Just back from a 3-day training with The Harwood Institute’s Public Innovation Lab. http://www.theharwoodinstitute.org/be-a-public-innovator/

Key take-aways:

A community dialog on shared aspirations creates new possibilities, particularly a way to identify where small actions can begin to (re)build trust among community members.

Taking these small actions begins to allow us to tell a different story about ourselves. Imagine changing the narrative from how no one cares, to one where we talk about the good that emerged when several did care and act.

There are tools to do this and chief among them is community conversation about the things that matter to a community’s members – a dialog libraries and librarians are well placed to host.

The American Library Association is behind this program in a significant way as a means to inform the continuing evolution of libraries.

For a taste of some of the dialog to come, consider how you would respond to the four questions below. Want to be part of this discussion? Send me your email address and I’ll let you know when we schedule Community Conversations in 2014.

1. What kinds of community do you want to live in?

2. Why is that important to you?

3. How is this different from how you see things now?

4. What are some of the things that need to happen to create that kind of community?

Here’s to discovering our shared aspirations and fulfilling them together.