About Dispatches

Washington Times Communities

Washington Times Communities

I began creating content for the Communities at The Washington Times on Sunday, November 1, 2009.  My friend Brad Rourke recruited me to be part of this major new initiative.  I’m honored and grateful to The Washington Times and to Brad.

The Dispatches section of JohnCr8on on Community Life and Public Leadership will be the place where I collect my submissions to the Washington Times Communities.

There are six Washington Times Communities:

Each of these communities is led by a “mayor” who essentially curates the content for each community. Within each Community, there are between five and ten (for now) “neighborhoods.” Each of these Neighborhoods is a blog, with one author responsible for the content.

I will be creating content for the Public Good Community.  Brad Rourke is my “mayor.”  My neighborhood, or blog, is known as “Dispatches from the Heartland.”

Dispatches from the Heartland is an opportunity for me to pull together both professional and personal insights, lessons and experiences I’ve had working in communities across the country to share with a national audience.  The common threads of the Dispatches will be the importance of community life, how community life is changing and the role of public leaders in activating citizens to take action.  I will draw on my own leadership experiences as a small business owner, member of the High Plains Bank board of directors and member of the St. Vrain Valley Board of Education.  I also will turn to the insights I’ve gained interviewing people from all walks of American life.

I am looking forward to this new writing and blogging adventure.  The plan is to write three Dispatches per week.  It will be my first experience as a writer having to meet multiple deadlines every week.  It will push me to be more productive and it will push me to elevate my writing to another level.  I will be judged by the number of people who visit my “neighborhood.”

So, please consider visiting Dispatches from the Heartland.

*     *    *

November 3, 2009