What is Ben Franklin’s Junta or Junto?

I’ve entered the Leadership Development Program in my County. It’s a ‘slim’ version of Ben Franklin’s Junta. Do you know if there is a specific publication on the Junta and its work? (Franklin has always been my hero — and I’d like to be involved in the upcoming celebration of his birth but have as yet found no avenue to do so.)

Ah, what a delightful question that takes me far away from the bits and bytes of computer operating systems and back into the past, to rendezvous with one of the most innovative people involved with the founding of our nation. A inveterate tinkerer and inventor, Ben Franklin had an astonishingly wide range of interests, from political systems to power systems, writing and printing technologies to abolitionist, and was apparently quite a charming and amusing companion too.

But let’s get specific! A junta, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is a body of persons acting towards a common aim, especially a political clique or faction after a revolution. Hmm… you can see why this might have caught Franklin’s attention in the late 1700’s, somehow.

Here are some snippets from around the Web…