If you have seen my campaign on Indiegogo:, you will know a little of what this blog will be about for the next month or so. I want a place for people to come to see progress, know more detail and decide if this venture is worth the time and money to become a member. Please visit the site and then give me feedback here or read more about what I’ve been developing for the past year or two.
The Indiegogo Site
Just Connections.Community: A summary of the Plan.
The problem:
Millions of talented people are sitting behind corporate owned desks and hating it. Money has become a means of enslaving workers in a spend/earn cycle that locks wonderfully creative people into endless soul killing working lives. Then we are forced into feeding these corporate leviathans with the money they have paid us, resulting in modern slavery where we serve the almighty dollar and those that have the lion’s share of it. Unemployment and underemployment are a global crisis. The solution to restore jobs and economies is small businesses joined together for the collective power of larger entities. This problem affects not only the creative young people who are beginning their lives with gifts that we need to take care of our lives and our world, but also older workers whose wisdom and experience go well with the enthusiasm of young worker. Instead both are unable to find full-time jobs or even to even find work at all and are returned to poverty through the current tendency for those at the top of the economic system to gain at the expense of the majority on the bottom.
Our Vision:
Our approach is unique in that our plan is to establish a large global community to bring about the results we are working toward. The core of those who teach, those who start businesses and those who are their customers will be the community that we gather around this alternative economy. Each time one person joins, purchases, starts a business in the community, they take their spending, earning and contribution power away from the failing economic paradigm and contribute to a caring, healthy global economic culture. In this alternative community, support, creativity and contribution to all will, take precedence over individual gain and greed.
Long term goals:
Long term goals We will set aside a small amount from each activity and membership to JustConnections.Community to create our own internal crowdfunding in order to promote startup businesses of our community members. We call this aspect Play it Forward and expect many new social enterprises to result after we gather a large global community to help not only financially but with all kinds of support.
Customers & Beneficiaries:
There are three main customer segments we are addressing through training and facilitation of business development.
- Artists, Writers, and other Creatives.
- Those who want to start small retail or service businesses.
- Alternative food growers, producers, sellers and suppliers.
- Those who are seeking better products and businesses to buy from.
Customer needs:
Our customers do not want their working lives to be manipulated by greedy mega-businesses. They want independent lives that they contribute to with all of their gifts and skills and that result in happy and fulfilled lives for themselves, their families and their communities. We will help overcome the barriers of lack of information and lack of financial and group support. We will help develop ideas, teach skills and provide multiple support for those who want to succeed as part of a new way of financial living. Not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur, but many who do. face almost insurmountable barriers that we are addressing. Our other customer segment consists of those who no longer want to support greedy multinational corporations with their purchases.
Customer loyalty for us is the whole idea of belonging to something important and effective. Once a customer joins, we will take feedback and always respond, use our members as guides to contiually revise and create toward our goal of an alternative economy. We are not being unclear, we are flexible enough to take feedback and use it for reaching our goals together.
Influencers and decision makers:
We see ourselves in alignment with Permaculturists, Aquaponics gurus, inventors of sustainable energy and great meaningful education, just to name a few. It is a time in history for “all hands on deck!¨ There are already many creatives who see the problems and will help us envision the solutions. We plan to gather many of them into a functioning successful and entreprenuerial community.
The individual enabling of creative entreprenuers is a very necessary product for our time. One success will build on others and each part of the community will benefit exponentially. We will influence, encourage, teach and support each other.
Development Phases
In our first phase, we will develop Light Bulb University, a sharing, teaching platform where skills can be shared and members can learn and teach others. Our subjects will be oriented toward practical skills rather than abstract learning.
Phase Two: Will include a collective of different businesses who come together to bring customers to a comprehensive marketplace, a collection of individual businesses who are all members of JustConnections.community. It will be a kind of online shopping center, like a downtown in a large city, which will also be a community as well as a market place.
In Phase 3 we will develop ways to help new businesses get started in our community through our own internal crowdfunding, through shared wisdom and through the support of community members. We call this phase Playing it Forward.
HOW WILL WE MAKE IT HAPPEN
Our main development initially will be our website and its functionality. In addition
1.we will need to find a partner who is versed in video editing and development in order to make
our connections more intimate and real. This will also be true of some of the services and
workshops offered by members. Our educational platform will include video lectures and we will
also offer short video lectures for free to give to the world community and entice members to
join online presentations and workshops.
2.We also need a marketing expert to take what we are producing and bring it to a broader global
audience.
Administrative and Legal
We are starting out as a simple partnership, but will eventually develop a cooperative type legal
structure to reflect the model we are creating.
Team and Key Resources
We, the people!
As stated above, we will need a few key players.
1. Video expert.
2. Marketing guru.
3. We are outsourcing the web development.
4. We are looking for involved members to put together videos, classes, and businesses that will
be part of our ongoing social business.
The resources we need
Our main resources are our members. Physically they will be providing the expertise and the
input and we will be facilitating the sharing and development of whatever product or service
they are providing.
Team Value Proposition
Over many years, I have developed connections in many places. This is the foundation for the
team that I need to gather, but I’m also connected through many great innovative platforms
including Babele and Coursera. I have done Fair Trade businesses, created annual events and
struggled to find employment as an older woman.
Key partners
Our key partner is New Media One, an amazing web development and web hosting firm that has
a proven track record in developing innovative and effective web presences.
Full Bloom Now 