Rethinking with Alex Torpey

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in a world where people constantly shared and consumed video content, for an unknown real larger purpose? Hmmmm… Well EM Forster imagined this world, in 1909. Join me for the restart of the Five Minute Book Review series on the banks of the White […]

From the Hanover Happenings podcast: In Hanover, we care a lot about making sure people have information about what’s happening in their community. It’s part of the reason we started this podcast and why the Selectboard does business the way it does. But government is only one piece to the puzzle of informing, engaging, and […]

From the Hanover Happenings podcast: In this episode I sit down with Associate Professor of Business Administration Adam Kleinbaum at Dartmouth’s Tuck Business School. Adam and colleagues have recently completed a study where they used FMRI technology to measure brain activity of people as they have conversations and build consensus (or don’t), which appeared in […]

From the Hanover Happenings Podcast: In this special spotlight episode, I host newly elected Secretaries of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas (Vermont) and Dave Scanlan (New Hampshire) in Hanover to talk about civic participation, elections and voter confidence, public trust, building consensus in polarized climates, and practical ways that people can engage in government. Both Secretaries […]

Do you remember Netscape, AOL Instant Messenger, and loud dial-up? Well in this episode of Rethinking, we drink some cool refreshing millennial nostalgia and talk about the values and assumptions built into different social communication technologies, and how much those have changed over the last 25 years. We trace some important differences between things like […]

Join former mayor, municipal manager, professor, and consultant Alex Torpey as we explore some of the dynamics behind how leaders vet (or don’t vet) their ideas. And what do they do when faced with negative feedback? In this episode, we’ll talk about some of the traps that people in leadership or influence fall into, such […]

This episode: Returning from my trip across the country in the fall of 2020, and before I moved up to New Hampshire to serve as Town Manager in the Town of Hanover, I have had the incredible fortune to get to participate in some really interesting experiences. This includes teaching outdoor education with adults and […]

While millions of Americans are in debt or behind on high-interest credit card payments, many trillions of dollars is owed by governments at various levels for money they have already borrowed. At the same time, we know that debt can be a way to way build wealth, or it can help more fairly finance important […]

On Wednesday, March 9th, I hosted a workshop and discussion with the New Jersey Municipal Management Association entitled “How to use the internet to build public engagement and trust.” In that webinar, I shared this episode’s topic, along with some other conceptual and more tactical level ideas to help members navigate the increasingly complex issues […]

Join Alex for a new episode in the 5 Minute Book Review subseries of Rethinking! This is Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. It was filmed/recorded in South Orange, New Jersey. You can find it online here, on YouTube, Instagram or wherever you listen to podcasts, such as Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon, Castbox, […]