About WhutNext
WhutNext is a structured deliberation platform for contested public issues. People move through multi-level scenarios on the questions that actually matter — policy, identity, community, progress — and the aggregate data answers a question ordinary polling can't: where are we converging, where are we diverging, and what common ground already exists that nobody has named?
This is not a polling tool. It is not a survey platform. It is not an audience-engagement gimmick. It is a slower, quieter, more respectful way for a community to understand itself — and for the organizations that serve that community to make decisions on evidence rather than guesswork.
If you are here for a short pitch, there isn't one. This page is long because the product is the result of 30+ years of work in civic deliberation, adult learning, and graphic design, and because the people who tend to become the best partners, clients, and collaborators are the ones who read all the way down. Take your time.
One thing to know, if you read nothing else
Every person who uses WhutNext is validated for their choice, no matter what they choose. They are not told they are wrong, or stupid. They are encouraged to keep going. Having said that, keep in mind that we will never validate any form of hate or extremism. Our values, broadly defined, fall within what many people call "liberal democracy".
Honest data requires non-judgment. Continued participation requires welcome. Meaningful self-knowledge requires a mirror, not a verdict. The entire product is built outward from that one commitment. When you encounter a green check, an archetype reveal, a piece of feedback copy between levels, or a line in the dashboard — what you are seeing is the validation principle, made visible at a specific surface.
It is the thing that separates this from every polling tool, town hall, and online survey you have ever been asked to complete. It is also why people who would never raise their hand in a room will participate here.
What we stand on
How we got here
The ideas behind WhutNext are older than the current code. The same basic pattern — structured choices, respectful framing, community-scale data, narrative interpretation — has been run on three previous platforms over the last two decades. This version is the culmination of an ever-evolving, dynamic iterative process. It is alive. It meets the moment.
A statewide survey to defend a public program from political attack. We went to the community, asked careful questions about who actually benefited, and handed the data to a trusted auditor who turned it into a policy-grade report in 24 hours. The program was saved. The lesson stuck: the analysis was almost trivial; the speed, the authority, and the narrative packaging were the real product.
What it taught the platform: citizen data, packaged with authority and delivered with speed, can defeat lobbying arguments. That insight lives on in every report WhutNext will ever generate.
An initiative combining in-person town halls, keypad polling, and a social-platform app. I built the digital layer. The app reached a younger and more engaged audience than the town halls, the data informed the state budget, and a key priority passed partly on the strength of that data.
After the initiative closed, the official retrospective said the only change they would make was running the digital layer continuously — not just at the end. WhutNext is the permanent version of that recommendation.
What it taught the platform: async, phone-native engagement reaches demographics that town halls cannot. The tool shaped real policy once. It can again.
I brought earlier versions of this product into the classroom. Students built their own scenarios and deployed them publicly. They gravitated toward the hardest, most identity-charged questions available to them — the ones most places can't hold. The platform held the conversation. It produced discourse, not damage.
I also built a learning-assessment system for the institution — self, peer, and faculty axes, measured across a student's entire academic career. We deliberately framed growth over time: a poor assessment in year one could become a good one in the context of a great assessment in year three. Students who would never speak up in class used the platform. The quiet-voices finding from earlier work showed up again, in a completely different context.
What it taught the platform: holding every expression as a valid starting point, then developing it over time, is how honest participation happens. The validation principle that sits at the center of this product was refined here.
I took an earlier version of this product on the road. Organizations paid to tell their stories in the same structured way. Creating a space for expression and open data in a group setting was valuable for participants and decision makers.
What it taught the platform: live in-person deployment is a real, valuable, fundable product. The ceiling was never the idea; it was the hardware. Now every attendee carries the interface in their pocket and the dashboards fit on every monitor in a conference center. The business model survived waiting for the technology to catch up.
Who this is for
If any of this sounds like your problem, we should probably talk:
Foundations looking for a living execution vehicle for a founder's or thinker's legacy, not just an archive. State and local government civic-engagement offices who have run out of ideas for reaching the constituents town halls don't reach. Conference organizers who want the audience to shape the program in real time, not just clap at the end. Educational institutions — universities, tribal colleges, high schools, museums — running civic or identity curricula and wanting a tool that honors the complexity of the material. Nonprofits defending programs from political attack and needing evidence they can send to a board, a legislator, or a journalist. Journalists and researchers looking for primary data that wasn't fielded by a polling firm with an agenda.
If you've read this far and recognize yourself in any of the above, we are probably kindred. Write to me.
Background
Brian Rembrandt — New Mexico. 30+ years in print and interactive design, 500+ completed projects, five Addy awards. Bachelor's in Theater and Lighting Design from California State University, Northridge. In the late 1980s I got my hands on a beta copy of a strange new thing called Photoshop and became one of the first freelancers on the West Coast running it — on the first color Mac, 4MB of RAM, 40MB hard drive — and helped figure out how to actually get those files to print. That was the start of figuring stuff out. I've been doing it ever since.
Learning technology for civic institutions: Michigan Supreme Court. Colorado Division of Child Welfare and Office of Behavioral Health. Alaska, California, and North Carolina Court Improvement Programs. The American Bar Association and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges. The Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs.
Public engagement: Governor Bill Richardson (New Mexico). Governor John Hickenlooper (Colorado). Results from both state projects were used in legislative sessions to set tax policy and budget priorities.
Higher education: The Institute of American Indian Arts — five years as faculty. Curriculum development for two majors, student assessment, and a custom learning-management system with an integrated social network and longitudinal assessment engine.
Enterprise design: Fidelity Investments, Oracle, the New York Stock Exchange, Hewlett Packard, Ernst & Young. Work for Tesla, Facebook, and Google via E-learning Mind. Work for Tulane University and American University via Genius Productions.
Brand and entertainment design: Miller/Coors, Gillette, PepsiCo Brands, Johnson & Johnson, Coca Cola, Home Depot. Art department work for Paramount Pictures, Sony Music, VH1, MTV, Warner Records, and Starz.
Press: Advertising Age, Business Week, The Santa Fe Reporter, The Boulder Camera.
For organizations exploring branded deployments
WhutNext can run under your program's name, colors, and scenario set — for public engagement, stakeholder alignment, or visitor reflection. These are live environment previews, not the public WhutNext experience.
Choose a vertical to load a demo skin on the main site. When you're finished, use Return to WhutNext in the header.
If WhutNext is the shape of a conversation you've been looking for — as a foundation, an institution, a commissioner, a community leader, a reporter, or a kindred spirit in civic work — the door is open. This is not a demo request. It's an invitation to talk about whether there's something real here for us to build together.
Write to whutup [at] whutnext [dot] com. A human answers.