In November, I'll be leading an online writing workshop called Friends as Force Multiplier, hosted by semi-enigmatic consultancy Other Internet. FaFM will focus on understanding, navigating, and leveraging internet communities — from empathy to economics and back.

I don't have any teaching credentials to tout, none of the usual trappings of expertise, and that's a big part of the point. A person's public internet presence can act as "proof of insight," albeit in a Rorschach blot kinda way, thus bypassing the need for institutional rubber-stamping.

If you sign up for Friends as Force Multiplier, it'll be because you read something that I wrote, or multiple somethings, and decided that I seem solid. Why else, right? I don't have the standing to issue a certificate that anyone would care about.

What I'm offering is a particular map for the territory, and myself as guide. FaFM will explore my favorite territory — the huge, messy, multilayered, and ever-shifting Venn diagram of online subcultures. (Complex systems are like four-dimensional matryoshka dolls, I swear!)

✨ ooh, shiny value proposition ✨

I compiled a reading list for workshop participants, and Other Internet okay'd sharing it publicly. The following links are a crash course in virtual applied human nature — or human nature applied virtually, if you prefer 😉 Length ranges widely.

Core Syllabus

Extra Credit