Writeabout

Write a short story about a small town that discovers, after a long winter storm cuts off all outside supply lines, just how little it can actually provide for itself.

Consider a community, team, or family — including your own. Where do you see the web of reliance working well, and where does it create fragility?

There's a growing movement toward local-first software and owning your own data. How much does data portability and independence factor into the tools you choose?

List the people, services, and systems you relied on to get through this week. How many of them did you think about at the time?

Open-source software underpins much of the web, often maintained by a small number of unpaid volunteers. How do you think about your reliance on it, and do you give anything back?

Self-sufficiency is often seen as a virtue, but most of what we rely on was built by someone else. Where do you draw the line between healthy reliance and over-dependence?

What's the one tool, app, or service that, if it disappeared tomorrow, would cause the most disruption to your day? What does that tell you?

A letter arrives written in a language you don't speak. You find someone to translate it, but something in their hesitation makes you wonder if you're getting the full story. Write the scene.

Data is often presented as neutral, but the act of turning an experience into a number is always a translation. Where does that conversion fall short?