TED Community » Colin Kloecker
About Me
Colin Kloecker is a Minneapolis-based artist, designer and cultural producer. He is one of the Co-founders and Collaborative Directors of Works Progress, a multi-disciplinary creative collective that produces public artworks, programs and exhibits that connect people to ideas and each other. With a background in architecture he brings a design approach to creating meaningful experiences that bring people together.
- Location:
- United States, Minneapolis, MN
- Current organization:
- Works Progress
- Current role:
- Co-Director
- Gender:
- Male
- Areas of expertise:
- Independent Public Programming, Design Thinking for Civic Engagement, Arts Based Community Development
- I am:
- Activist, Artist, Concerned citizen, Designer, Explorer, Idea generator, Inventor
- My website links:
- Works Progress, Give & Take
- Universities:
- University of Minnesota - College of Design
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A reply on Conversation: If you could ask one question to all of your neighbors, what would you ask?
There is no magic bullet when it comes to community engagement. One thing that helps us is that we've been at it for quite a while. Like any creative practice, you have to actually practice it to get better at it. In this kind of work, the more you practice it, the more people know about it. People have to trust your intentions, so you have to be really good at communicating them to a lot of different kinds of people. It's taken 4+ years, but we now have an network of people interested in our programs that's over 3,000 strong and always growing.
You're absolutely right that creating authentic partnerships is so so important. As we begin to experiment with our Give & Take program in new neighborhoods and cities around Minnesota, the first thing we do is try to find a partner on the project that is as excited about creating connected communities as we are. It's actually become one of our "simple rules" that we don't do a project if we can't find a community based partner for it.
One more thing about Give & Take and why I think it's been successful so far: it's an asset-based open platform for people to fill up with all kinds of potential points of connection. You never know what's going to happen, but people always bring their best creative-selves to the night, and it's always an awesome time filled with laughter and humility. Community engagement shouldn't feel like taking your vitamins. It needs to be entertaining, and what better source for entertainment is there than ourselves?
There's so much more to say, but I'll end with this: You can still be experimental, quirky, and fun - in fact, the world desperately NEEDS "experimental, quirky, and fun" right now - but you have to be able to tell people "This is an experiment! And you know what... it might not work!" If people trust you, they will absolutely join you on the adventure.
A reply on Conversation: If you could ask one question to all of your neighbors, what would you ask?
I actually work with Shanai on Give & Take (and a bunch of other projects through http://www.worksprogress.org/), but just wanted to chime in to add that our vision for Give & Take is that it becomes kind of like a community-based TED Talks, not just for change-makers, but for everyday people who have something to share - be it a story, a hobby, a passion or even just an idea. We've started doing these events in different neighborhoods around the Twin Cities and will soon do our first event in rural Minnesota. The idea is that the content generated at the events can be fed back to a main hub online, very much like TED. Videos from the event will be shareable, allowing the live event to be a launching pad for all kinds of new connections happening online.
Which is all to say: I really believe that we have only just begun to harness social networking online for face-to-face community-building. There is so much potential here, but as Shanai points out, the key is in building real/virtual communities that bridge cultural silos rather than reinforce them.
People answer our two questions on their name tags when they come to the event: "What do you know?" and "What do you want to know?" (For example: http://www.flickr.com/photos/worksprogress/sets/72157624019736075/) But this isn't just a clever ice-breaker! We've created a whole series of games to play with the audience that are designed to get people making new connections on their own. The 1.5 hour event ends up being a mix of community-sourced presentations (you can sign up on our site: http://www.give-take.org/) and social games that get people talking to each other. Because it's not issue-based, people come from all different walks of life.