Preamble: Invigorating Communities Through Democracy

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Cool Colors Blending

Image © Alice Merkel on Flickr 

Preamble: Invigorating Communities Through Democracy was written in 2008 by Gloria Ferris, I-Open and Blogger from Northeast Ohio.

Gloria describes the possibilities that open up when citizens and government leaders work together in new and different ways.

Preamble: Invigorating Communities Through Democracy

Innovation and Entrepreneurial Networks: REI.Tuesdays, a Platform for Civic Engagement

REI.Tuesdays

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2003 - 2005 REI.Tuesdays.-- weekly civic forums convened by the Center for Regional Economic Issues (REI) at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio engaged over 3,000 civic, business, government, and academic leaders from across 23 Northeast Ohio counties.

REI.Tuesdays civic forum conversations (Slide #2 above) address enterprise opportunity through the lens of the Innovation Framework - a heuristic model of investment in Open Source Economic Development (Slide #3).

The conversation matrix (Slide #4) provides an information infrastructure to underpin strategic scheduling and project presentation in the entrepreneurial community. Civic forums also introduce Strategic Doing - a simple, yet disciplined process to quickly move ideas to action (Slide #5) - and offer feedback loops for project work continuing outside of the regular forum schedule.

REI.Tuesdays is an example of how the civic forum process builds open economic networks for innovation to flourish and generates transformative enterprise for regional business development, human and organizational capacity building (Slide #6).

In terms of a model, REI.Tuesdays

  • Was funded by the telecommunications industry, SBC Global Ameritech
  • Supported by the Center for Regional Economic Issues, Case Western Reserve University, and 3000 Northeast Ohio business, government, academic, and civic entrepreneurs
  • Delivered social capital, web 2.0 platforms, local and global industry networks, generations of learning communties, and transformative industry clusters, and
  • Serves as a model for other forums, such as Fridays@The Corridor, Charleston Technology Corridor, Charleston, South Carolina and Thursdays at the House, Indiana Humanities Council, in Indianaoplois, Indiana.

The I-Open Civic Forum process is a successful approach to connect regional research and industry innovation for enterprise development in Open Source Economic Development.

Betsey Merkel, Co-Founder & Director of I-Open, is designer of the I-Open Civic Forum process.

References:

 

Transforming the University's Role in Regional Engagement

Ed Morrison, Economic Policy Advisor, Purdue Center for Regional Development, and I-Open Co-Founder, outlines how collaborations between universities accelerate regional economic transformation. 

The presentation points to a new model developed by Purdue University, Penn State University, and the University of Akron to create a network of practitioners focused on advancing regional transformation. This important multi-university collaboration is an example for leaders to replicate, connecting knowledge and place-based legacy assets to economic development. 

Ed developed Strategic Doing - a simple, yet disciplined process to foward ideas to action quickly - with the I-Open team while working at the Center for Regional Economic Issues, Case Western Reserve University 2003-2005, and has continued to apply the process to advance innovation in regional networks. 

The I-Open Civic Forum process, also developed at that time, builds the open, neutral spaces and sophisticated communications introducing Strategic Doing to business, government, and academic leaders accelerating transformational initiatives and projects.

Strategic Doing has been adopted by the U.S. Department of Labor and many other large funded organizations, government, and academic entities to advance national economic prosperity in regions.

You can learn more about Strategic Doing at I-Open on Scribd.

Learn how Civic Forums and Strategic Doing intrinsically generate economic prosperity in the paper, I-Open Civic Forums Strengthen Entrepreneurship and Business Development in Network Economies. 


Building a COINs Strategy for Education, Economic, and Workforce Development

Collaborate: Leading Regional Innovation Clusters - A Report from the Council on Competitiveness, identifies three important components of 21st Century innovation based prosperity:

  1. Conversations 
  2. Collaboration
  3. Capacity

The Swarm Creativity Framework (below) is a tool to guide education, economic, and workforce development strategy for competitive regional advantage.

Swarm_creativity_framework

Taken together, the Council's directives, the Framework, and "Strategic Doing" - a simple process developed in I-Open to move ideas to action quickly (below), enable every community to build a COINs-collaborative innovation network strategy for creative, thriving local economies.

Strategic_doing

From the perspective of the Collective Intelligence Genome introduced at the COINs 2009 Opening Keynote by Dr. Thomas W. Malone, MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, this outlines the What, Why, and How - the Who, is all of us!

You can learn more about the Center's work at http://cci.mit.edu/index.html

I-Open is a co-sponsor of the COINs 2010 Conference.

COINs2010: Conversations in Collaboration









 


  

 

The 2nd Annual International COINs2010 Conference  is coming to Savannah, Ga, USA  | October 7-9

REGISTER ONLINE at COINs2010.com

Registration rate is $180 (US Dollars) and includes pre-conference full day Coolhunting Workshop and Condor 3 month-trial.

 

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Jesse Dylan, CEO and Creative Director, Freeform

Sandy Pentland, Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

 

Richard Buchanan, Professor, Case Western Reserve University


REGISTER FOR WORKSHOPS

Networking 101 | Collaborative Change | Bodystorming | Coolfarming | Service Design | Virtual Global Teaming

 

BOOK ACCOMMODATIONS

Special Conference Rates are available through the COINs2010 Conference Website.

 

This is a DESIGN ETHOS Intersection Event

 

 

 

Join us for COINs 2010 Oct 7-9 in Savannah, Georgia!

I-Open is a proud co-sponsor of the COINs 2010 Conference, connecting research and industry leaders to advance the emerging science of collaboration.

Keynote speakers and paper presentations will be streamed live featuring cutting edge research in science, design, and technology with an emphasis on creativity, government, health care, energy, education, government, and transportation.

Workshops focus on practices in collaboration, open platforms, and team building - all immediately applicable skills for leaders in education, economic, and workforce development.

Register for

  • social network practice, projects, and tool proficiency
  • collaboration skills
  • service design thinking
  • collective action and social change
  • collaborative global teaming
  • strengthening habits of idea creation

In addition, COINs 2010 Conference is cross collaborating with the Design Ethos Conference (program) resulting in a serendipitous gathering of global minds in filmmaking, technology, design, and sustainability.

Check in now to the COINs 2010 Conference site - an online destination designed by SCAD designer, Amit Bapat - to explore and connect your social networks into a deeper, wider, global COINs2010.

Get started and become more creative at COINs 2010!

Conference information and online registration is here.

Begin reading COINs 2010 Abstracts at Swarm Creativity on Scribd.

Learn more about Design Engineer, Amit Bapat's BioSand Filter Project, here.

 


Super Science Initiative: New Frontiers for Collaboration

Check out this website I found at innovation.gov.au

Australia and Ireland are investing in innovation and economic development based in universities focused on space and astronomy, marine and climate, and future industries.

These two forward thinking countries understand the direct connection between innovation, education, and economic development.

Beyond this, every country and region investing funds in innovation will need to invest as well in new habits of communication and collaboration.

One approach - COINs-collaborative innovation networks - is driven by swarm creativity and accelerates the formation of entrepreneurial cultures.

You can learn more about swarm creativity and COINs in this video interview with MIT research scientist, Peter Gloor. Additional resources are available here.

Get started by registering for the COINs2010 Conference and connect to this knowledge community exploring the emerging science of collaboration.

 

What's the value of one white paper?

Yesterday I received an unexpected e-mail greeting from a government IT leader based in Australia. While researching the Internet to lead a group of colleagues in a strategic project planning initiative, he came across the attached COINs 2009 conference presentation and offered these comments:

In "COINS: An economic development tool for education, economic and workforce development in Open Source Economic Development" the concepts are beautiful; if my workplace engaged in just 20% of them we would double communications engagement subsequently boosting productivity. Thank you for your paper Betsey, I am very pleased you wrote it."

Stories like these attest to why sharing on the web is a good idea. You can never know who or when the information you've shared will be useful. In networks, shared information has reciprocal value for anyone with initiative.

Serendipitous connections often begin with an element of collaborative leadership. For example, had it not been suggested to me to consider submitting a paper in 2009, I'm not sure I would have.

COINs 2010 conference brings a second year of sharing insights and innovations into the workings of creativity and collaboration. I hope you will join us for new conversations in Savannah and on the web - and definitely consider submitting a paper in 2011! 

Who knows what opportunity will bump into you?

- Betsey Merkel, I-Open

Learn more about COINs 2010 Conference here.

Newsletter: COINs2010 Conference welcomes you!

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This is the first COINs 2010 Conference newsletter!

I-Open is a proud co-sponsor of the collaborative innovation networks COINs 2010 Conference, Oct 7-9 hosted by Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD), Savannah, Georgia.

COINs 2010 is an example of research and industry leaders collaborating for a purpose greater than any single entity. In this case, it is to explore and share insights into the emerging science of collaboration.

Good collaboration skill are the key to building strategic networks to advance innovation in education, economic, and workforce development.

Are you associated with a university or business? How do you collaborate and for what purpose? Add your comments and stories here!

Let us know what you think of the Newsletter. We'd like to hear from you!

Invaluable Civic Conversation: Looking into the Health of Place

In 2004 the City of Glasgow and partners undertook a series of Civic Conversations to address health challenges for the city's population. This report is part of the very creative results - including yesterday's post of the film, "Miniature Glasgow" - to gather and create deeper meaning about a city, the place, and habits of people related to health care.

From partner International Futures Forum archive:

The first seminar series began in November 2004 with a lecture and seminar by the British philosopher Anthony Grayling on Imagining the Perfect Polis. In December Alistair Lawrence led a seminar entitled Animal Farm on what we might learn from studies of farmyard animal behaviour. Sholom Glouberman from Toronto spoke on order/disorder, the environment, identity and health; the transformation in the prospects of place were introduced by Denys Candy from Pittsburgh; happiness by Richard Layard of London; and the psychology of transformation by IFF Member Maureen O’Hara from San Francisco. The first series concluded in May 2005. It provided rich content for a first meeting of Glasgow’s Healthier Future forum in June 2005. Since then there have been two subsequent series and four further healthier future forums. The fourth series was completed in the spring of 2008. A fifth series commenced on Nov 25 2008 and will run to May 2009.

The Report is a rich assembly of reflections and replicable methodologies. Here is a list of milestones discovered through the conversations:

• Rather than asking what is wrong, ask what is missing? When facing current difficulties, plans, ideas and actions, our critique often starts by asking what is wrong. This can quickly turn into negativity and guardedness as people seek to defend their own ideas, plans and actions and attack those of others.  Asking what is missing from a situation which is giving rise to difficulty, or what is missing from a plan, idea or action is more generative 
Be willing and able to hold several perspectives simultaneously and create something new from them which does not currently exist. The holding of different perspectives for as long as possible helps to ensure solutions have incorporated concerns and hopes of multiple perspectives
Make room for dreams. This suggestion came from young people in the Civic Conversation. It has become a platitude to note that young people are the future and this is often given as a vague, if undeniable, justification for involving them. If we understand young people’s dreams and aspirations as third horizon aspirations then we begin to recognise dream and dreamer as potential sources of resilience in the City.  Consequently, engagement is less likely to appear superficial and tokenistic 
Ask ‘is what is proposed a sustaining or transformative innovation?’ In times of relative calm and stability, this is not really a concern. In such times, the world changes slowly, in predictable ways and our ways of taking coherent action work well. In times of rapid change and uncertain development, this is not so straightforward. Sustaining innovation may well be necessary to mitigate decline, but without the realisation of transformative potential it simply prolongs decline.
• Ask ‘what horizon am I operating in?’ ‘How does it relate to other horizons?’ ‘Are all horizons covered?’ ‘What can I do to improve relationships among these different horizons?’    

If the Glasgow Civic Conversations were replicated in your town or city, what could you learn about the health care landscape and solutions?

 You can learn more at IFF.

 

 

Seeking the Medici Effect: Design Ethos 2010 and COINs 2010 Conferences

ETHICOINOS


Two conferences in the same town at the same time with opportunities to create meaningful intersections between them: COINS and ETHOS evolved as unique gatherings that bumped into each other, and now we've made it easy for attendants of each conference to bump into one another. What does this mean? We've coordinated the schedules so that individuals from one conference can attend the keynote speakers from the other conference without paying extra cost, and without having to miss anything from their own conference. What else does it mean? Some of our networking events will have overlaps so that attendees from one conference can mingle with attendees from the other.

 

Learn how creating instances of serendipity, exploring intersections, and innovation connect in the Medici Effect - described in this introduction, "Where groundbreaking ideas come from."

Be sure to check out the COINs 2010 Conference web site - an online destination gathering, connecting, and collaborating at the intersections of science, design, and technology.

 Things to do next:

I-Open is a co-sponsor of the collaborative innovation networks COINs 2010 Conference. Join us to learn about the emerging Science of Collaboration.