Fred Darbonne

Concerned citizen, Consultant, Educator/Teacher, Idea generator, Promoter

I'm a native Mid-Westerner, though I lived in Seattle for 12 years during and following my undergraduate studies. I live in Des Moines, but Kansas City is my hometown. I love our Greater Des Moines area for its people, its welcoming openness, and the innovation and great ideas that emerge here. I also love cities - the bigger the better. Cities are centers of culture and incubators of innovative ideas. The best neighborhoods are eclectic - with people of diverse backgrounds, ideas, and socioeconomic levels, as well as varieties of housing, within the same, walkable area. I love the visual and performing arts, particularly ballet and opera. I maintain my membership in the Art Institute of Chicago and visit The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the Kemper Museum in Kansas City as often as I can. One of the highlights of my year is annually attending Handel's Messiah with the Kansas City Symphony. I am a member of the Downtown (Des Moines) Chamber of Commerce, Rotary, and the NAACP.

Hearing the voices in our community that are not being heard or who do not have a platform. The power of including the gifts of all members of our community in creating the commonweal. The power of the arts to speak to all, regardless of training or socio-economic background. The value that our nonprofit organizations create for our community.

Emergence: I believe in the collective power of the group as they interact and collaborate to solve challenges in their work, their lives, and their community. We are smarter together then we are alone. This is the power of TEDx Des Moines: We collaborate together for the good of our greater community; this is not about anyone's self-promotion.

Collaboration, Education, Group Process, Nonprofit Strategic Planning, Organizational Leadership, Systems Theory and Organizational Design

Seeing the connections in a social system and mapping how the interactions of system members create the current state of affairs. From this work, we can identify the greatest levers for change in the system. This is an underappreciated tool of systems thinking and organizational design.