Chuck Darrah and Nicole Conand at CreaTV.
By Pat Lopes Harris, Media Relations Director
What is the most effective way to improve communities? Support people who ignite change.
SJSU and CreaTV San Jose mini-documentaries on seven such individuals form the basis for “The Silicon Valley Sparkplugs Project,” premiering at 5:30 p.m. March 24 at Camera 3 Cinema.
“The goal of the whole project is to ask: How do you develop more people like this?” said Professor Chuck Darrah, who worked with graduate student Nicole Conand and CreaTV Producer Mike Pierce.
CreaTV San Jose will co-host the premiere with The American Leadership Forum – Silicon Valley. The event will include screenings of mini-documentaries on each sparkplug, followed by Q&A and visioning exercises. Meet the sparkplugs at the project’s website.
“We would like this tool to become a resource for people who want to work as community sparkplugs, and as curriculum to take into schools for civic engagement,” Darrah said.
“Silicon Valley Sparkplugs” was funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which commissioned similar work nationwide. Local stakeholders chose to conduct in-depth research on the distinct characteristics of Silicon Valley.
“The idea was we would try to get at those kinds of stories of local level innovation in the valley that had to do with community building,” Darrah said.
“Nicole and I developed interview questions and she went out to find below-the-radar people who were trying to change something in their communities,” Darrah recalled.
Darrah, Conand and Pierce conducted two rounds of lengthy ethnographic interviews, logged film, outlined stories, and then edited the series of seven to eight-minute case studies.
The project began with polls showing a growing belief that “government wasn’t going to be able to take care of us so we needed to be able to take care of ourselves,” Darrah said.
“Here we are, a year and a half later, and if anything, it’s more timely than ever.”#