬 Quote card: “Don’t settle if you can help it. Don’t do it alone.”

12/20/2025

Why Isn’t Design Thinking Enough?

Design thinking helped us move beyond rigid, top-down problem solving. But today, it’s not enough.

Why? Because we still design for people instead of with them. We cling to old Industrial Age habits—experts with answers, communities as passive recipients—because it feels safer, cleaner, and more predictable. Real collaboration is messier. It challenges authority. It forces us to sit with uncertainty.

Yet that’s exactly where community-wide innovation lives. 💡
The next step isn’t better brainstorming—it’s co-creation: new processes, new tools, and real engagement with the people most affected.

This isn’t radical. It’s evolution. And we need to move fast. ⏩

👉 Want to go deeper?
📘 Buy our books on participatory design, the future of work, and co-creation

📩 Subscribe to Future Here Now on Substack for weekly insights: wiseeconomy.substack.com

🎤 Contact us to explore speaking, workshops, and hands-on sessions for your organization or community

✨ The future isn’t designed by experts alone. Let’s build it together.