🗣️👂 Your feedback fuels our vision for the new year

Our 2024 community survey is here

We are seeking a Head of Product, Local Lab

I’ll keep it brief, and straight to the point:

We value your opinion. We consider the readers of this newsletter our larger community, and we want to know your concerns, your preoccupations, and your strongly-held beliefs. Yes, we broadcast out what we’re working on, and we push the conversation towards topics we’re interested in, but it goes both ways — we pay close attention to your comments here, your replies on social media, and your DMs. (It’s true!)

One more way you can speak directly to us is through our annual survey. This year, we’ve shortened it by about half, and tweaked it towards our twin focuses on local digital spaces and our global, collaborative project for public conversation.

And as always, we want your recommendations. What moves you? What essay or podcast or video really provoked you? In looking through previous survey responses, I found some real standouts:

• Jaron Lanier’s Yesterweb manifesto

• An essay taking back the “ecosystem” metaphor

• Maggie Appleton’s adaptation of the dark forest theory to AI (also a video)

• This “age of average” essay

• A retrospective on design thinking

• A pleasant and incisive short story by Naomi Kritzer — if you just read one, make it this.

Next year we’ll share some of our favorite responses, here or on social media.

I’m really looking forward to hearing from you. We’re taking a bit of a break, and we’ll be back in the new year. I hope you have a chance to recharge, relax, and reset. Resist holiday doomscrolling!

Wishing you a bright, merry, and happy holiday season.

–Josh, New_ Public Head of Editorial