Mark Holmgren's Blog
In my 20’s I hung out with fashion photographers, neon sculptors, writers and artists. We were an eclectic tribe of misfits. We had parties in large lofts in a down town industrial area. At one party my friend, Windy (his actual name), who looked a lot like Charlie Chaplin, fell asleep on the hardwood floor … Continue reading True Confession
I am an immigrant. I did become a Canadian citizen about 5 years after I got here. But before that I worked at a number of jobs but never once heard anyone give me crap because I took a "Canadian's job." I did have one rather snotty Canadian inform me (at Heritage Days no less) … Continue reading I am an immigrant
My grandmother cooked on an old wood burning stove. I was always excited to visit her. She would be waiting on the front porch, her long gray hair tied up in a bun, her house dress stained from cooking and working in the garden. I raced from the car as she walked down the stairs, … Continue reading Perseverance
One Saturday afternoon, I ventured into the Asian Supermarket. I don't know what I expected, but when i walked through the automatic doors I thought to myself, it’s like Safeway. And so it was and so it wasn't. There were cuts of meat (many of them the innards of body parts I never considered to … Continue reading This is my Duck Gizzard Story. What’s yours?
You might know that I am a singer-songwriter/musician, though not nearly as active as I once was when young and spry. Did you know my band, Mark Holmgren and Early Warning, toured the world in the 1990s? Yep. Only thing is my band mates forgot to tell me about it. That's what happens when you … Continue reading Make Some Music!
Everyone is talking about the "new normal" of living through the COVID-19 pandemic. We know we are facing overwhelming situations and conditions. Millions of Canadians are out of work. People are living isolated from one another (well, at least for the most part). Schools are shut down. All of them! Thousands upon thousands of small … Continue reading The New Normal Report
I am a bit of a techno-nerd despite my graying beard and there is much about technology that has changed so many lives for the better, but this post is not about those technologies. I am getting leery of being a digital archetype whose privacy is non-existent. My identity, choices, experiences, rants, goofy pictures, cynicism, … Continue reading A Techno-Nerd Rant
The recent reports of community resistance to a Capital Region Housing proposed development in Keheewin are yet one more example of the NIMBY-YIMBY quagmire we cannot seem to prevent. I read Councillor Walters' remarks in the Journal, which I found to be balanced and, to be transparent, they resonated with me, but there are a … Continue reading Access to Affordable Housing is a (Complex) Human Right
The challenges we face with respect to building more affordable housing are complex to state the obvious, and resolving them calls for an integrated set of strategies that go far beyond the actual building of more housing. Here are some of the challenges we need to address: AFFORDABLE HOUSING IS AN ECONOMIC PROBLEM People cannot … Continue reading Affordable Housing is an Economic Problem
Change happens when rules are broken; when an upstart group of people rebel against broken systems and rote habits and try something radically different or brand spanking new; and when people have the courage, if not the audacity, to throw away our failures and seek a better way to frame and reshape, if not reinvent, … Continue reading Time to Break Some Rules
I was young and living poor in Uptown Chicago. I was an on and off again college student. It took me seven years, maybe eight, to get my degree in Communications. I'd attend a term then hitch hike to California with my good friend, Karl. We both had hair to the middle of our backs … Continue reading What if most our heroes were wrong?
I have read quite a bit lately about how unfair our income tax system is to those who earn incomes in the top 20% of the population. Those postings and articles tend to be written by people with incomes in or close to the top 20% bracket (though my view of those authors is admittedly … Continue reading Are the Wealthy Over-Taxed or Do They Pay Too Much?
We live in a world - especially in the western world - where it is just given that economic growth is a sacrosanct necessity in order to ensure continued prosperity. If a company is not growing each quarter, investors look elsewhere to invest their money. If businesses are not continually adding new products and bells … Continue reading Rethinking Economic Growth
Who are you? How could I ever know? So the question turns to, “Who am I?” Am I contained within my body? Or does my identity exist across fields of experience or as an ever-changing pattern that defies being known? Perhaps there is a moment in each of our lives when we recognize our consciousness … Continue reading Where does who you are reside?
Visit my music page. My musical life seems so long ago now. I guess because it is. In the early 1990s I won a song writing contest which allowed me to play a featured stage and two workshops at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival. That honor led to other performances on CBC radio, on a … Continue reading Reflecting on a Creative Life
Last November I published a blog on the Edmonton CDC website and more recently repeated that posting here on Anticipate. Reading it first is, I suggest, of value to fully engage this posting. The title of this posting reflects my interest in getting language "right." Living Wage and Livable Income are not synonymous. The latter … Continue reading Livable Income IN a Livable Economy (Part Two: the Impacts of AI)
Originally posted in November 2018 on the Edmonton CDC Blog. In Edmonton, approximately 140,000 workers are identified as low income earners (earning below $16.31 per hour), according to the Edmonton Social Planning Council (source, page 79). Four in five of these workers are over the age of 20 and 60% are women. The Canadian Payroll … Continue reading Living Wage IN a Livable Economy
I have written in the past about what I call the pendulum swing or the bandwagon effect. I think this is what has happened with respect to collective impact over the past 10 years. I suggest it also occurred in the late 1980s when outcome measurement rode into town on its stallion named Logic Model. … Continue reading Collective Impact as Uprising
I have always been tall and husky. I was my current height, 6 foot 7 inches, in my freshman year of high school, and I was a basketball player and I was pretty good at that game. Back then a guy my size was automatically assigned the center position. And that's where my coach put … Continue reading My Basketball Coach
Funders should apply to community agencies to fund them. Can you get your head around that? What would that look like? Why would that approach be more impactful and cost-effective than current practice? Would this upside down version of funders foster more partnerships? Would there be a transformative power-shift? One of my favorite upside down … Continue reading Upside Down Thinking: Funders should be Rebels
When we look to another for wisdom, it is not data that we seek. We want more than information; we need more. We deserve more. Data sends signals, whether standing on its own before us or alongside of its counterparts on a trend line or a scatter diagram. Data may be objective, though I tend … Continue reading Data and Wisdom
Such a simple question, four small words that get at the core of our community change work. It's not a question confined to a step in a visioning or planning process. It's place is within us, no matter where we are going or if we are standing still. It's not just a question about purpose … Continue reading Why are we here?
Upside Down Thinking has a relationship with Disruptive Thinking and Disruptive Innovation, but they are not merely different descriptors of the same thing. You can read a previous posting I did a while back on Upside Down Thinking; this posting is about Disruptive Innovation. Disruptive Innovation has its roots in the private sector. The concept … Continue reading Disruptive Innovation: a Type of Upside Down Thinking
