Category Archives: Uncategorized

Is Failure an Option?

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I was reading a great Blog Post by Jeffrey Baumgartner, on the cost of not implementing new innovations.  While the motivations are different for business, the idea is as true for local government as it is for business.  The cost of the status quo can be profound, and no one keeps track of the innovations we chose not to implement.  We all need to assess our ability to innovate, and much of that “ability” hinges on communication, empowerment, and a willingness to fail.

That’s right willingness to fail.  The biggest impediment to innovation is the fear of failure.  Unlike a business, we all live in a world where a bad day can be on the front page.  Local leadership has to ensure that our staffs believe that they will be supported for trying new things, and that we recognize that not all ideas are good ideas.

Thomas Edison was quoted as saying, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”  We need to create that type of environment if we want to spur innovation.   Sticky notes were created by trying to invent a new type of super glue, so you never fully know where the next great idea may come from.

What does your internal communication look like?  Does your staff feel that they have the real ability to influence change and bring forth ideas?  Do you have a good system, formal or informal, to get ideas from the trenches to the people with the ability to make it happen?  These are all key questions that you need to ask yourself.  Too often when looking to identify new opportunities we fail to look in the most obvious places.  The people that we rely on to perform the day to day functions will quite often have the greatest insight on where the opportunities lie.  We need to tap that resource and maximize the benefits.  Our ability to do more with less has never been more important.  We need to be certain that we have done our part to identify and implement that next great idea.

Keeping the best and brightest

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The Lansing State Journal has a excellent series of articles about how to grow Michigan’s economy.  And once again the bottom line is about creating the kinds of places that people want to be in.

Articles from League partners, Lou Glazer at Michigan Future, and Dave Waymire of Martin-Waymire Communications detail the importance of smart, young workers and present a different kind of scorecard matching up Michigan with Massachuetts.

Pat Gillespie, a Lansing-based developer discusses the kinds of development needed to make a vibrant 21st Century commuity and Holly Hetzner of the Prima Civitas Foundation talks about the importance of nurturing entrepreneurs.  Other articles describe the importance of public art and social networking.

Sound familiar.. it should.  Each and every topic is among the eight assets of vibrant communities we’ve outlined in our “Center for 21st Century Communities.”  Through the work of the center, our blogs, books and radio show the conversation is changing to a understanding that Michigan’s future economic prosperity rests on investing in Michigan’s communities.  Its not too late to join us.

Power and Creativity: Can they play together?

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Do you remember the childrens story about the emperor with no clothes?  Because of the atmosphere he had created, no one felt that they could be honest and tell him that he was sans pants.  His lack of humility was his ultimate undoing.  Have you ever paused to ask yourself if you have created such an environment, and considered the impact that has on innovation?

Research conducted by USC Marshall professor Nathanael Fast the Marshall School of Business suggests that power can have a negative impact on innovation if the environment doesn’t allow for an honest critique of the boss.  “The overall sense of control that comes with power tends to make people feel overconfident in their ability to make good decisions,” Fast said.  In other words, you start to believe your own hype.

As leaders in an organization I believe the goal is to strike an appropriate balance of confidence and humility.  Ego can be a good thing in that it helps give you the confidence to make decisions and move forward.  Too much can be your downfall as you cut off the creative process and limit thinking.  Don’t surround yourself with people that feed your ego, surround yourself with people that will push you and the process with honest feedback.

Now please, go put on some pants!

 

Don’t Leave Home Without It!

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Mobile Devices

Mobile experiences impact the way we work, live and play.

I’m not talking about the old American Express commercials with Karl Malden.  I’m talking about our obsession with our mobile devices and how they are only a few feet from us at all times.

Mobile devices are changing the way we live, from how we share information, to the places we go and even to the way we prefer to communicate.  Technical advances in wireless broadband give us all the power of the internet at our fingertips anytime, anywhere.  In a recent Pew Internet and American Life Project report on mobile technology, 46% of all American adults own a smartphone and most use their devices to go online.

Mobile apps tie directly in with our social networking sites and allow all of us to share and/or “check-in” from our current location.  This “current location” could be in your community.  Communities should embrace the mobile app market, which can allow for direct communication with citizens and visitors to highlight parks, downtowns, and events.

There are a number of apps, such as SeeClickFix and App-Order.com, where citizens can report and get neighborhood issues fixed.  This is a powerful tool for creating citizen engagement.  Adding mobile applications to a community’s arsenal of communications, creates a better social connection with citizens, allowing citizens and municipalities to form a true partnership.

Can I borrow some please?

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Many topics aren’t directly on point, but part of the challenge we face is how to apply lessons from other fields and disciplines and make them relevant in a municipal context. I came across this blog post in the Harvard Business Review, and frankly the headline resonated: When You Can’t Innovate, Copy.

While innovations are vital, it is impractical to think that we can all be innovators. For many practitioners, being a jack of all trades is practically part of the job description. This approach, while often necessary leaves little time to be truly innovate and explore new ways of doing things.

So what are we to do with limited resources, and even less time available to research, test, and implement new ways of doing business? Why not copy from your peers that have figured it out? Unlike when you did it in Algebra class, this form of copying won’t get a note sent home to your mother. This is a way of leveraging proven approaches to maximize your limited resources and improve your community along the way.

There are a variety places to look for what your colleagues are doing well. The League’s Community Excellence Award program was started for just this purpose. It provides members a platform to tell others about their accomplishments, but perhaps more importantly it is a way for the rest of us to learn from their experiences. The National League of Cities and the International City/County Management Association can be excellent resources for innovative ideas as well.

A mentor of mine often said “there aren’t any new ideas, so steal everything.” While I don’t necessarily agree with the literal interpretation, the idea was clear and on point. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. If you see something that works, make it your own. As Charles Caleb Colton once said, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

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The Power of Video

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In today’s global society of “@” symbols, status updates, viral videos and #hashtags, it has never been easier for organizations to communicate with current followers or reach vast amounts of new followers.  This is the same for communities of all shapes and sizes.  Social media has given communities the low cost, efficient communications ability of any fortune 500 company.

The saying goes; a picture can say a thousand words.  Well, a video can be even more powerful and allow you to produce a complete narrative. With minimal investment in a video camera, video editing software and utilizing YouTube or Vimeo (video social media sites), every community has the opportunity to highlight their unique assets.

My colleague, Colleen Layton and I are working on placemaking videos emphasizing a number of communities from around the state. Our initial story is about Ludington and their cultural economic development strategy.  Cultural economic development is one of the eight key assets of the League’s Center for 21st Century Communities (21c3).

These stories will be featured on the League’s website and social media infrastructure. Find out more at www.mml.org/placemaking.

Better, Faster, Cheaper

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Better, Faster, Cheaper.  It is the battle cry of any good government reformist.  How can you argue with the premise?  Shouldn’t we all strive to reach this lofty goal? I certainly think we should.   In reality though, it seems that the focus as of late is really only on cheaper & faster when we talk about government services.  Better never enters into the dialogue.  If something costs less, then that becomes the default answer.  We talk about, but our policies don’t back up the rhetoric.

I’ll be the first to admit that many of the processes that we have engaged in are not cheapest or fastest, but let’s not forget that part of this is by design.  So why would we intentionally have inefficient processes?  Well, another rallying cry of any good government reformist is transparency and accountability.  Everyone needs to know everything at all times.  Is this better, faster, cheaper?  Well it is certainly not faster or cheaper. The need/desire to be open and transparent leads to a slow, costly, cumbersome bureaucracy.  Is it open and transparent?  Yes it is.  Is it efficient?  No, it is not.

Now this does not absolve us of the need to be the best at what we do.  I would also suggest that the best is rarely if ever the cheapest.  The old adage that you get what you pay for is true in the private sector, your home, and in local government.  Ask any successful business person, what is the most important ingredient to a successful enterprise?  The answer will uniformly be talent.  Hire the best people you can and let them do their thing.  I would suggest to those who believe that the best way to save money is to impose further restrictions on locals consider this concept.  By employing a top down, control filled environment as a way of controlling costs: they are in reality making every government less efficient.  We need to attract the best and brightest people possible and let them lead.

We must remember good people always have options.  If we create an environment where the best and brightest choose not to serve locally because we have made it untenable, have we won because it’s cheaper? Are we better off if we have degraded the talent we can attract because of the environment we have created?  Would any business survive with this approach?  Clearly not.  Why then would we use this as our model of success for local government?  In the phrase better, faster, cheaper:  better comes first for a reason.  We should be striving to make Michigan’s communities the best, not the cheapest.

Welcome to CityOps

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Welcome to my new blog, CityOps.  My goal is to use CityOps to talk about the practical things that cities are dealing with, and hopefully provide some new perspectives into the topics.  If you want to read about something new and innovative, or perhaps frustrating and challenging:  CityOps is for you.  So whether it’s controversial like emergency managers, or mundane like budget, CityOps will be my forum to chime in about it and provide my perspective.

I would appreciate any feedback that you may have on various topics, as well as suggestions for things to blog about.  Comments can be left after each blog post, or if you have ideas for subjects you’d like to hear about, feel free to email me at aminghine@mml.org or use the email button at the top right side of the page. You can follow me on twitter, Linkedin and Facebook, and may subscribe to the CityOps RSS feed as well and get new blog posts as they hit the site.

Please come back often

 

What this blog is about

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When I was offered the opportunity to write a blog related to the work I do here at the League, I thought back a few years to all the strategy discussions we had about our goal to change the conversation among policy makers regarding the importance of strong, vibrant communities to Michigan’s economic future. A pattern of disinvestment had set in, particularly at the state level, what with numerous budget cuts to programs that assist communities, not the least of which was revenue sharing. This was centered on our state’s recession during the last decade as well as a philosophy that tax cuts alone would get us back to economic prosperity. Well, after reductions in the income tax and implementation of a phase out of the single business tax the only thing that was accomplished was the shrinking of state resources for communities, K-16 education and a host of other programs. The bottom line for us was that if we want to re-establish the state and local partnership, we need to show how communities count in the equation.
Thus, the name for this blog, “Communities Count”. I’ll be writing about the importance of public and private investment in communities to help local officials and residents create the kinds of places that people want to work, live, and play in. I’ll highlight the good, the bad, and the ugly, from Michigan, the United States and around the world. I’ll celebrate the good stuff taking place in Michigan communities (and there is plenty) and I’ll also let you know when I something happens that I disagree with. And as I write, I hope to hear back from you. I’m after an intelligent discussion in a way where while we might not always agree, we can continue to find some middle ground toward creating better places. And remember…better communities mean a better Michigan.