I find that I want to contribute to this opportunity for real change in America, to help move us to a 21st century economy and culture. But I worry that the window of opportunity is small, and I am a busy person. Yet, I know that the die will be cast by January 2010, so there is little time to lose.
Hopefully, those of us with more ideas than time will visit this blog and contribute to this think tank. Email me and I will add you as a blogger here.
First, the Obama administration offers you a place to share your vision with them. I love this idea, although I felt a tiny flutter of worry at registering my email address with a .gov, the US government. Big brother a bit too close for comfort to my political beliefs.
This opens an interesting Think Tank question. Should efforts to organize for change come from within the government, where resides power but also bureaucracy and some other nasty stuff? Or through non-government affiliated organizations, which have less leverage but offer citizens freedom to shape the agenda?
Opting for freedom for the moment, here is my idea:
Suppose there was a website - Changeagent2009.org - that represents a grass-roots movement of volunteer change agents across the US. Members of the Change Agent community, small groups of local and national volunteers come to the website to originate and coordinate their volunteer efforts. Their projects are keyed to public participation in the new administration’s Policy Agenda , supporting efforts on energy, environment, diplomacy and more.
At Change Agent, users scan the projects they could volunteer for, easily sign up for local and national actions, and then take part in an amazing experience: creating positive change. At Change Agent you can twitter during your volunteer experience, shoot stills and video, then upload your version of events. You can elect the best videos to air on the Link TV series, Change Agent. Or generate your own ideas and easily gather up your own crew to take action with.
EM
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This is a great idea. Need to keep the momentum going....Sign me up as a Change Agent 09 volunteer!
ReplyDeleteI think that helping to promote change is something that we are all eager to do and that the idea of postings will only entice more and more to participate. I, for one, am very interested.
ReplyDeleteThe question I have is -- do we create yet another resource or use what we have already created. For example Idealist.org has initiated this similar "volunteer for change" idea more broadly (global and not agenda specific) with less success twice over the last five years although it might have been the mandate that was the issue. Still he has the content, online infrastructure and constituency if you are looking at this from a nonprofit perspective... Then there is VolunteerMatch.org where this also might find a home.... or at least a cooperative ear...
ReplyDeleteAccording to Ray Magliozzi, this is surefire for assistance:
ReplyDeleteI am in trouble and I need your help.
Ok, *I'm* not in trouble, but our country is. And I really do need your help.
I have both a really good idea and twenty years of the experience needed to pull it off. I lack connection to the right people in the new administration.
This is where you come in: help take me from six degrees of separation to two or one.
Here's the idea: Couple Toyota Way enterprise practices and culture content with 21st-century learning system technology - all open source - and use them to create 21st-century green energy equipment manufacturers and to transform 20th-century Fordist manufacturers in the U.S.
Last spring Barack Obama promised to double funding of the Manufacturing Extension Partnerships to $200m per year (the Bush Administration has tried to zero-out the MEP budget for eight years). The MEPs would be a great vehicle to develop and deploy such a learning system.
Someone, possibly Bracken Hendricks at the Center for American Progress, prepared Obama to make that pledge. Does anyone know how to get to Bracken? Do you know anyone who might know someone who might know someone who ...?
Bracken also co-wrote a 2008 book called _Apollo's_Fire_ with Congressman Jay Inslee. Their main ideas is that we need a Kennedy-style Moon Program for alternative energy. Can anyone get me to Jay Inslee? Know anyone who might know, etc.?
Can you think of another avenue, one in which you have connection?
Thanks,
Jeff
I have an idea for the Change Agent Think Tank and would like help researching it: INDIVIDUAL ACTION TO HELP U.S. NEIGHBORHOODS RAVAGED BY HOME FORECLOSURES.
ReplyDeleteWhat can be done to help those communities where the mortgage defaults are the highest and foreclosues are threatening whole neighborhoods? People have to move out, homes sit abandoned and are not maintained, the other property values in the neighborhood start to fall. Its a downward spiral.
Cities like Detroit, Las Vegas and Stockton CA are the hardest hit - but there must be pockets of foreclosure blight developing in communities across the country. The local banks wont help and looks like the government won't bail out Main Street.
What if there was a volunteer movement to help people in these communities? What if there was a program of micro-loans where we could each help chip in to give a struggling single mother a chance to pay the mortgage for a couple months -- like the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh or the on-line site Kiva.org that help entrepreneurs in the developing country? Or maybe an organized movement to pressure the banks to restructure mortgages in a critical neighborhood? Even a symbolic victory , promoted on TV and the web could create a success story to encourage more to get involved.
Is this a crazy idea?!? Do we have to let Freddie Mac and the banks solve this problem, or is these something we citizens can do using all the momentum from the election. (Its also in our own self interest since we now see how these loan defaults multiplied together have led to the global financial meltdown!)
Your suggestions/comments appreciated....
Kim