Audio from August Confab Call with Rich Harwood
We had a great confab call on Wednesday (August 7, 2013) with special guest Rich Harwood of The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation. The call was facilitated skillfully by Marla Crockett, NCDD’s Board chair and a close colleague of Rich’s.
Earlier this year, Rich was asked to facilitate a series of meetings in Newtown, CT to help the grieving city decide what to do with Sandy Hook Elementary School, site of the horrific mass murder of children and school personnel last December. We asked Rich to talk to NCDD members about his work in Newtown, and the broader work he and his colleagues are doing at the highly regarded Harwood Institute.
Use the links below to listen to the audio recording of the call and check out other call-related material.
- Listen to the Confab Call audio.
- Check out the Confab Call’s Collaborative Hackpad doc.
- Learn more about the Newtown, CT program.
- Read Rich’s latest book The Work of Hope (the digital version is free!).
- Check out Rich’s 6-minute Community Rhythms video on YouTube.
We had over 120 participants this week, with about half active the call’s collaborative doc at Hackpad.com, where they took great notes, introduced themselves, posed questions and shared links. One of our participants even mind-mapped the confab conversation, and that link is on the Hackpad as well!
Through community conversations, constant innovation, and nationwide research, The Harwood Institute has developed an approach that’s helped cities, organizations, and individuals “Turn Outward” and build on public aspirations to get things done for the common good. Rich has worked in struggling communities such as Newark, Detroit, and Flint, Michigan and has created a group of “Beacon Communities” to develop a critical mass of public innovators. He’s partnered with influential organizations like United Way Worldwide, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the American Library Association in order to enhance their relevance and impact in the communities they serve.
His latest book, The Work of Hope, asserts that fixing our politics shouldn’t be our top priority. “The central task in our society is to restore belief in ourselves and one another that we can get things done, together.” It was that philosophy which guided Rich’s work in Newtown and brought about an emotional, yet harmonious, decision.
