Brad Rourke

Brad Rourke’s Blog

  • Robert J. Kingston, RIP

    RIP Bob Kingston, 1929-2016. A longtime colleague — one of my teachers in the craft and science of framing public issues — has passed over the weekend. He was a giant in the world in which I work. I treasure the many projects we worked on together — him gently yet forcefully guiding a young…

  • Wolves, Rivers, Hindsight, and the "Butterfly Effect"

    There is a video that is currently being shared on social media by a number of people I know. It is about the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone and the wide-ranging effects this “keystone species” had on the environment. A keystone species is a top-of-food-chain creature whose presence or absence has wide-ranging impacts. In the…

  • 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…