Integral Life Sucks

So I was on the phone this morning with a very experienced media executive out of New York talking about Integral Life, basically explaining that I thought it was credibly and literally one of the most unique and interesting companies on the planet today.  How so? Because it is the only company, and community, that I know of that is trying to enact and embody both significance (i.e., developmental depth) and an integrative process of living where all of reality is included and given consideration. 

Fragmentation has been the human story throughout history. But the 21st century, for the first time, gives us a wide enough view to at least glimpse how fragmentation might be gently moved beyond into an integrative landscape of living as being (i.e., being love because we perceive nothing but love).  Moreover, the key domains of human endeavor - leadership and capitalism, spirituality and religion, climate change and ecological concerns, and human growth and transcendence - are all central problems of the 21st century that will need a new reconstructive (i.e., integral, small i) narrative and toolkit to adapt and evolve into disciplines of great love, service and healthy function.  And Integral Life is co-leading efforts in every one of those domains because they are all central to our core purpose.  So far, so good...

But, I was reminded this morning, your website sucks.  The user interface is terrible and the navigation is confusing.  You don't clearly articulate the real-life benefits for people who are new to integral. Why should they join? You make it impossible to understand what you're talking about.  The learning curve is too steep for people who have not read a Ken Wilber book and your user "on-ramp" doesn't exist.  Your content is erudite, and your community is barely web 1.0, forget 2.0  You should redesign the site, redesign the content, get focused on the top 5 benefits of integral living and syndicate as much content as you can to other sites to drive traffic.

Hmmm... easier said than done.

For what it's worth, I basically agree that to meet our core purpose we'll have to do all of the above, and more.  We're only 5% done with the site as it stands and our content, on-ramp, usability, navigation and aesthetic all need an overhaul.  As I like to say to the team here, we need a site that my mom can come to, get engaged in, and it changes her life because she realizes quickly it is the entry to an entire global ecosystem of human growth and richness: awesome people engaged in events, coaching, writing books, holding conversations, producing great media, forming local groups, pushing activism etc.  (Hmmm... easier said than done.)  And we're not there yet.  (Though next week we will announce Integral Spiritual Experience (and IL members will get one week of priority registration access before it goes public), and we will soon announce our 10-year climate change initiative with State of the World Forum, and soon after that integral coaching launches.  Slowly, surely...)

But I tell you this long, tedious story to ask you a few questions.  In fact, this was a whole lot of context for a  simple set of questions I asked myself when I hung up the phone this morning: what would Integral Life have to do, or become, for you to want to tell your friends about it? Does Integral Life represent the club you belong to but can't tell your friends about?  We're all here for a reason, so what can we do differently to relate this story of living with love and integration to a world that seems to sorely need it?  And - gasp! - does Integral Life really suck?