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Jenny Stefanotti: Co-Creating a Next Society through Denizen

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To challenge, to question, to provoke. To nurture, to care, to accept. Through her community and media organization, Denizen, Jenny Stefanotti holds these forces in tension and in doing so, is co-creating the idea of a Next society that has curiosity, generosity, diversity, integrity, humility, and accountability at its core.

Jenny is a former Googler and Stanford d.school fellow who has worked in technology, philanthropy, and policy. She is an adviser and board member for myriad startups and nonprofits.

During this episode, Jenny shares the founding story of Denizen (which now has a total reach on Clubhouse of over 85000 people,) how she makes the Denizen content widely accessible while still being valuable to seasoned experts, examples that highlight the cooperative nature of the organization, and what her role as a steward of the community entails.  

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Key Points From This Episode:

  • Three defining periods in Jenny’s life that have led her to where she is today. [0:04:13]

  • Jenny shares the founding story of Denizen and how it has evolved over time. [0:08:07]

  • How Jenny makes her content widely accessible. [0:14:29]

  • The process of creating the set of values that form the foundation of Denizen. [0:16:47]

  • Curiosity, generosity, diversity, integrity, humility, accountability; exploring the key values of Denizen. [0:17:48]

  • Jenny’s commitment to continuous experimentation through the Denizen platform. [0:23:41]

  • Jenny explains her theory of change around alignment, and the emergent elements of Denizen. [0:28:04]

  • Examples that highlight the cooperative nature of Denizen. [0:35:04]

  • Where Jenny is focusing her energy and attention at the moment. [0:37:27]

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Tweetables:

“In addition to my time working in the big companies in the most optimistic of the days of what the big companies were doing in the world, I’ve also had a front-row seat to the startup ecosystem.” — @developingjen [0:04:45]

“We co-created a set of values with the [Denizen] community and a couple of paragraphs that articulated what we were. This was one of the proudest moments of my career at the time.” — @developingjen [0:17:17]

“Diversity [has] always [been] really important to me because how can you talk about a Next society without having a diversity of voices at the table?” — @developingjen [0:18:53]

“I want to provoke a questioning of the things that we take for granted and a widening of the lens of the work that we do.” — @developingjen [0:21:56]

“I see [Denizen] as a broader collective entity working towards common goals with porousness across us.” — @developingjen [0:35:53]

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Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Jenny Stefanotti on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jstefanotti/ 

Jenny Stefanotti on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/developingjen/

Denizen: https://www.becomingdenizen.com/ 

Donella Meadows: https://donellameadows.org/systems-thinking-resources/ 

Less is More by Jason Hickel: https://www.jasonhickel.org/less-is-more 

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