I was introduced to model of positive deviancy by Martin Etherington 
, who was, at that time, the Chief Marketing Officer at Tektronix. We were working together to introduce new marketing models in his marketing organization.
In 2009 I was asked by the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) to help lead an Innovation Council within the bureau - an experiment that sought to introduce the innovation culture from the software industry into the PPB, a highly structured, command and control, organization.
Utilizing the concept of positive deviancy, we launched the Rosewood Initiative , a neighborhood-based initiative to build community and co-create new strategies for public safety in partnership with the Portland and Gresham police departments.
I found that the model of positive deviancy works well to drive transformational change in complex ecosystems. Few ecosystems are more complex than education. So, when my lens changed its focus to education, I then applied this model again.
When working with the Police Bureau, I found that it was critical that, when using this model, that you are innovating in a place at the edge of the ecosystem, where you can experiment, fail and learn fast. When we were too close to important power structures, the guardians of those structures would go to great lengths to shut down our innovation efforts.
That is why the most successful work was the launch of the Rosewood Initiative, focused on a virtual "no-mans land" between Portland and Gresham. They were suffering from some of the highest crime rates in the city. No one cared about this area, it was a forgotten edge of Portland. Working with John Scruggs, a police officer, we launched the initiative to rebuild community fabric that underpinned public safety.
This ability to learn fast is critical, for change happens when you can quickly create a new models that others want to emulate. You want to become a First Mover and Create a Wake.
This is where the Story of Dayton begins. A small school district in a town that few people could find a map. It was here that we began to explore how the educational experience could be re-imagined. We hoped that if we could create Dayton as a Positive Deviant, that it could become a catalyst for a transformation of the entire education ecosystem.