Stronger together
Let’s combine the power of industry with the strength of our local communities to create a flourishing society for the digital age.
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This edition picks up where my July 4th newsletter left off. It shares more about my new series for the Distribution Strategy Group blog, and how that work connects to what I write here. I’m at the start of a year-long effort to rethink the future of distribution as we approach our nation’s 250th birthday in 2026, drawing inspiration from the founders’ vision and sacrifice, and aiming to spark bold innovations for our time. My DSG article, Launching a Supply Chain Revolution, sets the stage. Below, I share key excerpts, offer new thoughts, and preview the parallel work I’ll be doing here on Substack.
For business, and community
No transformation of the supply chain, no progress worth fighting for, is possible unless we begin where all lasting change begins: in our communities, creating what people need to flourish.
The following two paragraphs, drawn from my recent DSG article, explain why today’s moment matters, what’s at stake, and how the spirit of our founding can guide both distribution and community toward a shared future. They help us get started.
We are living through a time of unprecedented change, fueled by digital technologies, geopolitical threats, and generational transfer. Two hundred fifty years ago, the citizens of the thirteen colonies faced a moment of profound upheaval, shaped by the political, economic, commercial, social, and scientific forces of their time. I see a connection. They were fighting for their future. So are we.
Artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and social media—made possible by data, algorithms, and a coming sentience—generate both good and harm, always at scale, constantly accelerating. This transformation flows from a race propelled by great power competition and the unflinching logic of profits and markets—factors that are reshaping how we work, communicate, and live, often without our consent. Frictionless efficiency, not human flourishing, is its highest aim.
Take a minute to read the whole DSG piece. It shows why distribution can do far more than move goods. Distribution is more than an industry; it’s an institution and a national resource hiding in plain sight.
But what is to be done? Now is the time to build a new foundation from the ground up—not by decree, but by today’s concerned citizens and local changemakers. Not just founders of startups, but people who care, shaping society. People like you and me.
Here’s what I’m thinking.
Our founders didn’t just declare independence and fight a war. They designed and built essential institutions (innovations, really) that secured liberty and prosperity for the future: a federal government with a congress, presidency, and courts; an army and a navy; a treasury department; mints and banks; a postal service and patent office; an academy of arts and sciences; and more. These institutions established core competencies, separated powers, and ensured checks and balances. They were purpose-built and forward-looking, giving power to the people, guarding against tyranny, and creating the conditions for self-rule to evolve over generations.
It seems to me that communities and distribution can be today’s essential institutions—fit for our time—if they act more like instruments of the people than bureaucracies over them. Communities are where humans naturally gather to solve what we can’t solve alone. Distributors are local businesses that are deeply embedded in communities and uniquely designed to help workers, owners, and leaders succeed. Together, they represent both society and industry: grounded in place, focused on what matters, and equipped with essential competencies. If we let them, they can be partners in righting our ship and setting a course—through today’s unprecedented challenges—toward an unbelievable future.
That’s why I write: here on Substack as Innovating Communities, and on the DSG blog as Delivering Freedom. I write from two perspectives—personas if you will—to imagine what comes next and how we get there. As we approach the 250th anniversary of our country’s founding, let’s pay attention. Let’s remember what our founders accomplished. Let’s be startled and awakened, then get to work.
A way forward
The founding of the United States wasn’t just a rebellion. It was a project—an audacious, uncertain, and profoundly human experiment in self-governance. That spirit didn’t end with the Declaration or the war that followed. It continues. We live it now. And in this moment of disruption and reinvention, we have a responsibility to carry it forward.
If you haven’t read the Declaration of Independence in some time or maybe ever, you can find it here. If you do, please let me know what it inspires in you, what it means to you, and what it might be saying to all of us in the times we are living through.
In the next edition of Innovating Communities, I’ll share three potential projects—experiments rooted in the same belief that guided the founding generation: that ordinary people, working together, can create something new.
These projects are modern in form but timeless in purpose. Each one explores the future through a different lens—art, science, and technology—echoing an idea championed by Julio Mario Ottino and Bruce Mau that our greatest work must happen at their reconvergence.
Art helps us imagine what doesn’t yet exist and feel what facts alone can’t express. Science provides us with the tools to understand the unknown, ask more informed questions, and seek the truth. Technology turns ideas into action, building what we dare to imagine. Each has power on its own. In combination, they can help reshape communities and distribution, for today, and for our future.
But I get ahead of myself. More to come on this in my next edition.
In the meantime, I’d love to hear from you. Email me at mark.dancer@n4bi.com, send a DM on Substack, or leave a comment below.
Together, let’s build thriving communities, one innovation at a time.