Category Archives: Community

Political Bites : Are Rising Tuition Costs Making You Change College Plans?

Are increasing tuition costs making you rethink college plans for yourself or your children?
The combination of escalating costs and 20th century learning models have begun to make attending post secondary institutions less appealing for most potential students. Students are leaving [...]

Posted in AZ, Education, Political Bites | 1 Comment

When It Comes to Community Building, It is the Small Things

I alternate between listening to podcasts and audiobooks on my travels around Arizona in the car (and RV).  I find myself regularly adding new podcasts and removing existing podcasts.  My five favorite current podcasts are HBR Ideacast, Story Tellers AZ, [...]

Posted in AZ, Personal | Comments Off

10 Steps for Planning a Great Event

The most difficult part about planning an event is knowing where to start. At Gangplank, we plan a lot of events. We have created a simple process that allows us to jump right into planning.

We assemble those involved in the [...]

Posted in Community, Gangplank, Productivity | 1 Comment

Unlock Your Inner Creator. Make Something Today.

We are wired to create. It is in our DNA. We have it systematically beaten out of us on a regular basis. We are told we aren’t good enough to try things. We lose our curiousity and our ability experiment [...]

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Chandler Center for the Arts.. A Place to Arrive

Recently, I was asked to sit in on a visioning session for the Chandler Center for the Arts (CCA). The report from those meetings has been published. You can find it here.

CCA should be applauded for not resting on it’s [...]

Posted in Chandler, Creativity | Comments Off

You Can Influence the World

I have been thinking a lot about the crappy leadership in the state of Arizona (and around the globe).  One thing that is painfully obvious to me is that most leaders have lost the ability to believe.  They no longer [...]

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Political Bites : Tempe Street Car Proposal

Is Tempe’s modern streetcar the best use of limited transit dollars? Why or why not?
No. We need more regional connectivity. We need to be connecting cities in ways that have fewer stops and run with higher frequency. Bus Rapid Transit [...]

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Political Bites : Raze Foreclosed Homes

Would razing foreclosed homes or forgiving underwater mortgages help the local housing market?
Razing makes sense if the home has become serious blight. In cases, where the structure is still in tact, but vacant it probably makes sense to repurpose them. [...]

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Supporting Arts and Culture is Fundamental to Place Making

Culture is paramount for the future of humanity. The presence of strong art and culture in a community serves as an inspiration to strive beyond ones self. It pulls us out of our own head and opens up new doors [...]

Posted in Community, Creativity, Education | 3 Comments

Three Keys to Building Great Cities

I have been trying to study great cities. Looking for the catalyst that propelled them to forward. The harder I look the more I am convinced that like nearly all great things there isn’t some panacea that exists to make [...]

Posted in Community | 5 Comments