Citation
Sheldrick, M, Graeff, E, Papa, M, & So, W. 2024. From Ideas to Impact: A Conversation with Michael Sheldrick, Co-founder, Global Citizen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, Oct 16.
From Ideas to Impact book review
From Ideas to Impact: A Playbook for Influencing and Implementing Change in a Divided World by Michael Sheldrick
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
With 15 years of work through Global Citizen, working on change campaigns related to global poverty, Michael Sheldrick in From Ideas to Impact attempts to distill what he’s seen work in the field. What he’s seen work best to tackle extreme poverty is systemic policy change. And systemic policy change demands tenacious and resourceful changemakers, folks willing to navigate the complex and barrier-rife mazes of power that separate a well-intended idea from the impact of securing meaningful commitments to money, better institutions, or innovative governance approaches. These folks are policy entrepreneurs.
Policy entrepreneurs can excel in three different leadership approaches needed to make change: Visionary, Diplomat, and Implementer. Sheldrick defines eight steps for successful policy entrepreneurship that fit within these approaches:
Visionaries set the foundation for change—
1) Know your policy goal
2) Know which stakeholders matter and how to influence them
3) Mastering the art of timing
4) Master the art of storytelling
Diplomats catalyzes impact through pragmatism—
5) Embrace pragmatic idealism
6) Leveraging your partners’ strengths
Implementers enforces accountability and follow-through—
7) Know your endgame
8) Communicate stories of success
These steps/capacities/principles and what they represent have been outlined in other academic and popular literature on policy entrepreneurship and changemaking. What makes the framework compelling in Sheldrick’s book is the way he connects them to cases of changemaking he has a personal connection to. In separate chapters, he describes efforts to achieve equal educational access in South Africa by tackling period poverty, effort to transition Western Australia and the industrial town of Collie away from coal mining and coal-based energy production, and efforts making the costs of climate change a little more just for countries like Barbados. The stories are impressive. There is also the impressive parade of celebrities Global Citizen ushers to literal stages to draw attention to each cause.
The star power is what loses me when it gets to the book’s conclusion. Sheldrick argues that anyone can be a policy entrepreneur. The Global Citizen app certainly invites everyone to contribute to the various campaigns through self-education and micro-actions (and rewards them with raffles for exclusive merch). But I think a bit of power is actually necessary to pursue the kinds of policy entrepreneurship the book describes. The steps for successful policy entrepreneurship may be the same at different levels of impact—your organization, local community, region, nation, the globe… However, it helps a lot if you are already in a position where you are driving toward some kind of goal—leading an organization, in elected office, etc. This is not a playbook for starting from scratch. It’s a playbook for those who want to refine their skills and increase the likelihood of success tackling complex, systemic challenges.
The book doesn’t replace the experience and mentorship budding policy entrepreneurs need in order to get started on their journeys of changemaking. But it may help them understand what is required if they want to make serious inroads on challenges like global poverty and climate change. The book’s subtitle and the background context for its contemporary discussion of policymaking are the stark divisions tearing apart our societies—the lack of openmindedness and compromise in current political discourse—and the ensuing disillusionment with policy and policymakers that nurtures populism and autocracy. I loved how the book celebrated diplomatic maneuvering that helped achieve progress. We need more of those stories and more celebration of them rather than the uncompromising activists who insist we must tear down all of our imperfect institutions. If we tear down them all down—institutions like the United Nations—we won’t have places to talk, venues to explore our disagreements or build new consensuses.
Beyonce probably won’t make a surprise appearance at your next rally. But if you build power through community organizing (read Hahrie Han’s How Organizations Develop Activists) and take some of the advice in From Ideas to Impact, you might be able to chip away at the many injustices in our world through better policies and moving money toward those that need it most.
The Digital Good demands Civic-minded Technologists
Citation
Graeff, E. 2024. “The Digital Good demands Civic-minded Technologists.” Presented at EASST-4S 2024: Making & Doing Transformations, Amsterdam, Netherlands, NY, Jul 17.
Presentation
Abstract
Engineering’s “culture of disengagement” (Cech 2014) casts a long shadow on society. The anemic civic philosophy, preached by lauded tech heroes, pretends politics and power don’t apply to technology, that we can reduce most problems to technical challenges, and that meritocracy is justice. There are bright spots—individual, civic-minded technologists; the Tech Workers Coalition; and the Integrity Institute, a community of practice for “trust and integrity” professionals from technology companies. But it’s insufficient. To solve the challenges of contemporary society and democracy, entwined with sociotechnical systems, we need to understand technology’s civic landscape and reframe the technical expert’s role in democracy.
Engineering has a rich history of political activism and rumination about its social and civic responsibility (Layton 1986; Wisniowski 2016). And STS has long tried to understand and define ethical technology. However, computing has grown more deprofessionalized over time, loosening its ethical tethers. Simultaneously, there are growing concerns about the role technologists play in society. So how should civic-mindedness intersect with the education and daily practice of technologists?
I’ve conducted 17 interviews with leading engineering educators, looked at the history of civic engagement and civic-mindedness in engineering and computing, and worked on defining civic professionalism in technology. My research supports an argument that technologists need a political education. Unfortunately, civic learning is scarce in most undergraduate programs and even secondary schools, and it’s particularly uncommon in computing. So we must define and invest in civic learning and a civic culture in computing, because the digital good really demands civic-minded technologists.
Running for Needham Town Meeting Member in Precinct D in 2024
I’ve been a trustee of the Needham Free Public Library since July 2022. I’m an Olin College of Engineering professor with social science, design, and computing expertise, which I’ve already put to use in the library’s strategic planning and space planning work. During the past 15 years, I’ve co-founded or advised numerous social impact organizations, including The Awesome Foundation, Obama Foundation, and SeeClickFix.
Needham’s library has adopted a new strategic plan and completed a space planning effort this past year that I helped facilitate. That work reimagined how our library building can best serve patrons as our town grows and evolves. Executing these plans with marshaled support and resources will be crucial for success. I want to see that through as a Town Meeting Member for Precinct D.
I think the highest priority issues for Needham are 1) quality, accessible education from preschool on; 2) affordable housing for our residents that provides options as residents’ needs change; and 3) sustainability, because climate change threatens the futures we want for our community, our children, and our planet. These are the lenses I’ll bring to issues facing Needham at Town Meeting, enhanced by the intersections and opportunities for Needham Free Public Library.
I hope to see you at the polls on April 9, 2024 in Needham!
Visit the Town Clerk’s web page for more information about Needham’s 2024 Annual Town Election: https://www.needhamma.gov/77/Town-Clerk.
Educating Engineers for Civic-mindedness
Citation
Graeff, E. 2023. “Educating Engineers for Civic-mindedness.” Presented at the 14th Symposium on Engineering and Liberal Education, Union College, Schenectady, NY, Sep 23.
Slides
Abstract
In her book Educating for Civic-mindedness, Carolin Kreber (2016) offers a compelling framework for civic-mindedness as an attribute and capability of professionals, which can be nurtured through “transformative higher education” experiences. This paper will apply Kreber’s framework to understanding the task of nurturing civic-minded engineering professionals, summarizing the existing landscape of transformative experiences in engineering education and diagnosing the challenges and possibilities for enhancing these efforts, as expressed in interviews with leading educators and practitioners of civically-engaged engineering.
Kreber starts with Bringle and Steinberg’s (2010) definition of civic-mindedness as “a person’s inclination or disposition to be knowledgeable of and involved in the community, and to have a commitment to act upon a sense of responsibility as a member of that community”; a civic-minded graduate is “a person who has completed a course of study […], and has the capacity and desire to work with others to achieve the common good.” Kreber emphasizes the “with others” portion of this definition, arguing that civic-minded professionals “support the flourishing, or authenticity, of other members of society, by helping others achieve important human capabilities.”
Cultivating authentic, civic-minded professionals should be a core purpose of higher education, according to Kreber. She believes this requires carefully designed, community-engaged learning experiences that have a “transformational” effect on students. Engineering education rarely achieves this high bar. Rather, engineering’s culture and its most common approaches to nurturing ethical and social responsibility appear in tension with certain civic virtues. A call to action for “civic professionalism” in engineering is due.