‘Thriving Too’ – community blog dedicated to ‘proving the case for optimism’

photo by jaeWALK (from flickr)

by Alec Patton

I’ll confess now that the Philippine tarsier photo is only here because I thought it looked so cool – whether or not it looks optimistic is anyone’s guess.

Now that’s clear, I want to tell you about the ‘Thriving Too’ community blog, whose topics range from the ‘carrotworks collective‘ of unpaid interns (the group photo alone is worth a visit to the post) to exhibitions about sustainability and some great stuff about community transformation.


This last one quotes FutureGeneration‘s four principles for community transformation, which I’ll quote here:

1. Build from Community Success
People’s energy and creativity expand as they realize that they are capable of controlling the challenges in their lives. One success becomes the stepping stone for subsequent successes and generates community confidence and forward momentum.

2. Three-way Partnerships
Community energy seldom mobilizes by itself. Communities need help from officials, who can adjust policies and regulations to facilitate cooperation among factions and channel external resources. Communities also need help from experts who can build capacity by training, introduce new ideas, and help monitor change.

3. Evidence-based Decision-making
Action is effective when grounded in objective data. Lacking such data, participants will make decisions on the basis of transitory opinions. These tend to be most influenced by whoever talks most convincingly, or whoever holds more power at the moment.

4. Changes in Community Behaviour
People can come together in partnerships; they can agree on objective data; but, to achieve lasting results they must also change behaviors. While changing behavior for the community may start simply by gaining new skills, those in positions of power—community leaders, officials, or experts—face a more challenging requirement, changing their behavior to share power.