This US-centric book is about framing a Second Enlightenment to create communities of the future and is based on the experience of Communities of the Future (COTF) since 1989.......readers will find many other new concepts in this book such as Master Capacity Builder, Creative Molecular Economy, Polycentric Democracy, Weak Signals and Mobile Collaborative Governance....... The book covers education, economy, politics and healthcare, drawing on wide and deep experience while proposing practical processes and ways forward, finishing with a summary of seven principles of transformational change. It is essential reading for changemakers at every level. ~ David Lorimer, Paradigm Explorer

All in all, both for advocates of change and, in particular, wisdom writers who wish to see the future of humanity more centrally guided and informed by wisdom, the new book by Rick Smyre and Neil Richardson is an important and valuable contribution and resource. The authors attempt to build their vision of a new society upon both a historically informed perspective and contemporary scientific thought. At a very practical level, realizing the essential social-community dimension of human life and effective change, they provide a great deal of useful information and guidance on how to instigate and implement informed and thoughtful social transformation, along numerous dimensions of human reality. For wisdom writers and change advocates, there is often a disconnect between the presentation of elevating ideas and their actual social impact and effective implementation. Smyreʼs and Richardsonʼs book is a guidance system for moving from idea to action and actual social change. ~ Tom Lombardo, Ph.D, Center for Future Consciousness and The Wisdom Page

In their new book, Preparing for a World that Doesn’t Exist—Yet: Framing a Second Enlightenment for Communities of the Future, Rick Smyre and Neil Richardson address that lacuna. They fill it with worthy insights for community leaders who want to think and plan now for a world being overturned by technology and its effects. The authors are persuasive in their reminder that since communities are where change is implemented and felt, it is in communities where a transformation in leadership and planning must take place. As they point out, reforms do not actually change systems, only transformations do. Full review: http://strategic-narrative.net/blog/2016/06/book-review-communities-of-the-future-could-flourish-amid-technological-change-heres-how/ ~ Amy Zalman, Strategic Narrative

This summer I was fortunate to have a book I had been waiting for become available, so I could sink my teeth into it. That book is Preparing for a World That Doesn’t Exist – Yet. It was written by my friends and colleagues from the Communities of the Future, Rick Smyre and Neil Richardson. Rick and Neil start out by making the case that the world is changing rapidly and that it is having profound impacts on our governance, economy, education and health system, and our communities. They further provide insight on how the systems we have relied on for the past few hundred years to transition from an agricultural society, to an industrial society, to a knowledge society for governance and wealth creation, are no longer working. These systems worked well when change was less rapid and more predictable and the economy relied on scaling-up and creating efficiencies. However, with the advance of digital technologies, distributed production, and globalization, change occurs too rapidly to be predictable beyond the very short-term. Thus, old and even current processes and techniques of strategic planning, forecasting, evaluation, and measurement are becoming less useful for understanding the economy and society. Rick and Neil lay a framework for building capacities for community transformation so that in our communities, regions, organizations and networks we can work to create new systems for governance, learning, and the economy. This new framework includes searching for “weak signals” about the future and rather than attempting to predict them, thinking about how we might prepare for them. It also includes developing new leadership that that is comfortable with the chaos and complexity of the unknown and unpredictable, and helping to support multiple networks of people to learn, deliberate, and act together. I am excited about this book as it incorporates work that I have collaborated on with Rick Smyre in our article: Searching for a New Dynamic: Rethinking Economic Development in which we discuss early concepts of a new Creative Molecular Economy and the need for change in economic development. Over the next year, I will be working to update that article and body of thinking and will be utilizing Preparing for a World that Doesn’t Exist – Yet as a guide. ~ Jim Damicis, Camoin Associates