some directions on popup city <> host city design i keep coming back to - explicit cultural exchange as a focal programme. not “visiting”, reciprocal interaction / peer-matched. popup youth with local schools, adults with universities, local startups, businesses. every edition ends in one thing co-produced like a concert or an exhibition or a market that locals co-own. - general local volunteering programme, tiered from a few hours a week to full-time, ideally certificate supported. each track needs a named owner, a local counterpart, and stated outcome. courses, mentorship, small business workflow automation support. for disaster recovery volunteering, the best window according to my brief research is 12-36 months after the event, not the first weeks. e.g., @allhandshearts @teamrubicon - intensive build / research programme on a predefined agenda and track with a desired outcome, in a relevant site. (synergies with local manufacturers, institutions, labs, studios, etc.) residency / incubator / extended company offsite shaped, maximising the benefits of co-location proximity. - a vehicle for matchmaking international talent / capital to agencies bringing real local problems to solve during or after the edition. pitchfest nyc (program of @renphilanthropy) does the domestic version, city agencies matched to local faculty and civic fellows pilot.city/new-york-city - work with artists, creatives and local art schools / studios to co-create a festival / parties, group shows, and or an art collective or media brand(s) that can own and continue recurring events beyond the popup edition and that the municipality can benefit from for city branding and regeneration.

Going over the in-depth research on pop-up cities, led by @jiminleex. Interesting findings about this recent event format of the last few years. I think they work best when there's an objective for them, like promoting policy, or seeding new endeavors. thouartofficial.com/research…

Marketing, design, and strategy converge anyway. It’s just a question of how much that convergence is valued and at what point of contact.

Really cool and extensive research report on Pop-up Cities! Great work @jiminleex

Two children ignoring the artwork at the San Francisco Museum of Art, c. 1960

The full Pop-up City Report v1.0 is finally out as a PDF under CC BY 4.0. If you've read the web summary, this is the complete version behind it: 92 coded interviews across 54 communities, 337 desk sources, 22 hypotheses tested, 7 key findings, 12 focal cases profiled in depth. The focal cases include Zuzalu, @ns, @EdgeEsmeralda, @JoinEdgeCity, @burningman, @JoinFutura, @zuitzerland, @_zanzalu, @formacity, @proofofretreat, @infinitacity, and thearccity(.)com. The study aims to establish a shared understanding of the space, map relationships between the key stakeholders (operators, funders, and host jurisdictions), and fill the gaps of the emergent category. Checklists are proposed for immediate use, based on observed failure patterns, for decision-makers across the three parties to evaluate readiness and exposure, starting with 18 design decisions and 7 institutional functions on the operator side. Read the report here: thouartofficial.com/research…

if you’ve ever asked us what a popup city is and gotten a rambling 20-minute answer plus a link to our report we’re sorry, just watch this video

every company is a worldview dressed up as a company. the company is a useful, legible vehicle for coordinating people around an idea and spreading it into the world through what we call products sometimes the worldview is unconscious, unintentional, accidental, not overt. but every company is still a vote for a future world and how the world should work the most culturally relevant and compelling companies understand this deeply. you can feel that the essence of the company comes from a coherent core philosophy, usually a founder with a real point of view on how the world should be, creating the company as an expression of that the company then becomes a coordinated effort aligned with that philosophy. it shows up consistently in every decision, because the philosophy is the unifying principle

daniel roseberry allegedly referencing gaudí for schiaparelli couture fw26 makes sense when you consider that gaudi's work is based on organic, nature and animal forms, like the underwater world

probably a different context but some founders are more artists than artists without even knowing it

i gave a short talk @JoinFutura on sunday about @popupcities. some who missed it asked, and since it was not the kind of introductory session to our research but rather niche and chaotic (i was selfishly bored of my own repetitive intro talks and wanted to try sth new), i'm writing a bit more polished ver. of the takes + additional explanations. > a pop-up city blends two opposite dynamics - community (you contribute into it; value flows in) and service (it delivers to you; value flows out). the blend is what feels extractive or confusing. the clean move i observed works best is to pick one, unapologetically (80:20 or more, not like 50:50). both choices aren't really free anyway - in a temporary format, community-mode depends on legibly non-extractive economics, which depends on someone subsidizing the cost (organiser self-funding, crowdfunding, donation). without that subsidy, the economics push you toward service no matter what you call it. (when i said community contribution, i don't mean the 'leave it as you found it' level) > however, the community <> service dynamics are not inherently opposite. you might want to contribute more because you paid more, because the real driver behind this is stake, not price: how much you've invested / have at stake (time, energy, money, reputation, relationships, etc.) and how long you intend to stay. it depends on the state of the individual, not the setting (one-off / recurring / permanent), even though permanent ones would naturally hold more people prone to contribute compared to one-offs. but that only shifts the typical stake, not the rule. > different pop-up cities look different on the surface but are the same machine underneath: gather specific/curated people → create good interaction → convert into relationships and outcomes > the difference between them is only what each organizer converts the gathering into (jurisdiction / brand / ecosystem or product onboarding / etc. ) > the event isn't a placeholder for building a network state - the event *is* the work. nothing really dissolves when an edition ends, when it's done right; people leave with real relationships and memories that compound. however, to accelerate the compounding, we need to fill some gaps: we don't work across pop-up cities as much, and there's an inevitable (but translatable) discrepancy between the stated or implied vision vs. how it actually looks day to day - logistics, programming, dinners, tickets - which makes it feel abstract what this even is and how it's different from other formats. > the policy layer (e-residency, visa, tax, crypto-friendly) is important but copyable, and not really the winning edge in jurisdiction competition. community and culture (the kind people form their identity from) is, and whether it truly serves your needs as a community/city, especially when you're dealing with people who seek 'much better,' not 'less bad' (though i believe this line of effort will become a real exit plan for the underprivileged or people in more difficult situations too). > pop-up cities are built to produce that uncopyable thing, whether they currently do it well / optimise for it or not. > how to run a better edition next time is one question. we also should ask more about what we're building across all of them.

We're only at the very beginning of this social movement, congrats @jiminleex on the launch!

Introducing Forma Bristol Our first ever popup village in the UK And the permanent home for our new campus

See also: my criticism of the idea that ZK alone, even if well implemented, is sufficient to make "identity verification" pro-freedom: vitalik.eth.limo/general/202… (And some alternative ideas for how to solve underlying goals)

our research initiative finally has its first piece out in the world. it's an early step in a longer pursuit of better ways for people to coordinate and connect. the full pdf with focal cases and directory is coming. field pilots are next.