About

Welcome to the The Change Papers, a shared effort to change North Carolina’s climate for innovation. Over the upcoming months, we’re asking policy leaders to contribute ideas about things that will help the state be more innovative. We know, a blog format isn’t the best way to have a conversation, but we wanted to get started quickly. We’re exploring other ways to move ideas along.

The economy we live in is changing faster than at any time in history. And the pace is accelerating. The newly-expanded, cooly-interconnected global economy is also relentless and brutal. It threatens to leave behind anyone or any place that can’t react to it, from textile workers to old-line companies to we’ve-always-done-it-this-way counties or countries. In the next few years, every place in the world will be forced to rethink how it educates its students, how it structures its government, and how it does business — and then re-rethink.

The success of the 21st century economy in North Carolina depends on how often and how fast we can INNOVATE – turn new ideas and technologies into new systems, products, and services. This conversation — The Change Papers — is about how we do just that. We want to bring together the best thinking from the people of our state on how North Carolina can become more innovative than any other place in the world — in our schools, in our government, in our workplace. Then we want those ideas to plant roots and grow wings.

We invite you to join the conversation. We believe this electronic dialogue can (politely of course) gore some sacred cows that have been off limits, unstick some good ideas that have gotten stuck, and incubate new ideas that may just be ready for primetime.

Connect the dots and good ideas become proposals. Work together and we think these proposals will get the momentum they need to become policy. Stick with it and policy becomes reality, changing the way our state works and our people think.

Leslie Boney, Matthew Muñoz & David Burney launched ChangePapers.org on September 15, 2009.

Leslie Boney

lboney1@nc.rr.com | 919-270-3186
Linked in | Twitter
Leslie is a North Carolina native (9-great grandfather Jogi Boni jogged a few miles in from the shore to Duplin County in 1734) who has spent big chunks of his adult life creating or managing or staffing public policy initiatives focused on making change happen, including:

The Governor’s Work First Business Council, a statewide effort to rally business support for welfare reform, which resulted in companies hiring 16,000 North Carolinians transitioning off of welfare.

The 25-member Rural Prosperity Task Force, which led to creation of a new $40 million rural-focused venture fund, a successful statewide high-speed Internet access effort and a rural infrastructure fund that created or saved more than 10,000 jobs.

The Duke Endowment’s Program for the Rural Carolinas, a five-year $11 million effort led by MDC, Inc. to help 23 struggling rural communities in North and South Carolina develop new community wealth, create new companies and new jobs.

The Support Our Students initiative, a middle school afterschool program for at-risk students, named by the Council of State Governments one of its “10 most innovative government programs.”

A former high school teacher and reporter with experience in the public, private and nonprofit sector, Leslie currently serves as Associate Vice President for Economic Development and Engagement for the University of North Carolina System.

Matthew Muñoz & David Burney

munoz@newkind.com | 919-827-1917
LinkedIn | Twitter
burney@newkind.com | 919-235-2626
LinkedIn | Twitter

Matthew Muñoz and David Burney founded New Kind, a strategic design services company, in February of 2009. New Kind — based in Raleigh, NC — helps organizations solve problems and find opportunities through leveraging the connections between brand, design, culture, and community. New Kind makes the complex understandable, crafts delightful experiences, and prepares people for change.

Matt is a designer specializing in forming visual identities, storytelling, strategy-building, and making information understandable. He applies these skills to simplify complex ideas and create brand experiences for organizations.

Matt democratizes problem solving through visualizations. He has mapped complex customer interactions and business processes for open source technology leader Red Hat, and built design policy matrices for the U.S. National Design Policy Initiative. Matt created an information system to demonstrate how citizens and state might manage the complexity of compound problems. By providing platforms for democratic participation, these systems can help define a shared vision of the future and create public policy to address mutual needs.

Matt has held design roles at IBM, Capstrat and Work Worth Doing, as well as his own consultancy, DesignHeals.

David has nearly 30 years experience building and leading creative services organizations. Most recently, David served for 4 1/2 years as Vice President of Brand Communications and Design at Red Hat—one of the most disruptive technology brands in the world. David led the company’s overall brand communications strategy, including all creative communications functions.

Prior to Red Hat, David was the owner of Burney Design, partner and Chief Creative Officer at Capstrat, and Chief Designer at the NC Museum of Art.

In addition to serving as Red Hat’s brand executive, David also created an internal innovation program to drive the power of design thinking throughout the company. The program fast became an integral part of quarterly executive meetings. It was subsequently leveraged across the company worldwide to create departmental and individual goals that align with annual corporate business objectives.