My friend John Creighton and I have been talking about the shift in public life from an “institution centric” world to a “citizen centric” world. People no longer organize their lives and activities for the convenience of institutions, instead, they expect institutions to conform to their expectations.

In this context, we propose that the notion of “civic engagement,” while worthy, is the wrong way for public leaders to think about how their organizations can interact with people. “Engagement” still presupposes that it is the institution doing the engaging.

Instead, in this most recent video dialogue, we propose public leaders need to consider how they can activate citizens:

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=6437693&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1
Creighton And Rourke: Activate, Don’t Engage from Brad Rourke on Vimeo.

There’s a big difference. An activated citizenry will self-organize and act. Its creativity is unleashed. New ideas will bubble up, and answers to problems we didn’t know we had will come to the fore.