The Potentiality

John Horn's Website for Community Builders

John Horn

The Culture of Mentorship

A very cool and educational event took place this weekend during UBC Alumni Weekend. UBC Career Services and Alumni Affairs celebrated 10 years of Tri-Mentoring at the school. Here is a superawesome video that highlights some of the best components…

Horn in the World: Plugged-In and Un-Plugged

A few weeks ago – back when he wrote for this blog and before he abandoned it to gallivant around “Europe” – my main man Steve Sloot wrote a column/article/post/whitepaper about traveling socializers who put it out there. Particularly ones…

Wasted Talent

You see, human beings are the only species on this planet without full employment. All the other ones – from worms to whales to walruses to wallabies – have jobs (or, more accurately, they all have work to be done). This is not a new concept – undoubtedly, the delicious jugs made me seem very wise at the time – but it should be noted that, according to the International Labour Organization, nearly one billion people on this planet are unemployed and countless others are underemployed.

1000 Community Stories

Awesome Community Business Projects

[Editor’s note: Recently, I left my job at the UBC’s Sauder School of Business (pictured above, my leaving is pictured below) for a job with UBC Career Services. Last year, Sauder launched the Community Business Project, an experiential and service…

Failing Builds Community

When you fail at something, what’s your next step? How do you deal with it? Do you humbly admit your mistake and troubleshoot a solution with those affected? Or do you hide and/or massage the results to spin it as success?

Urban Densification and the Death of the House Party

On many an occasion, friends in Vancouver have crammed upwards of 30 people into their 692 square foot apartments. And a few times since moving to Vancity in 2008, I’ve seen many of those same 30 people party in a fairly spacious household setting, where – throughout the course of the evening – components of the party will actually take on identities all their own: the kitchen might turn into a cauldron of political debate, a guitar-playing sing-along might erupt in the livingroom, a game of croquet might take place on the lawn, and people might check out wedding photos on the computer in the den.

A Critique of the Metro Vancouver Sustainable Region Initiative

My first assignment for a course I’m taking at UBC – it’s called Building Sustainable Communities and is taught by the awesome Sarah Northcott – is to critique the Metro Vancouver Sustainable Regional Initiative (SRI) in about 500 words. I…

The History of Work Series Concludes

So there it is. This concludes The History of Work Series on the The Potentiality. Godfrey and I have researched, analyzed, evaluated, and delivered results on, first, the nature of work as it relates to community and, second, the best and…

The Very Best and Worst Jobs Ever!!!

We’ve explored Pirates and Message Runners, Professors and Fact-Checkers, Singers and Searchers of Plague Dead, and, yesterday, Politicians and People Born into Wealth and Title. Amazing. We’ve come a long way and, before we ring in the new year, it’s…

The Second Best and Worst Jobs Ever

Holy crap we’re almost done the series! Through Pirates and Message Runners, University Professors and Fox News Fact-Checkers, and Singers and Searchers of the Dead we have explored myriad kinds of work and how these historical jobs impact communities. Sort of. Other times we rambled about tenure and the coming Plague. Sorry about that. On to the next two jobs!