Wednesday, October 07, 2009

An idea in need of an acronym ("HSDICs" doesn't seem to cover it…

So I've been riffing today on the idea of intentional communities with some stipulations of my own:
  1. Why, other than the use of polluting modes of travel, can't members of such communities live separately from one another?  Why, in fact, couldn't there be an intentional community (at least in part) of tele-commuters?
  2. If the intent is truly to share in the community's well-being, why can't individuals within the community swap jobs every once in a while, to try out each other's work and see who may do it best/love it most/etcetera?
I'd love to hear from some readers, and have some commentary to throw around on the possibilities.  Myself, I envision an intentional community living relatively close (walkable, bike-able, or at very most, single bus/light rail-ride-able) within a physical community (a useful example for me, being Portland's east side).  All members of a given community should live there, but not all have to work there, provided that they either:
  • live close enough to where they work, that the above people-powered, or single public-transportation jaunts will suffice to get them to work and back; or
  • they telecommute.
The members of this community should be willing to share with all other members what their job is, and whether they would like to leave it/are looking for one.  This information should be shared among the community before looking outside the community.  Kind of like an internal CraigsList, with the main difference being job swapping.

Not loving what you're doing at the moment?  Why not swap jobs with a friend, try their line of work for a few months and see if you like it any better/are any better at it, or if the grass was just greener.  If both people are interested in the other's line of work, it could be a growth opportunity for both.  If not, then back to their old jobs.  At worst, the confidence of former clients and colleagues may need to be restored.  At best, you may have found yourself a great new career!

Like CraigsList, I could see this idea getting popular enough to try out in several areas of the country, creating several distinct communities.  This is great for telecommuters, but what about everybody else?  Areas to work on include:
  1. I'm still working on how the logistics of entering and leaving a given community (or, being a member of a geographically far-flung community while you telecommute) affect the idea as a whole.  
  2. As one might expect, there have to be ways to make sure it's completely legal and doesn't fly in the face of equal opportunity employment.
  3. What else occurs to you?
Please, discuss.  Suggest.  Tell me what you think, and how to better the idea.  Just give me credit, please, for the original idea: hot-swappable [in terms of jobs] distributable [in terms of locale] intentional communities.  And, as in my title, maybe that gives us an area to improve: a catchy acronym!

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