The coverage of the oppressive conditions in the Middle East and Obama’s recent speeches about cultivating our innovation potential at home were a striking contrast. A New York Times article described Egyptian leader Mubarak’s rule saying: “His brand of despotism produced an authoritarianism that suffocated his people, a bureaucracy that corrupted the most mundane transaction… Read more
Author: btener
Where Good Ideas and Solutions Come From
Many aspects of addressing the sustainability challenge are what Ronald Heifetz, who teaches leadership at Harvard, calls “adaptive problems” as contrasted to technical problems: “There are problems that are just technical. I’m delighted when a car mechanic fixes my car, an orthopedic surgeon gives me back a healed bone, or an internist gives me penicillin… Read more
Connecting Farmers to Farmers – A World Cafe
New Directions Collaborative helped to facilitate a World Cafe dialogue at the New Entry Farmers’ Project Farmer-to-Farmer Conference. New Entry’s mission is to assist socially disadvantaged and other underserved individuals with agricultural backgrounds to successfully enter farming in Massachusetts. The theme of this one-day conference was “Fertile Ground – Connecting Farmers to Farmers to Promote… Read more
The Power of Potlucks: Place-Based Networks
One of the most inspiring speeches we heard at the Slow Money National Gathering was from Tom Stearns, President of High Mowing Organic Seeds. His company is based in Hardwick, a small town in northern Vermont, which was featured in The New York Times article entitled “Uniting Around Food to Save an Ailing Town”. Remarkably,… Read more
Networks: A Core Strategy for Sustainability
Consider these scenarios: Every hotel could adopt greener practices, such as saving water, reducing energy use, serving food from local farms in its restaurants – and many leaders already have. How do we get the rest of the hotels to learn from the leaders and adopt these innovations? Buildings are responsible for about one-third of… Read more
The Transition…Where Do You Fit?
The transition to a thriving sustainable future will require large-scale changes—and everyone has a role to play. “A leader is anyone who wants to help at this time” as the Berkana Institute defines it, which is a useful reminder that we do not need to wait for leaders “at the top.” Paul Hawken, in his… Read more
Cross-Fertilizing Conversations
This interview recently appeared in New Hampshire Business for Social Responsibility’s (NHBSR) newsletter: Today we’re talking to Beth Tener, a NHBSR member and Principal of New Directions Collaborative who will be facilitating the interactive dialogue in the afternoon of this year’s conference. Beth has over 20 years of experience in the field of socially-responsible business… Read more
Convening a Cross-Sector Network to Promote State-Wide Greenhouse Gas Emission Reductions
New Directions Collaborative is pleased to be working with the Environmental League of Massachusetts (ELM), the Barr Foundation and the Consensus Building Institute to promote robust implementation of the Massachusetts Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA). This landmark piece of legislation requires the state to develop a strategy to achieve a 10-25% reduction in greenhouse gas… Read more
Seeing with New Eyes
We are only beginning to realize the implications and potential of the internet and information technology (IT) innovations. The sooner we can “see” it, the sooner we can experiment in using and combining these tools to realize their full potential in creating a more healthy, abundant future. Within the potential of these tools could be… Read more
Boston Green & Healthy Building Network: Aligning the Work of Multiple Organizations Working on an Issue
We helped to assess and facilitate a network of about ten non-profits from the environmental and health fields and representatives of the City of Boston. The network was convened by the Barr Foundation who saw potential for the participants to work together to promote green and healthy buildings in Boston, since their goals were similar… Read more