138 Design to thrive: Creating social networks and online Communities to have ceremonies without the rank issues. This is done through the creation of membership roles and services. Basically, the thinking here is to create a type of service that a member can pro- vide for the community for which they must receive training and earn that badge or title that can then be celebrated and yet still hold the rank of member. Members in a community may, for example, learn how to become an electronic mentor to new members. They would, thus, undergo the initiation, training in the practices of becoming a mentor and then be celebrated, in front of the whole community, once they achieve it. Every parent around the football team is a member, and they all share a com- mon goal of helping the boys develop as young men. But there are additional roles they can take on in the Athletic Booster Club or additional services they can provide. For example, there is always a need for people who can drive buses. They may have to get a chauffer's license, which requires a number of serious training programs, and they're not considered higher rank than anyone else in the organization, but they are respected for taking on that additional responsi- bility. Similarly, there are people who receive training in CPR and other medical kinds of support who can take on roles of helpers and managers. There are peo- ple who serve the football players breakfasts and dinners, as many of the boys need to bulk up and need a lot of energy but don't always come from homes that promote those kinds of positive eating behaviors. All of these roles are rec- ognized, valued, and celebrated during half-time, at dinner, and other events. But they don't require special rank or special privileges in order to obtain them within the community. mythologies These are shared histories (real or imagined) that express values of the commu- nity. For Americans, one of the best known of these is George Washington cut- ting down the cherry tree and then confessing that he was the culprit. The story, which probably never happened, celebrates the importance of honesty and tak- ing responsibility for one's own actions. using mythologies Communities use these stories to illustrate values and to inspire desired behav- ior. Like stories of origin, they are able to help members know what their atti- tudes are supposed to be toward certain issues and how they're supposed to behave in the community. They provide members with a moral compass in situ- ations that are important to the community. For example, the ancient Greeks tell the story of Icarus who, in an act of overexuberant passion and hubris, flew too close to the sun and melted the wax wings his father, Daedulus, had made, thereby crashing into the sea and drowning. The Greeks used the story to show that (1) technological achievements are not God-like and should never under- mine the religious values of their culture and (2) the passions of youth need to be tempered by the deeper understanding of the elders in a community.