Community engagement: What’s the purpose?
March 24th, 2011 by John Creighton in Projects
Tags: Citizen Centric, Culture-Structure, Democracy, Institutions
Community engagement is a public sector buzzword. Engagement is hailed as a key strategy to help keep institutions such as public libraries relevant now and in the future. But was does community engagement mean? And, more important, what is the purpose of community engagement? Community engagement often is translated as a set of activities and/or events. People attend book readings, film screenings, a community dialogue. Attendance at these events becomes the purpose of engagement as well as the measure of [...]
Read more...21st Century Institutions
February 2nd, 2011 by John Creighton in Projects
Tags: Citizen Centric, Institutions
A recent contribution to SLA FutureReady 365. * * * 20th Century centralized institutions were created to solve a specific set of problems: Scarce resources, high production and carrying costs, cumbersome logistics and limited (by today’s standards) communications. Traditional libraries are a perfect example of a centralized institution. The cost to produce and store books, periodicals and other information was expensive and required a large amount of space. Very few people could afford to purchase their own reading collection or [...]
Read more...What do minivans and politics have in common?
November 22nd, 2010 by John Creighton in Dispatches
Tags: Citizen Centric, Culture-Structure, Family, Public Leaders, Public Values
LONGMONT, Colo. — How is the 2011 Honda Odyssey, results from a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll and a dysfunctional Congress connected? They all are examples of American’s growing inability to compromise. Let’s start with the minivan. In the not too distant past, families had to find ways to tolerate each other’s company when going on road trips. A single radio, perhaps books and the people in the car were the only sources of entertainment available to passengers. Parents and [...]
Read more...Open Source Treatment Model
July 1st, 2010 by John Creighton in WarmUp
Tags: Citizen Centric, Institutions
Read an interesting article about Alcoholics Anonymous in Wired this morning. AA strikes me as an example of an early open-source, patient centric model of treatment.
Read more...Participatory Systems
June 25th, 2010 by John Creighton in Dispatches
Tags: Citizen Centric, Institutions, Public Leaders
LONGMONT, Colo. — Services provided by western nation welfare states play a significant role in creating the high quality of life we all enjoy. We don’t like to admit it but facts belie complaints. Gregg Easterbrook, author of The Progress Paradox, declares that the great story of our era is that average people are far better off compared to generations past. The current Great Recession not withstanding, Easterbrook compiles data to support his claim. Here are some of the improvements [...]
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