Second Renaissance / Ecosystem

Changelog

2026-06-15 - ORA Polycrisis Directory

TL;DR: The ORA polycrisis mapping is now live with a landing page at /ora/ and a browsable directory at /ora/directory/, covering 46 organisations (27 with detailed research, 19 stubs) plus a raw data download. ORA is added to the main nav and the homepage collections.

What’s new

  • Landing page at /ora/ — report summary, PDF link, and CTA to the directory (mirrors the PIP pattern)
  • Directory at /ora/directory/ — searchable, filterable by approach and activity, showing all 46 organisations from the 2023 prototype mapping
  • Individual profile pages at /ora/[id]/ — each org gets a dedicated page with metadata (country, region, scale, type, activities, tags) and, for the 27 detailed profiles, full Paradigmatic / Integrated / Pragmatic assessment text
  • Raw data download — original CSV available at /assets/ora/polycrisis-directory.csv
  • Nav and homepage — ORA added to the top nav and the “Browse the collections” section on the landing page

Source data

Data migrated from an Airtable/Elements CSV export (Elements-All Elements & All Fields.csv). A one-time conversion script (scripts/generate-ora-profiles.py) generated the 46 markdown files in ora/profiles/. The 27 “ready to share” entries are flagged featured: true in frontmatter and shown with a “Detailed profile” badge.

→ ORA directory announcement

2026-06-08 - Ecosystem Site Redesign

TL;DR: The site has been redesigned around the Second Renaissance Ecosystem handoff: warmer editorial typography, research-instrument UI chrome, a new landing page, redesigned directory browsing, and shared navigation/footer components across the Astro site.

This brings the live Astro implementation much closer to the sandbox/design_handoff_2r_ecosystem prototype while keeping the existing PIP and Cohere+ content collections as the source of truth.

Design system and global chrome

  • Added the handoff theme tokens as a dedicated shared stylesheet with the locked paper mood, Newsreader + IBM Plex Mono type system, terracotta accent, hairline rules, and soft corners
  • Rebuilt the base layout to set the required root theme attributes and load the production font pair
  • Added shared top bar and footer components with the new Second Renaissance / Ecosystem mark, sticky translucent navigation, active section states, mobile menu, and research-site footer columns

Landing page

  • Rebuilt the homepage around the redesign: editorial hero, PIP framing, mapping collection cards, directory preview, and reading list
  • Added a deterministic SVG network figure as a quiet reference plate in the hero
  • Homepage counts now come from the real PIP and Cohere+ collections rather than prototype sample data

Directory experience

  • Reworked the shared profile search component into a two-column directory interface with sticky facets, search, sort, result counts, and responsive card grids
  • Directory cards now preserve profile imagery using image-backed card backgrounds with a paper gradient overlay, plus logo/monogram fallbacks when images are missing
  • Added keyboard / search focus and mapping/topic/activity filtering across the existing content data

Profile and prose pages

  • Updated PIP and Cohere+ pages to inherit the new chrome and active navigation states
  • Existing profile and markdown prose pages now use the redesigned typography, metadata cards, buttons, and reading styles

Verification

  • Updated styling tests to cover the new design-system split and image-backed directory cards
  • Full test suite and Astro build pass locally

→ Full site update announcement

2026-05-29 - Ecosystem Site Update

TL;DR: Big step forward on ecosystem.secondrenaissance.net — the PIP mapping report is properly restored with interactive visualisations embedded inline, all report-style pages now render correctly, and the site’s scope and structure is clarified.

We also resolved a standing question about where publications should live: everything ecosystem-mapping related stays on the ecosystem site (not split to secondrenaissance.net), which keeps reports, profiles, and visualisations together where they belong.

PIP Mapping — fully restored

  • Essay at /pip/ — the full PIP research report now has its own page with a proper header (title, description, date, CTAs), the essay body, and both interactive visualisations embedded inline at the right points in the text
  • CircularVis (organisations by topic) and TernaryPlot (organisations by social change approach) now appear in context within the essay, not just on a separate maps page
  • Directory at /pip/directory/ — profile search/listing now has a clean dedicated URL
  • Maps at /pip/map/ — standalone viz page still available for full-screen exploration

Markdown pages system

All root-level markdown files now render as proper prose pages on the site:

  • /related-efforts — related mapping efforts reference list
  • /sensemaking — mapping methodology note
  • /state-of-sensemaking-2020 — 2020 Life Itself ecosystem mapping report (cleaned up, PDF linked)
  • /why — rationale for ecosystem mapping
  • /ora — stub page for the ORA polycrisis mapping report (more to come)

why.md cross-posted to Life Itself blog

Scope decision

Resolved the question of what lives where: the ecosystem site is the home for all ecosystem mapping research — reports, profiles, directories, and visualisations all stay together here. secondrenaissance.net links out to this site rather than hosting duplicates. See design doc for full reasoning.

What’s next

Tracked in docs/PLAN.md:

  • UX/design pass — spacing, typography, nav, 404 page (high priority)
  • Cohere+ landing page — needs a proper intro page + recovery of the interactive map from git history
  • ORA — full report as markdown, org profiles directory, visualisation

2025-05-14 - Consolidation Proposal

The original consolidation proposal — situational analysis, complication, hypothesis, and outcome vision — has been moved to its own document: consolidation-proposal.