Brad Rourke

Brad Rourke’s Blog

  • Complementary Production and the Village of Hawk Creek

    The story of Tom Newman and the Village of Hawk Creek gives a good example of “complementary production” (the kind I was trying to describe here). There is a man, Tom Newman, in Cleveland, Tennessee who has spent years slowly gathering five frontier log cabins to his property and turning it into a kind of museum: Over a…

  • Co-Production: Blobs and Squares

    In a class, we have been talking a little bit about “co-production” from the standpoint of federal government organizations. Co-production is the idea that institutions and citizens (or other entities) can and should work in complementary ways. As an example, the “see something, say something” campaign is such an effort. There are a couple of ways…

  • A Fourth Systems Thinking Building Block?

    Some of my friends and readers know I am nearly finished pursuing a master’s degree in public administration at American University. (No, I am not intending to pursue a career in the federal government; the MPA is like the MBA of the social sector and I thought it a useful higher degree to have.) In my current course,…

  • What Do I Do?

    As most of my friends and colleagues know, I am a program officer at the Kettering Foundation. Even though it has “foundation” in its name, Kettering is best described as a “research institute.” (We aren’t a grant maker.) As a program officer, I am responsible for one or more portfolios of research. This begs the question: What…

  • Timeline Of A Frictionless Life

    Today I came across a relatively new (month-old) feature in Facebook Messenger: you can hail an Uber from within the app. Both Facebook and Uber act as (and have aspirations to be) interesting “front door” or “gateway” apps. For instance, for more and more people Facebook is not a page on the World Wide Web: it…

  • Missed Opportunities in Adult Education

    I note a repeated missed opportunity in teaching across many of the courses in my executive-level graduate program, an opportunity missed due to design decisions. Often, instructors develop exercises where students work (individually or in teams) to develop their own work product. The instructor then evaluates the work according to some framework, or compares it…

  • One Year of Letters to God

    This morning, early before anyone else was awake, I did something that has become a habit over the past year. After letting the dogs out, and then back in, and giving them food along with the cat, I walked down to a small sofa I have in my basement. I sat down and once again…

  • My Yearly Review

    A few days ago, as 2015 waned, I sat with a friend and we shared our annual reviews with one another. While I do this with a friend with whom I share recovery, it is not solely focused on spirituality and sobriety. This really is a kind of year-end annual review, the kind one might do at…