The extremes have defined us for too long We live in a nation where public discourse is increasingly strident and whose loudest voices are typically at the extremes. Yet we are by nature a more moderate nation, and it’s time to reclaim the middle ground. The middle ground is too often dismissed as unremarkable, when […]

The stock market is at record-setting highs. Graduation rates are soaring. The unemployment rate is low. Advancing technology makes it easy for us to have a face-to-face conversation with someone across the globe, ask Alexa what the capitol of Vermont is, or to order a pizza without talking to anyone. So, why don’t we feel […]

2X Immigrant entrepreneurs are twice as likely to start businesses as native-born Americans. 50%+ More than half of America’s billion-dollar startups have an immigrant co-founder. 16% of the total U.S. college-educated population was foreign-born. Now, let’s imagine a future where cities build economies infused with entrepreneurship and purposeful, supportive inclusion; with a new business on […]

An uncommon approach to finding common ground Let’s face it, groupthink needs a serious public relations makeover. After all, it’s been blamed for everything from the mass resignation of major league baseball umpires in 1999 and the abuse scandal at Penn State, to the Bay of Pigs Invasion and the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Even […]

The economic shifts of the past 50 years hit America’s industrial capitals like a blow to the head. Entrepreneurial activity slipped into generational decline. But, in the last three years, we’ve seen startup activity pull itself up to levels unseen since before the Recession that had the American economy on the ropes. So, are post-industrial cities ready […]

The clock is ticking for Generation A–children born today into an education sector that struggles to prepare all students for education, work, and life after high school. How can we fix the system as it exists right now, let alone make changes to address the uncertain future of the next two decades? 35% of students […]

Angelica Castillo Chappel sees the Somali refugees rely on their children for translation, just as she and her siblings did for her parents. Many work at the Tyson plant, just as her parents did—one worked the day shift, the other the night shift. “There’s a whole lot who started with $100 in their pocket,” Castillo […]

Davyeon Ross remembers the mix of excitement and fear he and his parents felt when the opportunity to leave the West Indies island of Trinidad and Tobago for college became reality. Ross was offered a basketball scholarship to Benedictine College in the small town of Atchison, Kansas. But it’s hard to know all the ways you’ll succeed when faced […]

What does it take to trip up the typical, refuse the usual, confuse conventional? Those are the questions raised by our new video, which explores what it means to be uncommon. The truth is, there aren’t simple answers to those questions. Uncommon is a quality that is more easily recognized than it is defined. Complex […]

We know how and why we collaborate on our way to find consensus. The next challenge will be to apply the principles that matter to move us to new sense of place where collaboration can happen on a much larger scale. Think of your place as a series of concentric circles with you in the […]