Jean Russell

Bio

"Jean Russell is a social ecosystem designer, culture hacker, and facilitator. As a founder of the thrivability movement and expert on collective thriving, Jean speaks to and with change agents, innovators, builders, and edge-riders around the world. She published Thrivability: Breaking Through to a World that Works in 2013, a book exploring the breakthroughs in how we see ourselves, what we can perceive, how we work together, and how we can create a more thrivable world together. She curated “Thrivability: A Collaborative Sketch” in 2010, a collection of essays describing new ways of thinking and being that lead toward thriving. She is currently working on two books. The Action Spectrum, co-authored with Christelle Van Ham, offers a framework for decision-making and assessing impact. Designing for Social Flows pulls together essays and interviews on designing social ecosystems in the new economy.

Jean has worked in philanthropy, social technology and online community design, event design and facilitation. She has been coaching and consulting to the social change sector since 2003. She did deep “apprenticeship” dives into alternative currency/game design and social network analysis. Jean cofounded Ci2iglobal, an institute of international development and social change innovators exploring how we can co-create a more thrivable world. She is the board president for Grass Commons, creators of wagn, a wiki-like open source software tool for collaboration and community-building. Jean is a visiting instructor at Mycelium, an educational experiment facilitating peer to peer learning. Jean also acted a lead and founding coach with Emerging Leader Labs, a new economy learn/do laboratory.

Her work on thrivability, innovation, philanthropy, and cultural shifts has been highlighted in the Economist, Harvard Business Review, Stanford Social Innovation Review, and Worldchanging. She received an honorable mention on the enrichlist, as one of the top 200 people of all time “whose contributions enrich paths to sustainable futures.”

Jean works with clients internationally to take them through the crucial questions of creating and nurturing teams and networks to develop healthy and productive collaborations in service of a more thrivable world."

Publications

• she curated, "Thrivability: A Collaborative Sketch" in 2010 with 70 inspiring people.

• She wrote "Thrivability: Breakthroughs for a World That Works" (Triarchy Press, 2013).