Vision Session
Artifact info
Title:

Community Collaboration Platform Development and Flourish Project Website Strategy

Engagement:

The Flourish Project

Client:

Wendy Ellyatt

Meeting Date:
November 25, 2025
Next Meeting Date:
December 22, 2025
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July 31, 2025
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December 9, 2025
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People
James Redenbaugh
Wendy Ellyatt
Artifact Image
Meeting Summary

🎯 Platform Vision for Cross-Community Collaboration

James outlined his primary focus for the coming year: building tools to facilitate collaboration across learning, doing, and transformation communities online (00:11). The vision extends beyond single-community platforms to create pathways for cross-pollination between different organizations and initiatives.

The architecture approach centers on unique front-end experiences for each community while utilizing similar backends that enable connection. This allows communities to maintain their distinct identity and member experience while sharing resources—courses from one platform can be exposed to learners in another, or lab outputs can automatically flow between connected communities (01:15). The Hollow Movement has committed to adopting this approach for their platform development.

[technology="Collaboration Management Tools"]

🤖 Intelligent Connection Assessment System

James demonstrated a prototype assessment tool built for the Hollow Movement using Webflow (03:47). The system collects user information including purpose, worldview, and values through a 10-20 minute questionnaire. Upon completion, users receive an email with personalized analysis of their responses, recommended connections within the network with explanations for each match, and curated podcast episode suggestions based on their answers.

A key feature allows users to initiate connections with a single click, automatically sending introduction emails to both parties without requiring login or profile creation (06:12). This removes friction from the connection process while maintaining intelligent matching.

[technology="Assessment Systems"]

[technology="Intelligent Matching Algorithms"]

Practical Applications and Generational Considerations

Wendy identified an important challenge: different user demographics have varying engagement preferences (06:52). Younger users (20-60) tend to embrace comprehensive onboarding and connection tools, seeking to engage broadly and learn quickly. More senior participants often prefer streamlined access to strategic-level connections without extensive profile creation or unsolicited contact.

The assessment system's flexibility addresses this through multiple applications. For course enrollment, participants complete assessments beforehand to enable intelligent small-group matching based on work, age, or other relevant criteria (08:12). The upcoming Wave conference in Portugal will pilot this approach, using various input sources including pre-event questionnaires, existing speaker bios, website data, LinkedIn profiles, or even astrological charts calculated from birthdays.

Wendy cited the Conscious Food Systems Alliance (COFSA) retreat as an ideal use case—a week-long gathering of 35 world leaders including two ministers from Bhutan, organized by UNDP, where the extraordinary participant expertise went largely unharvested due to lack of strategic connection tools (09:35).

🔄 Innovation Lab Framework Development

The conversation shifted to establishing a Flourish Project Innovation Lab focused on flourishing community tools and technologies (11:09). Wendy reported strong traction with the Innovation Lab concept and is building a volunteer team including two core members and several researchers.

The lab would address a fundamental challenge: numerous groups discussing similar topics in isolated bubbles. The goal is to create coherence across these disconnected conversations (12:17). The model could potentially involve founding partners like the Hollow Movement and ELS to trial collaborative technologies, though Wendy noted the ELS remains organizationally chaotic.

James shared a circular visualization tool created for a May gathering where participants answered questions displayed in a nonlinear, fire-circle format (13:29). This design intentionally breaks hierarchical patterns, evoking the biological memory of sitting in circle where no one holds more importance than others (14:05). The vision extends this to three phases: pre-event connection, in-person harvesting, and post-event sustained engagement.

[technology="Community Facilitation Tools"]

🏗️ Flourish Website Development Strategy

Current Technical Status

The Webflow site backend has been refined and structured, with work completed on the resource library integration, though content development remains limited (17:31). James offered to transfer the site to Wendy's own Webflow account to enable direct collaboration, allowing her to comment on pages asynchronously despite the steeper learning curve compared to Weebly.

Framework Visualization Challenges

James expressed hitting a wall on making the model clear to users without overwhelming them (18:36). The current approach uses an interactive visualization where hovering over domains and motivations triggers explanatory pop-ups, but the execution needs refinement.

Wendy identified being stuck on next steps due to lack of tangible elements to work with (19:04). She emphasized preference for the entry questions approach over simply presenting key resources, wanting users immediately led through reflections to expressions of interest rather than resource suites (19:38).

Proposed Navigation Structure

Wendy outlined a simplified top-level navigation (22:02):

  • Home
  • About (quick history and team)
  • Innovation Lab (primary hub)
  • Framework (at top level)
  • Resources
  • Contact

Within the Innovation Lab, different audience pathways would be housed. The Learning Lab would sit inside the Innovation Lab rather than at top level, containing tools and resources. Other audience paths would feature reflective questions leading to expressions of interest, capturing participants during this development stage (22:32). Form submissions would flow to Mailchimp for ongoing engagement.

Wendy requested multiple hero image options and expressed preference for dark mode design, noting most appealing contemporary sites use dark backgrounds (23:57).

📅 Timeline and Strategic Priorities

Wendy set a firm deadline of end of December for having a functional site live (26:47). She's holding Simon (new board director) from announcing his role on LinkedIn until the website includes his CV and full team information. Multiple visibility drivers are emerging: two invited talks in Europe next year, two book chapters, and three academic papers in publication.

The immediate need is a prototype Simon can evaluate from an educator perspective, specifically considering the City of London schools he works with (25:30). This feedback loop will validate whether the educator entry point functions effectively or requires adjustment.

Wendy emphasized the core design challenge: the four domains and seven levels framework works but typically requires verbal or written academic explanation. The website must fast-cut to simplicity while maintaining conceptual integrity (26:01).

Action Items

James

  • Send follow-up email with specific questions and requirements from Wendy (27:17)
  • Develop next iteration of site showing audience pathway structure
  • Create multiple hero image options for homepage
  • Set up ability for asynchronous commenting and collaboration on site elements

Wendy

  • Collect updated bios from all team members for website
  • Provide specific content for framework domain descriptions
  • Review and finalize reflective questions for each audience pathway
  • Prepare materials for Simon to evaluate educator entry point
Relevant Initiatives

WebFlow Development

Priority: 
High
Size: 
L
Creation Stage

Website Design

Priority: 
High
Size: 
M
Creation Stage

Strategy

Priority: 
Medium
Size: 
M
Creation Stage
Transcript