Re-thinking public engagement: a Calgary experiment
It’s funny how different aspects of your life serendipitously cross from time to time. Following my presentation at Leadership Calgary earlier this month about the current state and possible future of western democratic government (in LC speak it was titled “how do we build a systemically and systematically adaptive democratic government?”) we find a British Labour Party getting trounced from office primarily because of an expenses scandal, the Canadian parliment mired in public confusion as to why they would not want to let the Auditor General review MP expenses, and closer to home, the City of Calgary’s auditor says the procurement process is so murky and devoid of rules that fraud has almost certainly taken place.
What do all of these have in common? A lack of respect for the role the public plays in democratic government.
I won’t bore you with the details – I’ll save those for another post or for the Cities and Towns in Transition conference on June 4 and 5, which I have been asked to speak about this topic at – but at the end of the day public wisdom and government adaptability must grow together. Each relies on the other to succeed. This is done through transparency (government giving to public) and accountability (public giving to government).
I believe open data plays a big role in the transparency side of the equation, and a useful role in the accountability side, but I’ve recently been struck by the lack of systemic adaptability in our governance systems. In short, why are 15 people making all the decisions for the City of Calgary when we know public wisdom itself contains much more useful decision making information. One multiple choice question every four years hardly seems like the kind of thing our bravest citizens should be asked to give their lives to protect. Shouldn’t there be more? What of the really good ideas that lay outside the institutional input model? The good ideas that model is not designed to – and therefore unable to – reach? Do we just give up on those? Do we just call our current system ‘good enough’?
I’ve recently re-discovered Clay Shirky. I’ve been familiar with his work for several years but I’ve always classified them within the box of mind as applying to ‘technology’. Which is fair given that most of his examples lay in this field (Wikipedia, Flickr, Linux, Meetup, etc). But recently I was afforded the opportunity to apply his theories and teachings to the world of governance systems and I was surprised that what he was talking about almost seamlessly fit this world.
But so what.
I’m just a regular guy. I have no power; no input. And I certainly cannot change the 150-year-old institution of Canadian democracy. So I relished the opportunity to do what I and many others witnessing a travesty that I am unable to change would do: I whined about it.
Fortunately, I recently read the book “Mistakes Were Made (but not by me), Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts” and was reminded of the quote by Ken Low, “despair is not an option”. I could blame others and wallow, or I could look within myself and see what I could change.
I am not the mayor, premier or prime minister, so tackling one of those institutions is ludicrous. But I am the president of another governance system: my community association. Upon quick inspection of that organization I found we – despite having an active membership, being well respected by the community, and being in excellent financial shape – exhibited the same things I wanted to rail against. We had a board of 14 elected officials who were charged with doing all the work of the association. But who cares what we thought most needs doing? We’re just 14 people who happened to have some time or caring to sit on a board. That doesn’t make us any smarter or more capable than any other group of 14 people from the community. It just means we were willing to make the commitment. But how did we make our decisions? Where did our information come from? How did we ensure the really good ideas that lay outside our institutional model were invited in?
The answer is: we didn’t. We did what almost every government does; we made decisions based on the best information available. We went with our gut and our experience; we talked to our neighbours, did the odd bit of research, and made decisions at a boardroom table. All of this put the onus on the 14 people and never once invited the public to be part of the decision making process (aside from that one annual vote or having the ability to complain). We also never invited them to be part of the implementation process either.
I was lucky enough at this point to make a connection to something that happened several months earlier. Following the second CivicCamp I had a discussion with someone had the general tone of which was: ‘Having these kind of un-conference meetings where we talk about things that matter most to the participants is great. I wish there was more of this in other places.’ The ‘open spaces technology’ format discussions used by CivicCamp I found immensely useful because the agenda for the day was never based on someone’s unintentional bias, it was the group bias that set the agenda. And being the sum of our parts almost always proves to be better than that of one person, or a smaller group of people. (Hence my trouble with 14 people at a boardroom table making all the decisions.)
So how could we engage our community to get the best ideas out of them? And do so in a format that is not just a ‘town hall’ style event featuring general discussions, Q & A sessions, and the same 14 people responsible for implementing things at the end of the day anyway?
To do this, the Winston Heights-Mountview Community Association partnered with CivicCamp to create “CivicCamp in a Box”. A sort of ‘kit’ that anyone can use, which asks members of the community to come forward and say what they believe most needs doing in the community. It does not end here however. If we are truly going to invite them into the decision making process, we also have to involve them heavily in the implementation process. After all a small army of people working only on the specific project that interests them the most, affords much more possibility for getting ‘stuff’ done than a group of 14 board members working on things they may only be casually interested in.
Take for instance what I mention in my 2009/10 presidents report on how things often work at a community association: You as an interested community member want to plan a Stampede BBQ (for example) and you come to the board and tell us you want to plan a Stampede BBQ. More often than not, because you are a warm body who is interested, the community association will promptly make you a board director. The problem is now the majority of the work you will do has nothing to do with planning a Stampede BBQ. This has been a major focus of my time on the Winston Heights-Mountview board, lowering the bar of involvement and eliminating these kinds of barriers. You want to plan a Stampede BBQ? We’ll let you do that. Do you want to join a board? It is our responsibility to provide that opportunity too. Government should be about empowering the people, not getting in there way.
And so that is the second half of “CivicCamp in a Box”. Once participants have listed the ideas they have to make the neighbourhood a better place, they will each be given the chance to select one idea that they ‘think most needs doing’ from their perspective and to work on making that idea a reality. We will provide whatever resources we can to help them – starting from lunch and coffee at the event, through to any funds the association might be able to give to their project, to our contacts with neighbours, local businesses and all three levels of government.
I’m confident the ideas coming out of this event being held tomorrow will be better and more robustly thought out than anything our dedicated and whip smart board of 14 people could have done on their own. It will even have the added benefit of creating more engaged residents who will be illustrating their commitment to a better neighbourhood, which of course comes with many unintended side benefits from Block Watches to cleaner streets to more friendly ‘over the fence’ conversations.
I’m excited about this event even though I’m not sure what any of the outcomes might be, but I’m willing to take a risk and see if it will work. Cherie McCauley and Sarah Arthurs – who I’ve been working with on the logistics of creating “CivicCamp in a Box” – and I have floated the concept to other community associations and many are interested in how this might be used in their neighbourhood.
But why stop there? If this process works, why could we not see the Province or the City apply this kind of citizen engagement to, for example, budget deliberations? When an alderman says something is what their constituents want, what process did they go through to ensure it’s not just what they think and that had received little negative criticism? A process like this can eliminate their unintentional bias created by an institutional decision making model. Heck you could go the other way with it too and use it at the local elementary school, senior’s centre or baseball team. The possibilities are endless, really. And I believe by taking our time to do public engagement in a way like this (let’s not kid ourselves, this will slow down the current institutional decision making process) we can see added benefit of increased caring and decreased expenses.
Someone just needs to be willing to try it to see if it works. So, I’m happy to volunteer to take the risk. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Beneath it all there is a fire just waiting for fuel
Filed under: Alberta, Calgary, Canada, Marketing, Politics
On this blog I usually talk a lot about things that are happening in the world and how I feel about them. I don’t often talk about what I’m thinking about independent of the news of the day. But several things I’ve been undertaking have coalesced recently into one moment that I wanted to share, because it has everything to do with what I normally talk about here.
(Note: Bear with me, this might be a post of Enlightened Savage length proportions.)
As part of my Leadership Calgary course I’m currently reading a book called “Mistakes Were Made (but not by me), Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts”. It’s an eye-opener in every sense of the word. The main premise of the book revolves around “cognitive dissonance”; which, put simply, is the process individuals undertake after receiving information that is contradictory to their belief system. It raises a VERY important point: what do you do when you encounter something that is counter-intuitive to everything you’ve learned to be vitally important from your mother/friends/employer/church/political party/etc. In short it is self-justification, something we all do each and every single day.The examples the book gives ranges from how we convince ourselves the new gadget we just bought is better than every gadget out there and everyone is a fool for not owning the same one; to how our political leaders find themselves in trouble from time to time and simply cannot admit they made a mistake only to find themselves further down the rabbit hole.
I highly recommend the book to everyone. It certainly made me rethink a lot of my rationale for decision-making and made me appreciate the “other guy’s” point even more.
Those who read this blog regularly know that my main point is often “cut through the crap and get to the root of the problem” or “don’t just blindly follow, ask questions”. I consider myself post-partisan and, not being a member of any political party, more able to rise above the majority of the fray.
On Monday I suddenly found myself applying some of the “seek proof” ideology from the book to something Lianne (@prairies) mentioned on Twitter. We had a great short conversation about children and violence and whether witnessing violence causes them to be more violent. The outcome of the conversation doesn’t matter in this context, but it let me leave work at the end of the day with my mind just a little more open (as I hope it did for her too).
The night before, on Sunday, I was immersed in Bob Edwards quotes at a script writing session for Alberta Theatre Projects annual Bob Edwards Award Luncheon. (For those unfamiliar with Bob Edwards he was the founder of the Calgary Eye-Opener in the 1900s. He poked fun at Calgary and Alberta politicians with a goal to open readers’ eyes to the day’s issues. Basically he was the Jon Stewart of his day. And yes, he was HI-LAR-E-US.) At this particular script writing session we – I’m happy to be working with comedian Cory Mack – were focused on writing questions for a panel discussion featuring Peter C. Newman, Catherine Ford, Hugh Dempsey, Jane Urquhart and Lise Bissonnette; all former recipients of the award for their “shit-disturber” writing capabilities.
The questions were the kind you might expect me to be interested: why is the media important, who in politics might you like to call out, why don’t more writers rock the boat, etc. (You’ll have to attend the luncheon on November 2 to hear the final questions and their answers.) As you can imagine, having this kind of conversation with other people rather than just my computer screen got my brain moving a little bit more.
Back to Monday night: as I get off the bus on my way home a song that I haven’t thought about in almost 10 years comes on my iPod. When Ani DiFranco’s “Little Plastic Castle” came out in 1998 I bought it right away. I was in an Ani frame of mind back then: I felt connected to her frantic guitar playing and thoughtful lyrics. As a result one song stuck out for me even back then: “Fuel”. I played it over and over again and it slowly became my favourite on the album. It was this song that came on my iPod on Monday night and everything I’d experienced in the past few days started started coming together. It all started clicking for me.
Before I explain further, I suggest you play the music here and read along with the lyrics. (I’ve posed them below the video.) It probably won’t affect you in the same way it does me, but you’ll get the idea.
They were digging a new foundation in Manhattan
And they discovered a slave cemetery there
May their souls rest easy now that lynching is frowned upon
And we’ve moved on to the electric chair
And I wonder who’s gonna be president
Tweedle Dumb or Tweedle Dumber?
And who’s gonna have the big
Blockbuster box office
This summer
How ’bout we put up a wall
Between the houses and the highway
And then you can go your way
And I can go my wayExcept all the radios agree with all the TV’s
And all the magazines agree with all the radios
And I keep hearing that same damn song
Everywhere I go
Maybe I should put a bucket over my head
And a marshmallow in each ear
And stumble around for another dumb numb week
For another hum drum hit song to appearPeople used to make records
As in a record of an event
The event of people
Playing music in a room
Now everything is cross-marketing
It’s about sunglasses and shoes
Or guns and drugs
You chooseWe got it rehashed
We got it half-assed
We’re digging up all the graves
And we’re spitting on the past
And we can choose between the colors
Of the lipstick on the whores
Cuz we know the difference
Between the font of twenty percent more
And the font of teriyaki
You tell me
How does that make you feel?
You tell me what’s realAnd they say that alcoholics are always alcoholics
Even when they’re dry as my lips for years
Even when they’re stranded on a small desert island
With no place in two thousand miles to buy beer
And I wonder is he different
Is he different
Has he changed
What he’s about
Or is he just a liar
With nothing to lie aboutAm I headed for the same brick wall
Is there anything I can do
About anything at all
Except go back to that corner in Manhattan
And dig deeper
Dig deeper this time
Down beneath the impossible pain of our history
Beneath unknown bones
Beneath the bedrock of the mystery
Beneath the sewage system and the path train
Beneath the cobblestones and the water main
Beneath the traffic of friendships and street deals
Beneath the screeching of kamikaze cab wheels
Beneath everything I can think of to think about
Beneath it all
Beneath all get out
Beneath the good and the kind and the stupid and the cruel
There’s a fire that’s just waiting for fuel
I bolded the sections that strike me the most.
In 1998 it was the phrase “we know the difference between the font of twenty percent more and the font of teriyaki”. It amazed me then that, yes indeed, we can recognize the font that indicates a store “SALE” and the kind you would use at a Chinese food restaurant. And you would react poorly if a proprietor used the opposite one for their shop.
I guess this is where it all comes to for me: so much of what we do, or see, or pay our attention to is only scratching the surface. There is always more story than you could possibly know. Yet we are so quick to assume we know the ins and the outs of any given event. (You just have to read the comments on any Globe and Mail or CBC.ca article to realize how quick people are to judge.)
So how do we combat this? How do we, the average person, ensure we don’t leap to any false conclusions? How do we stop ourselves from buying into the convenient to understand, watered down, bite-sized bullshit politicians and media have little choice but to feed us?
The answer is the entire last verse of the song.
Beneath it all there is a fire just waiting for fuel. I am a fire waiting for fuel. And I know you are too.
And there is plenty of fuel out there; we just need to dig deeper into every story to find it. Question everything. Never discourage someone from asking “why?”. Never stop learning and approach everything with an open mind. Don’t let anyone stand in your way. If we do this we can pry open any issue. And that is something we sorely need more of in our politics.
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