Tourist in My Own Town
My sons have tired of summer vacations consisting of long road trips. We've seen most of the interesting sights within a day's drive over the last ten years. And having taken a true vacation to paradise in February, a more...
The Secret Sauce for All Successful Communities
An interview with boundary crosser, Karen Stephenson, reminds me that all the technology, networking, marketing, and wisdom in the world is useless in building a community if one thing is lacking: Trust. Stephenson calls herself a corporate anthropologist (she has...
The Gut is Right After All
A Wall Street Journal article points to how our brains make up our minds long before we are conscious of the choice. Some might say that this negates free will. I would argue that it means that our gut instinct...
Crossing Boundaries is Worth the Risk
I'm convinced that our most pressing problems as a society will be solved by boundary crossers, because it takes multiple perspectives and approaches to understand complex issues. An announcement about David Yarnold's appointment as Executive Director of the Environmental Defense...
Using Social Media to Influence Public Policy
One of the questions that I've heard from people interested in A Bigger Voice is, "How can I influence public policy?" This is an interesting question. I think it requires BOTH top-down (interacting with individuals at the top of an...
Big, Bold Choices
A friend sent me the link to her new blog, part of a "citizen blogger site" set up by the Houston Chronicle. I rarely plug personal blogs (as opposed to ones that specialize in a discipline, like marketing or social...
Online Communities
The ABV pilot has been exploring community-building for the past month. Part of our research and learning has been finding thriving online communities and understanding what makes them work so well. A few interesting communities that we've identified: Rosa Say's...
Simple Missions
In reading this article about Adolph Kiefer, a 90-year old legend among Olympic swimmers, I learned something about mission statements. Kiefer, an Olympic medalist from the 1936 games, has owned a catalog company supplying all types of aquatic equipment for...
