MY URBAN KVETCH

Former GOOD (not "Formerly Good") Staffers Team Up, Kickstart New Magazine

I'm two and a half weeks into three weeks of conferences in Israel and have a presentation on social media to give tomorrow afternoon (6:45-9:15 am EST; 11:45-14:15 GMT; 13:45-16:15 Israel time - catch the livestream here), but I saw this story and something about it resonated with me, so I thought I'd share.

GOOD Magazine is really good. It always has been - well-written and -edited, great graphics, creative and meaningful content. You always got the idea that their hearts were in the right place. And the six former GOOD staffers who were fired and the two additional ones who took severance packages want you to know that their next endeavor - a one-off magazine they're calling TOMORROW - is not a revenge move...it's an effort to create something lowercase-good that is forward-looking, and that enables them to keep on working together.

From their Tumblr: 

[...]we’re disappointed that this editorial team won’t get to continue working together. We loved making a daily web magazine and a quarterly print magazine with and for GOOD’s community of readers and writers and designers and illustrators. We think we were pretty good at it. And we know we didn’t get a chance to realize the full potential of our collaboration. We were just getting started!

So we’d like to make at least one more magazine together. Not an issue of GOOD—something different. We’re calling it Tomorrow. It’s going to be about what’s next, what’s on the cusp. We want to get out of our comfort zone and push others to do the same. We want to meet and introduce you to great people. 

True to the crowdsourcing spirit of the contemporary age, the Tomorrowniks (that's my name for them, not theirs) are turning to the people for funding by launching a Kickstarter campaign with some unusual and cool prizes for their backers. It's working so far - they've raised over $13,000 of their proclaimed goal of $15,000, which will go to produce and print the issue, and have an L.A. launch party. (See below for video appeal and link to their fundraising page.)

Like I said, there's something about this story that I find inspiring: that even in the light of having lost their jobs, people are optimistic and literally shaping Tomorrow when they could be curled up in a collective fetal position, or that a shared bad experience creates community instead of shattering it. May we have the strength to convert despair into opportunity and channel disappointment into productivity and opportunities to keep working with people who inspire us.

Check out their video, below, and donate if you feel the urge.

ROI Summit Kicks Off in Jerusalem - Sunday, June 10

Sitting at the ROI Summit in Jerusalem for my seventh time, listening to Lynn Schusterman tell us how much she appreciates the work we all do and hearing from LIVESTRONG CEO Doug Ulman about how he transformed three different cancer diagnoses into activism, I realize how lucky I am.  

Not just to be healthy (so far, she said, throwing some salt over her shoulder just to be sure), but to have a network of people to rely on, an ongoing conversation with friends and colleagues (frolleagues?) around the world. Not just to be in the room, but to have a network of friends outside the room who choose to spend their time linking into us electronically, joining us from across oceans and time zones. And I'm lucky to live in a time when the technology permits more connections and provides the opportunity to deepen our relationships.

 

Most of you reading this are not here with us in Jerusalem. But you can join us.

There's still more to come in tonight's session, and the livestream is up, complete with a list of upcoming sessions which will be broadcast over the web for anyone who wants to access it. 

Twitter's a great source for tracking the chat and chatter of ROI participants from dozens of countries who are with us at the summit. Follow the hashtag, #roicom, for the buzz inside and outside the room.

And if you want to see who's at the Summit and what they're tweeting, check out the Twitter list of 2012 ROIers.

Still hungry for more? Summit Central has great stuff for you - new videos, photos and blogs coming daily.

Plus, coming Wednesday, a chance to comment and vote on the ideas that may shape the Jewish future, as ROIers bring together their strengths and passions to craft new and exciting initiatives. Stay tuned to #roicom for the latest updates on how to get involved.

I hope you'll join us whenever you can, ask questions and participate in the global conversation on Jewish creativity and innovation.

 

Smashing the Idols: A Not-Quite-Live-Blog Inspired by the Jewish Futures Conference

Tonight, JESNA, the Jewish Education Project, and UJA-Federation of New York sponsored the Jewish Futures Conference in New York City. The conference aimed to provide "a space to imagine, learn and engage in purposeful and courageous conversation about the future of Jewish community and education and how it can thrive in today's and tomorrow's world." (List of speakers here, and @askdeb's liveblog of the opening conference session here.)

Along with the 450 or so people in the room, the conference reached many Jewish Tweeters as well, resulting in a "virtual conference" of sorts as people outside the room watched the live stream and monitored the tweets tagged with #jewishfutures as they scrolled by. 

I had to go to sleep during the dinner break (I'm in Israel, 7 hours ahead of NY, which literally places me in the Jewish future), but I wanted to write a quick blog post about one of the more interesting exercises/challenges given by a speaker during the program. Rabbi Laura Baum, of OurJewishCommunity.org, involved people inside and outside the room by asking us (the entirety of the us) to challenge ourselves to identify which Jewish community idols we should smash. Here is a not-entirely-complete - but nonetheless fascinating - list of the words shouted out on Twitter as being in dire need of smashage. (Links to Twitter handles to come when I have time)...

Status  – bag the top 50 lists - @shaplev

Will I get in trouble for saying God, Torah, Israel? - @paulgolin

Unity - @nftyisrael

Synagogue school - @geek4grammar

Dual curriculum, denominations, comfort zone - @rabbirebecca

Classrooms – the physical space - @hopenyc

Dues - @momwig

Ownership, clergy, bnei mitzvah, education, shuls, lay leadership, denominations, business, consumerism, technology - @deborahfishman

Dues, rabbis, free, frontal, fear, exclusions, membership, boards, status - @ilanagarber

Denominations - @afine

Is it too controversial to answer Orthodox Rabbis? - @rsaidlower

History, classrooms, committees, conformity, supplementary - @irajwise

Hebrew school, the unknown, exclusivity, empty holiday rituals, membership - @lilylozovsky

The notion that failure is not an option - @david_wolkin

Free - @tamarsnyder

Hebrew school, denomination, bar mitzvahs/7^th grade grads, rabbis, otherness, bricks-and-mortar - @BI_Next

Denominations - @morahjulie

Hebrew - @multitaskr

Membership bar mitzvah dues programs overindulged free entitlement consumerism status overpriced tradition conservative - @ercomisar

Hebrew school - @nyccantor

Free, money, naming, ageism, bnai mitzvah - @jlearn20

Territorialism - @aimeeweiss

Services, congregations, bricks and mortar - @detfederation

getting rid of b'nei mitzvah ceremonies frees up supplemental education to meaning not performance - @jewishgps

JDate - (overheard at event and reported by) @pelie_org

Buildings, religious school, membership dues, Sat am worship - @jchicksrock

Affiliation - @denasw

Alienation from Jewish heritage - @reuw

Innovation - @saulkaiserman (overheard at his table)

mash the idol of youth=innovation. Here's to a boomer or a greatest-generationer winning #jewishfutures next year. - @Liz_fisher

While this is pretty unscientific data, it provides instant community biofeedback, takes the pulse of "the people" on which sacred cows might be holding back contemporary Judaism from maximizing its potential (or "the people"'s perception of what potential is). For instance, on that list is a rabbi saying that rabbis should be smashed, a Federation identifying bricks-and-mortar as an idol, and a pluralistic youth organization advocating for the decentralization of the concept of unity. Deeper analysis of the Tweeters and their words may reveal additional levels of this discussion (eliminating Hebrew, really?) and undoubtedly, echoes of this will continue online over the next day or so. How do we integrate all of these objections?

Of course, although this is only an exercise, designed to get us thinking outside the box by imagining a world where the biggest pains in our communal side get thornectomized, also identifies the excuses we use for not being able to move ahead with our own personal visions and projects. The question is how we use this generated list - do we ignore these challenges, succumb to them, blame them for our lack of progress, or choose to negotiate, to identify small changes we can make or bridges we can build between our visions of a Jewish future. 

You've read the list now. Maybe you've even watched the livestream. So? What do you think?