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Moving Closer to Defining San Diego Civic Solutions
By
Sanford Goodkin
February 25, 2004
Dear
Friends
In
the new book "How to Change the World; Social Entrepreneurs
and the Power of New Ideas (Oxford Unv Press), David
Bornstein makes some wonderful observations:"An
idea will not move from the fringes to the mainstream
simply because it is good; it must be skillfully marketed
before it will actually shift peoples' perceptions and
behavior..an obsessive individual is needed to build
a coalition on a shoestring budget and to translate
an idea into action." I believe that we can become
a collection of "obsessive individuals", who
form a powerful community of interests.
The feeling is that, at the beginning, there should
be a beginning--whether a fairy tale or an idea, or
a need being determined or a solution being pursued..
civicsolution.org is beginning an exploration of ideas
and needs--perhaps an eventual prioritization--so that
focus can become a laser-beamed at possible solutions.
We do not wish to be a board of elected politicians
who worry about re-election for then we will not take
risks and risk taking is necessary to locate, calibrate
and recommend solutions.
We have purposely populated this board with people who
have studied problems and solutions for years. Our goal
is to free these solutions so that they become visible
and possible. This means that we will build a constituency
of leaders who mean to find and implement solutions.
However, I have always been a person who looks outside-the-box
for ideas and solutions. I have worked with the some
of the most successful billionaires and innovators in
the world; I have also studied their trials and tribulations,
their biographies--especially the auto-biographies of
the thinkers and doers. I have taught ethical leadership
for a long time and have loved the mentoring of good
men and women who have hungered for human encouragement
,some of whom are your companions on this board.
This is why I want you to pull out all the stops in
your thinking about what you wish us to explore and
for which we can find solutions. Please invest some
of your time to do this. It is much more important for
us to explore, rather than fix an agenda, for we want
nothing frozen at this early time. We wish to be difference-makers,
tomorrow-makers, solution-finders. This can be the most
exciting exploration in which you've engaged ever or
in a long time--with people who collectively wish to
combine their strengths and talents to make certain
this happens.
Therefore I am asking that we continue to explore and
express ourselves and gather trust in each other, so
that we can build an infrastructure of trust, for a
foundation of action which will transcend our frustrations,
our failures, our busy-times. We mean to be unique.
sandy
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