Knight Foundation

Photo credit: Tom Clark. Overview: Knight Foundation hosted 100 civic innovators at a Civic Innovation in Action Studio in Miami May 12 -14 to explore ways to harness talent, advance opportunity and promote robust engagement.  Tackling the thorniest problems in the nation’s communities is difficult in any amount of time, even when you attack them with the intellectual firepower of many of the leading minds in civic innovation. But as Knight Foundation concluded its first Civic Innovation in Action Studio Wednesday, 100 leaders from a variety of fields had developed many ideas – from the general to the specific – that have the potential to grow into community experiments. RELATED LINKS "Putting ideas into action to build better cities" by Carol Coletta on KnightBlog "Learning Lab gathers ideas on promoting community engagement" by Carol Coletta on KnightBlog "Learning Lab gathers ideas on making the most of talent in our cities" by Carol Coletta on KnightBlog "Innovators develop ideas on advancing opportunity" by Michael Bolden on KnightBlog.org "Boston adopts new tools to engage residents in civic life" by Nigel Jacobs on KnightBlog "Scaling an Etsy Economy for a changing workforce" by Dana Mauriello on KnightBlog "Harriet Tregoning, identifying ideas to expand opportunities in cities" by Carol Coletta KnightBlog "Encouraging more robuts acts of citizenship" by Adam Royalty and Scott Witthoft on KnightBlog "Studio explores ideas for successful cities" by Carol Coletta on KnightBlog "Civic innovators gather in Miami to build ideas for successful cities" by Michael Bolden on KnightBlog "Innovators embrace broad themes of robust engagement" by Andrew Sherry on KnightBlog "Studio developing ideas on harnessing talent of a changing workforce" by Anusha Alikhan on KnightBlog "Studio produces trove of ideas to improve civic engagement" by Andrew Sherry on KnightBlog Carol Coletta, Knight’s vice president of community and national initiatives, convened the network of civic innovators to view local challenges through the lens of making more effective places. How could you program place, the event asked, to harness talent, advance economic opportunity and promote robust engagement? Knight Foundation President Alberto Ibargüen officially opened the studio on Tuesday morning. He urged participants to think broadly about ideas but to focus on local impact and authenticity.  Then the participants set to work sharing and developing ideas centered on the three aspects of the central question. On Wednesday Coletta told participants that Knight Foundation is “looking for new ways of working and new ways of thinking about these topics, and that to me is what you’ve provided. You’ve been hugely helpful in helping us think differently about these topics.” Coletta herself spent much of the event as one of about 35 participants in the “Advancing Opportunity” discussion, joining in the difficult work of ideating projects on how can we make our communities better. By the end of Tuesday, five teams exploring opportunity each had outlined ideas, but they delayed development of those items on Wednesday to explore how to leverage more of the expertise of innovators in the room and to discuss broader issues around economic opportunity, such as race and class, and even the definition of economic opportunity itself. “Does this group have the ability to challenge whether or not Knight should only be thinking about this exercise through the lens of [economically] integrated communities?” one participant asked, a focus defined by research gathered before the studio to give structure to the discussion. Coletta reassured the group that its wide range of experience was invaluable to Knight’s community work.  “Don’t think you have to fold yourself into some box that Knight has created,” she said. “If you think that Knight should be looking in another corner, tell me what that corner is.”  After a discussion of the framework and underlying concepts, the group moved on to discuss five ideas that reflected the diversity of the communities in which many of the innovators work, from San Francisco to Detroit to Philadelphia and Macon, Ga. The results included:

Photo credit: Tom Clark. Overview: Knight Foundation hosted 100 civic innovators at a Civic Innovation in Action Studio in Miami May 12 -14 to explore ways to harness talent, advance opportunity and promote robust engagement.  The changing face of the workforce opens new opportunities for cities. As self-employment continues to grow and traditional career norms falter there is a chance to lay a new foundation for talent to thrive. But cities need to act. That means creating a new climate for civic innovation, rooted in collaborative idea sharing and discovery. RELATED LINKS "Putting ideas into action to build better cities" by Carol Coletta on KnightBlog "Learning Lab gathers ideas on promoting community engagement" by Carol Coletta on KnightBlog "Learning Lab gathers ideas on making the most of talent in our cities" by Carol Coletta on KnightBlog "Innovators develop ideas on advancing opportunity" by Michael Bolden on KnightBlog.org "Boston adopts new tools to engage residents in civic life" by Nigel Jacobs on KnightBlog "Scaling an Etsy Economy for a changing workforce" by Dana Mauriello on KnightBlog "Harriet Tregoning, identifying ideas to expand opportunities in cities" by Carol Coletta KnightBlog "Encouraging more robuts acts of citizenship" by Adam Royalty and Scott Witthoft on KnightBlog "Studio explores ideas for successful cities" by Carol Coletta on KnightBlog "Civic innovators gather in Miami to build ideas for successful cities" by Michael Bolden on KnightBlog "Innovators embrace broad themes of robust engagement" by Andrew Sherry on KnightBlog "Studio developing ideas on harnessing talent of a changing workforce" by Anusha Alikhan on KnightBlog "Studio produces trove of ideas to improve civic engagement" by Andrew Sherry on KnightBlog "Civic Innovation in Action Studio tees up top ideas for better communities" by Michael Bolden on KnightBlog  The first day of Knight Foundation’s Civic Innovation in Action Studio on Harnessing Talent centered on team building, encouraging more than 30 participants to work in six groups to ideate and share the results. This laid the groundwork for the second day, allowing groups to develop more concrete prototypes to address a central challenge facing cities today: What are the programs, platforms and policies needed to harness talent and expand opportunity in an economy with a workforce that is increasingly fluid and independent? Justin Ferrell, Stanford d.school fellowship director and a facilitator of the Harnessing Talent design session, kicked off the day, emphasizing that the best way to prototype is to test and learn. “Today is about launching to learn, not coming up with an idea that is fully cooked,” he said. “It’s a chance to add more context and depth to your ideas.” David Janka, another facilitator from the d.school, then instructed groups to build out one or two of their top ideas from yesterday with a storyboard and begin testing. Each group member was asked to take on a role as part of the testing process: The host set the scene, actors played out the story, and observers took notes on what to improve. Groups launched into a lively mixture of role-playing and discussion, improving their ideas and joining other teams for feedback. One team built a toolkit for public libraries to engage them in supporting independent workers. The toolkit included ways for libraries to function similar to maker spaces, allowing workers to access equipment (high-speed broadband, scanners, 3-D printers, sewing machines), get help (IT, loan officer, manufacturing expert, librarian), and design their space (shared tables, couch, kitchen). It also positioned the library as an important civic institution, a place where independent employees can meet and work. A second group designed a way to get independent contractors to share best practices, which is usually difficult due to competition among contractors. The idea was to mount citywide cash-prize challenges that would unite contractors to submit proposals for a particular project, such as building a new public library. Rather than building out the project, however, the main intent of the challenge would be to connect contractors and collect best practices. In this way, the challenge would serve as a vehicle for developing more trust and collaboration between contractors, while creating new learning tools.

Photo credit: Tom Clark. Leaders in civic innovation tackled the question of how places can accelerate economic opportunity Tuesday during the first day of work of a Civic Innovation in Action Studio convened by Knight Foundation in Miami. The advancing opportunity group included about 35 thought leaders, including Carol Coletta, Knight Foundation’s vice president of community and national initiatives; architect and urbanist Andrés Duany; Gil Penalosa, executive director of 8-80 Cities; and Jonathan Sage-Martinson, director of the Central Corridor Funders Collaborative in St. Paul, Minn. RELATED LINKS "Putting ideas into action to build better cities" by Carol Coletta on KnightBlog "Learning Lab gathers ideas on promoting community engagement" by Carol Coletta on KnightBlog "Learning Lab gathers ideas on making the most of talent in our cities" by Carol Coletta on KnightBlog "Boston adopts new tools to engage residents in civic life" by Nigel Jacobs on KnightBlog "Scaling an Etsy Economy for a changing workforce" by Dana Mauriello on KnightBlog "Harriet Tregoning, identifying ideas to expand opportunities in cities" by Carol Coletta KnightBlog "Encouraging more robuts acts of citizenship" by Adam Royalty and Scott Witthoft on KnightBlog "Studio explores ideas for successful cities" by Carol Coletta on KnightBlog "Civic innovators gather in Miami to build ideas for successful cities" by Michael Bolden on KnightBlog "Innovators embrace broad themes of robust engagement" by Andrew Sherry on KnightBlog "Studio developing ideas on advancing to harness talent of a changing workforce" by Anusha Alikhan on KnightBlog Steve Babitch, associate director of IA Collaborative, and Hilary Hoeber, a design researcher and strategist, led the advancing opportunity session, which explored a series of “how might we” ideas. Before the work began, economist Joe Cortright described “the framework for the conversation” by providing details on research assembled for the studio and outlining five fundamentals for the discussion: Human capital matters. Economic mobility is strongly tied to place. Some places have much lower economic mobility. Concentrated poverty is highly persistent and is detrimental to opportunity. Bringing people of different income levels together lessens the effects of poverty. “The primary focus of this is to ... move toward the generation of new ideas and fresh thinking,” Babitch said. He urged participants to be “creative, collaborative and constructive” as they divided into five teams to ideate in three areas around additional questions:  Bridging social capital How might we design interventions to bring together communities with different economic profiles? How might we encourage the formation of networks across neighborhood borders? Within mixed-income neighborhoods? By individuals? By organizations? How might we shape networks in ways that give them great appeal? How might we design for serendipity that results in cross-pollination? How might we create routines for crossing the street?  

Photo credit: Tom Clark.   Knight Foundation President Alberto Ibargüen opened Knight’s two-day Civic Innovation in Action Studio Tuesday by reminding participants of the foundation’s roots. Jack Knight’s aspiration for newspapers he said was essentially to provide people with the means “to determine their own interests.”  RELATED LINKS "Putting ideas into action to build better cities" by Carol Coletta on KnightBlog "Learning Lab gathers ideas on promoting community engagement" by Carol Coletta on KnightBlog "Learning Lab gathers ideas on making the most of talent in our cities" by Carol Coletta on KnightBlog "Boston adopts new tools to engage residents in civic life" by Nigel Jacobs on KnightBlog "Scaling an Etsy Economy for a changing workforce" by Dana Mauriello on KnightBlog "Harriet Tregoning, identifying ideas to expand opportunities in cities" by Carol Coletta KnightBlog "Encouraging more robuts acts of citizenship" by Adam Royalty and Scott Witthoft on KnightBlog "Studio explores ideas for successful cities" by Carol Coletta on KnightBlog "Civic innovators gather in Miami to build ideas for successful cities" by Michael Bolden on KnightBlog "Innovators embrace broad themes of robust engagement" by Andrew Sherry on KnightBlog "Innovators develop ideas on advancing opportunity" by Michael Bolden on KnightBlog “This is an important thought to keep in mind as we engineer change in communities,” said Ibargüen. Perhaps the most important determinant of individual interests is the work that people do. Yet communities are increasingly faced with an outdated employment system—stacked in favor of a 9-to-5, stable, low-risk work culture—that has since been disrupted. To tackle this challenge more than 30 civic innovators came together as part of the “Harnessing Talent” discussion on day one of the studio. Participants included government officials, human resources professionals, design and co-working experts, business executives, as well as consultants and freelancers. Together they considered the demands posed by an increasingly mobile, tech-driven labor force that includes a growing number of independent workers, from self-employed tech consultants and freelancers to Lyft drivers and Esty makers crafting a new shared economy.  They explored several questions: Who is the target of a city’s economic development efforts if more than 20 percent of its workers are self-employed? What type of support do solo entrepreneurs need? How can public places and programming be used to make independent workers as productive as possible?  What are the programs, platforms and policies needed to harness talent an expand opportunity in an economy with a workforce that is increasingly fluid and independent? Using research from leading scholars as a basis, participants were led through a human-centered design workshop by a team from the Stanford d.school. To kick off the session, they shared their “homework.” Prior to the event, the leaders asked each person to engage  people at a farmer’s market or craft fair; a small music venue or community theater; or a family-owned cafe or salon. The point of the exercise, explained d.school Fellowship Director Justin Ferrell was to “get into the mindset of the people you are designing for.”

Photo credit: Tom Clark. The engagement was robust on the first day of the Civic Innovation in Action Studio on encouraging robust civic engagement; so much so that the participants reshaped the program mid-afternoon. RELATED LINKS "Putting ideas into action to build better cities" by Carol Coletta on KnightBlog "Learning Lab gathers ideas on promoting community engagement" by Carol Coletta on KnightBlog "Learning Lab gathers ideas on making the most of talent in our cities" by Carol Coletta on KnightBlog "Boston adopts new tools to engage residents in civic life" by Nigel Jacobs on KnightBlog "Scaling an Etsy Economy for a changing workforce" by Dana Mauriello on KnightBlog "Harriet Tregoning, identifying ideas to expand opportunities in cities" by Carol Coletta KnightBlog "Encouraging more robuts acts of citizenship" by Adam Royalty and Scott Witthoft on KnightBlog "Studio explores ideas for successful cities" by Carol Coletta on KnightBlog "Civic innovators gather in Miami to build ideas for successful cities" by Michael Bolden on KnightBlog "Studio developing ideas on advancing to harness talent of a changing workforce" by Anusha Alikhan on KnightBlog It was the kind of engagement that many of the participants – leaders from city government, academia, community development, polling firms and more – would have liked to see more of in their home constituencies. During morning small-group sessions, the challenge of engaging a diverse cross-section of their communities in activities from city planning to education to voting emerged repeatedly. The facilitators, from Stanford University’s d.school, encouraged them to design approaches that were small-scale and tangible to start engagement and build momentum. As they covered worksheets and Post-it notes trickled down whiteboards, no magic bullet for engaging the disengaged emerged, but some strong programmatic ideas did. Some of the most concrete involved community-institution connections, such as using a university to scale local ideas, reinforced by civic classes in vacant lots and community centers, and university classrooms turned over to non-traditional students from the community. Similarly, an idea explored using hospital space for physical fitness and healthy food. An elegant, if still abstract idea, involved the creation of a “civic method” that could be taught to children just like the scientific method, so they could get into the habit of positively affecting their communities early. By mid-afternoon, however, the participants made clear that they felt they could add the most value by jumping straight to the broader themes around robust engagement. They convinced the facilitators to drop the focus on individual projects, and rearranged their chairs in new groups. Knight’s VP for community and national initiatives, Carol Coletta, embraced this design-style iteration, and reaffirmed that the goal of the track was to produce ideas, innovations or experiments aimed to make engagement “general.”

Photo credit: Tom Clark. One hundred civic innovators are in Miami through Wednesday examining how to make better cities by exploring ways places can harness talent, advance opportunity and promote robust engagement. RELATED LINKS "Putting ideas into action to build better cities" by Carol Coletta on KnightBlog "Learning Lab gathers ideas on promoting community engagement" by Carol Coletta on KnightBlog "Learning Lab gathers ideas on making the most of talent in our cities" by Carol Coletta on KnightBlog "Boston adopts new tools to engage residents in civic life" by Nigel Jacobs on KnightBlog "Scaling an Etsy Economy for a changing workforce" by Dana Mauriello on KnightBlog "Harriet Tregoning, identifying ideas to expand opportunities in cities" by Carol Coletta KnightBlog "Encouraging more robuts acts of citizenship" by Adam Royalty and Scott Witthoft on KnightBlog "Studio explores ideas for successful cities" by Carol Coletta on KnightBlog "Innovators embrace broad themes of robust engagement" by Andrew Sherry on KnightBlog Knight Foundation President and CEO Alberto Ibargüen opened the Civic Innovation in Action Studio by acknowledging the “synergy and intellectual energy” that the gathering represented as leaders from multiple fields – from government to the arts to business – assembled “to put things together in some sort of coherence and give people direction.” Ibargüen said the goal of the studio “is not to come away with prescriptions but to exchange ideas and suggest ways of thinking.” Author and TV host Steven Johnson delivered a keynote, emphasizing the importance of places in stimulating ideas that move cities and sectors forward. Johnson will develop an innovation hub with the support of Knight Foundation that will focus on making cities better in tandem with his new PBS show, “How We Got to Now,” which debuts in October.   “On some level every good new idea is a network of ideas,” Johnson said. He said the studio, which began Monday night with a reception and lasts through Wednesday, is “structured so serendipitous collisions can occur.” The event drew everyone from former Miami mayor Manny Diaz to Molly Turner, director of public policy for AirBnB, to artist Hunter Franks and Deborah Marton, executive director of the New York Restoration Project.