Viva Local Economy Revolution!!

This blog has delved into a number of different concerns impacting community empowerment and economic development that don't fit the standard mold, systems thinking, complexity, radical community engagement and disruptive innovation.  It has done so by connecting with and benefitting from the experience and insights from a range of thinkers in different fields. One person of note based on the number of times she has been cited in this blog is Della Rucker.

Della Rucker, of Wise Economy and @dellarucker has been, as has been said before, an important resource for this blog and a source of many of the concepts developed here.  She provides a unique perspective having credentials in both planning (AICP) and economic development (CEcD) that she has applied to economic revitalization and constructive public engagement, concerns that are often found in conflict with each other. 

Della has now written a book The Local Economy Revolution: What’s Changed and How You Can Help.  I purchased the Kindle version and recently finish reading it. Not too surprisingly, considering how inline I often find her thinking is with mine, I enjoyed reading the book.  Anybody talking about revolution in the local economy is going to appeal to someone advocating for new community paradigms.  So it is easy to recommend the book, that though would not really be doing the book justice.

Della takes the ideas contained in the book beyond its covers in particularly meaningful ways.  What I mean by this is that she connects with a recent history that we all share, she understands the affect it has on communities and the people living in them, not only on institutions and related professionals.  She does so in a personal, accessible fashion that can connect with everyday “citizens aiming to make their communities more robust” at the same time “condensing complex ideas while not oversimplifying”, as was observed recently by Wayne Senville, editor of PlannersWeb.  

So she has both the professional credentials and the ability to connect with the regular man or woman on the street needed to create a bridge from where we are today to where we need to be in the future.  The challenge is that bridges to the future always need to be built going uphill. 

It is her ability to span between populism of community desires linked with fiscal and economic constraints facing those made responsible for economic development that makes her a viable contributor to new community paradigms. 

It is one thing to show that you understand the problems facing people, it is another to show that you understand the people themselves.  It is one thing to demonstrate you understand how to achieve economic success, it is another to demonstrate that you know the affect of failure. Della has lived up close, personally and professionally through the changes we created for ourselves over the last few decades which have brought us to our current fork in the road and has learned those lessons deeply enough that she can speak truth to the imposed challenges that must be faced.

Della’s writing style strikes me as being conversational in tone making her critiques more like advice from a neighbor.  She demonstrates that she understands what individuals from different sectors of economic development, politicians, public sector management, professionals, specialists, advocates and constituents are going through trying to cope with the complex, often termed wicked issues, we are all facing regardless of what side of the table we are sitting on.  She doesn’t take a pundit’s perspective on issues making a laundry list of mistakes made by others but instead considers them as missteps made in common and that must be addressed collectively. I never got a hint of blaming anyone more than anyone else, more of we are all need to get up and across the same chasm.

Perhaps more importantly, Della also serves as an example that can be followed by anyone concerned about the health and wellbeing of our communities. The roots of The Local Economy Revolution: What’s Changed and How You Can Help not only run deep, Della has also provided the means of extending beyond the cover of the book into the future.

So instead, I’m going to point you to this book’s web site: localeconomyrevolutionbook.com. There, you’ll find a growing and changing collection of articles, papers and other information that will help you build the toolbox that your community needs.

                                                                                                             Della Rucker

The very act of creating her book is an example of how we can start creating a better future. The book is made up, in large part, from her writings, such as her blog, and online conversations, as in LinkedIn. I had already been exposed to most of the ideas expressed in the book through Della’s earlier writing, particularly in her Wise Economy blog or had participated in some of the discussions. 

It is helpful though to have them organized together in a holistic and comprehensive manner.  I am still endeavoring to do that with many of the ideas that I have been pursuing. It is not easy as the journey can have false turns, lead to dead ends and one can have doubts about the path being taken.  Writing a blog might be the most viable method of scaling the precipice because one can take short bursts that add on to each other.  It is especially helpful when someone creates a pathway for you to build upon even if they may not consider the effort as noteworthy.  Della did that for me with her Wise Economy Manifesto. 

So I wrote a thing called the Wise Economy Manifesto, and in it I tried to encapsulate everything I was thinking. Which is usually a really bad idea. And while I thought at the time that the Manifesto part had a cool ring to it, now it strikes me as a little pompous. But like most of what we put on the internet, it’s out there, and it’s my own baby, goofy as it may look.

                                                                                                                         Della Rucker

Trying to encapsulate everything that you are thinking is not necessarily a bad idea, just a very difficult one to do well, particularly in the first attempt.  One reason is that we, using complicated oriented means of management, have silo’d these ideas, and the people who have to make them real, for too long. One primary goal of the New Community Paradigms blog is to create pathways along those unrealized connections.  The blog post, from August of 2012, Seeing Economy and Community as Ecosystem; Another Way of Shifting the Paradigm was the start of the journey in finding connections with Della’s ideas. Those basic ideas are still to be found in her new book.

● Communities are human ecosystems. 

● That which makes you unique makes you valuable. 

● We have to focus on cultivating our native economic species.

● Beware the magic pill. 

● Crowdsourced wisdom is the best way to find a real solution. 

● We who have the job of helping communities work better have to be brave.

Della tells us in the forward to her book The Local Economy Revolution: What’s Changed and How You Can Help  that 'change sucks'.  A succinct if perhaps obvious observation of the ‘duh’ variety, it is still a required observation considering the level of change that is going to be needed. Della focuses primarily on getting communities to see that changes, often difficult changes, are needed to enable our communities to create a viable quality of life and she doesn’t do it in a way that makes everyone run for the hills. 

I view the current situation with communities and economic development as being more dire as it is not only a matter of complex difficulty in the best of circumstances but is also constrained by opposition from those who seek to hold on to the old way of doing things because it serves to maintain their already established and even entrenched power.  I do place blame more squarely on the shoulders of politicians though see that all of us needed in building the bridge to the future.

This more dismal perspective, however, can be put aside for now.  Before one can have a revolution to overturn entrenched institutions one needs a large enough force to lead into the future. It is never enough to just talk about being against something on this side in endeavoring to create a bridge to a new future.

Most such attempts in creating a new future start on the far side of the chasm providing some vision of a shiny city on a hill, too often with no real means of crossing the span and, more often than not, no real grounded connection with this side of the chasm. This is where Della excels by taking what could be multiple complex concepts and making them not only more comprehensive, understandable and approachable but also initially, potentially addressable.  It will get more complex and difficult but Della provides a good foothold to begin the ascent.

My biggest worry is that not enough of the right people are going to read the book and those are people who see the need for new community paradigms to be created, the people who comprise the community.  It will be great if local politicians and administrators read the book and even better if they do something about it but in too many cases they will merely flatter it and then ignore it.  This is my general review of Della's book, but as I wrote above, in future posts the ideas in the book should be examined closer to truly pay tribute to her effort and to continue building that bridge to the future.

Open Data as End and Means of Civic Disruptive Innovation

The topic of disruptive innovation in the civic arena and public sector has been approached from different vantage points but is still being developed into a holistic concept.  Some basic ideas though are beginning to develop.  Beginning with the premise that paradigm level ideas are needed to address the challenges that communities are facing rather than simple changes around the edges, argues that we need innovations that go beyond sustaining the systems as they now exist to attain a tipping point for fundamental change. Thus the argument to move from sustaining innovations to disruptive innovations. Next, a recognition that complex systems consisting of dynamic components can transform through adaptive momentum created through changes in the configuration of the system.  This is hypothesized to be a rationale behind the momentum of disruptive innovation in a complex economic system.  Community advocates, therefore, have something to strive for beyond the current state of affairs.  The still to be established theory is that such a process could be created or designed through direct deliberative democratic means.  Disruptive innovation in the civic arena and public sector then becomes democratic directed disruptive design. 

Last month this blog took a step back to reassess a statement made about Code for America. What Code for America brought to the community advocacy table was a, 'there's an app for that' set of solutions and did not reach a level of disruptive innovation. This was part of the assertion that what Code for America was creating were instead sustaining innovations - important, beneficial innovations that had an impact but still sustaining innovations. That assertion is still maintained yet there was also a realization that such a perspective does not go far enough and that Code for America has the potential to contribute far more. 

My evolving perspective on Code for America is that they are developing a set of principles upon which to organize and manage change beyond the technical gadgets. 

A point of clarification needs to be made regarding Code for America and that is that it is not seen as a monolithic organization but rather as a movement.  It is not a matter of setting new general policy but of influencing the direction of that movement. Moving from sustaining to disruptive innovation is not a matter of stopping sustaining innovation but creating conditions needed for disruptive innovation. 

This perspective came about because of two books, the first, from some time past, Gardens of Democracy, was created outside of Code for America and the second, more recent, Beyond Transparency, from within.

Gardens of Democracy was considered in the same previous post.  Before getting to Beyond Transparency though, we need to get to basic transparency or the establishment of open data. That discussion was covered by a Code of America panel Open Data - Getting Started, as a sort of prerequisite to Beyond Transparency, consisting of Jack Madans (host) Government Partnerships Manager Code for America @jackmadans, Burt Lum Executive Director Hawaii Open Data @Bytemarks, Laura Meixell 2013 Fellow, Louisville Team Code for America @lauratypes and Laurenellen McCann (then) National Policy Manager Sunlight Foundation @elle_mccann.  The discussion, at one level, reinforced the perspective that Code for America was, for the most part, a source of sustaining innovation.  On another level, it helped to plant the seeds for innovation applied through what can be termed disruptive design. 

The fundamental question under discussion by the Open Data - Getting Started panel was how to get communities to adopt and establish open data policies and practices.   

Code for America or its adherents on the panel seemed to be looking for high-level stakeholders, those with existing political influence, to whom to make a persuasive argument. The process the panel seemed to be suggesting was to first start at city hall then move to the community by working with experts and community hackers in establishing a legal and practical basis for open data.

This meant finding ‘champions’ (those supporting open data). First within the political leadership of the institution, be it city hall or higher institutions of power. The initial change for moving to a more open data platform can come more easily if implemented first through higher levels of government.  The problem is that only four states so far, Hawaii, New York, Utah and New Hampshire have comprehensive open data laws. 

It was seen as being better and easier then to get city hall politicians to pass their own open data resolutions by working with those supporting such an initiative rather than fighting with those who were against it. This recognizes a natural tendency of both humans and institutions to resist change if it is based on language forcing acceptance or that makes anybody to do something different, especially those who already hold power.

Once the data is to officially be made open by the politicians or as part of that process of making it open, one needs to find champions within the different departments of the city hall administration to demonstrate the benefits of open data both to them and to the public. It is at this point then, according to some participating in the Open Data - Getting Started discussion, that a collaborative environment is created and that moving out to work with the community becomes viable. 

This is still at the level of sustaining innovation though with no fundamental changes being made and with limited potential for any if left at this level.  It is hoped that the effort to establish open data can be completed with minimal opposition because it will be difficult to put the genie back in the bottle once accomplished. This approach though has some recognized limitations.

One problem is that even if there is political acceptance by one city hall administration, any change to a new administration could be a step backward. If established by public administration opened data may be limited and merely regulatory in nature.  Chicago’s approach to defining public data as being that which they have on their online portal system is one possible public sector tautology that limits the potential of open data. 

What if instead the community or community advocates outside of city hall were the first to work with hackers and then or even concurrently worked with champions within the administration and political leadership to establish open data as a platform to see the changes that they wanted legally sanctioned? a disruptive innovation strategy or a disruptive design strategy could combine different approaches, that of internal implementation through appeal to innovation and that of external implementation to avoid disruption.  This would mean recognizing open data as a right rather than as a privilege to be allowed.

The Sunlight Foundation sees open data as a right and advocates, among other means, establishing open data through right to know laws, one basis of the right-to-know argument for moving to open data is that citizens paid for the creation of the data so they should have access to it. 

The Sunlight Foundation has resources on local open data policies based on a new major initiative focusing on local government transparency through Google’s $2.1 million grant for Sunlight to expand their mission to open government data.  The Sunlight Foundation also has suggestions on how to implement an open data policy, how to make data public and on deciding what data should be public. 

A community doing this on its own, without open assistance from city hall, could potentially work their own way through this process, with some outside help, such as the Sunlight Foundation, along perhaps with unofficial inside help, but that would depend upon how entrenched the city hall was and how ‘siloed’ were the administration’s departments.  It would be an uphill fight though.

This is where we have to appreciate the usefulness and practicality of the approach advocated by the Open Data - Getting Started panel if made part of a larger effort.  Regardless of the approach, the establishment of an open data platform cannot just be a change to the political and legal structure of the institution, it must also be made separately as an administrative change or organizational transformation of the institution.  A move to open data needs to incorporate not only city hall politicians but administration department managers as well. First, by helping the department meet its own goals than helping the department find better goals. Whether implemented through the front door or the back door, there are different messages needed for policymakers and department administrators.

Moving to open data can be more though than a means of providing an online community-based infrastructure allowing for future innovation. The establishment of an open data platform could help move an institution from a system of centralized, complicated-oriented, mechanistic control system to a more open complex adaptive system.  Establishing an open data platform allows for a broader consideration of wicked issues from a community-wide perspective rather than just those selected for political motivations or implemented to meet self-serving political goals.  Expanding beyond that narrow perspective could require implementation through a process of disruptive innovation.