That Podcast in Hutch - Jackson Swearer
And what his trip to the Aspen Ideas Festival could mean for our community
Anyone who knows Jackson at all, knows he’s not a frequent poster on social media. He’s more of a quality-over-quantity type of person. When he does post something, it’s generally longer form, thought-provoking, and well worth reading.
So when I saw his frequent and more-animated-than-ordinary posts, I knew he was feeling not quite himself.
A few weeks ago, Jackson had the chance to join the Aspen Ideas Festival, as a fellow with the Aspen Institute. That not quite himself feeling was a sort of invigoration about being at a place where so many people, from so many places, were sharing their thoughts and insights on the world.
Here’s one of his posts that caught my attention:
“Provocative session this morning at the #AspenIdeas Festival about data and how we measure the economy. Many of our metrics show a strong economy, but are they telling the real story? Panelists from the political left and right all agreed we need better measures to get the true picture of the economic well-being of middle- and lower-class Americans.
Like the story from Moneyball and baseball, we don’t need to throw our metrics like batting average or unemployment rates, but we do need to acknowledge that these measures are incomplete. Good policy making requires knowing what the real impacts of our policies are. We just skimmed the surface of the topic today, so I’m curious to learn more about the work of the Ludwig Institute!”
The Aspen Institute was founded in 1949, and carries a mission to “drive change through dialogue, leadership, and action to help solve the greatest challenges of our time.”
The Aspen Ideas Festival brings together leaders from a variety of fields and communities around the world. They gather to learn, to explore, and to consider new ideas and different ways of thinking about big problems in the world.
I was both curious about the experience and interested to hear what Jackson had learned in Aspen. I could tell he was excited about his time there, and I wanted to bring him on the podcast to give him a chance to share what he learned.
There’s a lot I enjoyed about this conversation. But in particular, I enjoyed the way Jackson considers some of these big ideas in the context of community. He grew up in Hutchinson, and like many people moved away for college and work. But he wanted to come back home and make a difference here. This is the sort of dynamic we have to harness for communities like Hutchinson to thrive.
Furthermore, it’s critical that we find ways for people like Jackson to gather and collect ideas from others - and from other parts of the world - and think about how those lessons might apply in a place like Hutchinson.
I hope you enjoy this conversation with Jackson - and find some of the ideas he learned about as fascinating as I did.
To listen to my conversation with Jackson, subscribe to That Podcast in Hutch at Salt City Sound or on your favorite podcast streaming service.
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