buidlers almanac 🍄 🦫 📻

what’s a buidler?

'bid-lər (also pronounced: 'bid-dəl-lər, 'bil-dər).

a buidler is a human who participates in building the collective reality they want to see in the world. the buidler is an individual who works in the service of their community. the buidler’s first allegiance is to the global and local network of humans in the world.

the buidler cherishes the currency of their community, both financial and social. the buidler does not produce all they need to be self-sufficient in isolation, but offers their best gifts to their community, and is sustained by the community's best gifts to them. the buidler is someone who cares.

a buidler can be a grower, a maker, a cook, a teacher, an artist, a writer, a listener, a connector. the buidler is self- and community-educated, is grounded in deep context as they work to construct the future. the buidler is forever a trickster, a memer, and a curious one, who is never done questioning what it means to be a buidler.

what’s the almanac?

buidlers almanac is a catalog of tools, recommendations, playlists, recipes, letters, stories, bulletins, and memes. it's a compendium of local knowledge, globally shared. it's curation as care.

the almanac is "staff picks." it's getting your book recommendations from your bookstore owner, and your groceries from the family who's watched your children grow up. it's the last radio station in range that's still run by a human. it's all of these things, in digital life as well as in meatspace.

the almanac is the coffee shop we all end up at because we know we're bound to run into a friend. it's a drink on the house, just because you are known here.

if that sounds like what you've always been looking for, welcome home.

how to contribute

buidlers almanac is currently open for submissions from friends and family. (if this page was shared with you by a founder of buidlers almanac, you are friends and family.) we hope to find ways to open it up to more and more humans as time goes on.

we aren't using a conventional submissions funnel. instead, everything happens through our community slack server, which for the moment is invite-only. we have a number of genres that we're open to contributions in (which are more like guidelines), described below.

pieces can be of any length or of any form. some of the prompts below can be fulfilled with a single sentence! while others might inspire pieces that consist of multiple chapters. not to mention visual, auditory, and time-based media.

once you have an idea, notes, or a draft toward a piece in any of the genres, you're welcome to share it in the slack server, get feedback from others in the buidlers community, and develop it gradually and at your own pace. the community editors will choose pieces-in-progress from amongst these that best embody the almanac, and work with you to get them ready to share. even if a piece you create doesn't go into the almanac, you will be freely encouraged to share it elsewhere.

genres

tools and spots

• tell us about a tool you love, and why you love it. a tool can be a physical tool, a digital tool, a piece of media or art, a mental model, a framework. what's something that's helped you that more people need to know about?
• tell us about a service that benefits a specific community, is produced or run by one person or a very small team, and is community funded.
• tell us about a spot that only the locals know—but without revealing the exact location or name of the spot, so that it stays secret.

minor history

• tell the story of a piece of media or technology that never became popular or successful, but has parallels with something that came later and that did become popular and successful.
• tell the story of a piece of media or technology you love, that was widely known in its heyday, but is not no longer widely known and you don't want it to be forgotten by the next generation.
• tell the story of an incident that captured the attention of a global audience for just a day or a few days, and that will probably never be mentioned in any history book.

playlists and pairings

• make a "playlist" of any media type(s) (you can combine different types of media in the same playlist), where the title of the playlist expresses its theme. the more surprising the theme, the better. you can optionally include a blurb for the playlist, as well as blurbs for any/all of the items in the list.
• or make a "pairing," which is a specific type of playlist that consists of just two items and the theme that connects them.

letters

• a letter or a series of letters, one-sided or multi-sided, open or responded-to, to or from friends, family, or strangers, living or dead. on any topic. (but do get permission before sharing a letter written by someone other than you!)

recipes

• tell us how to make something that you make (the term "recipes" is applied very liberally here to mean "a process with ingredients," which is not constrained to food or beverage). in your recipe, tell us why you do things the way you do them, and how it's similar to or different from the way other people do them.

village parade

• imagine a club for people who have something very specific in common, whether or not you've ever seen such a club in real life. perhaps it is a club you would belong to, if it existed. (examples: "a club of introverts who like quiet spots to work alone," "a club for all people who have autocorrect disabled," "a club for everyone who thought ponies were baby horses," and so on.) create a title, poster, an optional description, and any other branding materials you'd like. if you buidl it, maybe your fellow members will come to you.

fiction, literature, art, humor, memes

• we don't have specific prompts for these genres at the moment, but we're always open to these as well.