Yearly Archives: 2015

Without a Vision People Perish; Without a Vehicle Vision Languishes

Vickie and I had a short essay about vision rejected recently. It took us a while to understand why. They wanted vision as ‘content.’  We imagined vision as ‘vehicle.’ Vickie and I agree about the importance of describing the details … Read More

Play the Field with Concepts but Stay Faithful to Your Ethics

By all means get to know the latest concept. Date it for a while. Allow yourself to become infatuated with its appearance of perfect possibility.  I do! But don’t get too enraptured. Another concept is just around the corner. If … Read More

A River Runs Through John

I wrote the following review of a new book by a new friend, Cormac Russell, about an old friend, John McKnight. For those who don’t know John, he is the man who taught community organizing to Obama. And helped get … Read More

What Colour is Your Flag?

Mine is monotone peppery. There it is. High on that mountain top. Not that one. Or that one. Not that one either. Those flags belong to  people who are a little naïve about social change. They tend to compromise easily. … Read More

Whole Systems Change is not a Rubik’s Cube

If you are inside the social innovation world you know everybody’s talking about whole systems change, If you are not, get ready. It’s bound to seep into more and more public discussions. That’s a good thing as long as we … Read More

Like Shining from Shook Foil

The title above is borrowed from a favourite poem, God’s Grandeur by Gerard Manley Hopkins. July 28 is his birthday and I couldn’t resist the occasion. The poem begins: The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will … Read More

Which comes first transforming the banking system or government?

There is a lot of activity in the social and philanthropic sector to attract investment from banks. This pursuit is a component of what is generally referred to as social finance. Impact investment is another popular description. Many see it as … Read More

Richard Steckel – the playful Social Entrepreneur

Social movements have many parents and the social enterprise movement is no exception.  The first social entrepreneur in Canada for example dates back to Mother D’Youville in the early 1700’s. The current manifestation of social enterprise is often attributed to … Read More

Reading a Case of Canada

I could read a case of Canadian books and still be on my feet. The following books nurtured my understanding of this great, big, diverse, ornery, multi- textured land. Here they are from east to west. Guaranteed to hit ‘terroir’ … Read More

Slow Change

Despite the urgency, lasting change takes much longer than we appreciate. Darn. One way to counteract our impatience is to shift from ‘chronos’ to ‘kairos’ time. Chronos time is sequential time, measured by the clock and which seems to be … Read More