Junto 2.0 is a group concept with three primary goals:
1. promote learning through collaboration
2. exchange knowledge for mutual benefit
3. doing charitable work
We draw our inspiration from a few places: Ben Franklin's original Junto club, and the terrific Barcamp, Refresh, and Meet Up communities out there. Our focus is more project-based than others, and we strive to be a complement to them all.
A little background...
- The Original Junto
- The Junto was a club established in 1727 by Benjamin Franklin for mutual improvement. The first of Franklin's projects for social improvement by collective effort in Philadelphia was the Junto, or Leather Apron club, organized in 1727 to debate questions of morals, politics, and natural philosophy and to exchange knowledge of business affairs. Ben Franklin was a gregarious person, who loved sitting down and having long conversations with friends and acquaintances.
Interested in starting your own Junto 2.0?
We're just getting this off the ground, and we'll add more resources in the future.
In the meantime, here are some of our favorite tools for online collaborating and spreading ideas.
In the meantime, here are some of our favorite tools for online collaborating and spreading ideas.
- PBwiki
- Wikis are terrific tools for sharing notes, writing specs, publishing agendas and any other form of distributed documentation. PBwiki is not only free, it is probably the easiest wiki to use.
- Basecamp
- Basecamp is a web-based tool that lets you manage and track projects and ideas. Use it to keep your conversations, ideas, schedules, to-do lists, and more in a password-protected central location. Basecamp offers a free account for a single project, and really inexpensive accounts if your needs grow.
- Make a lens!
- Of course, if you have a Junto 2.0 group, you should have a lens about it. Point to your projects, your online tools, and use it for recruiting.
Recommended Reading
The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations
We strive to be a leaderless organization with a recommended framework people can adopt and make their own.
Amazon Price: $16.47 (as of 11/09/2009) 
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
The man behind the original Junto.
Amazon Price: $13.64 (as of 11/09/2009)
The Junto Questions
The original Junto's Friday evening meetings were organized around a series of questions that Ben Franklin devised, covering a range of intellectual, personal, business, and community topics. These questions were used as a springboard for discussion and community action. In fact, through the Junto, Franklin promoted such concepts as volunteer fire-fighting clubs, improved security (night watchmen), and a public hospital.
Here our some of our favorites...
Here our some of our favorites...
- Have you met with any thing in the author you last read, remarkable, or suitable to be communicated to the Junto? particularly in history, morality, poetry, physics, travels, mechanic arts, or other parts of knowledge?
- Hath any citizen in your knowledge failed in his business lately, and what have you heard of the cause?
- Do you think of any thing at present, in which the Junto may be serviceable to mankind? to their country, to their friends, or to themselves?
- Do you know of any deserving young beginner lately set up, whom it lies in the power of the Junto any way to encourage?
- In what manner can the Junto, or any of them, assist you in any of your honourable designs?
Original Junto Accomplishments
The results of the original Junto are still important components of America, and the list is quite remarkable.
The Junto gave us our:
The Junto gave us our:
- First library
- Volunteer fire departments
- The first public hospital
- Police departments
- Paved streets
- The University of Pennsylvania
by coreybrown
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