After last week’s blog, “Let’s bring together the Tea Party & Occupy Wall Street,” Michel Martin, from NPR’s Tell Me More, asked me and representatives from the two groups to have an on-air conversation. All the potential peril in trying to do something productive could be heard during this conversation. But I remain undaunted, and I hope you are, too. Here’s why.

First, it took a nice dose of courage for Michel to invite the three of us on. Not surprising coming from Michel, but noteworthy nonetheless. Joining me were Shelby Blake, from the Tea Party Patriots, and Kyle Christopher, from Occupy Wall Street.

From the get-go the conversation took a turn for business as usual. The two individuals saw themselves as representatives for their respective groups, and so what came forward were the well-worn talking points, name calling, bomb throwing, and insistence that “We’re Right, You’re Wrong!” No matter what Michel asked, the responses towed the party line. This is the reality of where we at the national level – we cannot deny it. Right now, these groups are talking past each other.

The key to moving the conversation forward will be to get folks around the table who do not see themselves as either “leaders” or “spokespeople.” When I talk to everyday individuals who subscribe to one of these movements, I have found among them – as I have found among most Americans – that they want to find ways to move the country forward. Like many of us, they too are anxious about where the country is headed, scared about their own jobs and keeping their homes, and lack trust in various leaders, institutions, organizations, and groups to hear their concerns.

That is why on Tell Me More I said the best place to get things moving is on the local level. On the national scene, too many groups (not just these two) are happy to indulge in gridlock, because that’s their ticket to “success.” They want to rally more members, more financial support, and more clout. Making progress on the national level will require the shifting of broader conditions in the country.

Still, there is a ripe opportunity before us: to tap into a growing groundswell in the country. This represents what I believe is the big missing story in America today. People want to come back into the public square. People want to make a difference. And people want to be a part of something larger than themselves. They feel they can no longer go it alone – it simply doesn’t work. Nor do they think that outage alone will change current conditions – they say we must note it, understand it, and then get beyond all the outrage.

Let me be clear: What I’m suggesting is no silver bullet. Nor is it about all of us “getting along” or “liking each other.” The times demand that we be more practical than that. At issue is how best to change the trajectory and dynamics of a gridlocked and mistrustful public life and politics.

One good place to start (among others) is to bring people from The Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements. As I’ve said, what I don’t mean is to bring representatives of the two groups together; instead, my hope is to engage everyday Americans who happen to subscribe to these two groups. If we can show even some progress, it will be an important sign to all Americans – and to the leaders and spokespeople of these movements – that people want to get to work.

At the Institute, we’re actively pursuing ways to push this effort ahead. Please, let me know your own ideas and ways for us to work together.

All this is possible. We can do this.

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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.

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.

The nation is reeling from hurricanes, earthquakes, the Great Recession, two wars, and severe public sector budget cuts, among other challenges. A broken politics sits at the heart of our inability to move forward. But beneath that is something even more important and vital to our long-term health: people clinging to their sense of humanity and dignity.

I recognize that these words – “humanity and dignity” – may seem too lofty or abstract to gain much traction in today’s rough-and-tumble world. They don’t serve to score any political points, strike fear into anyone’s heart, or demonize anyone. And I realize that there are far easier topics for me to choose to write about today, including the natural and man-made disasters I referred to above.

But as I travel the country, people want to discuss something deeper, closer to their everyday lives, and more significant to their futures. Most fundamentally, I hear people talking about the need to restore a basic sense of trust in society. There are too many false promises amid the relatively few moments when people feel they are actually being squared with. People want to know they can rely on one another – their neighbors, leaders, and the organizations that purport to serve them.

Furthermore, I hear people trying to find a way to broaden their circles of compassion. They believe we have lost an ability to see and hear one another and thus the ability to care for one another. And yet, how can we expand our circles of compassion when so many of us are circling the wagons out of fear?

And I hear people saying that we must demonstrate that we still have the individual and collective ability to get things done. Here, people’s concerns are less about how big and grand the actions are than about restoring faith and confidence that we can, together, do something.

Of course, there are many pockets where good things are getting done; where effective programs are being implemented; and where people are working night and day to make a difference. For instance, just this weekend, I was struck by how well so many public officials responded to Hurricane Irene; to me, many of their actions were smart and brave and knew no partisan boundaries.

So, then, what is my concern today? It is that people are telling us something that we must hear: notions of trust, compassion, making good on promises and pledges, faith and confidence, and a sense of possibility, these are all basic human desires. They transcend who wins particular elections, the level of campaign contributions, or the amount of press a new proposal gets. The challenge is to make space for people to express these human desires; to create genuine ways for people to make them real in their lives.

So when you hear a politician give a speech, or another organization tries to ‘mobilize’ a community for action, or there’s some new civic engagement initiative, ask yourself: How does this effort reflect people’s yearning to reclaim a sense of humanity and dignity? And then ask: What am I doing in my daily life that enables someone to reclaim their sense of humanity and dignity? It is such basic, but important, tests I believe we must pass if the actions we take are to address the core of people’s concerns today.

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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.