WHAT'S NEXT ... | Melvinsneighborhood

WHAT'S NEXT...

If you've made it to this point, then I've held your attention long enough to get your synapses firing. I would guess you now think we need to do something that's outside our conventional way of doing it. Depending on someone else, even government - just isn't cutting it. You're not content looking at the same stuff not being addressed. Not only are you not content, you're personally ready to do something about it. Hopepunk seems intriguing, but how do you fit in?

Below is a picture of a fire escape I took while exploring the streets of Billings, Montana when I lived near there. At first glance it probably seems irrelevant to what you've been reading. Actually, it's exactly the point of Melvin's Neighborhood. A fire escape serves a valuable purpose as it offers access inside the "back room" of our lives. It's not what we make pretty - like the front door or lobby. It's all about function. Resourcefulness. Function and stripped down access is what Melvin's Neighborhood is all about. Hopepunk lives on fire escapes everywhere. They're our mini Front Porches. They are gritty representations of cooperative problem solving, unlike idyllic scenes of families tending to vegetables in a community garden. Real life civic improvement is down and dirty, like cleaning up behind the dumpster.

Join us on our fire escape and help us fix things. Tells me what you talk to your neighbor about on your own real or metaphorical fire escape. Let's see if we can turn that talk into action.

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Send me an email at clayforsberg@gmail.com telling me what you want to do. What do you want to do to help your community? How do you see yourself fitting into Melvin's Neighborhood and the Hopepunk paradigm?

Your engagement can be something as small as beautifying a local vacant lot, or as grand as helping me construct the Hopepunk ideal and scale Melvin's Neighborhood far and wide.

The creativity we embody at Melvin’s Neighborhood is dramatized in a unique ownership structure called Charged NFTs. Neighborhood-minted Charged NFTs represent your stake in the community. Depending on your contribution, including sweat-equity, you will be compensated with a type of NFT commensurate with your effort. The contents of your NFT can be a compensation plan including a portion of the Node (including profit sharing), ownership in the overall project or commissions for bringing on and managing Front Porches. There are even NFTs that compensate you for bringing additional Residents into Melvin's world - including your friends and neighbors. Your NFT may be static in its inclusions, or be dynamic offering vesting potential depending on your tenure or even the success of the Node or overall project. This model gives the Residents of the Neighborhood a stake in the project beyond just money - an ownership in change. It puts those involved on the bleeding edge of societal innovation - and compensated accordingly.

Below are the four main areas of contribution we're looking at for the Neighborhood:

Start-up consultation and ongoing advice
Technical help (including FileMaker Pro and API programming)
Node set up and Front Porch acquisition and direction
Resident recruitment and civic stimulation

Tell me what you can add to this tapestry of problem solving in Melvin's world. Paint your Perfect World for me.

But If your not quite ready, at least take a half step:

Survey your community and brainstorm ways to improve it. And then maybe come up with an idea how the Neighborhood can help.
Compliment random people for doing good things. Contribute to the collective goodwill.

... and then let us know how it went.