Archive for August, 2009

Aug/11/09//Gibrán Rivera//Networks

Network and Community

As I prepare for my work with the Young People’s Project, I’ve been re-reading Building Community in Place. It is one of my favorite pieces by Bill Traynor of Lawrence Community Works. YPP has engaged Root Cause in a a rigorous Business Planning Process that is meant to take the organization to the next level. And IISC has been asked to partner with Root Cause and assist with the network-builiding aspects of the process.

As I prepare for what I’m sure will be a challenging and exciting process, I look back on Bill’s insights on network building (thankfully, LCW is an organizational partner in this process!) and his following quote really stands out:

“A network is best understood as an environment of connectivity rather than an organization in the traditional sense. At its best, it is an environment that is value driven and self-generating, where control and decision-making is dispersed and where being ‘well connected’ is the optimal state for any participant. Networks are established in order to create efficiency and optimum value for its participants – with only as much infrastructure as is needed to create effective connectivity. Read the rest of this entry »

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Aug/10/09//admin//Inspiration

Want To Be Inspired?

Who doesn’t? And who isn’t? We at IISC are inspired daily by those we cross paths with and all that we might read. And it is always wonderful to pass the inspiration along. Well, you might remember this video from a few months back, orginally posted by Marianne, a rendition of Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me” by Playing for Change.  Here it is:

But the song isn’t the great part right now. The great part is that Playing for Change will be on tour this fall in the United States and Canada! The will perform in many cities in the States, including our home base of Boston. I’m sure a few of the staff here will be attending. To see if they are playing by you, check here.

Inspiration often comes at times we least expect it, and most need it. How wonderful it must be to harness that energy and see it coming ahead of time.

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Aug/07/09//Melinda Weekes//Social Innovation

Community Solutions

Just a month ago, the  President called on foundations, philanthropists, and others in the private sector to partner with the government to find and invest in innovative, high-impact solutions that are found outside the Beltway.  The press release for this new White House initiative, Community Solutions, stated:

“Now more than ever, we need to build cross-sector partnerships to transform our schools, improve the health of Americans, and employ more people in clean energy and other emerging industries.  These community solutions will help build the new foundation for the economy and the nation. ”

What say ye? What are the implications of a government that, at least in some sense,  ”gets it”?

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Aug/06/09//Curtis Ogden//Sustainability

No Such Thing as Waste

Landfill

When we throw it away, it doesn’t go away.  This is an important lesson of both systems thinking and ecology.  Fritjof Capra, physicist and founding director of the Center for Ecoliteracy, writes that we need to relearn the fundamental facts of life, including the fact that matter continually cycles through the web of life and that one person’s (or species’) waste is another’s food.  If our awareness and actions shifted in accordance with these facts, how would we live and work differently?

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Aug/05/09//Cynthia Silva Parker//Race, Class, Power

Race Equity and Systems Thinking

Check out this article by the Kirwan Institute at Ohio State University about applying systems thinking to race equity work. It is a great overview of how important it is to think about race, racism and undoing racism systematically. Otherewise, we run the risk of reinforcing the very thing we are trying to undo, or even making things worse!

Systems Thinking and Race (Read the article!)

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