Mission

Something still seems off to me with this - I think it's the order of the ideas and some of the super long words?? It seems to me that our main reason for being is to provide the infrastructure. What if we start with... Cultivate collaborative social and technological infrastructure in order to sustain our quality of life and empower our communities for a thriving region.

I agree Tracy. I would suggest possibly substituting "connections" for "infrastructure".

Is the ultimate goal a thriving region, or the infrastructure per se? Is the infrastructure the means or the end?

In my mind, the infrastructure is the means to the end. And perhaps we will model a new way of organizing via the infrastructure but still relying on the innate desire of us in the region to share and work in goodwill with one another.

I like that. I would further reorder things by putting the technological before the social. Not to position one as more important than the other, but to emphasize our group's focus.

That still leaves a lot of ten-dollar words in there, but it's a good start.

If the end is a thriving region, I'd put that first. I'd also drop the word "collaborative" because I think it detracts more than it adds. Whatever "social infrastructure" means exactly, I think it to call it collaborative is probably redundant. I also took Dan's note about order. How about:

Cultivate a thriving region by developing technological and social infrastructure to empower our communities and sustain our quality of life.

I think collaborative is an important description of the kind of social infrastructure we want to develop. There are lots of social infrastructures out there. I want to help build a collaborative one. Also, the quality of life might be improved, not just sustained, no? How about:

Cultivate a thriving region by developing technological and collaborative infrastructures to empower our communities while enhancing our quality of life.

Yes, I think "sustain" is not as good as "improve" or equivalent. I believe the desire was for some kind of tie-in to "sustainability" but I don't recall the details. I could be totally wrong. :-D

I agree with you, Paul, that "sustain" was a reference to "sustainability", which is an important value. I would support "sustainability", but think the meaning is diluted beyond recognition in using "sustain". Sustainability should be one of our core values, but perhaps not a part of our mission?

Was the intent of 'social' to imply f2f as well as digital? If not, collaborative infrastructures captures the kind of infrastructures nicely. I also like the ordering of End -- Means--Why.