P'unk Avenue Window

The other night, Alex Hilllman and I were having a conversation about our project, Independents Hall, and he mentioned the term “civic entrepreneur” in the course of a story. It immediately caught my attention because of my background as a co-founder of a civic association in Philadelphia.

As a follow up to our conversation, Alex emailed me an article titled, “Civic Entrepreneurs: Economic Professional as Collaborative Leader” that he wrote a post about after our conversation. Reading it over, though, reminded me of a different concern that I have had for awhile.

A lot of people form groups of people that share similar backgrounds, educations, and aspirations. In my mind, that is not really a challenge and does not lead to unique new solutions. And while I am very proud of Independents Hall, I would count it in that category. It is not that hard to get like-minded people with straight-forward goals to work together. I think we can do so much more.

The challenge is to bridge the gap between people that think very differently.

I learned that first hand co-founding that civic association in South Philadelphia. It is one of America’s most amazing and most diverse neighborhoods. It is a place where day laborers live next door to doctors. It is a place where a web design studio that does yoga together is across from an auto body shop. It is a place where the poor rub shoulders with (and sometime live next door to) millionaires.

The article I mentioned talks about bringing diverse parties to the table:

Civic entrepreneurs exert a collaborative style of leadership. They know how to work with people to get results. Civic entrepreneurs believe that the benefits of a changed economic context can be realized only with more collaborative, resilient connections between the new economy and the community. They provide collaborative leadership to bring diverse parties to the table, identify common ground, and take joint action. They build bridges.

More often than not, civic entrepreneurs lead with no formal power or authority, with only their credibility. Civic entrepreneurs are worthy of people’s trust.

Many of us that were raised in the United States after World War II do not have practice working with people that are not from the same socio-economic background. We are products of the trend where people moved to suburban neighborhoods filled with people that were much like them. That was my experience. My father is a PhD Chemical Engineer, so most of my friends’ parents were engineers, doctors, or lawyers.

Growing up like that does not give us the skills to have an empathetic world view. In other words, it does not give us first-hand experiences of working with vastly different people so that we can develop the skills one needs to build bridges.

I want to challenge more people to bring diverse groups to the table to solve problems to improve our communities, and more importantly, I want to challenge people to empower other people. Empowering others brings about unexpected and beautiful results. It will require many of us to leave our comfort zones on a regular basis, but the payoff is worth it.

Are you up for the challenge?

P.S. If you take a careful look at the shirts that my neighbors are wearing above, you will notice the words “celebrating diversity” in multiple languages.

This May’s Junto will explore the dynamics of Creative Communities. The panelists are John Freeborn, one of the founders of the gallery and art collective Space 1026, Olive Prince, dancer, choreographer and part of the Choreographers Project at Susan Hess Modern Dance, and Sara Selepouchin, Etsy Teams Coordinator.

I will moderate the discussion which will begin at 7pm. Food and drink at 6pm.

Recently the Business section of the Philadelphia Inquirer featured Independents Hall. In simplest terms, it is a coworking space. My partner Alex Hillman and I consider community to be an important component in this project.

Community is a word that is thrown about quite often and so it has lost some of its impact. Let me try to define a piece of it that is important to me in this endeavor.

I see Independents Hall as a “better incubator.” The current incubator model, that I am aware of, gives space and resources to a group of people trying to grow a business idea. By the time they get in an incubator, they often have a business plan written up. Sometimes they have funding. In general, though, they have an idea that they want to turn into a business. Most incubator spaces require that you have a plan for a business, or they will not let you lease a space.

To be a member of Independents Hall, you do not have to have a business plan or even an idea for a business. Jane Jacobs’s notion of the city sidewalk as a place where you happen upon people, and out of these chance occurrences, new ideas and opportunities arise is closer metaphor for Independents Hall.

Incubation of new ideas and opportunities is meant to happen organically at Independents Hall.

Robert Fulford noted that “Jacobs came down firmly on the side of spontaneous inventiveness of individuals, as against abstract plans imposed by governments and corporations,” Spontaneous inventiveness is something that artists are very much in tune with in their problem solving process.

As an artist, this is the approach I used in planning the space with Alex. This spirit also pervades daily existence in the space. Artists know that you don’t need to solve every problem in advance. You don’t have to have a plan for everything. Instead, you need to place yourself in inspiring circumstances and then trust yourself that you will know what do when the opportunity arises.

Community creates a supportive environment for people to take chances, to innovate and to make positive changes in our world. When I talk about community and Independents Hall, that is what I mean.