Bukuru

Bukuru was initiated not just for Searchers but also for Researchers. The platform is open to your initiatives or suggestions.

 

It can be a stepping stone for your own related interests, either by direct editorial contributions to Bukuru or by initiatives that are worth mentioning on Bukuru.

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The main criteria are that content is non-dogmatic or that it provides some sort of overview or meta insight. Anything that makes the (rather absurd) world of self-development easier to navigate.

Bukuru's founder, Richard van der Linde, has 15+ years experience as a management consultant and in various roles with startups, which is at the disposal of all Bukuru-affiliated projects. This include the possibility for direct participation or even fundraising.

Here are a few such projects. If you feel excited about one or have another possibly suitable project (or like to invest in one) where you’d like Bukuru or Richard involved in, just get in touch.

• Guesthouse(s) optimized for defining a self-development approach and/or execution of the chosen approach. We have a list of criteria that should be met for this purpose, all of which are fairly reasonable to obtain. We'd be happy to list the location(s) that meet these criteria and perhaps even make this/these our (seasonal) home base for live consults, occasional stimulating activities and cooperative editorial work on Bukuru.

• Mental model mapping app: we like to expand our Tools section with a web-based app that allows visitors to create their mental model by means of a questionnaire. This probably involves AI for the translation of answers to a schematic view but doesn't necessarily have to.

• AI Book recommendation app: we like to expand our Book topic pages at some point with a recommendation tool that runs on its own dataset, based on the Bukuru idea about what sets books apart, allows for users to provide extensive input about their beliefs and books they like or dislike and refines its recommendations based on feedback about previous recommendations. It's currently a shelved project with much research already done, waiting for an AI-savvy entrepreneur to be unshelved.

• Book topic research: there are many more topics to be researched. Refinement suggestions on the existing research are also most welcome.

• Playfulness section: Once you know yourself, there often still is the challenge to translate your core beliefs into behavior, especially in conversations. We react in fixed patterns instead. We’ve made the start for a section on this website in which we explain the structures of conversations and the types of reactions that can be given or received. For example, you can be factual, ignore, call out their framing attempt, reply as if the opposite was said, give up without a fight or simply say how it makes you feel. There are many more types of reaction – from debating, transactional analysis, attraction trainings, aggression trainings, assertiveness trainings, good old real life – and selecting a proper one is an art form that we’d like to capture on Bukuru, as it provides a lot of freedom and makes life more playful. Additionally, we’d like to create a simple training exercise that people can do at home and perhaps even a course to really master Playfulness.

• Mental model match social connection app: while it can be interesting to get in touch with people reading the same book, it's even more interesting to get in touch with people with the same mental model.

• Bukuru design: as you might notice, Bukuru is currently undesigned. It's just that the right designer hasn't come along yet. Perhaps to really capture the nuance between being a brand and aiming to undo the silly games (i.e. trapping people in endlessly recurring business models) of other brands without considering oneself as some white knight that's trying to save the world requires a designer who's had some valuable first-hand experiences with Bukuru? Who knows. But it would be great to see Bukuru designed properly at some point.

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Financial involvement

The research and development of Bukuru are currently privately funded. While the content on the website does generate some revenues through the booking of consults and the occasional custom counseling requests, there is no large profit potential nor a motive. The aim is to become financially self-sufficient while allowing several professionals to develop content, tools and services in their respective optimal circumstances. The current strategy is bootstrapping – creating one revenue generating activity at a time and investing that money in the next activity. However, financial involvement of someone who fits in the team and with an ambition for active participation could lead to a revision of this strategy.

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