Appendix AGlossary of Terms
Action: Each of the operational steps that turn AskingCities into real practice.
Ask: Clear, concrete and actionable request that expresses a real need for an Asker.
AskAuthor: Relational facilitator who listens, reformulates, accompanies, translates contexts, takes care of the process and documents stories. It is the "curator" of needs and the operating engine of the system.
Asker: A person or organization that expresses a clear, contextualized, and actionable need. It acts as a "sensor" for the city and generates the system's raw material.
AskingCity: City that activates AskingCities through living roles, fluid connections and quick wins that generate a culture of collaboration. It is not a project, but a civic practice installed in the territory.
AskingCities: Social architecture that activates, orders, and amplifies civic-value connections between real needs and available capacities within a city. It works as a civic operating system based on human relationships, simplicity, and narrative learning.
Bottom-up: Structural logic of the model: starting from the real needs of the territory instead of imposing structures or programs from above.
Core action: Essential action.
Third sector ecosystem: A group of third sector organisations (volunteers, NGOs, community associations, foundations, cooperatives) that represent the social sensitivity of the territory.
Strategy: Each of the stable axes that define the DNA of the model
Giver: Person, company or institution that can offer time, things, services, knowledge or spaces. It represents the latent capacity that AskingCities activates.
MAX (AskingCities Method): Structural method of movement: the conceptual invariant that sustains the identity of the model, guides decisions and allows AskingCities to be transferred to other cities without diluting its essence.
Franchishable model (core + flex): Architecture that combines hard core (non-negotiable) and adaptable periphery (local).
MVAC (Minimum Viable AskingCities): Minimum set essential for AskingCities to exist in a city.
Option: Non-essential but valuable element that a city can activate according to its context
OSA (Option–Strategy–Action): Conceptual trilogy that structures the model.
Quick win: Simple, early and narrable connection that proves that the system works. It's a small but symbolically potent achievement that builds trust, energy, and narrative.
Storytelling: Emotional infrastructure of the model: short, honest and useful stories.
SuperConnectivity: Hypothesis and operational reality that the city has latent networks of relationships, affinities and contacts that AskingCities can activate with an enormous multiplier effect.
Institutional supply chain: Civic use of suppliers, technical equipment, infrastructures and services already contracted by universities, administrations and large organisations.