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.

What does it take to be innovative?

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InnovationInnovation is about bringing ideas to life, using creativity to look at, and even try something different.  In a recent article I read “The 6 Questions That Lead To New Innovations” it said “innovation usually involves a fresh perspective on something that already exists”.  Being innovative is different from being an “inventor”, and building something new.

I didn’t “invent” the social network, but neither did Mark Zuckerberg.  However, I do use the power of social networking applications every day to amplify the League’s brand, push placemaking initiatives, and create connections from around the world.  You can implement these same strategies to highlight your community’s assets and build a stronger social connection with your citizens.

Powerful communications tools already exist.  Facebook and Twitter are easy to use, and they’re FREE. They will help you expand your reach and give you new opportunities to tell your community’s unique story.  Look at the 6 questions of innovation to come up with new ideas to use your existing social networks.  If you don’t have a social presence, these questions can help bring new ideas to your current communication strategies.

Better Communities. Better Michigan.

Is it as simple as cutting costs?

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So much is being made about the need for government to be more efficient. Consolidation and collaboration are the buzz words of the day, and are presented as the cure all for the financial challenges that all local governments are facing. So is it really that simple? Is it true that all we need to do is cut costs to some hypothetical number we can afford?

It occurs to me that the simplest challenge that locals face is matching costs to revenues. It’s something anyone with simple math skills can do. What I am bringing in must exceed or equal what goes out, simple stuff. Why then do so many locals have financial issues? The answer lies in the paradoxical nature of local government services. Every time you cut services you reduce the earning capacity of the city.

So why would service cuts diminish a cities earning capacity? While it is easy to understand that police cost money, in fact a lot of money. It’s harder to understand how cutting costs, a.k.a. services, reduce a cities ability to raise revenue. Think about it like this: what is the cities equivalent of a manufacturing company’s factory? Or to say it another way, how does a city generate revenue? It’s the properties located in that city, and taxes assessed against the “value” associated with those properties. So a simple query: would you pay more for a house in a community with “more” services or “less” services? Great parks or no parks? Good roads or poor roads? Adequate public safety or minimal public safety? I think the answers to all these questions are obvious. Better services equate to better property values, and increased revenue to provide critical services.

Turn around companies make a very handsome living by helping companies be more efficient, and shed themselves of losing components of their business. I am quite certain that as part of that quest for efficiency they would not eliminate the fundamental earning capacity of the company. If the books were balanced by eliminating the manufacturing capacity of the company, then there is no company. The same holds true for cities. Any effort to restructure and reduce costs must preserve the earning capacity of the city. In other words, if our cost cutting only approach leaves a place where people don’t want to live, then we have failed. Herein lays the challenge before us. Increase efficiencies to be sure, but retain the character and fiber of our communities. If not, we have only exacerbated the very problem we set out to solve.

Welcome to InKNOWvate

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I’m Rob Ferrari, director of digital strategy at the Michigan Municipal League and through this blog I’m going to highlight and discuss digital innovations and knowledge (the “InKNOWvate” part) on how the combination of brand design, communications and technology all play a vital role in building vibrant communities for the 21st century.

The League’s Center for 21st Century Communities has identified eight assets that all Michigan communities need to create sustainability and improve quality of life.  One of these assets is “Messaging & Technology” which focuses on connecting people with their places, and how the power of communications can garner stronger community engagement, identity and support.

Make sure to participate with my blog, as well as the League’s social network:

Better Communities. Better Michigan.

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.