Public Policy

This presentation (18 minutes) was the lead off presentation for TEDxIIT in 2011. This wasIIT's first TEDx event. The theme was "Gaining Momentum" and my presentation was "The Creativity Imperative" which made the case for creativity as a founding principle of the United States and a core national value.

This presentation was from TEDx IIT where the theme was "Gaining Momentum." The presentation was "Welcome To The Gift Economy" (18 minutes) and gave a critique of the current economic system and introduced the concept of the Gift Economy and invited the audience to create a Gift Economy on the spot. Bulletin boards were set up in the lobby and attendees were invited to post offers of services or goods. 85% of the attendees did so!

The theme for TEDx DePaul 2012 was "City 2.0" and this presentation talks about crowdsourcing efforts for innovation, problem solving and fundraising. We used GoSoapBox to poll the attendees about how much student debt they would have upon graduation and what should be done about it.

This research summarizes the activity of Chicago's 150 Tax Increment Financing (TIF) districts. It is a crowdsourced citizen-powered investigation of Chicago's massive TIF program. It was conducted by the TIF Illumination Project (http://www.tifreports.com). Contact us at [email protected].

This report looks at all the activity of Chicago's 145 TIF districts in 2017.

We've done 75 public meetings across the city that we call "Illuminations."

Our web site is http://www.tifreports.com

If you read or access this report can you please let me know at [email protected]? We are a grassroots organization that is completely people-powered and knowing why you are interested in this information will help us keep our organization going. Thanks!

In 2008 a group of volunteers came together to form No Games Chicago (www.nogameschicago.com) for the purposes of defeating Chicago's bod for the 2016 Summer Olympics. Despite having no budget, office or even a telephone, and despite opposing some of the most powerful people in America - they managed to influence the members of the IOC! The results came out on October 2, 2009 when Chicago was rejected in the first round of voting at the Bela Center in Copenhagen - receiving just 18 votes! A virtual news blackout was placed on the organizers and their work by major local media and remains in place ten years later. No local media outlet has ever bothered to tell the story of what the organizers of No Games did and why and how they know their work paid off. This self-published work is an attempt to fill in the record and was published in 2011 by one of the lead organizers, Tom Tresser (www.tresser.com), [email protected].

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.-That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain, George III, is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.