The Wise Fool: Try More Stuff edition

Hi, all.

About six years ago, Saul Kaplan of the Business Innovation Factory took to repeating a phrase in pretty much everything I saw from him:

Try More Stuff.

I think that’s pretty good advice, especially in a world that’s changing in ways that we can’t always predict. We don’t know what will work, so we gotta Try More Stuff. Including the stuff where we feel a little odd.

From the bright mind of barrygott.com

I’ve been trying a lot of stuff lately. Here’s a few things I think you’ll find interesting:

Substack and the Wise Fool Digest

For as long as I’ve had the Wise Economy Workshop, I’ve wanted to do a regular series that highlighted the real world ways that some of the issues I describe in my books are playing out in the real world. Not only finding the obscure stories that show how others are trying to solve the tough challenges we are facing, but connecting them to the sea changes that are making them more necessary than we might think.

For me, that connection is crucial — if you see a cool project that someone did somewhere else, but you aren’t connecting it into the bigger framework of how taking care of communities needs to be done differently, then most of the time we miss out on the bigger potential impact — and create another creaking, almost-failing program that breeds as much cynicism as it does solutions. But I could never figure out how to financially justify the effort that took.

The Substack platform allows me to create that kind of product by charging a small subscription fee. Subscribers have been receiving a weekly Wise Fool Digest, which includes a wide range of articles that they might have missed otherwise, coupled with some unique analysis of their implications for people who care about their communities. And Substack subscribers are getting extra benefits, including the ones described below.

Right now, I’m offering a limited number of 6-month free subscriptions to people who get this newsletter. Click here to get yours!

Give a gift subscription

Local Economy Revolution Has Arrived booking presentations and podcasts

The new and expanded book is starting to pick up steam, and we’re booking podcasts, webinars and other presentations for audiences that want to talk about rethinking how we help the communities we care about. If you have a podcast, an event series or a conference coming up, say the word!

And don’t forget that the book is available in print or digital forms at Gumroad, Lulu and Amazon.com. You won’t regret it.

Join me and lots of fascinating people on the little screen, or your favorite podcast app.

AccelerateUs, the conversation series that I experimented with last year is coming back….with a twist. In addition to Joe Rogan-style deep converations with people that you didn’t know you needed to know about, we’re adding an occasional series titled Under the Wood — a small group discussion with insightful people having real converations about some of the thorniest issues in community development, urban planning and more. Stay tuned on social media to know when these are coming up. You can even get tickets to be in the live audience (Substack subscribers get them for free!) Also, let me know who you’d like to hear from.

Twitter: @dellarucker

Facebook: Della Rucker, AICP Cecd

LinkedIn: Della Rucker

Thanks for reading. Your suport make all this possible. And allows me to keep trying stuff. Which is almost as fun as hunting dragons.

Go get ‘em!

Della