Impact: how to read this section
Impact here is narrative — by design, not by default
We do not organize our work around key performance indicators. That is a considered philosophical position, explained in full in Philosophy: the work that matters most — shifts in how people think, connect, and imagine — is structurally resistant to measurement, and instrumenting it deforms it. So this section does what our own federal reporting says such work requires: it collects stories.
There is formal precedent for this. The Future Travel Foresight Catalyst final report (Maynard & Leahy, 2025, published at rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/91942) advises peers directly: “Encourage peers to collect stories: one person’s changed perspective can sometimes illustrate impact more vividly than any graph of web traffic. Don’t be shy to use narrative in evaluation—it’s not all about numbers.” (§5.4.2). And of catalytic work generally: “The traditional yardsticks don’t fully apply, but their alternatives are emerging in narrative form.” (§4). Narrative impact reporting is our documented, federally reported methodology — not a substitute for numbers we lack.
What these stories are — and are not
- Illustrative, never exhaustive. The four stories here are examples of how catalytic impact shows up. They are not a complete accounting, and no complete accounting is possible.
- Grounded only in captured material. Every story is built from documented sources or from testimony elicited directly from Andrew Maynard (2026-08-05). Nothing is embellished; no specifics are invented; no individuals are named without clearance.
- Deliberately incomplete. At every level, assume more went uncaptured — and much that, by its nature, defies capture. In Andrew’s words, a lot of the initiative’s effect “is nearly impossible to document and has to be taken on trust” (elicited from Andrew Maynard, 2026-08-05). That assumption is an accurate description of how catalytic work behaves, not a hedge.
- Growing — but never harvested. Consistent with the philosophy, we do not solicit testimonials or ask people to certify their transformation: that would be KPI-seeking by another name (per Andrew Maynard, 2026-08-05). Stories are added only as they arise unsolicited and can be told on the participants’ terms.
The four stories
| Story | What it shows |
|---|---|
| The students who came back | Unmeasurable student impact: return without credit, transformative-mentorship testimony |
| Trust over metrics: a federal experiment | The philosophy tested on a federal project — and documented as a replicable model; the corpus’s canonical summary of the DOT final report |
| The room built for serendipity | A physical third space as catalytic infrastructure during the Tempe era, retired 2026 |
| Strangers who listen | Unexpected worldwide reach under a trust-first model |
Where a story notes that fuller detail awaits elicitation, that is a live gap we intend to close — with the people involved, on their terms.