In a society and an economy that is increasingly driven by innovation, many public servants despair that it has become impossible for government to innovate. I spent much of 2024 surveying several hundred innovators recruited into the federal government, to determine where innovation still occurs and what explains the difference between success and failure. This study concluded that the key factor is the ability to adapt continuously to changing circumstances.

The more the government tries to control matters, the more likely it is to fail. This project generated recommendations on how government can embrace continual adaptation.

Read more about the project

All around the world democracies are experimenting with citizen assemblies to articulate the national interest where representative institutions cannot. In 2021 I organized the largest deliberative democracy exercise ever conducted among Canadians

In 2016, leading members of the Canadian International Council met in Toronto to debate whether to shut down the 90-year-old council. They took a chance on the CIC, and then on me by hiring me as President two years later. Read about the business model we built and how the CIC is now preparing for its 100th birthday

A year in Silicon Valley showed me the power of technology for helping citizens make political change. We created a mobile app to harness this power for democracy. Here’s what I learned from the startup I left government to create