This message serves to welcome three new members to our Global Rebirth group on Signal. Michelle Ajamian is a community activist / social justice advocate; co-founder of Shagbark Seed & Mill in Athens, OH; and co-founder of Appalachian Staple Foods Collaborative. Shadan Tofighi is the president and founder of Future Steps Technology in Chicago with a long history of community involvement in keeping with his faith practices. Bill Fulkerson is founder and president of Resilient Consulting in Bettendorf, IA, a company he started after an over thirty-year career in information systems and technology with John Deere.

Michelle, Shadan, and Bill, already in the group are Tony Budak—founder of the TimeBank Mahoning Watershed in Youngstown, and Michael Greenman, co-founder of the Care and Share Time Bank in Columbus, OH, co-founder of the Move to Amend Interfaith Caucus, and an avid social justice advocate.

I am the common denominator in the group having had the extraordinary good fortune in an over 30-year run to collaborate with each of you on social / organizational change projects across all scopes—from local to global; scales—from startups to Fortune 100 entities; and sectors—from private to public to nonprofit.

This latest project, How’s the Weather?, is ostensibly about how to address the consequences of climate change. However, it is actually a social change initiative on what will play out on the world’s stage. This is my first opportunity since retiring 5 years ago to apply the myriad change strategies, tools, and techniques I developed with you and others over three decades to such a worthy “social experiment.”

That said, I have no expectations as to how much or in what way you participate in this group. Hopefully, you will look over my shoulder as I post updates and offer input about the project here and elsewhere. Please let me know when I’m not clear, I misspeak, or I’m in the ditch so I can make amends and come at whatever it is another way. I promise to do the same with you should that be helpful to you. So, thanks and let our conversations begin!