Millennials are shaping the future.

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We're shaping the conversation

about millennials.

“I’m embarrassed to admit I have held an under-examined negative view of millennials.  John has opened my eyes to what is possible, and particularly in the hands, mind and souls of millennials themselves.”

Tom Scott, co-founder and CEO, The Nantucket Project

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Reality's Push Back: PTSD and "Thank You for Your Service"

Reality is pushing back and we don’t like it. We like our wars quick, our victories decisive, and our soldiers John Wayne. That is not the reality of our contemporary nation or military. We need to be careful about romanticizing war through the eyes of special operations specialists—Navy SEALs, Army Delta Force, and the like. Their missions are usually short and decisive and met with overwhelming technological ability and professional expertise. The real measure of warfare is the reality of the Army or Marine infantryman. This story is powerfully depicted in Thank You For Your Service (2017). It tells the story of four veterans of the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment returning to the vi

To the Literary Midwives

Today my book, The New Copernicans: Millennials and the Survival of the Church, is born, January 16, 2018. It is a special feeling holding a copy of one's book in your hands for the first time. All authors know the feeling. Pictures of the baby’s birth tends to put the emphasis on the swaddled face of the newborn or the tearful smiling sweat-streaked face of the mother. The cameras do not record the faces of all those who served as faithful midwives and obstetricians. Before the moment passes, I want to thank all those on my Harper Collins publishing team that helped to make this book happen. There is Steve Moore of the Murdock Trust who first introduced me to Eric Swanson. It was Eric who i

Football Not Golf

The dynamics of cultural change are more like football than golf. Golf is a solitary sport where the individual is expected to be proficient in the woods, irons, wedges, and putters. Football in contrast is a brutally choreographed dance involving men of different sizes and skills working in total concert for a common goal. Three things are necessary for changing culture: dense network, social location, and collective curation. Historian and scriptwriters often highlight the extraordinary individual, the genius, or the charismatic leader. However catalytic these individuals may be for the success of an enterprise, it is the “dense network” rather than the individual who is the main actor on

Is There a Method to the Madness of Trump's Tweeting?

Trump is controversial. Trump’s Tweets are even more so—both to his supporters and his detractors. Perhaps we have been looking at them in the wrong way! Is there a method to his madness? Berkeley cognitive scientist George Lakoff is an expert on linguistic framing. Everyone thinks first in frames. If the facts don’t fit the frame, the facts bounce off and the frame remains. So in this sense, frames rule. Lakoff argues that Donald Trump’s Tweets are an exercise in framing and are not to be parsed as a series of factual propositions. They are tactical rather than substantive. Because the news media is addicted to “Breaking News” and has a high proclivity for left-brain propositional thinking,

Standing on New Copernican Shoulders

Newton was a genius, but he didn’t work alone. Sir Isaac Newton established the final synthesis of the earlier work of Copernicus. His monograph Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, lays the foundations for most of classical mechanics. It is said of this book, “The Principia is generally considered to be one of the most important scientific books ever written, due, independently, to the specific physical laws the work successfully described, and for the style of the work, which assisted in setting standards for scientific publication down to the present time.” His statue, by the great French sculptor Louis-Francois Roubiliac, is centrally located in the Ante-Chapel

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