Junto

Benjamin Franklin’s 1730s mutual-improvement club — Kyle’s archetype for the “association of the like-minded” that underpins a talent vortex. Per Walter Isaacson’s biography (as quoted in The Talent Vortex - Research), members “discussed issues of the day, debated philosophical topics, devised schemes for self-improvement, and formed a network for the furtherance of their own careers.” Franklin, still a twenty-something printer, used the Junto to launch a run of community institutions — a lending library, fire brigade, night-watchmen corps, later a hospital, militia, and college — on the logic that “the good men may do separately is small compared to what they may do collectively.” It’s also the social extension of Franklin’s self-improvement method (see Self Improvement).

Kyle ran his own Junto starting in 2019 — it met 35 times and produced 8 articles before failing — which he writes up in The Importance of Arguing With Yourself and the draft What I Learned Running a Junto and Why It Failed.

Where this appears

• The Talent Vortex - Research — the Isaacson-quoted account of Franklin’s Junto.
• What I Learned Running a Junto and Why It Failed — Kyle’s own 2019 Junto, and why it failed.
• Self Improvement — the Junto as the social extension of Franklin’s instrumented self-betterment.