Project backgroundBen and Mads initially met at a co-working space in Oakland, California, and later met Ore at a similar co-working cafe.We quickly understood that we had a challenge in common: Ben, in the final stages of writing his Ph.D., was struggling to maintain relationships while balancing academic, professional, and personal life. Mads, a Norwegian expat and designer eager to network, was overwhelmed by the number of new connections in his adopted city. Ore, a videographer newer to the Bay Area, had similar challenges cultivating community.We each realized we were grappling with the same issues: managing meaningful yet shifting relationships in a fast-paced, connection-rich environment. Staying on top of friendships in different interest groups, work-related connections, and family felt impossible!We think this is a universal problem.Our solution is a simple tool that helps people nurture their most important relationships and manage their incipient ones. We envision a low-burden, high-impact application that uses Machine Learning to support users in maintaining their connections and avoid the guilt of unfulfilled intentions.With the project, we aim to deepen human connections in the digital age, addressing the challenges we all face in today's hyperconnected world.

Project background

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Vision Statement 01

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In the back of their mind, Everyone has a list of names, whether friends, family, or otherwise, who we have been meaning to connect with but for whatever reason, have not reached out. Think for a second about your own list. Who have you been meaning to contact from your contacts? What's the longest time gap? What's stopping you from following through?Social connectivity has deteriorated since the beginning of the Covid Pandemic. It's also been a challenge since the advent of social media. And the further we go back in history, the more that we observe this challenge to be one that every generation faces in their own way.We're not here to judge, we're here to help! We often have the intention of connecting with our people, but for whatever reasons, that intent doesn't always translate into action. As a result, we miss out on some of the richness, some of the shared experience and memories, and some of the healing that comes from having an active and robust community.In the long run, we want to build a tool that helps people to maintain connections, tip the intention to connect into action, and help people manage the overwhelming amount of contacts stored in our devices and our hearts.As part of this larger project to build a tool and system to support people to tend to their communities, our Playbook Application is intended to leverage our collective creative capacity to develop a mid length video of 4-6 minutes for popular consumption, which explores the triumphs, failures, and continued challenges of building and maintaining community in the post covid context of the 21st century. Our video will feature three vignettes which address Friendship, Family, and Loss. We will encourage viewers to take action in tending to their community by reaching out and connecting with those they love.

Why tend?

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Timeline

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The ChallengeEveryone has a list in the back of their mind of people (whether family, friends or otherwise) who they know they need to connect with. For whatever reasons, many of us will fail to reach out.As time passes, we extend the list of people we intend to reach out to, but don't always attend to those relationships by taking action to connect.Whether we want to widen our community with new members, or deepen the existing relationships we treasure, true connection requires consistency and cadence.With help, people can turn the intent to connect into action in their communities, and get the most out of their relationships.

The Challenge

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Background

Ben's Inspiration

Early Creative Works

Meet Ore

Ben's Creative Practice

Next Steps

The Playbook Project

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The Team

Other Creative Outlets

Graphic Design

Photography

Ben's Activism

Our Vision

Vignette 3: Loss

The Journey

Creative Work

Meet Ben

Meet Mads

Tend – Nurture your connections

Vignette 1: Friendship

Tend is an intelligent assistant that helps you easily maintain meaningful relationships in a fast-paced, ever-evolving digital world.

Tend – Nurture the connections that atter most

Tend is an intelligent assistant that helps you effortlessly maintain meaningful relationships in a hyper-connected world.We aim to make it effortless to cultivate the connections that matter most to you, turning your contacts and connections into genuine, valuable relationships.

Tend is an intelligent assistant that helps you effortlessly maintain meaningful relationships in a hyper-connected world.
We aim to make it effortless to cultivate the connections that matter most to you, turning your contacts and connections into genuine, valuable relationships.

Our Vision

The Journey

The Challenge

The Team

The Playbook Project

Next Steps

Tend is an intelligent assistant that helps you effortlessly maintain meaningful relationships in a hyper-connected world.
We aim to make it effortless to cultivate the connections that matter most to you, turning your contacts and connections into genuine, valuable relationships.

Our Vision

The Journey

The Challenge

The Team

The Playbook Project

Next Steps