New Community Paradigms

The Integration Initiative supports cities that are harnessing existing momentum and leadership for change, overhauling long obsolete systems and fundamentally reshaping communities and policies to meet the needs of low-income residents. - See more at: http://www.livingcities.org/integration/#sthash.fTTfVwwk.dpuf

e-Deliberation™ is a collaborative platform for decision making and strategy building. It is used by teams and communities to resolve multi-stakeholder & multifaceted challenges and problems. Your team has the ideas and experience needed to solve almost any problem or challenge. The difficulty lies in making these ideas emerge and weave them into great decisions, policies, and strategies. e-Deliberation makes this easy. Use the e‑Deliberation™ online platform to support your people achieve a meeting of the minds. Way beyond just consulting people or getting feedback, this is collaborative deliberation.

In his third lecture for Saïd Business School, Clayton Christensen looks at the process of research and explores the complexities involved in developing a theory. He draws particular attention to the importance of finding anomalies in research and the potential of anomalies to shed light and give greater insight into phenomena.

Our approach to work is Appreciative and Deliberative and encourages shared learning. We provide strategic advice to our clients. Experience has taught us that we make the greatest difference in the world when we work with decision-makers to build their organisational readiness to collaborate with their stakeholders. We do this strategic work by building relationships with our clients, understanding their needs and working closely with them as they collaborate with their stakeholders to help find enduring solutions to complex dilemmas. We believe that conversations build relationships and that relationships are an essential ingredient of enduring solutions.

In the second of his lectures for Saïd Business School, Clayton Christensen gives an insight into the 'panda's thumbs' of management thinking- dated practices that hinder management decision-making and the profitability of companies. He gives the examples of managers focusing too heavily on gross margins rather than net profit and refusing to reduce their production costs as a way of avoiding disruption by smaller companies. He then gives an insight his Job to be Done theory.

In the first of his lectures for Saïd Business School, Clayton Christensen explains his theory of disruption, drawing on examples of innovations occurring in the steel industry and from leading companies such as Toyota, Sony, Walmart and Indian refrigerator manufacturer, Godrej. Christensen explores how the theory can explain why the economies of America, England and Japan have stagnated. He also uses the theory to analyse how economies in Asia have achieved prosperity and to examine why countries such as Mexico are not experiencing economic growth.

Fiscal policy can be a matter of life and death David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu "Then the president of Iceland took a radical step: asking the people what they wanted to do. In March 2010, 93% of the Icelandic people voted against financing a bailout for foreign savers of Icesave Bank through draconian budget cuts. Instead, Iceland stabilized healthcare spending. Thanks to this boost to the nation's universal healthcare system, no one lost access to healthcare even as the cost of imported medicines rose as an effect of the devaluation of the Icelandic Krona. There was no significant rise in suicides or depression. Nor were there any significant infectious disease outbreaks. Indeed, last year GDP growth was 2.7%, and unemployment rates have fallen below 5%. Having seen the results, the IMF turned tail, praising Iceland's successful approach."

"The shift in what employers think of as their role not just in the community but [relative] to their workforce is quite radical, and I think it has led to the last two jobless recoveries," said Ron Hira, an associate professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

We face an entangled communications challenge. Becoming a sustainable city is less a technological issue than one of mindset, understanding and behavioural. Too many people still believe there is no problem. How can this be overcome? Do we approach it by engendering fear, cajoling, or persuasion? By providing evidence of the threats or examples of good practices? Do we jolt people into focus by ascending graphs of problems or imagery of iconic events like Katrina or Superstorm Sandy? It is best to show how the shift is doable and already happening and that those at the forefront have a better life economically and socially. The image of the sustainable city needs to feel as emotionally satisfying as the lure of consumer culture.

In GlobalNet21 we bring people together both online and off.  We hold many meetings from those in the House of Commons to online webinars and from larger meetings and presentations to smaller study circles. We work with others to create events that people want to engage in. In creating this virtual "public square" GlobalNet21 has emerged now as a vast social networking system that brings new audiences together to discuss and seek solutions for critical issues of the day - issues that divide and threaten the stability of our society and our planet. We also create space at meeting and online for people to connect and collaborate so that they can take further action whether that is expressing their views through our networks, learning more from others or linking with others to take action in order to make a difference.

There may be something inevitable about the structural changes that have made American manufacturing less central to our economy, but there is nothing inevitable about the waste, pain and human despair in cities that have accompanied that change. There are policy alternatives that can soften such transitions in ways that preserve wealth and promote equality. Just four hours from Detroit, Pittsburgh, too, grappled with white flight. But it more rapidly shifted its economy from one dependent on steel and coal to one that emphasizes education, health care and legal and financial services.

The University of Illinois at Chicago's Institute for Policy and Civic Engagement (IPCE) is committed to transforming democracy by creating a more fully engaged community with more effective leaders. We create opportunities for scholars, concerned citizens, students, community leaders, elected officials, and the public to actively participate in social discourse, research and educational programs on policy issues and social trends.

DemocracyLab's mission is to improve the democratic process and produce collaborative solutions to public policy problems. Our vision is to help communities throughout the world engage their members to make better decisions and create positive change through collective action.

E-Democracy.org builds online public space in the heart of real democracy and community. Our mission is to harness the power of online tools to support participation in public life, strengthen communities, and build democracy. Starting with the world's first election information website in 1994 in Minnesota, today we host over 50 local Issues Forums in 17 communities across three countries - New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In addition to these "online town halls" and our "community life" forums we promote civic engagement online around the world.

Congress.gov is in an initial beta phase with plans to transform the Library of Congress's existing congressional information system into a modern, durable and user-friendly resource. Eventually, it will incorporate all of the information available on THOMAS.gov. (To compare the scope of legislative information on THOMAS.gov versus the scope of legislative information on the beta site, see Coverage Dates for Legislative Information.)

E.F. Schumacher (author of Small is Beautiful) offered timeless advice about how to boost our communities, "Perhaps we cannot raise the wind. But each of us can put up the sail, so that when the wind comes we can catch it." Here's a handy list of ways you can capture the breeze in the place you call home. And we're sure you'll discover more ideas of your own.

At The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR), we believe journalism that moves citizens to action is an essential pillar of democracy. Since 1977, CIR has relentlessly pursued and revealed injustices that otherwise would remain hidden from the public eye. Today, we're upholding this legacy and looking forward, working at the forefront of journalistic innovation to produce important stories that make a difference and engage you, our audience, across the aisle, coast to coast and worldwide.

COURSE DESCRIPTIONS Designing Change: This course extends the purview of design to the structure of society, government, education, healthcare and business. Students will be provided a thorough grounding in systems thinking and how to identify leverage points to create change. They will produce designs and models for a new product, as well as its launch and distribution in a developing country. Training will also be offered in Positive Deviance, a change model used with great success in childcare, women's issues, healthcare and corporate innovation.

Richard Saul Wurman, Radical Media, and Esri bring you the Urban Observatory-a live museum with a data pulse. You'll have access to rich datasets for cities around the world that let you simultaneously view answers to the most important questions impacting today's global cities-and you. Compare and contrast visualized information for a greater understanding of life in the 21st century.

LLGA offers you a program to inspire your city, build international recognition, gain in-depth market intelligence, learn from other leading cities and create growth opportunities for local businesses. Every year we interview 300+ cities to select the most committed partner cities for the LLGA program. By identifying opportunities for improvements early on in the process and inviting a market response, LLGA delivers an average of 10 times more intelligence on inspiring new solutions. Pilots are proven to deliver an important learning experience to city leaders and other stakeholders.