Archive for October, 2010

Oct/20/10//Gibrán Rivera//Inspiration

Letting Music Go Free

stephaniejpeg

Is it ok to brag about one’s clients?  It better be!  I’m so proud that I have done work with Community Music Works!  The front page of today’s Boston Globe highlights the power of letting music go free.  Our First Lady just bestowed the National Arts and Humanities Youth Programs Award to Community Music Works, just a month after its founding director, Sebastian Ruth was awarded the McArthur Genius Award!

I’ve been doing more and more work with arts organizations lately – events like Creative Change and groups like the Arts and Democracy Project.  I’ve been seriously considering the role of the arts in our quest for social transformation, and I have to agree with my future wife, Samantha Tan, who is an artist herself – “We’ve exhausted out left-brain approach, linearity found its limits and the problems that we face are now calling on our full self, art is the way.”

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Oct/19/10//Gibrán Rivera//Social Media

Movement is Not Hierarchical

catalyst

Part Three of a Response to Malcolm’s Missive

See Part One and Part Two

I’ve said a word about my point of agreement with Gladwell, and then a word about my first point of disagreement, I will wrap up this series with my second point of contention – Gladwell’s apology for centralized hierarchy.  The popularized story of a civil rights movement “run” by a few male leaders and a few national organizations is actually offensive to the rich history of a diverse and decentralized movement that provided an ecology through which the notion of civil rights could thrive. Read the rest of this entry »

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Oct/18/10//Gibrán Rivera//Featured, Social Media

Tweeting Up a Revolution

revolution

Part Two of a Response to Malcolm’s Missive

See Part One

Gladwell misses the mark with two key parts of his argument.  First is his misunderstanding of how weak-ties and strong-ties play play out in social media networks.  Second is his defense of hierarchical, centralized structures, which is based on a clear (and popular) misreading of how the civil rights movement actually happened. Read the rest of this entry »


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Oct/14/10//Curtis Ogden//Collaboration, Featured

Power and Emergent Change

Peggy Holman is the co-author of a book that I consider to be one of the bibles for my work here at IISC - The Change Handbook.  This wonderful resource was also required reading for a graduate course I taught on organizational and community change models at Antioch New England.  Building on this essential tome, Peggy has recently authored another book that I look forward to diving into more deeply – Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval Into Opportunity.  Her exploration of how to engage chaos in social systems and bring about greater coherence is certainly timely and in line with much of the conversation you see on this blog.

In a recent post of her own, Peggy highlights an interesting comment that appeared in a review of her newest work.  Read the rest of this entry »

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Oct/12/10//Gibrán Rivera//Social Media

Strong-Ties Weak-Ties

RPR

Part One of a Response to Malcolm’s Missive

“The revolution will not be tweeted” – No sh*t Sherlock!  But let me start with what I did like about Malcolm Gladwell’s annoyingly limited article.  Revolution can only happen in the real world, it is neither virtual nor abstract.  Revolution can only be measured as actual, successful and good when it has a real impact on increasing people’s capacity – people’s power – to determine their own destiny.  A true revolutionary act, the sort of revolutionary act that re-defines power relations, will always be a risky endeavor – power most often has to be taken, for it rarely ever surrenders itself. Read the rest of this entry »

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