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Consultant at Leadership for Action
September 2009 – October 2009
• Collaborated with 25 facilitators and National Governors Association to uncover insights from 25 governors about Health IT.
• Analyzed Health IT for Economic & Clinical Health Act and CIO Council’s Guide to Federal Enterprise Architecture for facilitators.
Consultant at Center for Voter Deliberation of Northern Virginia
September 2008 – September 2009
• Organized through traditional and web 2.0 tools 4 National Issues Forums about federal health care policy.
• Trained 12 volunteer facilitators and led discussions to help 300 citizens become conversant with policy complexities.
• Collected and analyzed quantitative and qualitative data on federal health care policy and international best practices.
Research Assistant at AmericaSpeaks
March 2009 – June 2009
• Executed multiple assignments, including collecting federal agency input to advance the President’s Open Government Initiative and organized outreach for 3 conferences within tight deadlines and customer service goals.
• Facilitated 2-day long table discussions and edited the March 30-31 ‘Champions of Participation’ final report.
• Analyzed data, crafted and delivered 2 high-rated policy proposals to White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
• Led the efforts for first online public survey to collect 75 discrete recommendations for the Open Government Initiative.
• Translated French correspondence and wrote 10, 000 word book chapter drafts for ‘Démocratie participative en Région Poitou-Charentes’ conference on communication technologies for democracy and effective meetings independently.
Director, Civic Engagement at The Public Forum Institute
August 2007 – March 2009
• Learned quickly how to managed 3 congressional policy summits of over 200 people each under supervision of CEO.
• Supervised and mentored 3 interns; devised management framework for staff that increased productivity workflows by 25%.
• Developed and spearheaded the Institute’s research agenda: secured $8,000 grant to conduct congressional interviews to evaluate the impact of public deliberation on public policy and improved online/offline forum output to satisfy client needs.
• Produced over 38 documents for CEO (e.g. 3 research reports, 2 lit. reviews, 2 user manuals, 1 guidebook, 4 recommendation papers, 4 op-eds, 2 business proposals, 12 memos, 4 work plans, 2 congressional white papers & 2 fact sheets) independently.
• Expanded citizen engagement program with organizational design, web 2.0 tools, high-functioning public participation process for citizen-to-congressional task force collaboration and an individual donor strategy to save 50% of budget ($20,000).
• Executed strategic communications and managed process of enrolling 1,000 U.S. partners for Global Entrepreneurship Week.
Architectural Designer at EEK Architects and Torti Gallas and Partners, Inc.
March 2005 – August 2007
• Designed 10 architecture and 3 Hope VI community redevelopment solutions; presented at team meetings with PowerPoint.
• Developed 4 collaborative problem-solving schedules and service-oriented models for manager using Deltek Vision and Excel.
• Operated comfortably in a fast-paced, team environment that supported high-energy, entrepreneurial and creative solutions.
• Trained in project management from coursework in leadership, management, marketing, negotiation and client leadership.
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Architecture, Urban Planning, and Political Science
1998 – 2004
Alex is a Kettering Foundation scholar, a facilitator of National Issues Forums, and an architect. After dedicating a brief career in architecture to learn how the power of creativity, collaboration and public spaces can enhance or limit our civic life, he then moved on to serve as an associate for a number of citizen participation nonprofit organizations. Currently, he explores how best to address the deficits of American democracy through technology, deliberation, collaboration and enterprise architecture.
Activities and Societies: Creativity and design studies; studies in collaborative work environments and the social (and civic) life of public spaces.
PRESENTATIONS AND MEDIA APPEARANCES
• Guest expert, ‘Offline and Online Public Participation’, DOT and GSA, Washington, D.C., January-February 2010.
• Panelist, Kettering Foundation panel on Public Participation in Government , Dayton, OH, November 2008.
• Presenter, National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation Workshop, Austin, TX, October 2008.
• Appeared in print media including Yes! Magazine (“Upgrading the Way We Do Politics”, August 2009) and National Journal (“Meetup Blossoms In Shadow Of Organizer-In-Chief”, August 2009).
LEADERSHIP ACTIVITIES
Socrates Café (2007 – Present), used web 2.0 for 43 bi-weekly in-person/online community discussions, yielding 300% group growth.
Democracy Delegates (2007), applied creative analytical models and solved public participation ‘rational ignorance’ dilemma.
International Peace Quest Institute (2009), uncovered 3 overlooked administrative dependencies in Sudanese CPA policy analysis.
Mediators Foundation (2009), presented PowerPoint for optimizing decision-making via technology and organizational design.
Open Government Directive Workshop Series (Present), devise project plan for 3-phase web 2.0 and charrette work flows that enable federal officials to share best practices, mobilize 6 competitive teams of 20 for inter-agency collaboration and action planning.
VOLUNTEER WORK
Neighborhood Democracy Network, Inc. is the 501(c)(3) charitable organization he co-founded and financed at age 25. Currently, the organization is developing programs and internet tools to facilitate a renewed and expanded tradition of structured and interconnected deliberative democracy forums across U.S. neighborhoods.
My Interest Areas:
Deliberative Democracy, Facilitation, Conflict Resolution, Decision Making, Philosophy, Appreciative Inquiry, Social Media, Semantic Web, Organizational and Social Change, Public Policy and Admin.
There's a lot going on for me, trying to find work, but in the meantime I am still reading, writing, volunteering and staying physically fit, eating healthy and continuing my quest to study and execute solutions in Democracy 2.0 and Gov 2.0 that modernize the role of citizenship and government.
