Thinking out loud
I don't remember exactly when I first read Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. But it must have been in high school (1972 or '73), probably during my days as a budding young journalist and editor of my high school newspaper. That was when I first started
Thinking out loud
A few notes and quotes from recent readings and research. The thread here is the power - and necessity - of connectedness. Environmental justice pioneer Hazel Johnson The arc of the story of environmental justice pioneer Hazel Johnson is instructive. As is the maturity of the organization she founded in 1979 - People
Thinking out loud
I just returned from a 10 day trip, with my wife Jamie, along the coast of Maine. Our first visit to the state. In the final days of our stay I remarked that every Mainer we encountered just seemed so...nice. "I think they're just happy,"
Thinking out loud
I've been thinking about a post that I wrote earlier this year: What if everybody’s job is to do repair? It's on my mind after several meetings with folks in my network and running across some new readings. It all points toward the lesson of
Thinking out loud
A couple of recent conversations about climate change and green energy efforts led to the topic of capacity. People capacity, not green energy capacity. People capacity to learn, and then to do. How might we build the capacity to learn and do things (differently) that move us forward to address
Thinking out loud
What gets lost in my weekly thinking-out-loud routine here is the through-line of activity generated by Environmental Justice Evanston (EJE), the group with which I became associated earlier this year. A lot is happening behind the scenes and I want to honor that work. For what it
Community listening
That question was one of my notes in reading Peter Block's Activating the Common Good - Reclaiming Control of our Collective Well-being. This was a weirdly serendipitous read, recommended by a friend and occasional colleague with whom I share professional interests in learning and change. (More on the
Thinking out loud
It's the 4th of July here in the U.S. We gather with family and friends to celebrate and attend events that show off our patriotism. Yes to the family and friends gatherings (my kids and grandkids are still in town with us, and it's been
Thinking out loud
The discipline known as knowledge management is one of the through-lines of my career. A common scenario when you work in this discipline is helping folks think through how they deal with the loss of deep expertise as people leave the workforce or transition out of active service. I
Thinking out loud
I've been (slowly) hacking away at a longer essay to summarize how I came to think about learning and communities. It's challenging. Like herding concept cats. When I write things like this, I start by trying to find key ideas or concepts that come to represent
Thinking out loud
"It's exhausting." That comment is stuck in my head. It came at the end of an email exchange with a leader of Environmental Justice Evanston (EJE), an elder, and veteran activist and community organizer. The exchange was about implementing progressive changes that come out of large-
Thinking out loud
A few notes and observations from recent events and activity. Pausing the 100 Evanston Stories project I'm putting the 100 Evanston Stories: Navigating Trumpism project on pause. What I learned (once again) is that folks find it challenging to tell a story about their lives. I heard "