The Glossary

A request sent to the AI.

• Why we count it: each request uses computing power, and therefore energy.
• Where you see it: at the gates, before each step.

An actor who loses something with your idea and slows it down.

• Where you see it: as a red dotted line on the Novum map.
• What you do with it: in project mode, “Release this brake” asks the Capteur’s expert for a strategy.

The Capteur rereads what you changed and tells you whether it holds.

• Its answers: “holds”, “to adjust” or “to rethink”, with a proposal.
• Good to know: it never scales down your heading.

The pathways you keep, each with its role.

• Good to know: they form a whole; only your lead card is measured, while the Novum map reads the links between the others.

All the cards of your idea: the heart card at the centre, then actors, flows and pathways.

• How it is built: the Capteur proposes, you correct, you keep what matters.

The cards you did not keep.

• What you do with it: “See the discard pile”, then switch a card back on to restore it.

A pathway assumes one option, and you chose another on your heart card.

• What you do with it: keep your choice, keep both, or take the pathway’s.

What circulates around your idea: money, materials, information, decisions, trust.

• What it is for: each flow raises a question: who pays, who approves, who knows what, how trust is earned.

How spread out your pathways are: tight, moderate or scattered.

• How to read it: scattered means your “what if” may contain several ideas.

Your vision: where you want to be in 3 to 5 years.

• Not to be confused with: the mission, which says why. The heading says where.
• Good to know: the heading can be ambitious: only the steps need to be realistic.

The points of your idea still to settle: what your scheme does and the choices you still have to make.

• What you do with it: for each question, pick one option, several if they combine, your own, or “decide later”. Options that exclude each other cannot be ticked together.
• Good to know: the starting context can add a point to it, saying why. It becomes your sheet, then your dossier.
• Its “For whom”: your core actor, chosen in 2.1.
• Not to be confused with: the Novum map (4.2) draws the system of your idea; the heart card settles its choices.

An estimate of the time needed, under certain conditions. Never a fixed date.

• How to read it: two ranges: without help, and with accelerators.

Your idea’s capacity to spread from one place to others.

• The degrees: contained (a single place), networked (from one place to the next), systemic (it sustains itself).

The right moment to launch your idea, and what opens or closes it.

• Example: a law being drafted, a budget being voted, an election.

The pathway written in your “what if”, at the head of the pathways.

• What it brings: its starting context (what already does the same thing, the starting figures, the frameworks) and its precedents.
• Good to know: this is the card that gets measured, at the start and then with your roadmap. It cannot be removed.

The direction to take to unblock a pathway.

• On the Novum map: the Levers tab shows where each pathway acts, from a simple adjustment to a change of rules.

The scale of a country or a whole sector.

• Example: a national law, a European standard.

The intermediate scale: a town, a territory, an organisation.

• Example: a group of municipalities, a nature park, a company.

The scale of a place or a small group.

• Example: a community garden, a class, a street.

Why you are championing this idea, what it aims to make possible.

• Not to be confused with: the heading, which says where you want to be.

The novelty that tips your idea into another world: what did not exist before.

• Example: giving a river the right to vote.
• How to write it: a complete action, with a verb: recognise, entrust, create.
• Good to know: the word comes from science fiction criticism. Darko Suvin introduced it in 1979 in Metamorphoses of Science Fiction, for the novelty that separates an imagined world from ours.

The project document, to win others over and get them on board: where the blockers stand, the next step, what remains to be decided.

• Not to be confused with: the Novum sheet, which presents the idea. The dossier builds on it.

One page to present your idea: its mission, heading, constellation, measure and roadmap.

• Where it appears: at the end of step 3, from the first gate.
• Not to be confused with: the Novum dossier, which is for running the project.

What you observe today, before your idea: what is happening, for whom, and on what scale.

• Mandatory: it comes before your “what if”.
• Checked: the Capteur checks it online, strips out any solution smuggled into it and says whether it is confirmed, needs qualifying or is fragile.
• Confirmed by you: it then guides the mission, the pathways, the starting context and the measure.

A question on your heart card that you leave to “decide later”.

• What it becomes: a point to settle in your roadmap.

One way to bring your idea to life, around your lead card.

• What you do with it: keep it or remove it.
• Good to know: a pathway that serves your mission by a means other than your idea is flagged, with the risk of drifting.

The place of each pathway in your plan.

• Driver: it gets things started.
• Connector: it links to what exists.
• Base and foundation: they set things up and keep them standing.
• Accelerator: it amplifies.
• Frontier: it opens the way towards the heading.

A real case, elsewhere, that resembles your pathway.

• What you do with it: pin it if it supports your pathway, set it aside if it does not fit.

A conviction of your project, in one short sentence.

• Where it comes from: the Capteur proposes one; you can rewrite it and add two more.

A score out of 10: can your idea spread elsewhere?

• What it measures: your lead card, at the start and then projected with your roadmap.
• How to read it: a low score says where to act, not that the idea is bad.

The last stage: you look for solutions to the blockers and prepare your dossier.

• Good to know: your sheet and your map are then frozen as they stood when you switched.

A first concrete test, to do straight away, to see whether the pathway holds.

• Example: bring ten residents together for an evening to test the idea.
• Where you see it: in a pathway’s card.

A chart showing the angles a pathway touches: ecological, economic, legal, governance, socio-cultural, security, technical.

• Good to know: it does not score the pathway, it describes it.

How mature a pathway is in the real world: emerging, hot, fragile or established.

• Where you see it: in a pathway’s card.

The way your idea spreads: everyone stays in control, or one actor captures it all.

• Watch out: the same idea can tip from one to the other.

Where you act from: researcher, public servant, business, collective.

• Good to know: it adapts the advice, never the scores.

A score out of 10: does your idea already have a foothold in reality?

• What it measures: your lead card, with its starting context.
• How to read it: a low score means “still to be invented”, not “impossible”.

The scale at which your idea operates: micro, meso or macro.

• Example: a street (micro), a town (meso), a country (macro).

A first clue that the pathway already exists somewhere.

• How to read it: strong: it exists; weak: it is still to be invented.

A step in your roadmap, from 1 month to 2 years, with the proof that it has been reached.

• In the dossier: stages are called milestones.

An actor’s attitude towards your idea.

• Ambassador: carries it.
• Observer: lets it happen.
• Brake: loses something with it.
• Blocker: will oppose it.

The underlying dilemma of your idea, as two opposing poles.

• Example: nature as a resource, or nature as an actor.

A small piece of text, roughly a syllable, that the AI reads or writes.

• Why we count it: it is the unit of cost of a request.