Author Archive
More Equality, More Well-Being for All
I am a big fan of the TED.com talks about current Technology, Entertainment and Design issues emerging around the world. A month or so ago I came across a TED Talk by Richard Wilkinson, a British health economist. It is 16 amazing minutes of one chart after the next establishing the correlation between [...]
Thoughts from Day One of the American Society on Aging Conference
I have been at the American Society on Aging conference for a full day. This is a big deal with more than 5000 attendees. This is evident in the number of people in line at Starbucks in the morning, the number of options one has regarding the sessions and the opportunities to hear [...]
Community Engagement and Daniel Pink
“I am only interested in what works.” That’s what Daniel Pink says about workforce, schools, artists, everything. This author of A Whole New Mind and Drive talked to a crowd of people convened by the Patterson Foundation around their initiative on Cultural Connections with Students. The studies and the data generated through this initiative are [...]
White Privilege
This is a follow-up to the Florida Studio Theater discussion about RACE. More to come. See the FST blog site for the entire blog discussion.
Several previous blogs mention issue of power and privilege. These interconnected realities are little acknowledged and their history is little understood. Several years ago, in my role at SCOPE, [...]
I Believe
A couple weeks ago the West Coast School for Human Development chose to identify me as someone they feel has positive;ly impacted the community. I was honored and I wrote this statement in relationship to that experience.
A statement of beliefs.
I believe that one person can make a difference
And people, connected can change [...]
The play RACE at Florida Studio Theater
Not long ago I was on a panel that convened in reflection to the play RACE at the Florida Studio Theater. Here is the blog I posted about that experience. There are several that are related to this experience.
Contributing to a community discussion about a timely and relevant issue is not [...]
More Ink on Aging
Have you noticed that the media has substantially increased its attention to the demographic shift that inspires our community to pursue the creation of the Institute for the Ages? Several times a week and nearly every Sunday a national or even international twist on this global demographic phenomenon shows up. Sunday’s Sarasota Herald-Tribune [...]
Reflections on SCOPE’s Intentions
Several years ago the SCOPE board reflected on the experience of the first several years of “study groups.” There was a conscious discussion that centered on the question, “are we primarily commited to community problem solving or to community engagement?” We considered the potential for significant change – transformational change – and concluded that this [...]
Thanksgiving Landscape
I noticed that a recent Facebook post from The Patterson Foundation speaks to whether being thankful is good for you. The Cornell University website, Evidence-Based Living takes it seriously. You can find that holiday-related discussion at http://bit.ly/fu5t6a .
Here at SCOPE, we also believe that the idea of thinking about one’s community or neighborhood through [...]
Convening - Less Art than Science
Spend a couple Google-minutes and look up “convening.” After the requisite bad matches and charlatans, Google, Bing or your search engine of choice gets you to some worthwhile information. I did this recently to reassure myself of what I know to be the basics of convening, something SCOPE works hard to be good at.
First [...]