Meet the Interactivity Foundation Team
Shannon Wheatley Hartman
Friends,
Thank you for being a part of the Interactivity Foundation community! Over the next few weeks, I want to introduce myself, our team, and our mission so you know who you are connecting with when you interact with us.
I started at the Interactivity Foundation in 2010 as a fellow, growing alongside the organization until I was appointed President in 2023. Our President Emeritus, Jack Byrd, has transitioned into a new role as Chief Innovation Officer. In this new capacity, he continues to create curriculum and content for our Collaborative Learning initiative. We are incredibly grateful for his vision and leadership, which have been instrumental in shaping IF into the organization it is today.
In today’s society, it’s rare to find an organization that draws you in and keeps you engaged for 14 years, but that is exactly what I found at the Interactivity Foundation. IF is unique in that our team is led by the desire to discover ways to improve collaborative intelligence, build social trust, and support active community engagement.
Our programs have been designed to nurture the processes that deliberately move participants toward a fuller humanity through collaborative discussion and perpetual learning by centering our core values:
Creating a Greater We
We believe in bringing people together in conversation to expand public imagination, deepen social trust, and collaboratively build a better society for everyone.
Supporting Visionary Possibilities
We believe everyone deserves the chance to envision new possibilities for the future that can defy the status quo and discover new ways of addressing shared challenges.
Nurturing Collaborative Intelligence
We believe people can develop the skills and habits of mind necessary to be able to work with others to improve their lives and their communities.
Modeling Confident Humility
We believe in asking questions and emphasizing listening. Discussions should encourage exploration, collaboration, and guided discovery. We advance processes, not answers.
These core values drive our work bringing people together in their classrooms, workplaces, and communities to have meaningful discussions that expand imagination, build social trust, and improve discussion skills necessary for everyday democracy.
Don’t be fooled. Everyday democracy is hard. It requires us to do much more than just vote. It requires courage, curiosity, and radical love. Democratic governance requires us to work with our neighbors, colleagues, friends, and people we don’t particularly like to build the communities that we want to live in. Together, we must engage, talk, and listen to one another. We cannot build a future together without practicing these basic principles. At its core, everyday democracy requires us to seek the humanity in others and celebrate our differences.
Everyday democracy also requires us to build up our defenses and resistance to binary framing, fear mongering, and temptation to dehumanize others. As this election year progresses, we will hear clever calls designed to divide us and even encourage violence against fellow citizens and community members. We must see through these strategies and develop better ways of engaging, communicating, and working together. Democratic governance is a practice, not an end point. We will never arrive at a perfect democracy, but we can all do our part to help move us along in the right direction.
Our work at the Interactivity Foundation is part of this experiment and we hope you will join us as we continue to do our work of strengthening democracy through discussion. If you are interested, please follow us on LinkedIn.
Please connect with me personally. I’d love to hear from you—especially if you disagree with me. Reach out! Share your thoughts. Let’s figure out ways to learn from one another and collaborate.
Our team would also love to hear from you about the IF resources that are working well in your community, which resources could be improved, and which resources you wish you had but don’t see. You can respond to this newsletter, leave a comment, or send us an email.
I look forward to sharing more of our team and mission with you in the coming weeks!
Warmly,
Shannon
Upcoming Events
July 15 - August 23, 2024: Become an IF Sustained Discussion Visiting Fellow—Apply Now!
July 18, 2024: Collaborative Discussion Project Community Gathering—Register Now!
July 23, 2024: University of Chicago, Parrhesia High School Educator Workshop: Introduction to the CDP Toolkit (Registration Closed)
July 31, 2024: Information Session – Become an IF Sustained Discussion Visiting Fellow—Register Now!
August 5, 2024: Engaging in Challenging Conversations Webinar—Register Now!
August 8, 2024: AASCU’s Bridge-Building Workshop—Register Now!