Getting “smarter” is the opposite of being indoctrinated or taking what anyone says as gospel – it’s about challenging yourself, expanding your mind and being willing to explore diverse perspectives.

Washington listens to mainstream citizens, but only if you communicate in the right way at the right time.

We all want America to flourish and prosper, but disagreements on “how” keep tripping us up. How is much more than picking between policy prescriptions – at its core it involves how we treat each other, and particularly those we disagree with.

The person most essential to realizing America in the first place thought about this issue a lot. It’s time to revisit his legacy.

My father had a plaque on his desk when I was growing up that read “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit!”

Is it late winter? Early spring? Either way, with the first month of the year and the State of the Union behind us, we're digging into some data, some big ideas, and some hopeful stories to carry us through the next few months of political and economic news. Check our what we loved reading in February:

As the weather gets colder, we're looking forward to a holiday season full of catching up on our reading! Here are our picks for recent pieces worth reading in the areas of civic engagement, democracy revitalization and broad-based economic prosperity.

The headlines all point to key questions we're asking ourselves as a nation. What do you think? Share your favorites in the comments!

We hope you've been enjoying the warm weather and longer days of the summer! We've stayed busy reading the latest news in innovation in civics, tech, economics and politics. Get your "Summer Reading" in with some of these key links:

With the inaugural National Week of Conversation behind us, we’re even more convinced of the need for dialogue, quality information, and citizen empowerment. Here’s what we’re reading this month to learn a little more, connect across the aisle, and better enable access to broad-based prosperity.

Despite blizzards and the lure of March Madness, we still found time in March to get smarter about politics, civics and data - check out some of our recommended reads this month.

Having useful and comprehensive information is key to making good decisions - and coming up with new ideas for improving America! Here’s what we’ve been reading and learning in February.