Designing Olvbrnch

Welcome!

Olvbranch started out as a simple premise eight years ago. If social media sucks for debate, politics, and cultural issues… That’s all by design… So it doesn’t have to be like that. What would a digital platform that doesn’t suck for political content and discussion look like? What would it do? How would it facilitate connections? Who would it connect? What buttons would it have? How would it handle conflicts? What culture could it create? Could it change democracy?

That simple premise led me onto a years-long journey of unstructured research. Like a dog chasing a car, I ran up any street my curiosity took me down: psychology, sociology, political science, moral psychology, network theory, narrative theory, communications, linguistics, user experience design, gamification principles,  even neurology. Now, it’s time for me to actually make practical use of this all.

I take that pragmatism very seriously. I like to be optimistic as much as possible, and part of that is that I don’t like to wallow in sadness and doom. A couple of days ago, I was looking through LinkedIn when I came across this quote which I think sums up what I don’t want to be:

It is not my intention to just say what social media does wrong. A lot of ink and pixels have been dedicated to that. I want us instead to focus on WHAT DO WE DO DIFFERENT. Understanding the root causes of a problem are different than resolving them.

I want to share it with people and see what y’all have to say and what your own experience is in this space. Everything that I have to say here is, at best, a work-in-progress. These ideas and analysis have existed in my head. They are also theory – crafted in the special space where they may be free from a pesky little CO constraining condition called reality. I want to connect with you and hear your perspectives, your ideas and from your experiences.

It is my dream that this blog, and the community that gathers here, will be able to find hope for change in this crazy world by actually making something.

Chad