The Bigger Idea

The bigger idea is to be loud and concise about big ideas. To share them here. To share them often.  


I’ve spent the past few years shooting my mouth off in reaction to events in this city and in reaction to other people’s reactions to those events.  An important part of the bigger idea behind Big Ideas for Oakland is to give myself a platform where I can step away from presenting reactive thoughts, and begin to be more proactive.  


What you read here will rarely address the biggest story of the week. Instead, I’m cataloguing Big Ideas and I will be sharing them as soon as they’re fully formed enough to be worth your attention. 
I’ve been reminded by mentors more than once: Big Ideas are best if they aren’t too big. If you don’t have an elevator pitch, you don’t have a big idea. You may want to have a big idea. You may have a flurry of thought that could one day be distilled into several big ideas. But if you can’t spell it out clearly and quickly, it just ain’t a Big Idea yet.  


So, out of respect for the value of your time and mine, what you read here is going to be short. If there’s video here, it will be short too.


Some days the Big Idea will be wildly ambitious. Some days they will be simple proposals to solve small but persistent problems. Almost always, the Big Ideas will be about things that can be done to make this city a better place. In a city where there is so much to be done, I’ll leave philosophy and theory to others, and focus on the path to the possible. 


That means that if you see an idea on this site that you like, the biggest compliment you could possibly pay me is to make that idea happen. So please, read, enjoy, and if the spirit moves you, take a big idea and run with it.