State of the Re:Union contributor Rich Harwood of the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation offers pertinent views of community issues every Tuesday.  In addition to Rich’s post yesterday, we came across information about his paper, Assessing Community Information Needs: A Practical Guide, coming out later this week which reflects what we find in communities every day. (To view the original blog, click here.)

Solutions to the challenges we face don’t yet exist and planning alone won’t get us there. In communities, states and the nation we need a different mindset – one of innovation. The Aspen Institute’s newest white paper, implementing the Knight Commission’s recommendations, calls on America’s community members and leaders to adopt a set of useful strategies to assess the health of civic resources and infrastructure, to build up local news and information environments, and create engaged communities with the capacity and resilience to meet today’s—and tomorrow’s–most pressing challenges.

In the paper, Assessing Community Information Needs: A Practical Guide, Richard C. Harwood urges citizens and community leaders to go beyond “simply doing good planning” to develop a mindset and practice of innovation and “Turning Outward” toward the community in order to take effective action to solve common challenges. Harwood is the founder of The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, an organization recognized for their approach to breaking down barriers and empowering people to make real progress in improving their communities.

“In reality, most change in communities occurs through pockets of activity that emerge and take root over time,” notes Harwood.  “These pockets result from individuals, small groups, and various organizations seeing an opportunity for change and seizing it, often through trial and error. Seldom are the collection of such pockets orchestrated through a top-down, linear plan; instead, they happen when people and groups start to engage and interact.”

The Turn Outward approach allows community members to focus on relevance, re-building and re-engaging with each other as well as the schools, businesses and other organizations that contribute to the health and stability of a community. Harwood’s paper gives people actionable steps and support around what it takes to act on what matters most.

Assessing Community Information Needs: A Practical Guide will be featured Monday, October 17th from 12:30 to 3pm ET in a roundtable discussion among a select group of leaders, innovators, advocates and critics from the national, state and local levels at the Aspen Institute in Washington, D.C.

We invite you to watch it live with us here and use hashtag #Harwood to discuss themes and findings.

Every so often something comes across your desk that reminds you about the basics of life. I don’t mean about how much money you make, or your most recent promotion, or even how you’re going to make next month’s budget given these hard economic times. I’m talking about your sense of humanity — what it means to be alive and the choices we make. Watch this video, and you’ll see what I mean.

The video was sent to me by my wife’s friend because she knows I have coached boys and girls soccer for years. You may have seen it already. The video tells the story of a group of girls playing competitive softball, and what happens when they realize there’s more to the game than simply winning. Or, to put another way:  You should always do all you can to win, but still make good choices.

When a player from Western Oregon hit a home run during the conference championship, she tore a ligament while rounding first base, and couldn’t get up to finish running the bases. Her opponents, from Central Washington, who desperately wanted to win, faced a fundamental choice. The rules said that the girl’s team could substitute a runner for her, but her hit would count only as a single. And the team would give up the extra run. Her teammates asked the umpire if they could help her run around the bases; the answer was no. So, two members of the opposing team stepped forward and did the unthinkable: could they help her?  This time the answer was yes, and so the two opposing players picked her up and carried her around the bases, at each stop helping her tag the base so she could make it home.

Over the years, my own soccer teams won numerous annual sportsmanship awards. Sometimes my players would say that they won the awards as a consolation for not winning a championship. But I always told them that wasn’t the case. You can be a great player, a great team, and still have character. In fact, they go hand in hand. One of the times I was happiest coaching was when other teams had to play us short, and we always decided to pull our own players off the field so the teams would play even. Never once did one of my players complain. Indeed, over the years, my players would be the ones to alert me that our opponents didn’t have enough players, or if a player went off the field injured or was ill or simply out of gas. It was my players who ultimately kept the promise of the kind of team we wanted to become — and the type of people they should be.

Myself, I watched this video when I was exhausted from work, and when I’d had more than my fill of stuff. I was wondering why certain people wouldn’t return phone calls, why certain people can make life so difficult, and why making progress can seem so hard at times. I was wondering whether all the effort is worth it. And then I watched this video, and I was reminded in an instant: Keep focused on the essence of what we’re doing — and why.

It reminded me of the many people who made some of the biggest contributions in my own life: coaches from my childhood. Just last week I got a call from my high school tennis coach who remembered my birthday, who himself just won a national award for his character-building coaching style. His teams consistently win championships. And in a call this week I found myself telling folks from another organization how some of my coaches had led me to start the Institute: my involvement in politics and some other nonprofits didn’t fit with what they taught me about making a REAL difference — about what it means to step forward and make choices.

This video and the memories it prompted in me aren’t about being nostalgic, hoping for some nicer world, or wanting to return to simpler times. The world is what it is — what’s at issue is how we engage with it.

This story shares the true nature of community, coming together for the common good. In the world of competitive sports, it can get fierce, but keeping the spirit of sportsmanship, that’s what shines above winning. How far does good sportsmanship go in helping our children, even us for that matter, make the right decisions? Is it becoming less of a focus for communities with the rise of global competition? Do you have a story about good sportsmanship, or lack thereof? Share it with us, we’d love to hear.

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A dynamic public speaker, Rich Harwood is a frequent keynote for foundations and national organizations. He is an expert contributor on national and syndicated media outlets including MSNBC, NPR, The Christian Science Monitor, CNN’s Inside Politics, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Special Report with Brit Hume, C-SPAN, and many others. He is also the author of Hope Unraveled: The people\’92s retreat and our way back (2005), Make Hope Real: How we can accelerate change for the public good (2008) and numerous studies, articles and essays chronicling vital issues of our time. His most recent written work, Why We\’92re Here: The Powerful Impact of Public Broadcasters When They Turn Outward, is being published and distributed in Spring 2011. You can follow him on twitter @RichHarwood and facebook.com/richharwood.

You can read Rich’s posts every Tuesday on State of the Re:Union’s website.

There’s a new study out on how we Americans get our local news, and the findings show that “word of mouth” ranks second among all sources after local TV news. This has important implications for how communities go about informing themselves, engaging people, and, ultimately solving public challenges.

In one way, this finding is not surprising. Back in the mid 1990s, the Harwood Institute did a study on how and why people engage on public concerns, entitled “Meaningful Chaos.” What we found then (and which is echoed in this latest study done by the Pew Research Center and Knight Foundation), is that people use numerous information sources, piecing them together in an attempt to paint a picture of what’s happening in the world around them. And to do so, they rely on no one single news source – instead, people actively and intentionally draw on a collection of them.

In piecing together this picture, people are in search of three things: coherence, meaning, and a sense of possibility. These are each basic human yearnings – desires that each of us are seeking to satisfy as we make our way through life. At issue is how well different organizations and groups help people to do this.

To understand these sources and their interplay, the Knight Foundation has been doing great work on what they call “information ecologies” – the web of information sources people tap into and use in daily community life. On October 17, the Aspen Institute (with support from Knight) will release a new white paper I wrote on how to assess local information environments. Click here if you want to receive a copy. I’ll be writing future posts about the key insights and findings in the days ahead.

But, for now, I want to underscore this one finding about “word of mouth” and its implications for the various efforts to “mobilize” Americans around particular issues, such as education.

Many of these efforts are laudable. But the importance of “word of mouth” is a reminder to those organizations and groups seeking to mobilize people that simply pushing out top-down, heavily messaged, highly packaged campaigns will not work. They run the risk of smelling like (and being!) public relations hyperbole, in which national or even local organizations are seen as trying to amass individuals in support of their organizational agenda.

Whether it’s the Occupy Wall Street demonstration, or the Tea Party, people are sending a clear message that they want to be heard, they want to engage on things that matter to them, and in ways that enable them to take action together. Word of mouth is at the center of these activities, and at the center of people’s lives. Our task now is to engage people in ways that tap into that and honor it.

What informational resource/s work well in your community. Does the answer lie in your local news, social clubs, or places of worship? What role does word of mouth play in your day-to-day? Perhaps some prefer another method of garnering reliable information to proceed in better decision-making for the community. We’d be interested to hear some of your thoughts and ideas on what mobilizes you, so please send them our way.

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A dynamic public speaker, Rich Harwood is a frequent keynote for foundations and national organizations. He is an expert contributor on national and syndicated media outlets including MSNBC, NPR, The Christian Science Monitor, CNN’s Inside Politics, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Special Report with Brit Hume, C-SPAN, and many others. He is also the author of Hope Unraveled: The people\’92s retreat and our way back (2005), Make Hope Real: How we can accelerate change for the public good (2008) and numerous studies, articles and essays chronicling vital issues of our time. His most recent written work, Why We\’92re Here: The Powerful Impact of Public Broadcasters When They Turn Outward, is being published and distributed in Spring 2011. You can follow him on twitter @RichHarwood and facebook.com/richharwood.

You can read Rich’s posts every Tuesday on State of the Re:Union’s website.

State of the Re:Union Contributor Rich Harwood of the Harwood Institute offers his reflection on his experience of his recent visit to the concentration camp in Dachau, Germany, and how defining and standing for community starts with us.

Earlier this year, my 21 year old daughter, Emily, and I went to Germany to visit the Nazi death camp, Dachau. As Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, begins tomorrow evening, I keep thinking about that trip and its meaning. At issue, for me, is not what others might have done, but what do I do, each and every day?

Visiting Dachau was heart wrenching. After Emily and I spent a day there, I told her over dinner that night that something deep within me was pulling me back to the death camp, that I still had unfinished business and unresolved issues to confront. And so, with Emily’s encouragement, I decided to return to the death camp the next day – alone.

I arrived at the camp early in the morning, hours before it opened, and thought that I would sit outside the camp’s gate, the same gate the prisoners were marched through from the train tracks only yards away, and write in my journal and get ready for the day ahead of me.

But something prompted me to stand up and go up to the camp’s iron-gate – and gently push on it. When I did, it opened. There, looking out over the acres upon acres of the death camp, I was the only person in sight.

I stepped through the door and walked to the center of the courtyard, the same courtyard where the prisoners would stand for roll call each morning and again at night, and I stood there, alone, and said my Hebrew prayers. As I did, I could not avoid the stark reminder that evil does exist; that apathy and indifference sometimes get the best of us; that at times we turn our backs on one another just when another person is most in need; that sometimes we even hide from one another.

There’s much in my experience at Dachau that I want to write about someday, but not today. Instead, on this day, as Rosh Hashanah approaches, I simply wish to focus my thoughts on what it means for me to stand my ground.

In Jewish tradition, there is the notion that, “if you save one person, you save the world.” This notion is a simple and powerful entreaty to step forward and engage. To me, its meaning is that each of us, as individuals and collectively hold the innate capacity and responsibility to make a difference in the world. That it is possible.

Rosh Hashanah commences 10 days of reflection and repentance, and leads up to Yom Kippur, when one asks for forgiveness for their transgressions over the past year. This is by far my favorite time of the year. It opens up a space where one must stand alone and reflect on what they have done, and where they believe they must go in the New Year.

This week, as I enter this space, I am reminded of this basic notion – that “if you save one person, you save the world” – and to ask, “How well I am fulfilling it?” In doing so, I am reminded that my main task is not merely to land the next big project, but to make sure that what I do holds meaning. That implementing my work is never enough; instead, the test must be, “Did the work make a difference in someone’s life?” That while I can always find ways to run faster and harder, the real question is whether I will slow down enough to hear the next person?

For me, the world stopped for a very long moment as I stood alone in the middle of the courtyard at Dachau. There, I was reminded that success is not achieving what one desires; rather, it is doing something desirable.

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A dynamic public speaker, Rich Harwood is a frequent keynote for foundations and national organizations. He is an expert contributor on national and syndicated media outlets including MSNBC, NPR, The Christian Science Monitor, CNN’s Inside Politics, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Special Report with Brit Hume, C-SPAN, and many others. He is also the author of Hope Unraveled: The people\’92s retreat and our way back (2005), Make Hope Real: How we can accelerate change for the public good (2008) and numerous studies, articles and essays chronicling vital issues of our time. His most recent written work, Why We\’92re Here: The Powerful Impact of Public Broadcasters When They Turn Outward, is being published and distributed in Spring 2011. You can follow him on twitter @RichHarwood and facebook.com/richharwood.

You can read Rich’s posts every Tuesday on State of the Re:Union’s website.

The Pursuit of Happiness

Harwood staff and Rich are on vacation this week and so we bring you a post from January 2006 that still rings true today. Let us know what you think – have we, as a society, changed at all in the last 5 years?

The notion of personal sovereignty is an enormously powerful idea and a potentially dangerous one. It signals to us that we as individuals can go our own way, do our own thing, and be our own person. Or, as the U.S. Army used to say, “Be all you can be!” The idea is deeply embedded in the current definition of consumerism that has grabbed hold of the American imagination. Nowadays we consumers expect to get what we want, when we want it, at the highest quality and the lowest cost – and if we don’t like something, we can return it without any questions asked.

Self-fulfillment has been part of the American landscape since our nation’s founding. But I often wonder if Jefferson had the same notion of the “pursuit of happiness” when he wrote that phrase into the Declaration of Independence as we do today. As we all know, Jefferson had a strong belief in the role of an informed citizen in society. Take apart that phrase and you end up with two key ideas: individuals who see themselves as more than free-lancing consumers and those who make it their business to be engaged in the larger society around them.

Today, the phrase “pursuit of happiness” is often the clarion call for individual self-fulfillment, at times without any regard to the larger society. Indeed, we are being socially groomed to expect to come into the public square and make claims and demands for our own interests without concern for others. But this pursuit only leads us to hyper-individualism, self-absorption, even selfishness.

As Americans repeatedly pointed out in my book, Hope Unraveled: The People’s Retreat and Our Way Back, too many of us are free-lancing our way through society, allowing our love affair with consumerism and personal sovereignty to crowd out the necessary time and space to be attached to public life and politics. We have retreated into close-knit circles of families and friends, often simply to pursue individual happiness.

I remember as I was traveling the country in recent years and talking with Americans, I would ask people to give me a motto for their community and the nation. One person said to me, “I’ve got mine and to heck with you.”  Another said, “I’m for me and you’re for you!” And still another person gave me this one, “I’m for me and you’re for me!”

Perhaps it goes without saying that over any extended stretch of time it is impossible for people to go it alone – even with the most remarkable circle of family and friends. The webs of entanglement in our interdependent lives will sooner or later stare us in the face. Our jobs, our safety, our schools, our health care, our very quality of life are all inextricably intertwined. People are by nature social animals. There is an emptiness that we all encounter when we peel ourselves away from others and choose to go it alone. We all know that in our heart of hearts. No consumer product or vacation home or gated wall can protect us from that universal truth.

People who have been part of something larger than themselves will tell you that they gained from those experiences an incredible sense of belonging, a deeper belief in the power of people to act together, and even a sense of happiness. And while their happiness may have been tied to some personal achievement, they will almost always say that it was also a result of their connection to others.

Like I said, personal sovereignty has always been part of the American experience; but that alone will not create the pathway for each of us being better people or to creating a better society. So, I would ask each of us to consider this question: What does happiness really mean to each of us and where can we find it? And what is the relationship of our answer to the state of the union? The phrase “state of the union” suggests that there is a coming together of disparate pieces – some of those pieces are our 50 states, others are comprised of we the people as individuals.

It’s time to call ourselves back to public life – and to each other. And I would ask each of us to think about Jefferson’s words, and realize that greater personal happiness will come by being part of stronger communities and a stronger nation. Personal sovereignty just cannot fulfill our deepest wants.

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A dynamic public speaker, Rich Harwood is a frequent keynote for foundations and national organizations. He is an expert contributor on national and syndicated media outlets including MSNBC, NPR, The Christian Science Monitor, CNN’s Inside Politics, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Special Report with Brit Hume, C-SPAN, and many others. He is also the author of Hope Unraveled: The people\’92s retreat and our way back (2005), Make Hope Real: How we can accelerate change for the public good (2008) and numerous studies, articles and essays chronicling vital issues of our time. His most recent written work, Why We\’92re Here: The Powerful Impact of Public Broadcasters When They Turn Outward, is being published and distributed in Spring 2011. You can follow him on twitter @RichHarwood and facebook.com/richharwood.

You can read Rich’s posts every Tuesday on State of the Re:Union’s website.

Many people responded to the 9/11 attacks by putting flag decals on their cars, singing God Bless America and other patriotic songs, donating to various charities, and wearing flag lapel pins. At the time, I warned against such gestures, as I feared they amounted to a kind of empty or false unity. But today is different: we desperately need people to take such action.

Our politics and public life can be toxic, so much so that to even hold the 10th anniversary commemorations this past weekend required a kind of cease fire among deeply divided politicians and their supporters. Endless acrimony has left a stain on the public square, and left many of us bemoaning the daily conduct of our leaders. One can only hope our leaders will enlighten themselves and find a better path. But don’t hold your breath.

Instead, it is everyday citizens – you, me, and others – who ultimately will place the nation on a better trajectory. The task before us is to “rebuild” the nation – but not solely by constructing new memorials and buildings at Ground Zero and elsewhere. For bricks and mortar are not the most important building blocks for this rebuilding.

The first and most fundamental need is to “signal” each other that we are ready to step forward and join together. To achieve this, we must embrace and spread small public acts and rituals that get people out of their homes and demonstrate a sense of connection and compassion for one another – acts such as helping a neighbor, painting a local school, singing public-spirited songs together, and displaying the flag, among others. I am not advocating make-work volunteer efforts, or superficial initiatives, but small acts grounded in a sense of common purpose and accomplishment for the greater good.

I realize these public acts will not solve our most pressing challenges. At this point my goal is more modest, yet no less important. We must get people engaged with one another at a time when people no longer trust their leaders, many of the organizations created to serve their communities, and often one another. People worry no one understands the reality of their lives, their concerns, or aspirations – and that no one will stand with them in tough times.

People’s desire for a new course is not rooted in the politics of ideology or partisanship, as some would have you believe, but in the basic human hope for connection and compassion. Thus this challenge is one of humanity and identity, not simply politics and policy.  People want to feel a part of an able and connected America; they want to be seen, heard and understood; they want to restore their faith and pride in themselves and the nation.

I want to underscore just how basic and vital this first step is.  I recognize that many of the challenges faced across the country require more than the small public acts I am recommending here – they demand nothing short of sustained and systemic action if there is to be real and lasting change. There is no other way to effectively address underlying issues involving public schools, income disparities, health care, energy independence, and the like. But make no mistake: we must lay the proper groundwork to bring about the trust and public will necessary to break current gridlock and create a genuine sense of possibility in the nation. This is our most urgent work now.

That’s why on this, the 10th anniversary of 9/11, it is many of the very gestures that emerged after 9/11, the very ones I felt back then did not go far enough, that fit the bill today. If we are to get anything of real magnitude done in the days and years ahead, then we must have the courage to take the small steps that will get us moving in the right direction and build from there.

It’s not too late. Let’s start to rebuild the nation, together, one small public act after another.

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A dynamic public speaker, Rich Harwood is a frequent keynote for foundations and national organizations. He is an expert contributor on national and syndicated media outlets including MSNBC, NPR, The Christian Science Monitor, CNN’s Inside Politics, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Special Report with Brit Hume, C-SPAN, and many others. He is also the author of Hope Unraveled: The people\’92s retreat and our way back (2005), Make Hope Real: How we can accelerate change for the public good (2008) and numerous studies, articles and essays chronicling vital issues of our time. His most recent written work, Why We\’92re Here: The Powerful Impact of Public Broadcasters When They Turn Outward, is being published and distributed in Spring 2011. You can follow him on twitter @RichHarwood and facebook.com/richharwood.

You can read Rich’s posts every Tuesday on State of the Re:Union’s website.