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Feb 19, 2008

"Our tendency to create heroes rarely jibes with the reality that most nontrivial problems require collective solutions." --Warren Bennis

Successful Communities Leverage Unsung Heroes

The most effective local initiatives engage people whose informal networks reach broadly and deeply across sectors and organizations. Such people are often unsung heroes in a community. They might include a uniformed policewoman who sets up a system to link diverse services for victims of domestic violence or a bakery owner who designs training for immigrant employees in partnership with the local community college. In this article, social networks expert Karen Stephenson, based on her own work in local communities in the UK and the US, shows how a community can identify those who have the capacity to collaborate in a fruitful way, work with local groups to shine a light on these individuals, connect them with one another, and then deliberately foster more heterarchies -- many to many connections.