Akash Kapur’s New York Times article describes through his personal experiential lens, “creative destruction,” a concept Joseph Alois Schumpeter popularized in his 1942 book Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy.  Kapur describes how innovative entrepreneurial development that can sustain long-term economic growth bringing wealth to some in previously impoverished areas, simultaneously often destroys the values of a culture, fabric of a community and the natural beauty of an environment.  The July 2009 issue of the Chicago Journals Economic Development and Cultural Change’s articles address this phenomenon from different perspectives in various countries’ initiatives.  Since I’ve long supported sustainable development initiatives in the US and throughout the world, I continue to explore with all types of leaders – from local communities to national governments... more

I gave the Graduation Commencement Speaker at Southern New Hampshire University’s International Program of their Graduate School of Community Economic Development today. The students are practitioners from around the world who already have made significant contributions to development efforts in many nations. With the Masters of Science in International Community Economic Development they received at this degree ceremony, they will leverage their ability to achieve even greater accomplishments. After an excerpt of my remarks, also watch video clips of graduate speeches.  Also post your comments about successful economic development efforts, whether by corporations, governments or NGOs. Keeping with the spirit of international cooperation fostered in this graduate program, rather than choosing a single student to make commencement remarks, a group did a... more

I am honored to be one of those interviewed in the full-length documentary “Barack Obama: People’s President” that also features interviews with other media analysts, scholars, journalists and activists. In this 40-sec video excerpt from the film, I speak about the campaign’s innovative strategy of connecting on-line social networking with off-line community organizing at the local, state and national level. I am a strong advocate for people from all sectors – public and private – to utilize this type of integration to increase their ability to achieve their respective missions. DVD of the film is available at Choices.

Development does not take place in a vacuum; it is intertwined inextricably with every aspect of the comprehensive institutional integrity. The whole always is greater than the sum of the parts: leveraged synergy advances specific sub-objectives. We will explore how to create and sustain horizontal and vertical collaboration for integrated organizational leadership. With guest panelists Kofi Boateng, COO of Africa America Institute, Bill Bohnett, Board member of Synergos Institute and Kona Goulet, Devlopment Director of EnlightenNext we explore this topic in the NYU graduate course I created and teach annually. Watch two- to three-minute video clips of each and if you have interest in seeing more of the discussion contact us.

We explore the centrality of distilling, understanding, consistently adhering to and communicating your core mission in every aspect of strategic planning and project implementation. Nadine B. Hack, beCause President, has advised organizations and individuals from different sectors – business, non-profit, government – for over three decades. Regardless of what need or problem they initially ask for assistance in resolving almost always they have a more comprehensive need or larger problem than the specific issue they originally think. Most often, key stakeholders of organizations – regardless of their size, length of time in existence or level of sophisticated expertise – lack a clear jointly-shared grasp of and commitment to their core mission. Then, whenever we do a thorough analysis of drilling deep... more