The Whitman Institute

Blopping – Blog Hopping

By January 4, 2011

by Pia Infante January 4, 2011 It is a crisp new year, as evidenced by this first TWI blog post since April 2010. As you may guess, we at The Whitman Institute have resolved to post weekly on our blog. Ta da! I am the lucky draw for week one. As I anguished (for several…

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What's the Value in Following Rather Than Leading?

By April 2, 2010

By John Esterle How do we make following sexy? This question has stayed with me since Katherine Fulton, President of The Monitor Institute, posed it a few days ago at the Annual Meeting of Northern California Grantmakers. It probably stuck because I think it’s an important question to address if more foundations are to move…

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Sit There and Listen

By March 11, 2010

By Pia Infante Listening is such a simple act. It requires us to be present, and that takes practice, but we don’t have to do anything else. We don’t have to advise, or coach, or sound wise. We just have to be willing to sit there and listen.    (Margaret Wheatley) This quote brings to…

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Andy Goodman and Stories Vs Data

By February 25, 2010

By John Esterle Continuing the story telling theme from my last post…. Free Range Thinking is a monthly newsletter written by Andy Goodman for “public interest communicators who want to reach more people with impact.” In this December article he cites intriguing research that explores the persuasive power of stories vs data. In this contest,…

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Social Innovation and Democracy

By February 22, 2010

by John Esterle The Deliberative Democracy Consortium and The Democracy Imperative have released a thoughtful, comprehensive report on the conference they hosted in New Hampshire this past July. Having attended that gathering, I appreciate the effort to synthesize what was learned and to share some things that have happened since. It’s worth checking out. The…

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