Tom Flanagan: Board President
Board President, Institute for 21st Century Agoras
Director, SouthCoast Community Collaborative Design Studio
[A capacity development project of the Community Foundation of SE Mass]
Tom Flanagan is a design manager with a broad and diverse background in organic and self-assembling structures. His formal training includes degrees in Marine Science, Agricultural Science, Neuroscience, and the Management of Technology. He has worked at leading research institutions such as the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, the Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts, and the Borroughs Wellcome Company in Research Triangle Park in North Carolina. He has published and spoken on technical topics to divers audiences nationally and internationally.
Over the past decade, Tom’s focus has moved from the biotechnical to the sociotechnical realm. He is currently a scholar practitioner in the emergence and growth of social systems at the interface of organizations and technologies. Tom’s work in applied sociotechnology included leading technical and business teams pioneering the use of implanted cells to treat neurodegenerative diseases, introducing novel diagnostic products into physician offices, and transforming chemical and manufacturing practices through the use of environmentally preferred “green” technologies — in corporate, nonprofit (community), and government (state agency and university) settings.
Tom’s work in technology-based economic development naturally evolved upstream to emerging markets. New markets are driven by new needs and new understandings. Global crisis in environmental impacts and local crisis in infrastructure issues force us to rethink our positions and responsibilities for assuring sustainable economies. Key decisions that transform practices are progressively being made in a decentralized — or fragmented — fashion. Making essential corrections can only be done through collaborative learning — passive listening simply is not sufficient to mobilize transforming action within our communities. Is is for this reason that Tom has chosen to provide opportunities for community groups to experience and adopt the structured dialogic design process. Tom firmly believes that through effective collaborative dialogue, and only through effective collaborative dialogue, we have an opportunity to change our collective habits and move our communities toward safer ground.
Tom is leading a campaign in the South Coast of New England to cultivate awareness of the power of structured dialogic design as a means for building boundary-spanning collaborations that effectively meet their civic goals. His major corporate collaborative design projects have included work with the World Health Organization, the US Food and Drug Administration, The US Department of Agriculture, and a range of clients in the life science fields.