Thinking The Box

Customer Service

2008-05-20T21:21:00.004-04:00

This morning I went to get a haircut up at the shopping district about a mile from my house. I grew up going to the stores there: the movie theater now a bank, the drug store now vacant, the Manners Big Boy still a restaurant, the small grocery now a CVS. Problem was, I had a hundred dollar bill left over from my vacation. I went to the bank to get change. In the bank were four or five employees and one other customer. When I asked for change, I was refused because I was not a customer. It was corporate policy not to provide service to non customers.

What has happened to the service businesses in Northeast Ohio that they feel the need to not take the energy to serve the community? I know that this practice is repeated elsewhere but my opinion is, it shouldn’t. Taking that refusal as an opportunity to talk with the manager I introduced myself and we talked for about thirty minutes about customer service, community service, collaborative behavior, quality connected places, branding, and many other aspects of Open Source Economic Development and good behavior.

We talked about the bank not waiting for the landlord to fill the vacant space where the drug store moved out but proactively searching for a new tenant. The new tenant might provide employees who open accounts and apply for loans, the new tenant might open an account and become an active user of bank services, and the new customers the tenant attracts might provide profitable business for the bank.

We also talked about neighbors who were refused service and did not open accounts with the bank when the need arose, neighbors who did not have good things to say about the businesses practices of the bank, and possible building tenants who did not move in because of the less than pleasant atmosphere. The manager did offer to make change for me but today I decided to go elsewhere so that I did not the teller feel that perhaps she had done something against policy and that I had gone over her head.

I will be back to the bank because we began to build a relationship. I have connected the bank manager to a new Women’s Enterprise Network program that I am helping to develop. Maybe she will start having her branch provide service to the neighbors, customers or not. And maybe that vacant space may be filled soon.

Loss of Focus

2008-05-20T17:42:00.003-04:00

I have found that over the past several months I have been a little less focused as well as a little less tolerant than usual. I know that a lot has to do with both my parents dying in early January and my dealing with that loss. As executor, there is also continuing stress of sealing with various governmental requirements and other estate issues.

I had been taking care of my parents over the last five years and my work as a founder and director of a local non-profit allowed me some flexibility to deal with family issues. Luckily, I am more flexible than most and I know that there are many people out there who hold down a regular full time job, are raising a family, as well as looking after parents. I do not know how they are able to maintain an acceptable level of stress.

As far as this blog is concerned, I have been unable to focus long enough and deeply enough to complete a cogent discussion. I still would come with ideas to write about but would not have the wherewithal to work through to the end. I did find myself with a lot of partially finished projects. I am not a journal writer at heart as I prefer to sit down with people face to face to work through a conversation.

My brother thought that a vacation would do me and him good so the two of us went to a small fishing village on the Caribbean coast of Mexico to veg out but we ended up swimming and snorkeling every day as well as exploring the jungle and kayaking in the mangrove swamps.

My brother speaks Spanish but is hard of hearing. I understand Spanish but my speaking the language has not redeveloped from thirty-five years of inactivity. So the locals would speak to us in Spanish, I would translate to English and say it to my brother who would respond in Spanish. The time was somewhat a break and was enlightening but when I came back, I returned to all of the tasks that I had not taken care of for two weeks. Somewhat the way that I remember vacations being when I took them many years ago. (Other pictures may be found here)

Diversity is Over Valued

2008-04-02T16:31:00.002-04:00

So my skin is a different color than someone else’s, along with my hair and eyes. So I have less money than some and more money than others. None of those keeps me from finding where others and I intersect and start building community.

Have we focused on diversity to the detriment of community? Back in August 2007 I wrote about a diverse community being an oxymoron. The American tradition has been to celebrate the individual, how we are all different, diverse. If we keep looking at the differences how do we ever have time to find the connections, the touching points?

Geographic communities have lost their binding agents and we have moved away from supporting one another. Areas of synergy go undiscovered. It is through our building trust and finding that deep inside we are one that we are able to stand against our fears and move forward.

Change no, growth yes.

2008-01-30T18:59:00.000-05:00

In politics there seems to be a lot of talk about change. In my opinion it is not change per se that is needed but growth. There hopefully will be change in the results but the results will be from a growth in our behaviors. Changing faces will not help, changing where the leaders come from will not help. Growth in behavior will help. We need to learn from what has happened in the past and grow into new behaviors always acknowledging the shoulders on which we are standing.

This is what open source behavior is all about: taking the best of the past and using it to move forward. Talk is not what we need but actual collaborative communication with the follow up initiatives. Many things in the recent past have not worked but there are some behaviors that are positive. We can and have learned from our mistakes but we cannot ever throw out that which has happened in the past. Our technology now allows us to better record history and to allow opposing viewpoints to write our history as long as we are willing to work collaboratively.

Change no, growth yes.

Rev Martin Luther King Jr in Cleveland Heights 1963

2008-01-28T08:16:00.000-05:00

Address delivered by

THE REVEREND MARTIN LUTHER KING JR., Ph.D.

May 14, 1963

at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church

Cleveland Heights, Ohio

THE RIGHT REVEREND BEVERLEY D. TUCKER’S INTRODUCTION

If I were asked to select the two great Christian leaders of this year, I would unhesitatingly select these two: Pope John XXIII and the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

It may seem strange to mention these two great men together, because the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestants have been separated for 400 years. Pope John has accomplished a great deal toward lifting the iron curtain which has separated Christian people from one another. The Second Vatican Council has accomplished much to open communications between these once-divided groups.

Our speaker today, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., is lifting another iron curtain. He is dedicating his ministry to lifting the curtain that divides two segments of our population that our country may be one. He is performing his mission with courage, yet with great Christian humility. Against the violence perpetrated upon his people he is not retaliating with violence, but praying that God will bless his persecutors and remove the barriers of suffering and segregation. It is a great honor to me to present the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

(Bishop Tucker was the Sixth Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio, 1938 - 1952.)

THE SERMON

Bishop Tucker, the Reverend Mr. McCracken, ladies and gentlemen:

I need not pause to say how very delighted I am to be in Cleveland this afternoon and to have the privilege of seeing you and having a few words with you.

As you know, I am just in from Birmingham, Alabama, where we are at the present time engaged in a mighty struggle for freedom and human dignity. We have had our difficult moments in Birmingham. We have had our frustrating moments. But I think it is one of the most significant struggles taking place in our nation today, because for years Birmingham has been the worst big city in race relations in the United States and the most thoroughly segregated city in our country. I am convinced that if we can get a breakthrough for freedom and justice in that community, it will have repercussions all over the South, and it will mean that our work in other communities will be less difficult.

So I bring greetings to you from Birmingham. I bring special greetings from the thousands and thousands of Negro citizens of that community who have suffered and sacrificed over these few days while we have been engaged in this intensified phase of the struggle. And they want you to know how much they appreciate the backing, the moral support, and financial support which thousands and thousands of people of good will have given all over this country. So it is a real pleasure to be here. I want to express my personal appreciation to Bishop Tucker for these very kind and gracious words of introduction.

When I think about what is happening in Birmingham, Alabama, and when I think about our struggles all over the South and over the nation, I am always reminded of the fact that in reality we are really working to make the American dream a reality. And I would like to take a few minutes this afternoon to say something about the American dream. And I choose this subject because America is basically a dream, a dream yet unfulfilled. It is a dream of a nation founded on certain basic principles. The substance of the dream is found in these sublime words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

The first thing that we notice in this dream is the amazing universalism. It does not say some men, it says all men. It does not say all white men but it says all men, which includes black men. It does not say all Protestants but it says all men, which includes Roman Catholics. It does not say all Gentiles, it says all men, which includes Jews. There is something else at the center of this great document which distinguishes our democratic form of government from totalitarian systems. It says that we all have certain basic rights that are neither derived from nor given by the state. In order to discover where they come from, it is necessary to move back behind the dim mist of eternity. They are God given. Very seldom if ever in the history of the world has a passage expressed in such a profound eloquence and unequivocal language the dignity and worth of human personality. The American dream reminds us that every man is the heir of the legacy of dignity. This is a great dream.

But ever since the founding fathers of our nation dreamed this dream, America has been something of a schizophrenic personality tragically divided against herself. On the one hand we have proudly professed the great principles of democracy, but on the other hand we have sadly practiced the very antithesis of those principles. Indeed slavery and racial segregation have been strange paradoxes, and the nation founded on the principle that all men are created equal is now more than ever before challenged to realize this great dream. For the shape of the world today does not permit our nation the luxury of an anemic democracy, and the price that our nation must pay for the continued oppression of the Negro and other minority groups is the price of its own destruction. In a real sense, the hour is late, the clock of destiny is ticking out. We must act now before it is too late.

I must hasten to say that we must solve this problem not merely to meet the communist challenge, as important as it happens to be. We must solve this problem not merely to appeal to Asian and African peoples, as important as that happens to be. In the final analysis, racial discrimination must be uprooted from American society because it is morally wrong. We must get rid of racial segregation because racial segregation stands against all of the basic precepts of our Judeo-Christian heritage. We must solve this problem because segregation substitutes an I-It relationship for the I-Thou relationship. It relegates persons to the status of things. So it is that we must move on in Birmingham and all over the South and all over the nation to solve this problem, not merely because it is diplomatically expedient but because it is morally compelling. And so wherever people are assembled today, wherever people are working today to get rid of racial and economic injustice, they are the real saviours of democracy: they are working to make the American dream a reality.

I would like to mention a few of the things that we must do all over our nation in order to make this dream a reality. First I think we must always be aware of the fact that we are living in a world that has become one world, and before the dream of democracy, the dream of brotherhood, can become a reality here, we must have a world of strength. The world in which we live is geographically one. Now we must move to make it one in terms of brotherhood.

It is true that the geographical wonders of our age have come into being to a large extent because of man’s scientific ingenuity. Through our scientific genius we have been able to probe distances and shrink time. Our jet planes have compressed into minutes distances that once took days and weeks and months. I know it isn’t the usual thing for a preacher to quote Bob Hope, but I think he has adequately described this age. He says, “It is an age in which it is possible to take a non-stop flight from Los Angeles, California, to New York City, a distance of some 3,000 miles, and if on taking off in Los Angeles you develop hiccoughs, you will ‘hic’ in Los Angeles and ‘cup’ in New York City.” You know, it is possible, because of time difference, to take a flight from Tokyo, Japan, on Sunday morning and arrive in Seattle, Washington, on the preceding Saturday night. If our friends meet you at the airport and ask you when you left Tokyo, you will have to say, “I left tomorrow.” This is the kind of world in which we live.

Now this is a bit humorous, but I am trying to underscore this simple fact to all of us. It is simply this: that through our scientific genius we have made of this world a neighborhood. Now, through our moral and ethical commitment, we must make of it a brotherhood. No nation can live alone, no individual can live alone. We are all tied together.

I remember some months ago Mrs. King and I journeyed to that great country known as India. I never will forget the experience: to meet and talk with the great leaders of India, to meet and talk with people all over the cities and villages of that vast country. The experiences that we had there will remain dear to me as long as thought and memories shall linger.

But there were depressing moments. How could one avoid being depressed when one sees with his own eyes millions of people going to bed hungry at night? How could one avoid being depressed when one discovers that, out of India’s population of more than 400 million people, almost 370,000,000 make an annual income of less than $80 a year? Most of these people have never seen a doctor or a dentist. How could one avoid being depressed when one sees millions of people sleeping on the sidewalk at night – no bench to sleep on – no houses to enter. As I faced these conditions, something within me cried out, “Can we in America stand idly by and not be concerned?” The answer came, “Oh no, because the destiny of the United States is tied up with the destiny of India and every other nation.” I started thinking of the fact that we in America spend more than one million dollars a day to store surplus food, and I said to myself, “Now I know where we can store that food free of charge – in the wrinkled stomachs of the millions of people in Asia and Africa, in South America, and even in our own nation, who go to bed hungry at night.” Perhaps we spend far too much of our national budget establishing military bases around the world, rather than establishing bases of genuine concern and understanding. What I am saying is simply this: that all life is interrelated. We are born into an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single bond of destiny. Whatever affects one man directly affects all men indirectly.

For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality. John Donne pointed this out some years ago and phrased it in memorable language: “No man is an island entire in itself. Every man is a piece of the continent or part of the mainland.” He goes on to say, “Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind. Therefore never send to learn for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee.” This we must realize if the American dream is to become a reality.

Another thing that is basic and necessary if we are to solve the problem in our nation, whether it be North and South or East and West, is to rid ourselves of the notion once and for all that there are superior and inferior races. This notion of racial inferiority still lingers in spite of the fact that our great scientific disciplines have refuted the idea. The anthropological scientists – including great anthropologists like Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead, Melville Herskovitz, and others – have made it clear through their long years of study that there are no superior or inferior races. There are superior and inferior individuals academically within all races. Through medical science, we have discovered that there are only four kinds of blood and that these four blood types are found within all racial groups. Yet in spite of this, there are those who still argue that the Negro is inferior.

There was a time when all this was argued from the standpoint of the Bible, strangely enough. They used to argue that the Negro was inferior by nature because of Noah’s curse upon the children of Ham. Then the Apostle Paul’s dictum became a watchword, “Servants, be obedient to your master.” Then one brother had studied the logic of the great philosopher Aristotle. Aristotle did a great deal to bring into being formal logic. There is a big word in formal logic known as a syllogism, which has a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion. This brother put his argument about the inferiority of the Negro in the framework of an Aristotelian syllogism. He said, “All men are made in the image of God.” This was the major premise. The minor premise was “God, as everyone knows, is not a Negro. Therefore, the Negro is not a man.” And these ideas to a degree are still voiced sometimes on religious grounds. In fact, I heard of someone in Mississippi the other day saying that “God was a charter member of the White Citizens Council.”

Today the arguments are on subtle sociological and cultural ground. That is: the Negro is not culturally ready for integration. If you integrate the schools and neighborhoods and all of the other areas seeking integration, you will put the white race back a generation. Then, the argument goes on, the Negro is a criminal. They go on endlessly, and the persons who set forth these arguments never say that it is their irresponsibility that has created lagging standards in the Negro community. They lag because of segregation and discrimination. Poverty and ignorance breed crime, whatever the racial group may be. These things are environmental and not racial. They result from the social isolation, the economic deprivation, and all of the other things that go along with discrimination. And it is tortuous logic to use the tragic results of segregation as an argument for its continuance. It is necessary to get to the causal root. We must, all over America, get rid of the notion once and for all that there are superior and inferior races.

Now we must see the necessity for developing an action program to destroy segregation and discrimination in our midst. This means that all over this nation we must develop a concrete action program. The Church itself has a significant role to play in this area. Certainly before the Church can move out into the arena of social action, it must remove the yoke of segregation from its body. One of the tragic facts that we must face is that 11 o’clock on Sunday morning is still the most segregated hour in America, an hour in which we stand and sing “In Christ there is no East or West.” The most segregated school is the Sunday School. Thank God we are beginning now to shake the lethargy from our souls. Messengers of the Gospel and church groups all over this nation are coming to see that if we are to be true to our Christian witness, if we are to be true to Jesus Christ, we must take a stand on this issue. This means we must support meaningful, constructive civil rights legislation.

There are always those who say legislation can’t solve the problem. There is a half-truth involved here. It is true that legislation cannot solve the whole problem. It can solve some of the problem. It may be true that morality can’t be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. It may be true that legislation cannot change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless. It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.

Yes, we need religion and education to change hostile attitudes, but we need legislation to control the external effects of these hostile attitudes. Yes, we need an action program which will work for meaningful legislation to abolish discrimination all over our nation. As we move forward toward the American dream, it will be necessary for those who have been the victims of segregation and discrimination to work passionately for their own freedom. This is what I have tried to teach all over the South and over the nation: we cannot sit idly by and think others will be and should be more concerned about our citizenship rights than we are. We must work ourselves to make integration a reality. This must be supplemented by non-violent direct action.

This is the approach that we are using in Birmingham, Alabama, and now in communities all over the south. Sometimes it will take the form of sit-ins or stand-ins or kneel-ins, or mass marches to dramatize the issue and expose the injustice and being it to the surface where everybody can see it. I insist that it must be non-violent if it is to be constructive. Now there are two or three things that I would like to say about non-violence, because this method has a basic philosophy. It has a way of disarming the opponent. It exposes his moral defenses and weakens his morale and at the same time it works on his conscience. He does not know how to handle it. If he doesn’t beat you, wonderful! If he beats you, you develop the quiet courage of accepting blows without retaliating. If he doesn’t put you in jail, fine! Nobody with any sense loves to go to jail, but if he puts you in jail, you go into that jail and transform it from a dungeon of shame into a haven of freedom and human dignity. Even if he tries to kill you, you develop the quiet courage of dying if necessary without killing. There is something about this that is powerful, that disarms the opponent.

The second thing about this method is that it has a way of giving the individuals in the struggle the opportunity to work to secure moral ends through moral means. One of the great debates of history has been over the whole question of means and ends. Sometimes men have argued that the ends justify the means. I think this is one of the weaknesses, along with many others, of communism. They live with the idea that the end justifies the means. And read Lenin as he says, “Lying and deceit, withholding and concealing the truth, and even violence are all justifiable means to bring about the goal of the classless society.”

This is where non-violence breaks with communism and any other system which argues that the end justifies the means. In the long run, the end is pre-existent in the means, and the means represent the ideal in the making and the end in process. And so we have a method of struggle which makes it possible for the individuals involved to struggle for a moral end with a moral means. The other thing about this method is that it keeps the love ethic at the center. It says that it is possible to resist an evil system and yet maintain an attitude of active good will for the perpetrators of that evil system.

Now when I talk about love at this point I am not talking about emotional love. I am not talking about the kind of love that you have in a romantic relationship, the word Eros which would be used in Greek. I am not talking even about friendship, the word Pelago, which is used in Greek. I am talking about Agape, understanding, creative good will for all men, an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return. I think this is what Jesus meant when he said, “Love your enemies.” And I’m happy he didn’t say “Like your enemies.” It’s pretty difficult to like some people. Jesus said love them because love is greater than like. When one rises to Agape love, he loves every man, not because his ways appeal to him, but because God loves him. This is what we are trying to place at the center of our movement.

So we can stand before our most violent oppressor, even those who bombed the home of my brother in Birmingham, Alabama, Saturday night and who tried to bomb the room where I was staying at the motel – we can say we will beat your physical force with soul force. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws, because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. Do to us what you will and we will still love you. We will match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will go on in our struggle to be free, and in the process you may not like it but we will still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and we will still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities at the midnight hour and drag us out into some wayside road and beat us and leave us half-dead, and as difficult as it is, we will still love you. Dare to send your propaganda agents over the country. Make it appear that we are not fit morally, culturally, and otherwise for integration, and we will still love you. But be you assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer.

One day we will win our freedom. We will not only win freedom for ourselves. We will so appeal to your heart and your conscience that we will win you in the process. And our victory will be a double victory. This is our message. This is the message of non-violence. And I believe that this is the message that will transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.

And so the great challenge now is to move on toward the realization of the American dream. We must work all over the country to do it. As I have said so often, the problem of racial injustice is not just a sectional problem. No area of our country can boast of clean hands in the realm of brotherhood. Certainly it is one thing for white people of good will in the North to rise up with righteous indignation when buses are crammed with Freedom Riders in Anderson, Alabama; or when courageous James Meredith confronts a howling, jeering mob as he seeks to go into the University of Mississippi; where the church is burned in Sansaconi, Georgia; where Negroes are seeking to learn how to register to vote; and Negro children are arrested in Birmingham, Alabama, simply because they want to be free. It is just as important for white people of good will to rise up with righteous indignation in the North when the Negro cannot live in their neighborhood and when the Negro cannot get a particular position in their firm, or when a Negro cannot join their professional society. In other words, all over America, if this problem is to be solved, there must be a sort of divine discontent.

There are many technical words in every academic discipline which become stereotyped and cliché. I want to mention one of these words. It is the word maladjustment. It is a great technical word in modern psychology, which has become a ringing cry. It is the product, or the modern child, of psychology.

We all want to live the well-adjusted life in order to avoid neurotic personalities, but I must be honest with you by saying that there are some things within our social order to which I am proud to be maladjusted, and to which I call all men of good will to be maladjusted until the good society is realized.

I must confess that I will never adjust myself to segregation and discrimination. I will never become adjusted to religious bigotry. I will never adjust myself to economic conditions that will take necessities from the many and give luxuries to the few. I will never become adjusted to the madness of militarism: the self-defeating effects of physical violence. In a day when Sputniks and Explorers are dashing through outer space, guided ballistic missiles are carving highways of death throughout the stratosphere, no nation can win a war. There is no longer a choice between violence and non-violence. It is either non-violence or non-existence. The alternative to disarmament, the alternative to suspension of nuclear tests, the alternative to strengthening the United Nations and working toward disarming the whole world, may well be a civilization plunged into the abyss of annihilation. I never intend to adjust to the madness of militarism.

It may well be the greatest need of the hour, the greatest need of our world, to have more maladjustment. This is why I am calling for the immediate formation of a new organization, “The International Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment.” There is a need for men and women to be as maladjusted as the prophet Amos. In his day, in the midst of injustices, his proud words echo across the centuries, “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.” There is a need for men and women today to be as maladjusted as Abraham Lincoln, who had the vision to see that this nation could not exist half-slave and half-free. There is a need for us to be as maladjusted as Jefferson, who in the midst of an age amazingly adjusted to slavery cried with words rising to cosmic proportions, “All men are created equal.” There is a need for men to be as maladjusted as Jesus of Nazareth, who could stand amid the men and women of his day, amid the intricacies of the formidable military machinery of the Roman Empire, to say, “He who lives by the sword will perish by the sword,” and cry out, “Love your enemies; bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you.”

Through such maladjustment, we will be able to emerge from the darkened midnight of man’s inhumanity to man into the bright and glittering daybreak of freedom and justice.

With this faith, we will be able to go on to carve a tower of hope on the mountain of despair and bring into being that great dream and create right here in America a nation where all men will live together in brotherhood and where every man will respect the dignity and worth of the human personality.

We will have a long way to go before the problem is solved, but I am happy to say we are making strides. I close by quoting the words of an old Negro slave preacher whose grammar and diction lacked distinction, but who uttered words of great symbolic profundity in the form of a prayer:

“Lord, we ain’t what we want to be; we ain’t what we ought to be; we ain’t what we gonna be; but thank God we ain’t what we was.”

Moving Forward

2007-12-05T11:09:00.000-05:00

All too much our civic leaders are commissioning studies to determine what we have done wrong or what should we do. When are we going to commission ourselves to move in the direction of our conversations? Knowing what did not work is helpful in guiding us not to make the same mistakes again (and again); but do we need to keep paying for it?

Our civic leaders keep paying out our money and our charitable gifts for new plans but never implementing them. Again and again. Is it because the plans require too much of our assets? Are the players who should be involved, not involved? Is it because the plans are not workable? Is it because the world around us is changing more quickly than our plans have accounted for?

We need to work within our civic community to grow into strategic thinking rather than to develop strategic plans that are out of date by the time they hit the papers. Part of that strategic thinking includes accountability. Every time we announce a new initiative we need to also determine and voice our next steps. Each time we gather we need to follow up on where we are with those steps, refining our thinking as we go to allow for changes in the world around us.

We (all of us) need to have civic leaders who display accountability and the ability to guide our conversations and use of our assets. We need to continue civic conversations identifying and growing new ideas and leaders. Next step: start or participate in an open forum in your community.

Trust in the Digital Age

2007-11-10T19:12:00.000-05:00

A number of questions regarding trust in the digital age:

In the new world of internet communication how do people build trust?
If I am in email communication with you how do you come to build a collaborative relationship with me?
If you are a blogger, how do your readers come to a position on being able to act on or respond to your comments?
What leads me to a level of trust that I post a comment on your site with my own name?
There seems to be great promotion about how all in the economy eventually will be handled digitally. Will things move faster when there is some physical interface?
At what point in digital networks in degrees of separation do trust and respect stretch thin and no longer flow?
Do the bonds of trust reduce geometrically the more connections involved?
How fragile are digital bonds of trust?

Universal Service

2007-11-07T12:00:00.000-05:00

I received an email today from Barbara Crafton of The Geranium Farm regarding universal service for all young adults. She referenced work of Professor Larry Sabato of The University of Virginia's Center for Politics. We need to think about how we train our youth for leadership and for participation in the civic space. She suggests we think about having service as a requirement for any leadership position as well as for everyone else.

"Politics works better when citizens are informed and active participants." (from http://www.amoreperfectconstitution.com/ )

Ode to a Dead Horse (Cleveland Economic Development in Action)

2007-11-07T08:56:00.000-05:00

Dakota Wisdom says that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. However, we in Cleveland often try other strategies with dead horses, including the following:

1. Buying a strong whip.

2. Trying a new bit or bridle.

3. Changing riders.

4. Moving the horse to a new location.

5. Riding the horse for longer periods of time.

6. Saying things like, “This is the way we have always ridden this horse.”

7. Appointing a committee to study the horse.

8. Arranging to visit other cities to see how they ride dead horses.

9. Increasing the standards for riding dead horses.

10. Creating a test for measuring our riding ability.

11. Comparing the state of dead horses today.

12. Complaining about the state of dead horses today.

13. Coming up with new styles of riding dead horses.

14. Blaming the horses parents.

15. Tightening the cinch.

16. Passing legislation which declares that “This horse is not dead.”

17. Harnessing several dead horses together for increased speed.

18. Trying to resuscitate the dead horse.

19. Praying for the dead horse to be resurrected.

20. Wisdom #1: Convince a stranger that the dead horse is resting up for the next day’s work.

21. Wisdom #2: Sell the dead horse to the stranger.

(I received this in the mid 90's relating to the activities of certain non-profit boards but I believe that it is often relevant to the economic development strategies in shrinking cities.)

History is in the Telling

2007-10-24T13:34:00.000-04:00

Recently I have had a number of conversations about story telling or the lack thereof. I continually express my belief in the power of each one of us relating our stories which also includes the open source behavior of passing on the stories of those with whom we have interacted.

Story telling is not something that is to be controlled or can be controlled. However, there will always be arguments about how something actually occurred or why an event happened; what is the “true” story. Writing a story down or filming it does not always come up with the answers and often times skews the story for all who only use one source. Therein lies one of the benefits of the internet in that there becomes multiple sources for determining for ourselves what is important, what happened, or why it happened. The human brain is remarkable in that it can seem to identify the wheat in the chaff.

In Ireland there is a rich tradition of storytelling with the storyteller going from village to village relating folk tales, history, and other happenings throughout the island. People of each community would look forward to the visit of the story teller, hungrily gathering together to hear stories that have been heard often before as well as those that are new to many ears. The stories themselves are important but the hearing in community also provides for the richness of the experience.

We and our communities live on through the stories that are told so it is important that we teach ourselves the stories both new and old. The new stories are grown out of the old; we learn from our mistakes only if we are aware of the mistakes of others in the community.

Have You Done Your Part Today?

2007-10-21T13:29:00.000-04:00

Have you done your part to help enhance the civic space today? Have you introduced someone you know to someone else you know because you feel the two of them or the three of you have something in common? Have you thought about how two entrepreneurial people you know might benefit from talking with each other and actually done something about it?

If not, send an email introduction today and then follow it up with a contact of your own. Help your friends and acquaintances tell and spread their stories. Grow your collaborative network and enhance the quality connected place we know our community to be. Help make the box bigger; save others from working on their own outside the box.

National Revenue Sharing

2007-10-12T13:55:00.000-04:00

There has been considerable talk and and some implementation in Northeast Ohio of revenue sharing among communities when companies relocate. How about looking beyond the smaller region and look nationally or even globally and share tax revenue with communities that lose businesses to the Midwest due a shortage of water (the most precious of resources next to air and brains)?

As time goes on and some resources become less available (water, coal, petroleum, minerals, etc) there will be greater pressure brought to bear to provide the diminishing resources to those with the most money making the resources less available for those with the least money. Such practices remove the community resources from one community replacing them with money in the hands of a limited powerful elite.

The Midwest at one time was referred to as the rust belt but is now the water belt. If Georgia and the Southwest want water and are willing to pay for it, how can we encourage the recycling of the Midwest water in the Midwest by having those dry communities meet their needs by moving their companies and residents to the Midwest?

We need to encourage keeping the Midwest water in the Midwest rather than shipping it away to the South and West.

Economic Development: Thinking With Our Brains and Hearts

2007-10-12T13:51:00.000-04:00

In a recent email to a researcher in economic development I wrote of my definition of economic development. My definition, as are open source technology and practices, is ever evolving. I see Economic Development as the linking and leveraging of assets (money, brain power, quality places) to sustain and increase the amount of "good assets" (assets flowing into the community from outside the community) and to reduce the amount of "bad assets" (assets flowing out of the community) as well as to increase the speed of the assets moving within the community and the speed with which the community positively responds to negative changes. The same would hold true no matter what the geographic constraints.

Civic leaders need to decide how best to effect economic development so that it ends up being “good” economic development. To decide requires thinking and doing strategically. We need to think with our brains and our hearts not with parts of our anatomy and our personal wallets.

Old Behavior: Command and Control

2007-09-20T09:43:00.000-04:00

Cleveland is running far behind the pack in innovative behavior and its foundations are no exception. When around the country foundations and economic development organizations are working with small communities and entrepreneurs, the foundations in Cleveland are turning to the industrial approach. From Crain’s Cleveland Business Sep 3 2007: Sandra Kiely Kolb board chairman St Luke’s Foundation: “Foundations have taken a more business-model approach looking at collaborations... Maybe we’re asking the harder questions of nonprofits, but it’s for their own good.”

Business models are changing and here is Cleveland embracing old models and telling the nonprofits that it’s for their own good. Also the foundations have given up on the power of small group and individual behavior in economic development. From the same Crain’s article: “Mr. Abbott said the Gund Foundation during the last four years has partnered with other foundations to focus on Economic development because no entity is powerful enough to go it alone. And local foundations expect nonprofits to follow their lead.” Perhaps the foundations should be doing less leading and more supporting of innovative behavior. Perhaps the foundations should be doing less telling people and organizations what to do than partner with others in identifying and encouraging new ways of sustainability.

More than ever in Cleveland it seems to be “command and control” instead of “link and leverage.”

Accountability in Community

2007-08-14T10:42:00.000-04:00

Most of us want to live in community. We want nice neighbors, responsive civic services, effective schools, clean streets, playgrounds and parks, and good jobs. However, many of us have forgotten that along with the benefits of community there are also the accountabilities of community.

In our failures to see future opportunities, we are willing to accept and even encourage the quick fixes where there is less responsibility and accountability. We accept what we are told by people who our media tells us are our leaders or are experts. Rather than work to identify and encourage trusted individuals as leaders, we blindly accept. Rather than addressing the problems we look for the flash in the pan, the short term gain.

Somewhere along the way we are told and we accept that the answers are outside the box. What we conveniently forget is that when we go outside the box we are usually abandoning all that is in the box. We move to the suburbs so that we no longer have to deal with the urban “problems”. We create charter schools so that we can conveniently hide from the problems of the less fortunate in community support. We set up wards in our communities so that we can protect ourselves in our own small areas with people who we perceive as “us”. We don’t hold our leaders accountable let alone our own children.

We have lost our trust in our own communities and have no one but ourselves to blame even though we do our best to blame everyone else.

So, how do we reclaim the lost ground in community? We accept accountability for our own actions. We build trust with our leaders. We hold others accountable for their behavior. We work on long term solutions which may be simple but often are not easy. We stop letting ourselves be led into decisions which line the pockets of others in the short term but cost us in the long term especially at the expense the the greater number. Instead of building convention centers, we invest in the small businesses so that storefronts and offices are filled and appropriate jobs with benefits exist for those who are willing. Why would someone want to come to a city with poor services and missing retail to attend a convention?

We need to support not only our own children, but all the children in the community to assure that all receive a good education as well as have hope in the benefits of getting a diploma. We need to be accountable for disobedience. We need to share the stories that we all have of our joys, our successes, our hopes, our fears, what does not work, and what does work.

We need to stop “thinking outside the box” but instead think strategically in the box, making the box bigger and more inclusive, inviting all to participate in the exciting opportunity that is our community.

Moving from Diversity into Community

2007-08-07T19:22:00.000-04:00

Recently there was discussion on the blog site Brewed Fresh Daily about diversity. It got me thinking about the phrase “a diverse community.” For me that is an oxymoron in that diversity addresses differences whereas community talks about a oneness.

Perhaps many who use the word diverse actually have something else in mind but aren’t saying it. If so, I believe it is better to say racially diverse, or ethnically diverse, or economically diverse, or whatever diverse. We also misuse community, assigning a much higher connotation on a group of people who live in geographic proximity to each other.

Whatever we are saying or whatever we mean, we all need to be moving into community where we learn share hopes, dreams, fears, expectations, and joys. We become community through open conversation, honest conversation, whether we agree or agree to disagree, we agree to continue moving forward in conversation.

The Questions Unite Us

2007-05-03T10:47:00.000-04:00

There are so many things that we allow to divide us. We define ourselves by what we hold true and build boxes to separate ourselves from others who hold other truths. Then we spend tremendous amounts of brainpower and money enforcing our truths on ourselves and others.

I believe that we need to change our focus and energies to the questions which unite us. When we invest in the questions the answers will come but at a much lower cost and in a way that there is a greater acceptance because we are working together and we are part of the solution. The answers we arrive at may be different and activity occurs when there is community and passion in the answers.

Some of the questions are how do we deal with the poverty not only in our urban communities but also in our rural areas? How do we create sustainable businesses that don’t poison our environment and overly deplete resources? How to we fairly value our contributions to and in an ongoing society? How do we behave in ways that build trust and respect?

Community Investment

2007-01-03T19:04:00.000-05:00

All too often American society in general and its media evaluate activities solely on dollar amounts. We seem to value our organizations on the bottom line rather than their contributions to the stockholders as well as to the community. Who are the analysts who have decided that this is the way to evaluate activity? Why do we allow this behavior to be taught in our business schools? Why do we accept this shallow thinking from our leaders?

To compare education systems based solely on dollars belittles the value of other assts such as community involvement. The costs of behaviors in the civic space vary all over the spectrum. What has become clear is that when there is a sharing of the process involved, the total dollar costs as well as the individual costs appear to be less. Educating our children is so much less per child when the parents, teachers, students, and community have made a commitment to participate and where the community is not in flux. This is especially true in private school education as well as in charter schools. Public school communities where there has been parental and community support and where there is not significant flux in the community cost significantly less and appear to provide a stronger education than other communities.

Our non profits make a point of publicizing dollar donation levels and celebrating the big dollar donors. What of the people that give of their life rather than of their excesses. We all need to invest in our communities but there is less need for dollar investment and greater need for intellectual and hands on investment. It is not to say that money is not needed but rather that non monetary investment is so important and should in the forefront and not be disregarded or be playing second fiddle.

Muck and Mire of Media Manipulation

2006-11-13T15:27:00.000-05:00

Brewed Fresh Daily has a blog today "Define Gaming" which goes to the heart of why we need trusted lines of communication.
I think we need to reframe the dialogue on gaming. I was reading my tech posts realized that in a creative economy gaming refers to video games not gambling. There are a lot of people in this area working on making Northeast Ohio a videogame development mecca. Why aren’t more political leaders putting their political clout behind that? [BFD]
The same thing has taken place with the smoking industry as in the gambling industry. Proponents recognize that their organizations have a sleazy reputation and work very hard to sanitize the perception. To a certain extent it is all spin but it also serves to confuse intentionally.

Open communication is how we all work through the smoke and mirrors to determine for ourselves that information that is important for our decision making. This is where blogs do their part, along with civic forums in which we all agree to behave in ways that build trust and respect. We need to continue to build our own trust networks so that there are people and organizations we can go to in order to avoid the muck and mire of media manipulation.

Taking the Easy Way

2006-10-28T15:18:00.000-04:00

Why do we often seem to take the easy way to deal with our fears? The greater the fear the more we move to the easy, short time solution. This behavior is not just restricted to our leaders, but also occurs in the followers. Somehow we have stop using our brains to think strategically but have accepted a strategic plan and stuck to it. We have accepted that the ends justify the means.

The using of, what is for me are questionable, means applies in our fight against terrorism; our thirst for unending supplies of oil; our quest for a secure, accurate voting system; our desire for affordable college educations; and our move towards sustainable economies. Yes, when problems caused by our actions come to the fore, we can always say that we did not know then what we know now, but why do we not work harder, think strategically in an accountable manner, and apply some innovative solutions. We need to review our values and not always accept the answer based on money. Let us look at that which recognizes basic human values and celebrates the ability to think with the brainpower in us all.

Accountability

2006-10-13T09:05:00.000-04:00

For years Clevelanders have had the same development leaders. In the last decade their leadership has been less than effective as evidenced by the state of the region, especially in comparison to most other Midwest regions. At what point do we, as the community hold them accountable and either encourage them to severely change their behavior or move aside for people who embrace new effective practices?

Economic development leaders are community leaders only because the community says they are and treats them as such. It appears that these leaders are too much into invest, command, and control rather than invest and advise. As a region we need to refrain from viewing the behavior as a top down process but to turn everything on its side so that we are all on an even plane. We need to stop allowing hierarchies to be the driving force in Cleveland.

Let's return to the old Golden Rule; moving from "He who has the gold, rules." to "Do unto others that which you would have them do unto you."

Are Apes Descended from Man?

2006-10-10T15:00:00.000-04:00

I am always looking for new ways to make the box bigger rather than thinking outside the box. Here is a new way to look at evolution.

Perhaps much of the confusion arising through the controversy over evolution between religion and science comes from a viewpoint by both on what may have occurred. How about viewing Apes as descended from Man (or Woman)?

There also is a question about what is Man. Is Man homo sapiens or something else? When a person dies, the homo sapiens dies but the Man continues. With that view, Man has evolved from nothing or primordial ooze/clay while homo sapiens has appeared at some much later point in time. Man was created by God but homo sapiens evolved.

Way of Life

2006-10-06T08:24:00.001-04:00

“We know how to save the world. We just don’t realize that we know what we know.”
Leonard Sweet
Where do we go where we feel safe enough to tell our stories, to experiment with thought, to express our dreams? Where to we go to hear new stories, to be challenged with new ideas, to be exposed to new opportunities? Where do we go to be supported, be supportive? To find synergies with others? To be collaborative in leadership and in following? To discover what we know and what we can do? To be passionate about our work?

Midtown does not have all the answers but for me there are many places where I feel safe to grow and collaborate. Sure there are those who focus only on their own agendae, but there are mostly those who are genuinely interested in where you are going and how they can help.

My style has always been to build upon the best practices of others. You can call it creative appropriation but seeing what works and applying it in new ways is so much faster and leaves brainpower for other problems. Whether it is creating or improving a website or setting up a new chart of accounts, I find that I often look for samples of what has been done before. However, my style requires the input of others and that is where my relationships in Midtown come in.

I also find that I do a lot of strategic thinking so that when something happens I am not completely unprepared to move forward quickly and informed. I also find that in my work as manager and administrator, there has been less managing people but more managing systems and providing support for people who inhabit those systems.

Midtown has been supportive of that style and has allowed me to grow into myself. Midtown is a way of life. Experience it.

Open to New Ways

2006-08-15T10:51:00.000-04:00

As I listed in my blog when I first started, we need to re-envision the box. We need to leave ourselves open to new interpretations, new ways of thinking, listening, and doing. We also need to communicate in new ways, using new methods and new language. There also needs to be accountability. There is a need for better, more, and faster communication. However, the only way that communication truly works is when there is open dialogue and honesty.

Now more than ever.

It's All About Collaboration

2006-08-08T17:12:00.000-04:00

"There are no competitors - It's all about collaboration."

Brad S. Kleinman

Thinking The Box

Customer Service

Loss of Focus

Diversity is Over Valued

Change no, growth yes.

Rev Martin Luther King Jr in Cleveland Heights 1963

Address delivered byTHE REVEREND MARTIN LUTHER KING JR., Ph.D.May 14, 1963at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church

Cleveland Heights, Ohio

THE RIGHT REVEREND BEVERLEY D. TUCKER’S INTRODUCTION

THE SERMON

Moving Forward

Trust in the Digital Age

Universal Service

Ode to a Dead Horse (Cleveland Economic Development in Action)

History is in the Telling

Have You Done Your Part Today?

National Revenue Sharing

Economic Development: Thinking With Our Brains and Hearts

Old Behavior: Command and Control

Accountability in Community

Moving from Diversity into Community

The Questions Unite Us

Community Investment

Muck and Mire of Media Manipulation

Taking the Easy Way

Accountability

Are Apes Descended from Man?

Way of Life

Open to New Ways

It's All About Collaboration

Address delivered by

THE REVEREND MARTIN LUTHER KING JR., Ph.D.

May 14, 1963

at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church