MASS Bulletin no. 9
|
MASS Bulletin no. 9 It’s been a busy summer at MASS LBP. We presented the concluding MASS Talk in our summer series on Democracy and Journalism, made some exciting headway on the 150! Canada conference next March and started new projects in Toronto and Cobourg. And then there’s Malka Ruth — the first MASS baby, born healthy and adorable to Chris Ellis and Lea Zeltserman. So congrats and mazel tov!
Earlier this month we were retained by Northumberland Hills Hospital, located in Cobourg Ontario, to convene a special Citizens’ Advisory Panel. This fall, area residents will advise the hospital about how best to deal with a looming budget deficit. You can read about the Pane’s debut here. MASS Events Alan Webber, cofounder of Fast Company, will be in Toronto on October 13 as our guest to talk about his new book, Rules of Thumb: 52 Truths for Winning at Business Without Losing Your Self. We’re longtime fans of Alan’s approach to business and business journalism: combining a can-do love for the little guy who’s trying to make things better and a maverick’s love for shaking things up. Stay tuned for event details. Bruce Mau Designs is opening new offices at King and Spadina and we’re going to help the BMD crew to celebrate. To help warm the new digs, Bruce will be holding a conversation with our own Senior Visiting Associate, Uffe Elbaek, founder of the KaosPilot. They’re promising to cover design, sustainability and ethical business models before discussing their personal visions of positive social change. Reserve October 19, with more details to follow shortly. MASS Principal Peter MacLeod is on the move. In September, he closed out TEDxTO with a speech about Canada’s Sesquicentennial and the power of public imagination. Next, he’s off to give a talk to senior public servants from across the country on public engagement, privacy and electronic health records. Then he’s back in Toronto speaking to Ontario’s Civics Education Network on why the democratic deficit starts in our schools and why, given the chance, he’d tear down most student councils and start again. Then it’s off to Halifax where he’ll be speaking at the 4 Days Festival about democracy and design. Finally, Peter will wrap up the month at the Banff Centre with a talk about political communication and (can you guess?) public engagement. MASS Talk no. 6 The Mark, launched earlier this summer by co-founders Jeff Anders and Ali Rahnema, provides an interactive platform for Canadians with big ideas. As Himelfarb explained, “Jeff saw all these young, outstanding Canadians really engaged, really interested in politics — so he started recruiting.” The result is a growing roster of 450 contributors. Whether physicists, poets or policy-types, The Mark writers serve up a daily selection of short op-ed pieces on what’s new and important. When asked about old media’s recent blues, Himelfarb said, “If I really worried that the high-quality professional journalism that I grew up loving and made me want to join the profession was disappearing, I would certainly feel depressed and I might feel guilty. But I don’t think that’s true. I think it’s changing. There are going to be fewer journalists, but there will still be professional journalism. New technologies and old technologies coexist all the time.” We hope he’s right.
“It seems that ‘old Britain’ is forgetting its history just as ‘new Britain’ is remembering—and reinventing—its own,” writes Rose. “What is not happening, and what needs desperately to happen, is the collaborative construction of a cultural, social and political history that explains us all to ourselves.” Those who enjoyed his lecture as much as we did will also be interested in the findings of Rose’s Our Shared Europe project – an ambitious new undertaking at the British Council to exploring the roots of European culture radicalism. Maira Kalman’s beautifully illustrated New York Times monthly column And the Pursuit of Happiness about American democracy is definitely worth keeping tabs on — we eagerly await it every month. Her latest book, The Principles of Uncertainty (The Penguin Press), is nearly impossible to describe (if you don’t believe us take a look at the reviews: here and here). We think it can be described as this — simply wonderful. Fans of the early Fast Company era will want to get a copy of Alan Webber’s latest book Rules of Thumb: 52 Truths for Winning at Business Without Losing Your Self (Harper Business). Webber offers up bite-sized tips for success gleaned from the author’s 40 years of rubbing shoulders with very motivated, decorated, high-achieving people. As mentioned, MASS is hosting Alan in Toronto on October 13 so save the date! MASS Links In July, The Tyee became the first online publication to win the Edward R. Murrow Award, among the highest honours in North American journalism. David Beers, founding editor of the little-online-publication-that-could, talks about the surprising success of The Tyee, his disdain for corporate media, and the desperate need for new models and new alternatives. The notoriously dysfunctional California legislature may finally be entering its endgame. Legislators can’t negotiate a budget, provide decent schools or keep the prison population behind bars. The solution, says Repair California, an advocacy group championing reform, is something that looks a lot like a Citizen’s Assembly to rewrite the rules of governing the state. The New Yorker’s Hendrik Hertzberg says it’s about time — and the editors at the Economist agree. MASS recently crashed the American Political Science Association’s (APSA) Conference – it was 8 am and no one was looking – to meet up with Deliberative Polling guru, Stanford University’s James Fishkin. Last month Fishkin put the knife to traditional town hall meetings with a strongly worded op-ed about the health care mêlée in the New York Times. Fishkin and his team have been travelling the world working with governments (some democratic and others less so) raising the bar for public opinion researchers and bringing more credible policy advice to decision makers. We say, bring it on. U.S. President Barack Obama’s push for health care reform has rekindled the old American love affair with town halls. Check out Google Trends’ timeline for a look at the recent rise of open debate south of the border. Much as we’d like to believe IKEA, it seems that sleek and cheap cannot always go together. The company abandoned its old font, a tailored version of Futura, in favour of the mass-market Microsoft Verdana for its 2010 catalogue—which has drawn outrage from design bloggers, tweeters and typophiles the world over. Boo. Gordon Wood, professor emeritus of history at Brown University, defends his discipline to Lewis Lapham for Lapham’s Quarterly. Two of the wisest minds in America talk about humility, prudence and the tragedy of life. While the rest of us assemble our Bekväm kitchen carts, the London Borough of Barnet has been looking for other ways to get more for less. Taking inspiration from budget airlines such as Ryanair and EasyJet, the Tory-controlled constituency is remodelling its public service provision to emulate the no-frills approach of these corporations, which offer customers the bare minimum of services in exchange for a very low price. More for less? We’re not convinced. Send it to bulletin@masslbp.com |
|
|