Redeeming Hope

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 weekly pilgrimages to the public library. The rows and rows of volumes seemed infinite and in my frustration with the improbability of ever being able to read them all, I would sometimes walk along the shelves lightly toughing the spine of each book as if comprehension could occur simply through osmosis. Every week I read a book that made me want to be something different when I grew up, one week a detective, the next week a fashion designer. In the library I could read about and try on so many lives.

The library offered a space for dreaming and for learning how to make those dreams come true. In the midst of a south Los Angeles neighborhood that had been seemingly politically and economically abandoned after the riots of the late 1960’s, the library offered hope against a backdrop of vacant lots and scorched shells of buildings that served as evidence of the outgrowth of hopelessness.

That I would eventually pursue a career in librarianship is neither accidental nor a surprise. Having worked in libraries in communities on both coasts, and having visited as a consultant, libraries across the nation; I am still amazed at the social capital that public-focused, mission-driven libraries can leverage in their communities. I have seen libraries that nurtured small businesses by providing sole-proprietors and family-owned businesses with the human and information resources necessary to identify and implement new ideas. I have witnessed whole neighborhoods become invested in and reinvigorated by libraries that worked with community members and stakeholders to offer relevant programming that reflected real need and highlighted existing assets. On the other hand I have also seen libraries that failed to connect with their communities and in missing that critical connection lost both public support and resonance.

I come to this institute because as someone who believes and is invested in libraries and their potential impact on the communities they serve, I want and need to expand my bag of tricks, as it were, as both a library and information science practitioner and now, as educator and administrator. Few callings are as noble as public service. If I can learn how to innovate in my role as a librarian, the time I spend here will have a personal and an exponential impact.

Tracie D. Hall
Assistant Dean
Dominican University GSLIS

Tracie D. Hall is Assistant Dean at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Dominican University. Formerly Director of the American Library Association Office for Diversity, Hall has practiced at Hartford, New Haven Free, and Seattle Public Libraries and has taught at the schools of library and information science at Catholic University of America and Dominican University. Recognized by Library Journal as the August 2004 “Mover and Shaker,” Hall’s writings on diversity and leadership have appeared in several professional publications. Principal and Founder of the Goodseed Consulting Group, Hall has provided training and facilitation for libraries across the country. She holds Bachelors degrees from the University of California at Santa Barbara. A Masters degree from Yale University and the MLIS from the University of Washington.

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, but is catalytic and creates systemic change in the community?

2. How can I genuinely engage other people to see why I’m pursing the path that I am in my work – and when do I decide to keep moving forward despite their resistance?

3. How do I move my organization or group to focus on the tough, underlying questions at hand rather than to reach for the easy answers? And how do I avoid watering down our mission?

4. How do I keep our efforts aligned with the reality of our capacity, so that we have a chance to achieve results, and avoid doing things that sound good but ultimately won’t make a real difference?

5. How can I place my work in a larger conceptual framework – so that it’s possible for me and others to see the bigger picture of what we’re trying to do and why?

6. How can I sustain people’s engagement over time, especially when things get tough or move too slowly?

7. How do I take effective action when oftentimes there is limited capacity for action within our community?

8. How fast can I expect progress to come, and what should I do when everyone around me expects change seemingly overnight?

9. How can I engage my funders and supporters who don’t want to take the time to truly understand what we’re trying to do?

10. How can I keep myself going as I pursue my path?

These and other questions pervade almost every conversation I have with public innovators. I have heard them from leaders of large, fast-growing national organizations to individuals who lead small community-based groups.

What do you think? Print out the list of questions and try answering them yourself. Send in one or more of your responses so others can benefit, too.

In the meantime, I’ll be posting some thoughts on these as well as some of the individuals who are attending our Public Innovators Lab.

Be well.

I can’t get the pictures from Iraq out of my mind – soldiers who will never come home, others with multiple missing limbs and ingrained psychological trauma. Now, amid the rising hot air of the 2008 presidential campaign, a moment of sanity last week when U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) implored his Senate colleagues to “step up” and confront the Iraq issue squarely. “We owe it to those men and women that we send into that grinder,” he said.

Hagel asks nothing short of accounting for our own views, to me the most basic of public acts we must do in public life. In an impassioned two-minute plea, he asked his colleagues: “What do you believe?” “What are you willing to support?” “What do you think?”

I do not know questions any more fundamental than these. After all, it is the answers to such questions that reflect our deepest values and expectations; such questions prompt and prod us to reveal our own logic and take stock of our own heart. We can disagree about the war and the best course from here; but as we do, let us know that the grinder does not stop.

The grinder waits for no one.

In the last couple of years I have witnessed a remarkable tribute to our men and women in uniform. I am a regular ticket holder for the Washington Capitals hockey team and during many games in the Verizon Center people are asked to recognize those soldiers in attendance. A prolonged, standing ovation ensues; indeed, as opposition to the war has increased over the last year or two, the length and intensity of the ovation has only expanded. I cannot describe the feeling.

When we send our men and women into the grinder, we forge an implicit covenant with them – why are you going; under what conditions shall we bring you home; what is the nature of your service and how shall we support you?

When that covenant unravels, and when real disagreements arise about next steps, the next question becomes, “How shall we proceed?" Here, too, Senator Hagel has something important to say:

What I hear on both sides of this argument, impugning motives and patriotism to our country, not only is it offensive and disgusting, but it debases the whole system of our country and who we are. My goodness, can’t we debate the most critical issue of our time out front, in front of the American people?

This is a reasonable request but not an easy one to fulfill. I suspect that many members of Congress are deeply torn about the war and what to do. Each option for action comes with its own dilemmas and none easy to reconcile.

But that’s the point, isn’t it? We can debate this issue like we do so many others, as if the only considerations are political. Or, people can step up and engage, even if, perhaps especially if, they are torn.

You see, the grinder waits for no one.

Tomorrow night the president will stride into the House chamber to deliver a challenging State of the Union speech, which could easily be dead on arrival or so soft-peddled it goes flat. But what if you were to deliver the speech – what would be your main talking points? Let’s create the citizen state of the union speech!

I ask this because I’m wondering what people really want to hear – that is, how people want to be engaged? It’s clear that people want less rancor and partisanship in public life and politics; it’s also quite clear that there are tough issues before us.

Honest to God, the recent rhetoric around “let’s all get along” turns my stomach. It’s the polar opposite of the silly bravado and testosterone-driven shenanigans we’ve seen for all-too-long. Now, instead, we run the risk of false passivity, a kind of wolf in lamb’s clothing that will rise up to bite us all in the rear just when we’ve been told change was in the offing.

I’ve labeled this false hope in other venues! Sounds about right, but I don’t believe it has to be this way.

I heard this morning on NPR a political commentator suggest that we could gauge the meaningfulness of the president’s speech tomorrow night by whether congressional members on both sides of the aisle stand up and applaud for the same lines, or whether only one side stands to give their undying support. I had been thinking of the same notion this morning when I woke up. But then I thought better of it – utter hogwash!

I don’t care if the pols decide to stand up at the same time, so they can try to make themselves look good for the TV cameras and the voters at home. Oftentimes they look downright silly when they gregariously slap each other on the back and clap with unmitigated enthusiasm for someone they viciously attacked the day before. What I want to know is if they can reach some common ground on core challenges we must address.

So, for once, I wish the members of Congress would just sit there on their hands, not wiggling a bit, just listening attentively to the president. Let’s hear what he has to say; and let’s hear a real response from those who see things differently.

But, first, let’s hear from you. Please send in talking points for your State of the Union speech. Then let’s compare what you say with what we hear.

"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 national celebrations like MLK Day – the hoopla, the commentary, the speechifying, the parades. I suppose that's how things in mass culture unfold.

But amid all the activity I was reminded of The Drum Major Instinct, the beloved sermon about our own desire to be in front of the parade, to lead, to be recognized. I found myself gravitating toward it all weekend. So, I reached for the sermon and re-read it, yet again, much like I would read a familiar prayer, once more, able to find new meaning as I recited the words, as if for the first time.

I have selected a few lines from the sermon for you to consider. No, the fact is that I really don’t want you to “consider” them at all; I want you to engage with them – to open yourself up and let them touch you. I urge you to do so alone; then maybe find some other people to sit with. Examine your own path.

So here are three segments from The Drum Major Instinct and some questions I’ve posed to each of us:

1. "…deep down within all of us [is] an instinct. It's a kind of drum major instinct – a desire to be out front, a desire to lead the parade, a desire to be first." Is that true for you? If so, what's motivating you?

2. "I guess that's the most damaging aspect of it: what it does to the personality." King said that the desire to be out front can lead people to be "boastful," even "lie," to engage in "activities that are merely used to get attention," to "push others down in order to push himself up," for "snobbish exclusivism" and to justify "prejudice." What does the desire to be out in front of the parade do to you? What damaging aspects can you identify within yourself?

3. "If you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice… for peace… for righteousness." So said King about himself; list three things why you're a drum major – and don’t worry, they can be big or small.

Some people might say that my own desire to focus on the drum major instinct misses the point in today's rough-and-tumble world. Our focus must be on winning in partisan politics, enacting government ethic laws and campaign finance reform, creating some new technology.

I don’t doubt that these and other matters are important. But I also know that if we are not clear on why we’re leading then we will not reach our own aspirations or fill the breaches that now exist in society.

Self interest will always be a part of us; we cannot wring it out of our nature. But we can be drum majors, where our words and actions are filled with purpose greater than just our own good. Let us use MLK Day to renew our own instincts to lead the parade in the right direction. If not now, then when?

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 industry heard the call to change its ways, Cole was at the forefront of change. I worked with him during his leadership at the Virginian Pilot and St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Some people are smart; he was brilliant. He always ran to embrace the toughest issues – such as the nexus between the role of newspapers and civic health; between the noble traditions of journalism and their applications to Web 2.0; between ethics and winning.

Recently I was on a panel at the National Archives which Cole moderated. No one I know could cut through the maze of chatter and create a sense of meaning faster or better than Cole. For me, Cole stole the show that day. So many people came up to me afterwards to talk about his performance. But for Cole his engagement was neither unusual nor a performance. Indeed those in attendance were witness to just the very tip of his talents.

Cole also had a strong current of integrity running through him.

But, of course, some people were more ready to see his foibles. He pushed for change so hard that he could overwhelm people he worked with. He ended up in a relationship with a direct report at one paper which cost him dearly. It was said sometimes that he was too conceptual, too smart for his own good, too far out in front of colleagues. After Cole left the Post-Dispatch, finding the right job was not easy.

And yet each of these experiences made his sense of integrity even more alive and real. You see, Cole deeply understood the meaning of integrity. He knew it from growing up as a preacher’s son. He knew it from being tested by the mistakes he had made and then quietly searching for personal redemption. He knew it because so many people had told him that change was not possible; but he discovered that it was if he would stick by his convictions.

A lot of time is spent by people in our society trying to conform. We all do it. But in Cole Campbell we found that rare individual who was willing to step out of line and reach for his aspirations. That doesn’t always make for an easy ride; but it does make the journey ever more worthwhile.

You will be truly missed Cole Campbell.

On Sunday, The Washington Post highlighted a great public school superintendent, someone I want everyone to know. I can’t take credit for anything Jack Dale of Fairfax County, VA has done, but I’m sure glad he’s a Harwood Public Innovators Lab Alum. Here’s what I mean.

Fairfax County is one of the biggest school districts in all of America – with 164,000 students, 187 schools, and a $2.1 billion annual budget, according to The Post. It’s a humdinger of a district: it’s huge, very diverse, with lots of vocal parents and competing interest groups. No move by the superintendent goes unnoticed.

So, consider those daunting numbers and politics for just a moment. Then consider the picture The Post ran with the article about Jack. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then all you need to see is this one.

Upon first glancing at the picture, which is of people in a classroom, I couldn’t really tell who the article was about. First my eye wandered to a gentleman sitting on a table at the back of the classroom. Then I saw Jack. Was that him? Get this: he was sitting among the students, in the middle of the classroom. But what was he doing? He was listening.

Jack’s predecessor was known for his blustery and highly politicized ways. He was a larger than life figure.

When you meet Jack, you know right away, in a kind of uncanny way, that he is a man who is unusually centered and focused. “I’m trying to make substantive change in the way we do business,” the Post quoted Jack as saying. “What I’m trying to create is the reason all of us went into education: a place to have kids explore their minds and the unknown and the future.”

Oftentimes with public leaders we’re not sure what they mean when they’re quoted. But Jack gives us an important window into his focus and centeredness in this single quote.

• Jack is a public innovator who seeks systems change – “change in the way we do business” – and not just change at the edges. Read the article and you will hear about some of those changes that target year-round teaching and closing the achievement gap.
• Jack taps into people’s aspirations, not their demands. That’s why he continually focuses on “the reason all of us went into education.” Notice, he said, “all of us” not just himself. When you read the article, you will see that Jack includes teachers, administrators, parents, the community and others. He believes that people share aspirations, and that it is possible to discover and build off of that common ground.
• Jack wants to create a “place” for kids, not just a new curriculum that sits in a binder or is pushed by teachers. He believes deeply that the role of schools and communities is to create safe and vibrant environments in which kids can learn and grow.
• Jack talks about kids exploring their “own minds” and the “unknown.” If you know Jack, then it wouldn’t surprise you that he used these words and in public! While he knows that kids must learn certain things, he also knows that learning and growing is about exploring your own thoughts and moving into the unknown. There is nothing to be afraid of.

Some people in The Post article criticize Jack because he’s too laid back or he doesn’t move through the county imposing his views on everyone. I suppose there might come a time when he will kick-in other elements of his leadership style and step forward in ways people have yet to see.

But the essence of who he is will remain true, as it has throughout his career. He is about kids. He is about bringing people together. He is about tapping into people’s aspirations. He is about vigilantly aligning his programs with funding and capacity. He is about finding the best in people.

And he is doing all this as the leader of one of the biggest school districts in the US. My hat is off to Jack. Now, my next goal is to have him come back to help teach the Lab.

“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 we really want – or need?

When I talk with people in communities across the country they express a deep urge to create more connectedness and sense of community in our society. Too many of us are fragmented and isolated from one another. So much of what needs to be done to improve our individual and common lives, requires a collective response (e.g., strengthening public schools or improving safety).

But for every time someone raises this point, notions of MySpace, FaceBook, and made-to-order Starbucks drinks are invoked. The underlying belief: our response to current conditions must be personalized and customized – that is, “made just for you & me” – and that most of us may never pay attention, engage in something bigger than ourselves, or even care about others beyond our immediate close-knit circles or community of interest.

Consider this example: at a recent meeting on the future of libraries in the U.S., the argument was made that libraries must transform themselves in ways that enable people to see the library as their personal library – “MyLibrary!” as a number of people put it.

But not so fast: for libraries are one of the last truly public institutions that remain close to people. The focus of libraries is on knowledge and learning. They ought to be what I like to call “boundary-spanning, catalytic organizations” – entities that help us in our communities to transcend dividing lines, bring people together, hold up a mirror to ourselves, and see our own experiences and the possibilities for the future in the context of understanding the past.

There once was a time in my work, maybe 15 or so years ago, when many people I encountered often wanted to erase or expunge any notion of self-interest among individuals, as if each of us could be altruistic angels. Now, we see a move toward the other extreme, where the impulse is to personalize and customize people’s engagement. Every situation is open to becoming branded and fulfilled as MySituation.

Thus the public library turns into MyLibrary; the local United Way is MyUnitedWay; the community foundation becomes MyCommunityFoundation; the public broadcasting station evolves into MyPublicBroadcasting. None of this is that far fetched; just listen to all the promos, ads, and solicitations from various groups. You’ll hear echoes of this point.

Like many of us, I am worried that too many people have retreated into close-knit circles of families and friends; that for many people, public life and politics is not relevant to their lives. I believe that if we want people to engage in community and public life, then we must start wherever they start. But our work doesn’t stop there.

For if our goal is to forge a common response to individual and collective needs, then the measure of our efforts is not simply whether we have built audience, generated buzz, created more name recognition, or even enticed more people to volunteer once-in-a-while. Our task is to foster conditions in which people can create their own pathways back into community and public life – where they can connect, work with others, find meaning, and engender authentic hope. And these pathways need to be sustainable over time.

I was once asked if I believe there is an enemy of engagement. Yes is my emphatic answer. Indeed, one such enemy is the seemingly growing belief that when people retreat from public life and politics our impulse must be to engage them as atomized individuals who hold a single-minded consumer orientation. But that will only lead to one sure outcome: each of us occupying our own individual spaces.

This past weekend, as I drove up to my house, there on the radio was Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack being interviewed on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos. I put the car into park and didn’t move for the next five minutes. Vilsack is the first Democrat to announce his candidacy for U.S. president. His voice is refreshing – and needed.

Listen to him and you hear someone who is not so polished and practiced that you’re wondering what he just told you or whether he believes it. Nor does he pretend to be the “anti-politician” from outside Washington, D.C. – with all the usual blustery rhetoric, finger-pointing, and tough talk.

Instead, look at his announcement speech and you will find phrases and words such as “let us face the facts” and “let us speak truth” and “that is why I am here today.” He is plainspoken, but not offering up simple solutions.

Nor is he simply interested in tilting at windmills. Acknowledging his standing in what will be a crowded Democratic field, he stated: “I have always been the underdog and long shot. And I have always been inspired by stories of ordinary people who struggled, but ultimately succeeded.”

Look again at his words and sentiments which I just quoted. Nowhere in this speech does Vilsack tell the typical story of the man who overcomes all adversity to become a hero; or, the story of the ordinary person doing extraordinary things, as we so often hear from politicians, pundits, and media-types. Rather, Vilsack understands that it is in everyday life that we must step up and engage and do everyday tasks.

He knows this because of his own story. As he said in his speech, “I began life in an orphanage in the arms of a stranger” and then, as an infant, he was adopted into a home with parents riddled with addictions and strife; but it was there that he found the ability – from his own parents – to struggle and adapt and find redemption.

In Iowa, where so many people may think of a homogenous Midwestern society, Vilsack said in his announcement speech, “You do not have to be raised behind a white picket fence to understand the power of community. Some of America’s strongest communities do not have any white picket fences or even yards for that matter.” Amen.

In his second to last paragraph he stated: “Most of all, I am running for President to replace the anxiety of today with the hope of tomorrow and to guarantee every Americans their birthright: Opportunity.”

Well, Governor Vilsack, only time will tell how your continuing story unfolds. But I sure am glad your voice is in the mix. I hope more and more people can hear it.

To see the video of Governor Vilsack on This Week click: http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/
To read his announcement speech click here:

The Catholic Worker Movement and the World Bank, now there’s a combination; no, really, I mean it! In fact, I just finished two books about them and they prompt me to share some reflections about change. See what you think.

The World’s Banker: A Story of Failed States, Financial Crises, and the Wealth and Poverty of Nations, by Sebastian Mallaby, explores the rise of the larger-than-life bank president Jim Wolfensohn and the bank’s evolving approaches to development. Oh boy, this book is a good read and his presidency (which began in 1995 and ended recently) was quite a ride!

Wolfensohn sought to turn the bank’s operations on its head – placing much greater emphasis on poverty reduction, routing out corruption, environmental concerns, and having more “country ownership” over development. But his efforts were often hamstrung, sometimes by resistance within the bank itself, other times by topsy-turvy external conditions, and still other times by plans that were too unfocused or grandiose.

By the book’s end it’s clear that the bank had to face up to its own limitations about how much change it alone could drive. Long-term success, if there was to be any, would come from a combination of factors which include the need for strong local institutions, stable societies, and clear program goals, not to mention outside aide. Then you need to add in luck.

All this brings me to The Long Loneliness, the autobiography of Dorothy Day, who was the co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement in 1933 (www.catholicworker.org).

Day and her faith-based brethren had goals just as big and audacious as Wolfensohn and his technocrats. They sought to spark nothing less than a fundamental shift in people’s consciousness in order to fight poverty and make real church teachings about works of mercy, grace, and love throughout society.

Perhaps best known for their scores of “hospitality houses” which sprouted up across the U.S. to serve the homeless and those in poverty (some which are still going today), they also launched the influential publication The Catholic Worker, a newspaper that rapidly gained a national readership in its heyday.

But while Day and Wolfensohn enjoyed much success, it’s clear that their resources paled in comparison to the challenges they fought. Which raises the question: Exactly what did they have in mind?

First, in many ways, Day and Wolfensohn pursued radically different approaches to fulfilling their dreams. Day helped give rise to a loose-knit, grassroots crowd of people and small groups scattered throughout communities; Wolfensohn directed the very embodiment of a big, professional global institution.

But what’s also clear in both situations is that Day and Wolfensohn were engaged in a fundamental give-and-take over people’s mind-sets and sensibilities. At issue was whether people were willing and able to adopt a new perspective for how they could see, think about, and engage in their fight for progress and the public good (and both clearly laid out what they thought this meant). Another major challenge they shared was whether their efforts could link passionate individuals to actual systems that would help support and diffuse their work.

Just how successful each was I’ll leave for you to decide; it’s worth getting the two books.

But I will say that it’s easy for us to lose sight of these two points in our own daily efforts: that so much of our collective work goes to the need to engage people on their mind-set and sensibilities and that we must create the conditions and capacity for changed mind-sets and sensibilities to take root and grow.

This work we must continue to do.

It’s been nearly a week since the mid-term elections. What can we now say about the public mood and the opportunities that lie ahead for forging a different path in public life and politics?

Later today, I will participate in a roundtable at the National Archives sponsored by the Kettering Foundation and the presidential libraries on “Democracy’s Challenge: Reclaiming the Public’s Role”; then, this Wednesday, I will host a teleconference on the meaning of the election for public innovators. What shall I say at these events?

For starters, we must know that this election was a long time coming; it didn’t just happen and we shouldn’t be surprised. People have held deep and profound anger about the state of American public life and politics for years; and that anger has been coupled with a sense of resignation – that people could not affect change. This was, in part, the topic of my recent book, Hope Unraveled: The People’s Retreat and Our Way Back.

Then a series of isolated events in recent years converged – from the ugliness of the 2004 election, to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, to rising uncertainties with the war in Iraq – helping to crystallize people’s views about public life and politics. What we saw in the mid-term elections, I believe, was just a sneak preview of those views.

The signal people are sending is unmistakable: they want a more respectful tone to guide public life and politics and more productive energies put into addressing people’s concerns and aspirations.

But merely depending on a sneak preview can be dangerous. For it’s the whole story we need to know. You see, dealing with the tough issues people want addressed will require that we change how we engage in public life and politics.

But beware, this doesn’t mean that people want a Miss Manners-type public life, where niceties are exchanged and uncomfortable issues are swept under the rug. Nor do they want obstructionist, testosterone-driven tactics employed. No, people want something more robust and vibrant, more focused on looking ahead, something that is rooted in and authentically reflects their daily realities.

The dilemma we now face is that we do not have the civic muscles to exercise this kind of public life and politics. So here are just three steps I think must be our focus if we are to have any chance of pursuing an alternate path for politics and public life:

1. We must focus our discourse and engagement on the search for the public good, and not fall prey to cheap and easy tactics to sell people on solutions that merely say to them, “Go ahead, focus only on you’re own good!” Self-interest is an essential element of human nature; that we cannot change. But we can ask people to see themselves more as active citizens and doers, connected to something larger than themselves, than as passive, isolated, me-first consumers.

2. We must take this opportunity to build the capacity of our communities for change. Wherever I go, I find many organizations and individuals doing good work, but by necessity they often focus on small niches. We need more boundary spanning, catalytic organizations that can bring people together across (purported) dividing lines; that can incubate new ideas; that can hold a mirror up to a community; that can create space for genuine collaboration. More and more I am finding organizations that want to step into this role – from United Ways, to community foundations, to community colleges, to public broadcasters, to others; moreover, there are new opportunities the online world offers to us. Now is the time to act.

3. We must focus on pursuing authentic hope and stop peddling false hope. I have written a great deal on this topic. All I will add here is that the mid-term elections created a new opening to engage people. But those who seek to pursue this engagement must be careful not to fall into old traps of pushing false hope by setting goals that cannot be met, exaggerating mandates, and failing to fulfill basic promises. In people’s lives, playing with hope is like playing with fire.

Over the past twenty years there has been any number of opportunities, akin to the recent mid-term election, to begin the process of changing the direction of public life and politics. Nearly every time, we have stepped forward to seize the moment, only to re-embrace practices that have deepened people’s sense of frustration.

Today, we are witnessing another opportunity.

Today, news of the impending “Democratic wave” – a big nationwide electoral sweep – surrounds us. But if this victory comes, what will it mean? My biggest fear, and greatest hope, is that Election Day hubris isn’t the ultimate victor.

Remember the 1994 mid-term elections when Newt Gingrich swept into office with his Contract with America? I wrote at the time (I believe for MSNBC.com) that Gingrich had sorely misread the American electorate. While people didn’t like how President Clinton was governing the country, they didn’t intend for Gingrich to grab control of the steering wheel, change the direction of the country 180 degrees, and floor the accelerator. Soon enough, Gingrich would learn this ugly lesson.

I remember 2004 as well. The day after the election I sat in a small conference room in Madison, WI waiting to go on Wisconsin Public Radio for post-election analysis; there I watched President Bush give his post-Election Day victory speech and claim a broad and deep mandate for his second term. Enough said.

My travels across the nation tell me that people want change; just not the kind our politicians so arrogantly claim. The desire for change Americans’ seek does not fall along partisan lines.

Instead, go into any community and talk to people about the issues that concern them, and usually you cannot tell the difference between who is a Republican and who is a Democrat; in fact, lots of people don’t even identify with either party at all!

Thus I believe that while our politics is polarized, people are not. There is much more that binds us together than that which divides us. Many pollsters are even reporting this week that a broad swath of the American electorate still hasn’t made up its mind about tomorrow’s election.

So, beware Democrats. While you may pick up control of the House of Representatives, and maybe even eek out control of the Senate, don’t misread the meaning of this election.

It’s not simply that many people are upset with one issue or another, or that they support one political party over the other, or that they are unhappy with current conditions. No, the origins of people’s misgivings about politics and public life go much farther back.

People’s concerns have been bubbling up and taking shape for over fifteen years now. These concerns go to the heart of the meaning of politics and public life in people’s daily lives – whether it reflects their reality; whether it provides any sense of possibility; whether it engages people as citizens who belong to something larger than themselves who can focus on the public good, or are they simply isolated consumers merely concerned about their own good.

My most recent travels for the Hope Unraveled book tour have taken me to Topeka, KS and Binghamton, NY – two relatively small to mid-sized regions, one supposedly in a “Red State,” the other a “Blue State.” But when I sit back and replay the voices of people I met in those communities, I don’t hear the polarized politics we’ve been seeing lately. Instead, I hear people who want to improve their local public schools, revitalize neighborhoods and downtown areas, and deal with the growing gap between the haves and have-nots.

So, let’s hope that when the election results are tallied, a touch of humility and authentic hope is the order of the day. There’s been enough hubris already.

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, he said was heard by people because he genuinely sounded different.

But what did he say?

Williams’ character spoke the truth about big money, special interests, silly ideas, and misleading rhetoric. He came clean with himself about his own motivations to run and ran because he was willing to lose. Compare this to our current election cycle. Oh yes, I know, many of you are delighted the Democrats might win big on Election Day, while others are concerned about just what that victory might bring.

But Williams’ movie is clear and compelling satire on our current state of public affairs regardless of who ultimately wins next week. Candidates from both parties have brought political conduct to new lows of ugliness and vacuous ideas. Their ads and debates are devoid of substance – and hope.

Just this morning on the radio, when driving into work, I heard one political consultant say that the only way a candidate can break through these days is to “go to the extremes.” To me, she was saying, “Go ahead and make a mockery out of the process in order to win!”

But as I’ve traveled the country and talked about the possibilities for a different kind of politics and public life, the response has been overwhelming. People want someone to stand up and engage people on a notion of the public good, not just their own good. They are longing to be brought together on their basic concerns such as education, safety, good neighborhoods – maybe even the war in Iraq. There is a deep desire within people to focus on authentic hope, and to put an end to the peddling of false hope.

Our political leaders and their handlers seem convinced that the only way to win is to sure up their base and then strike fear in enough other voters about their opponents to squeak out a victory.

But in Man of the Year they got the message just right: people want something more. And in this way our entertainment world is reflecting back to us our most basic aspirations for what we want in reality but cannot yet seem to create.

Before Election Day I urge you to go see Man of the Year. Maybe it will help all of us collectively articulate what is now missing from everyday life -- a politics and public life that matters. Then maybe next Tuesday in our momentary euphoria of victory, or despair in defeat, we will keep our eye on the need for real change and maintain our vigilance in seeking it.

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 said that it wasn’t until she took a recent debate class that she ever truly felt she had a voice.

She was trying to tell those of us in the room something basic and important. It is the same point I hear from older people who are high-paid lawyers, stay-at-home moms and dads, non-profit chiefs, and many others. They each say something similar – something very personal.

What does it mean to have a voice – at work, in the public realm, with others? Is this challenge we each face simply about gaining power; for instance, is it something you can secure by gathering up grant dollars, claim by the position you hold, or create by making enough noise?

There are moments when each of us speak and still feel we have little or no voice. We may utter words, proclaim research findings, assert a position, or perhaps make a demand. But, still, we feel that our own voice is not present. Somehow the words we speak do not come from deep within ourselves; indeed our words fail to capture the sentiments that give meaning to our life. We find that our true intentions and purpose go un-reflected.

At a Barnes and Noble book event I did in Binghamton, a storeowner in nearby Johnson City told a story of how she and fellow merchants had been waiting for the local government to create change in their downtrodden downtown. Ultimately, she told us, the local merchants got tired of waiting and formed their own partnership to clean-up their main street and bring people together.

What, she asked me, should be her next step? I told that she had already taken it. By stepping forward in the bookstore she was doing something that so many people wish they could do: gain and spread newfound confidence and faith in themselves and others.

Gaining our own voice doesn’t necessarily mean that we must solve a local community problem or take a debate class. Rather, first and foremost, it seems to me that we must step forward in our own way to know something about ourselves. How do we see things? What do we feel? What do we believe? What’s more, to know something about ourselves often means knowing something about others, too; our voice exists in relationship to others.

I told the Broome Community College students that I believe cultivating your own voice is one of the most important things they could do, especially in relationship to public life; otherwise, even in our discussions we remain oddly silent. Thus I urged them to try out their voice in different settings – in their classes; in the papers they write; in private journals that no one else may ever see or hear. They must try out their voice if they are to find it.

In our own ways, this is something we each can do. For I hear so many people say that they wish they had more of a voice. Maybe to be truly heard we must first find our own voice.

I came to work today not wanting to write about the Rep. Mark Foley scandal on Capitol Hill. I didn’t want to simply vent over yet another congressional brouhaha. But I find I must turn my attention there.

At the very time I am watching the Foley affair unfold, I am reading a book on the meaning of “beauty” – On Beauty and Being Just, by Elaine Scarry. Wow! What a contrast, or is it? The basic point of the book is how something beautiful can help to engage us in thinking about justice; in short, when we come into contact with beauty, we are prompted not only to enjoy that which is beautiful, but also to recognize that which is not present or remains to be done.

But how about when we see ugliness? When we peer into ugliness, when we come face-to-face with it, what do we do then?

As I watch politicians and pundits respond to the Foley affair, I keep wondering, “How hard is it to respond to this scandal?” Does every issue demand a calculated political response? Watch even the clearest-minded politicians on this issue, and even they can’t seem to help themselves, returning time and again, after their initial comments, to taking political jabs.

At some level, politics is politics; it has always been a tough endeavor and not for the faint of heart. But merely to stop there would be to declare, even embrace, a defeatist attitude. It would be to surrender, I believe, to ugliness.

I’m still on my Hope Unraveled book tour and as I travel the country talking with people about their retreat from public life and politics, and their deep desire to find authentic hope, I keep hearing a similar refrain: Will someone please stand up and lead?

But let’s be clear. People are not waiting for the knight in shining armor to ride into town and save them. They know the situation is more complex than that.

Rather, what I think people want is for someone – their neighbor, the local United Way, a community foundation, faith leaders, the mayor, even themselves – to step forward and ask some basic questions: Is it too much to ask that public life and politics reflect something good in us; that it help to activate and animate our aspirations and hopes; that our intentions be driven by some notion of trying to do the most good?

The ugliness of the Mark Foley scandal should help us to see what we already know. Ugliness will always exist. But in confronting ugliness, we can also come to see that we need not accept it.