"Public Life" archive
Friday 9 February
- Prisoner of Hope: Notes from a Would-be Library Innovator (17:56) - A Guest Blogger from the Public Innovators Lab: Since my childhood there has always been an impalpable but very real tether binding me to libraries. Though I read often and widely as a child, it was not so much the books, but the physical space that libraries offered—a Bermuda Triangle for the mind of sorts, where readers could unapologetically get swept up in stories and daydreams—that compelled me. I remember my grandmother and I making... | 0 Trackbacks
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Monday 5 February
- 10 questions for public innovators (14:08) - Are you a public innovator? If you’re reading this, I suspect you are. And I want to engage you on 10 questions I hear from public innovators repeatedly. I’m sending these questions to you just one week before the next Harwood Public Innovators Lab, which we sold out! See what these questions spur in you and write back. 1. How can I position my organization so that it not only provides worthy services or programs,... | 0 Trackbacks
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Tuesday 16 January
- The Drum Major Instinct (11:27) - "The Drum Major Instinct" is one of my favorite Martin Luther King, Jr. sermons. It asks, “What does it mean to step forward to lead and serve?” This is especially important for any of us with a burning desire to create change in our society. So, what is the nature of your own path? It's no accident that I waited until the day after official events ended to write about MLK. I often worry about... | 0 Trackbacks
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Monday 8 January
- In Memoriam: Cole Campbell (16:38) - This weekend I heard the news that Cole Campbell, dean of the school of journalism at University of Nevada, Reno, was killed Friday when his car overturned on an icy road. Every once in a while you realize we’ve lost someone special who made a true impression on the world, someone who will be remembered for years to come. Cole was such an individual. He was a good friend. During the 1990s when the newspaper... | 0 Trackbacks
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Tuesday 12 December
- MyCivicSpace – please no! (16:40) - “MyCivicSpace”…you have to admit there’s a nice ring to it. It gives rise to the potential that you, me, and anyone else can create a civic space and own it; we can even customize it to reflect our own personal whims. Makes sense given the times we live in. We have been conditioned to believe that each of us should get what we want, when we want it. But is the idea of MyCivicSpace what... | 0 Trackbacks
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Monday 30 October
- Man of the Year (14:55) - The question was, “Should I laugh or be bitter?” while I watched this past Saturday Robin Williams new movie, Man of the Year, in which he plays a Jon Stewart-type character who runs for president. During one telling scene, two of Williams’ aides are found talking about why he’s done so well with the electorate. One aide responds by saying that candidates usually can’t be heard during campaigns because they all sound the same; Williams,... | 0 Trackbacks
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Monday 16 October
- Thoughts on Our Way Back – Dateline Binghamton (17:28) - When do you or I have a voice? Usually this question comes up in relationship to public officials – do they hear us? I’ve spent much of my professional life addressing this challenge. But today my hope is to address you personally – can you hear your own voice? Wherever I go, this powerful and deeply personal question emerges. Just last week when I was visiting Binghamton, N.Y. a young student at Broome Community College... | 0 Trackbacks
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Monday 25 September
- A good voice (15:13) - Hands-down this is my favorite time of year, when the Jewish High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur come around. The long services are filled with moving melodies and highly repetitive prayers that penetrate my every being. It is a time for renewal, remembrance, and atonement. Growing up in a small town in upstate New York, there were very few Jews. One of my fondest memories is of my dad serving as our... | 0 Trackbacks
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Tuesday 5 September
- What Andre Agassi found (11:43) - I don’t usually write about sports here, but what the heck, I’m a crazy sports fan and I simply can’t pass up shining a bright light on Andre Agassi’s last moments at the U.S. Open this weekend. He lost his match, but in the end he won – big time. He found something we all need. If you haven’t been following the U.S. Open, this was to be Agassi’s last. Throughout weekend TV coverage of... | 0 Trackbacks
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Monday 28 August
- The empty Katrina moment (09:25) - The face of the young child from the Gulf Coast on the cover of this Sunday’s The New York Times Magazine is haunting. The eight year-old boy looks traumatized, alone, bereft. Inside the A-section of the paper another picture, this one of an animated marching band in New Orleans, along with the caption, “Spirit has returned to much of the city.” As I read the massive number of articles this weekend on the aftermath of... | 0 Trackbacks
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Monday 14 August
- Lieberman shockwaves (10:13) - Shockwaves from the Lieberman fallout continue. Public officials, pundits, and pollsters keep trying to predict the political meaning of the public’s mood. We’ve been here before, they got it wrong then, and I’m afraid they will again. Political observers and handicappers can’t control themselves in analyzing the Lamont-Lieberman results. They tell us that the Iraq war will be the defining issue in the 2006 mid-term elections; that an air of anti-incumbency is sweeping across the... | 0 Trackbacks
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Monday 17 July
- Open for public business, too (12:09) - What if more and more of us went our own way in public life to pursue our own personal agenda? What if each of us was to find our own news, only to forgo that which doesn’t resonate with us? What if you and I began to see ourselves primarily as individual consumers, with little connection to one another? Crying wolf about such trends won’t cause any of us to take notice or do anything.... | 0 Trackbacks
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Thursday 29 June
- 31 billion reminders (09:20) - I don’t know Warren Buffett, but his words and actions this week are worth remembering, and not merely because of his $31 billion gift to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It’s true that $31 billion is a lot of money, no matter how you cut it. And what’s more Buffett didn’t give the money to a foundation that bares his name (he did make much smaller gifts to various family foundations). His sheer generosity... | 0 Trackbacks
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Monday 19 June
- A charitable message (10:52) - Wow! The news today is that we Americans broke yet another record last year in charitable giving to disaster relief. I believe that such giving demonstrates that we are a compassionate and generous people. But charity alone will not enable us to reach our aspirations or achieve the society we all seek. And yet I fear that we are coming to believe that charity is enough. My goal today is not to deride charity. So... | 0 Trackbacks
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Monday 5 June
- The Al Gore fable (09:28) - Al Gore is in the news again. But this time he’s not being roundly criticized for donning earth tone clothes or for his wooden speechmaking. Rather, we’re witnessing his civic redemption, and it’s worth noting for the insights each of us can gain. After Gore lost the 2000 presidential election, he reappeared on the public scene masked in a heavy beard and some additional weight. Many pundits found much to mock in him – from... | 0 Trackbacks
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Wednesday 24 May
- Some thoughts on the 3 A's - Gail Hayes (08:48) - As a funder involved in neighborhood transformation and family strengthening, Rich’s concept of 3 A’s for public innovators – authority, authenticity, and accountability – is invaluable. To be both authentic and accountable while at the same time speaking with authority that comes only from a deep understanding of the neighborhood is the gold standard that neighborhood-based funders should seek to uphold. Communities deserve no less from us. The accountability covenant requires us to make promises... | 0 Trackbacks
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Monday 1 May
- Connecting to Jane Jacobs (13:59) - The headline on the front page of this Sunday’s New York Times Week in Review section roared “Outgrowing Jane Jacobs.” The piece suggests that Jacobs’ view of community life is outdated, even quaint, and not so relevant anymore. While part of this argument may be right, the heart of it is wrong. I still remember when I read Jane Jacobs’ classic, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. I was an undergraduate at Skidmore... | 0 Trackbacks
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Wednesday 26 April
- Inherent struggles (11:35) - It’s no secret that measuring progress presents fundamental questions about what we value. The problem for me is that too often we rush through these questions because they raise imbedded conflicts, make us incredibly uncomfortable, reveal different world views – or because we miss them. David Hooker, the vice president for community building at the Center for Working Families in Atlanta, raised one such dilemma in his comments. He asked, “What if the measures we... | 0 Trackbacks
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Tuesday 25 April
- Legitimate engagement - Reggie Lewis (09:16) - My recent participation in a two-day discussion in Nevada on a unique opportunity to convene a community to deliberate on the use of charitable dollars led to some unexpected soul-searching. Just how does one have authentic conversations in a given community? How do you invite a representative group to a table with the premise that all will have equal say and enjoy the ability to act as equals? The Community Conference, co-sponsored by The Harwood... | 0 Trackbacks
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- The prime goal - Nancy Wilson (09:05) - My father has spent a career exploring what makes managers effective. The quote of his that rings in my ears is, “Without a goal, you can’t plan. Without a plan, you can’t manage.” And, in my 20 years of for-profit and non-profit work experience, management and measurement go hand in hand. The question for me from the Las Vegas Community Conference isn’t “to measure or not to measure?” The question is, “What to measure?” By... | 0 Trackbacks
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- Expanding on metrics - David Hooker (08:56) - Rich, I fundamentally agree with everything you have said and the concerns you have raised. I actually want to expand on those concerns. During my 20+ year career as a conflict transformation specialist and community convener, I have often argued that there must be some (I would suggest high) value placed on process measures — transparency, efforts at collaboration, values driven processes. And yet, good process is never a substitute for process. What impressed me... | 0 Trackbacks
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Monday 24 April
- Metrics "R" Us (14:18) - Here’s the conundrum for us. Suppose someone were to give you a pot of money to work on a key challenge in your community. How would you know you’ve made a difference? How much change would you be willing to bet could be created in maybe two to three years? Every day we are told to be successful. We hear this relentless mantra in TV ads, magazine stories, even from Donald Trump and Martha Stewart.... | 0 Trackbacks
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Monday 20 March
- Civic spirituality (10:06) - When I was speaking at the LBJ Presidential Library last week, a woman rose from her chair to ask me if I had links on our Web site to various spiritual and religious thinkers. I had mentioned earlier in my talk that I believe America is in desperate need of a new kind of “civic spirituality.” I responded by saying that we didn’t have links to such thinkers – and I didn’t think we would.... | 0 Trackbacks
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Monday 13 February
- Newspapers: Innovate or die (13:56) - At an Alabama event last week for journalists, I was promoted as the “conscience of community.” But my own conscience told me I had missed the mark in my talk. If I could do it all over again, here’s what I’d say about the future of newspapers in America, plain and simple. I want to be clear; I offer these 10 steps because I care deeply about newspapers. I’ve been working with major metro and... | 0 Trackbacks
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Monday 6 February
- The big Super Bowl winner: Detroit! (13:44) - Take a poll this morning, and most of us will know the Pittsburgh Steelers won the Super Bowl last night. But they’re not the only big winner today; no, the host city of Detroit is perhaps the biggest winner of all. I can’t recall a city that has gained so much from hosting a big event. Detroit – the U.S.’s poorest big city – was in the news almost every day leading up to the... | 0 Trackbacks
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Tuesday 17 January
- Building Community Spirit (17:10) - What makes a community worth belonging to? In this day-and-age is it mostly bricks and mortar, or is there something greater, more substantial? New Orleans is reminding us of the answer. Ever since Hurricane Katrina slammed the Gulf Coast, various discussions have occurred about how to revive areas like New Orleans. We’ve seen a steady stream of forums, white papers, lengthy reports, and statements. Last week we learned that plans are being put in place... | 0 Trackbacks
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Thursday 3 November
- The Enemy of the Public Good (17:41) - At a recent Independent Sector conference, Sterling Speirn, the new president of the Kellogg Foundation, asked: “Who is the enemy of civic engagement?” I have an answer. The enemy is the various mechanisms for manipulation in public life that we have turned into a perverse science. Everyday we employ panoply of marketing and market-segmentation techniques that pin-point messages to different audiences and manipulate people’s fears. We use the techniques because we believe it is the...
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Friday 2 September
- Faces of Tragedy, Faces of Grace (12:31) - Just a couple of weeks ago I was in New Orleans sitting at the counter of the tiny Clover Grill with my family. Earl, our waiter, told me his place had never closed during a hurricane.
Today, I hope that he and his lovely place were able to make it through this latest nightmare. I vividly remember Earl and his funny, spirited stories about New Orleans and its people. | 0 Trackbacks
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Thursday 25 August
- Follow the Bouncing Ball (16:50) - Yesterday, Bob Huggins, University of Cincinnati men’s basketball coach, was canned by Nancy Zimpher, UC president. Good for her. Now the real test begins. Huggins’ teams over the years consistently had repulsively low graduation rates. His players constantly got into trouble. None of this was ever a secret. The real problem is why did it take UC so long to act? Indeed, why do so many colleges and universities view their athletes simply as commodities...
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Wednesday 6 July
- What's The Story In Flint? (17:31) - Ever hear someone talk about Flint, Michigan? Usually they’ll mention Michael Moore and then focus on how down and out the city is. But there’s more to the story of Flint. Last week, I went to Flint to wrap up over seven years of work with people in the community I have come to deeply admire. During these years, we have seen countless changes, including the following: When we started, people in the community said...
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Monday 6 June
- Making the "Right" Connections (14:19) - Last Thursday, June 2nd, USA Today ran an intriguing article: Beyond Kiwanis: Internet Builds New Communities. The piece focused on how technology, specifically the internet and cell phones, helps to build new communities and strengthen engagement around the country. There’s some inspiring news in the piece; but there are also some potential dangers that we must address. On the upside, the piece suggests that people are more “connected” with each other through their use of...
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Monday 18 April
- Choosing Our Field (13:18) - What would be your first response? Would it be, “Screw ‘em”? This past Saturday I showed up at 7:30 A.M. to make sure the field for my girls soccer team was all set. When I arrived, one field was lined; another was not. So, I called one of the league commissioners and asked which field I was to use. The schedule indicated that it was the field with no lines; but I wanted to make...
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Wednesday 23 March
- Stand Up and Cheer (17:19) - Last Friday, I found the nation’s future leaders and I was awestruck. I had the good fortune to spend the entire day on a selection panel for Truman Scholars, which provides financial support for graduate studies to promising young individuals who wish to pursue public service. In the morning, before the interviews began, I told the candidates that I had found my eyes tearing up as I read their applications; in fact, one time this...
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Monday 14 March
- Cultural Differences (09:44) - What is the difference between a culture of opposition and a culture of governance? This is the question my friend Randa Slim, vice president of the International Institute for Sustained Dialogue, asked during a luncheon at The Harwood Institute a week or so ago. All of her work is done overseas, in such places Tajikistan, Russia, and the Middle East. But her question is relevant here at home. In the countries where Randa works, people...
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Monday 7 March
- Rather Authentic (17:23) - The curtain is coming down this week on Dan Rather as anchor of the CBS Evening News, and he’d like you to remember him as being authentic. Good luck to him – and many others. In a recent Ken Auletta article in The New Yorker, Rather said, “The one thing I hope and I believe, is that even my enemies think I’m authentic.” In America today, too much time is expended on wishing for authenticity;...
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Monday 21 February
- Finding Leadership (17:52) - President’s Day, for me, is not only a celebration of the presidents who served our nation in the past, but a reminder about the kind of leadership we aspire to create in our land. But where will that leadership emerge from today? In a book I am completing on conversations that I held with Americans over the past 15 years on their views toward politics and hope, the answer is clear - people don’t necessarily...
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Monday 10 January
- The Courage to Speak Up (08:00) - Watching the football play-off game this weekend between the Green Bay Packers and the Minnesota Vikings, Randy Moss, the star wide receiver for the Vikings, caught a touchdown pass and then mimicked “shooting the moon” to the stadium crowd and national TV audience. Just last week, again on national TV, Moss walked off the field early to go to the locker room while his teammates continued to play. No one said very much last weekend,...
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Wednesday 1 December
- In Search of Heroes (10:31) - Notre Dame fired its head football coach Ty Willingham yesterday, and in doing so failed us all. University Athletic Director Kevin White said at yesterday afternoon’s news conference, “From Sunday through Friday our football program has exceeded all expectations in every way. The academic performance is at fever pitch; it has never been better.” Indeed, Willingham is nationally known as a fine nurturer of his players’ character and a standard bearer of integrity as coach.... | 72 Trackbacks
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Monday 27 September
- Holding Ourselves Accountable (17:32) - Wherever we turn - to politics, to philanthropy, or the private sector, we find a discussion of accountability. Too often, however, accountability means what others expect from us rather than what we expect from ourselves. I explain the difference in the most recent edition of Philanthropy News Digest, a publication of The Foundation Center. Click here to read the article.... | 2 Trackbacks
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Monday 13 September
- The Passing of 9/11 (09:20) - 9/11 came and went this weekend. As it did, I wondered about its meaning. Is the date anything more than something we have come to pretend holds significance for us? Our politicians now invoke it in speeches, as if it is a requisite touchstone that must be given its due. The news media do stories on cue – almost as if they must fill their pages or broadcast minutes to meet the test of propriety.... | 110 Trackbacks
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Wednesday 18 August
- New York, New York (16:31) - An article in this morning's Washington Post notes that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is offering protesters at the upcoming Republican Convention some advice on how to spend their time there - go shopping. This is yet another unfortunate example of a public leader treating people as consumers rather than citizens, though quotes from protestors indicate that, even as marketing, the announcement fails. On a more positive note, in Huntington, NY town planners are demonstrating... | 80 Trackbacks
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Tuesday 29 June
- Telling New Stories (17:18) - I was in Ohio last week, meeting some of the people who have been working with The Harwood Institute on community engagement in communities across the state. These individuals have served as Centers of Strength for an effort to transform a dozen large urban high schools into over 60 autonomous small schools. As Centers of Strength, they have engaged parents, teachers, administrators, business leaders and other members of their communities in conversations about the kind... | 223 Trackbacks
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Monday 7 June
- Remembering Reagan (12:09) - I will never use this space to spout off about politics.
But former President Ronald Reagan’s death makes me think of two important public ideas that seem to have been lost in recent times.
I never supported the policies of Ronald Reagan. In fact, I worked on the staff of the 1984 presidential campaign that opposed him. I was 23 years old, it was about my 23rd political campaign, and it was my last one. I swore off campaigns after that year because I didn’t believe politics gave people the sense of possibility they yearned for. Just a few years later, I started my present work.
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