Responding to American Disconnectedness

Now is the time for bold experiments

Hello there!

My name is Josh and I’m so happy you’re here.

First, a reintroduction and some context. I’m a father of two little ones, partner, friend, and neighbor living in the Outer Sunset in San Francisco. I’m also a tech-for-good entrepreneur, strategic tech advisor, and hopeful community-builder.

I grew up in Virginia, but my work in community care began globally. Inspired by door-to-door care by neighbors in rural Malawi, I co-founded and served 11 years as CEO of Medic, a nonprofit that builds open-source software for community health workers. The technology now enables 165,000 health workers to care for tens of millions of families in communities across Africa and Asia.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and economic conditions in the US, I helped organize digital mutual aid networks with doulas and contributed to worker-owned platform cooperatives. I advised Hope Credit Union on their mission serving communities across the US South, and then served as Chief Technology Officer for GirlTrek, a national movement of Black women on healing and leadership journeys.

I’m currently a Technologist In Residence at Emerson Collective, working on a project that I hope will contribute to a much-needed wave of social connection. I’ll also be back on the Stanford campus this year as a Distinguished Visitor, exploring collaborations and teaching with my fellow visitors focused on public interest technology.

Why social connection?

We’re surrounded by interconnected crises – from a struggle to maintain a survivable climate, to the spread of pain and opioid use, to daily experiences of being underwater economically. These troubling trees have manmade roots, and one of the big ones is how disconnected we are from one another.

I’m focused on disconnection because it is inclusive of the experiences of isolation, loneliness, forced separation and incarceration, and overdoses of solitude. Viewed altogether, we see the immense impact of American disconnectedness. I dream of living in a society where it’s common knowledge that we care for and look out for one another. As it turns out, general reciprocity is the best predictor of community resilience and functional democracies.

From a prefigurative organizing lens, connectedness is also a key ingredient or limiting reagent for trying bold, new things with others. It’s tied to our sense of possible futures – connectedness is the future of public safety, the future of health care and wellbeing, the future of solidaristic collective action. So, we must figure this out.

I also have a bias towards action, and this means finding a meaningful entry point. While I know we need a new social fabric, and I believe in social cohesion, a focus on social connection gives us somewhere to start – allowing these other good dynamics to emerge.

A new approach

Okay… an ancient, revived, and remixed approach.

When I walk around my neighborhood, I want my neighbors to know that I care about them. I want them to know that I care about what’s important to them, what they need, and what they are dreaming about. I want to feel like they care about me, that they are looking out for my kids, that we are all looking out for one another.

General reciprocity can be the x-factor for long-term community wellbeing and resilience. Which begs the question, how might we create this feeling?

There are real challenges. We care for the people we are close to, but:

• The number of people we report being close to has been dropping for decades, down to an average of 2. That means it’s zero for a lot of people.

• Care has been simultaneously outsourced, feminized, devalued, and financialized.

• Encounters with strangers are often transactional or contentious.

Our situation calls for a new approach, one that challenges our assumptions about how connection forms.

A group of collaborators and I think we can flip the script on closeness and care. We believe we can get to know people by caring for them.

This care-first approach to social connection tracks with my own experience as a parent, friend, and neighbor. It is influenced by witnessing door-to-door care in neighborhoods all over the world for more than a decade. It also relates to something a mentor reminded me of recently — while we’re taught that behavior follows our beliefs, in reality our beliefs follow our behavior.

If we want general reciprocity we have to start acting toward it. That means caring for one another, participating in and seeing lots of Public Displays of Humanity (PDH).

What’s this Substack about?

I’m working on a nonprofit start-up with some talented and committed friends. We want to build the organization and technology “in the open”, sharing what we’re thinking, trying, and learning. Upcoming posts will lay out what we’re building and why!

I’ll be posting regularly here about the journey. I’ll also highlight inspiring people and projects we’re meeting along the way. You can expect invitations to contribute and participate as we go! Please know I’ll always be excited to hear your feedback, ideas, and hellos in the comments or a message.

A Note of Gratitude

If you found this first post, it means you care about me and/or you’re already deeply invested in this work. Thank you!

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