A couple of weeks ago I was fortunate enough to be invited to participate in a 2-day gathering co-hosted by my visionary entrepreneurial friend, Lisa Gansky. Most recently Lisa has been exploring a set of ideas that she published in her book, "The Mesh," describing the different ways that sharing is better than owning. The gathering, co-sponsored by the EU, among others, was designed to apply Lisa's ideas to cities, and to look at the intersection of social media and social innovation.
(Small digression: One of Peter Drucker's many prescient observations was his comment that, when it comes to innovation, there is more opportunity when it comes to social innovation than any other field. As we watch traditional institutions and conventional categories of work, life, belief, and politics suffer a succession of system failures, it seems clear that innovation applied to our social operating systems can offer new, better, smarter, cheaper, and more efficient ways of living together. Now back to our regularly scheduled program.)
At the end of the gathering I came away convinced that social media and social innovation represent the frontier of change.
To try to clarify my own thinking, I sat down and interviewed myself.
Here's an edited and shortened transcript of that interview.
Q: How does social media create social change?
A: Remember back in the 1990s when the slogan you heard everywhere was "the web changes everything"? And it did. Well, social media is the next wave of web-ification that once again changes everything. It doesn't change only social innovation, but applied to social innovation, it is a powerful tool for clarity, speed, efficiency, personalization--and a different way of organizing how we do things, individually and together.
Q: Say more about this, please.
A: It turns everything it touches upside down and inside out. It takes old established businesses, industries, business models, transaction relationships, operating principles, economic relationships and destabilizes them. Cuts the ground out from underneath them. Makes them look ridiculous. It democratizes everything it touches. Social media helped advance Arab Spring and it is at work with Anonymous in unmasking a variety of social outrages. For good or for ill.
It takes the old, long-standing power relationships and flips them. Companies, even non-profits with old and established ways of relating to their customers suddenly find their authority undermined by a social technology that puts the individual person at the center of their own universe. Markets are preserved; in fact, markets are enhanced as an equal-opportunity location where we can take an offering of our own or find a host of different offerings on display--without having to go through expensive third-party market-makers and rent-takers.
But there's more. It's harder and harder to hold on to secrets. Positions of privilege and unassailable authority are hard to hold on to, simply by asserting the old mantras of wealth, prestige, and inside information. Social media is fundamentally a powerful force for social change.
Q: So where do you see examples of social change happening via social media?
A: Turn it around. Pretty much everywhere you see social media you will see social change. Lisa documents this connection with example after example in "The Mesh." And it's on the front page of newspapers, in magazines, on the web whenever there's a story about innovation or new social practices. A piece in the San Francisco Chronicle yesterday described how The Gap and other retailers are tweaking to the new practice among young people to swap their clothes rather than buy new outfits--and how social media helps create the swap marketplaces. Kickstarter has gotten a lot of attention for dramatically altering the way we can finance all kinds of artistic projects; Facebook is about to go public at the same time that it almost becomes passe.
One of the metaphors that Lisa introduced at the gathering was in the form of a question: "How is a city like a platform?"
In other words, how does social media, applied to the way we live in cities, transform virtually every aspect of urban life? How does it change transportation? Elder care? Day care? How does it change the use of office space and office buildings? Education? Getting mundane tasks done? If you map city life differently, do you change the way city life is lead--where people go to pursue all kinds of different interests, from playing basketball to painting to skateboarding to eating at food trucks?
Ultimately, I'm convinced that social media changes our cities from nouns to verbs.
We don't have a "department of transportation," we have a "moving around app."
We don't have a "department of commerce," we have a "buying and selling app."
We focus on how to make more innovative things happen--on the doing, the enabling, the connecting, the improving, the entrepreneuring, the incubating.
Cities should have a whole different social architecture, reflected in new categories that City Hall accepts, starting, I'd suggest, with a new "measuring app."
Start measuring the city in innovative ways; analyze the real cost of the status quo when it comes to a host of accepted urban practices, from parking meters to cab fares, from office rents to hotel rooms.
Social media looks very attractive when you start to see how it leads to innovation and lower costs!
Q: Are there things that don't change?
A: Absolutely! Like most "this changes everything" technologies, social media builds off of a set of old and established institutional frameworks and practices. Markets, for one. This doesn't do away with markets; it simply goes even further than the web in dis-intermediating them. But markets, like diamonds, are forever. Information, for another. The value of information is one of the oldest precepts of capitalism. Friction is another. Friction adds costs; social media takes out some of the friction. And some of the costs. Personalization. Trust. These don't disappear; some get amplified, some get re-invented, some get moved in terms of who holds the reins.
Q: Are there problems associated with this intersection of social media and social change?
A: How couldn't there be? Think of social media/social change as a powerful new tool, a new source of energy, a new competitive capability. A force that destabilizes the status quo. Where ever we see the ground shifting underneath the status quo, we see the potential for enormous social good and untold social destruction. The same force that can offer new solutions to people looking for more control and less cost in their health care, for example, also opens them up to scam artists, fraudsters, and worse. When we first witnessed Arab Spring, the reports were full of hope and expectation, and focused on the use of social media to spread the message and mobilize the people; now the stories are about how reality isn't living up to the early promise of change, and the backlash may be ugly. Social media doesn't guarantee outcomes or happy endings; it's a tool, and like all tools, how we use it says more about us than it says about the tool.
When it comes to social media, the technology and adoption of it is moving much faster than our capacity to generate social mores or legal instruments to buffer or restrain some of these anti-social social media instincts.
So the answer is, yes, there is cause for concern and for open discussion about the abuses that already have taken place, the inevitable mistakes and mis-steps that will add questions to some of these innovations, and the need for heightened awareness, new practices, innovative protections, and even new individual behaviors.
This is real life; so there will always be ways to take a powerful new tool and twist it in a way that applies it for things that are ugly, offensive, dangerous, even criminal.
But social media and social innovation are rushing ahead, and the opportunities to amplify positive change in a wide array of applications through this combination of technological software and human software are enormously exciting.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
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Wednesday, April 11, 2012
The Real Culture War: Respect vs. Cynicism
In their insightful book on iconic UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, “You Haven’t Taught Until They Have Learned,” co-authors Swen Nater and Ronald Gallimore make one point abundantly clear: John Wooden was a teacher first, a coach second. Yes, he coached his players to win at the game of basketball, starting each season with a lesson on the correct way to tie their sneakers, and ending with 10 NCAA championships. But more importantly, he taught his players respect. He taught them to respect themselves as athletes, each other as teammates, and most of all, the history and tradition of the game of basketball.
Which brings us to the recent horror-show of coaches in American sports.
Let’s start with John Calipari, head coach of this year’s NCAA champion Kentucky Wildcats, and, incidentally, the only coach in NCAA history to have two Final Four appearances vacated. As far as character is concerned, one Associated Press columnist started his coverage of Calipari and the title game by writing, “The words ‘trust’ and ‘John Calipari’ rarely turn up in the same sentence for a very good reason.” When you’re about to play for the national championship, this isn’t the kind of coverage you usually see—unless your record of conduct is so egregious, even the sports press can’t hold its collective nose any longer.
Or take Arkansas head football coach Bobby Petrino, whose Razorbacks are expected to start next season with a Top 10 ranking. Recently Petrino went for a ride on his motorcycle, wrecked it, and then lied about the accident, saying he was alone on the bike. In fact, he had a female passenger, a young former Arkansas volleyball player, with whom he was carrying on an extra-marital affair. A high school coach from Louisville who’s known Petrino for years described him this way: “As a coach, he’s a genius, he’s one of the elite minds. Personally, well, he’s a good coach.”
And then there’s Gregg Williams. If you want, you can go on the Web and hear what real live coaching sounds like. There’s a tape of Williams, as the defensive co-ordinator of the New Orleans Saints, telling his players before a playoff game with the San Francisco 49ers, “Do everything in the world to make sure we kill Frank Gore’s head.” Or “Every single one of you, before you get off the pile, affect (Quarterback Alex Smith’s) head. Early, affect the head. Continue, touch and hit the head.”
But this isn’t just about coaches. Or sports.
This is about America’s real culture war. It’s about the difference between a culture of respect and a culture of win-at-all-costs. And it applies as much to journalism, politics, and business as it does to sports.
A culture of win-at-all-costs will tolerate a coach who lies or cheats, as long as he wins—and doesn’t get caught.
A culture of win-at-all-costs will tolerate a news channel with journalists who distort the news as long as they get good ratings—and don’t say anything so outrageous that it loses sponsors.
A culture of win-at-all-costs will tolerate political candidates who flip and flop and make unfounded charges against their opponents, as long as they win elections—and don’t get unmasked as unrepentant hypocrites.
A culture of win-at-all-costs will tolerate companies that take advantage of their customers, lie about their products, and create a toxic environment for their employees as long as earnings and stock prices go up—and they don’t get exposed by a former employee in a tell-all column.
A coach who lies and cheats has no respect for the game that gives him his living, for the institution that employs him, or for players and fans; he simply believes that if he wins, all else will be forgiven. The same is true of a journalist who prefers a hot story to a true one. It’s true for politicians or business executives who do whatever they think it will take to win. They have no respect for their profession, their colleagues, or the public.
The opposite of respect, it turns out, isn’t disrespect.
The opposite of respect is cynicism.
The notion is that you can fool some of the people some of the time, and those you can’t fool, you can seduce by winning.
The 2012 NCAA basketball tournament is history; the NCAA football season hasn’t started; the NFL hasn’t resumed practicing yet. And to be fair, Petrino got fired from Arkansas--score one for respect. Williams has been suspended by the NFL--score another for respect. And Calipari is losing a big chunk of his semi-pro, one-and-done, rent-a-basketball team to the NBA. So maybe karma and respect go hand in hand.
But the news is on every night. Candidates for offices at every level across America are exchanging ludicrous charges. Companies in every industry are doing everything they can to lure customers and drive up stock prices. The culture war between respect and cynicism goes on every day.
So here’s the challenge.
Ask yourself which you value more.
Are you a win-at-all-costs kind of person? The kind who bets on cynicism as the bottom line of the human condition?
Or do you believe in respect? Are you willing to put your name down as someone who wants to build a culture of respect in America, in every field and every endeavor?
Maybe, just maybe, respect starts with something as simple as how we tie our shoes. At least that’s the way Coach Wooden taught it.
Which brings us to the recent horror-show of coaches in American sports.
Let’s start with John Calipari, head coach of this year’s NCAA champion Kentucky Wildcats, and, incidentally, the only coach in NCAA history to have two Final Four appearances vacated. As far as character is concerned, one Associated Press columnist started his coverage of Calipari and the title game by writing, “The words ‘trust’ and ‘John Calipari’ rarely turn up in the same sentence for a very good reason.” When you’re about to play for the national championship, this isn’t the kind of coverage you usually see—unless your record of conduct is so egregious, even the sports press can’t hold its collective nose any longer.
Or take Arkansas head football coach Bobby Petrino, whose Razorbacks are expected to start next season with a Top 10 ranking. Recently Petrino went for a ride on his motorcycle, wrecked it, and then lied about the accident, saying he was alone on the bike. In fact, he had a female passenger, a young former Arkansas volleyball player, with whom he was carrying on an extra-marital affair. A high school coach from Louisville who’s known Petrino for years described him this way: “As a coach, he’s a genius, he’s one of the elite minds. Personally, well, he’s a good coach.”
And then there’s Gregg Williams. If you want, you can go on the Web and hear what real live coaching sounds like. There’s a tape of Williams, as the defensive co-ordinator of the New Orleans Saints, telling his players before a playoff game with the San Francisco 49ers, “Do everything in the world to make sure we kill Frank Gore’s head.” Or “Every single one of you, before you get off the pile, affect (Quarterback Alex Smith’s) head. Early, affect the head. Continue, touch and hit the head.”
But this isn’t just about coaches. Or sports.
This is about America’s real culture war. It’s about the difference between a culture of respect and a culture of win-at-all-costs. And it applies as much to journalism, politics, and business as it does to sports.
A culture of win-at-all-costs will tolerate a coach who lies or cheats, as long as he wins—and doesn’t get caught.
A culture of win-at-all-costs will tolerate a news channel with journalists who distort the news as long as they get good ratings—and don’t say anything so outrageous that it loses sponsors.
A culture of win-at-all-costs will tolerate political candidates who flip and flop and make unfounded charges against their opponents, as long as they win elections—and don’t get unmasked as unrepentant hypocrites.
A culture of win-at-all-costs will tolerate companies that take advantage of their customers, lie about their products, and create a toxic environment for their employees as long as earnings and stock prices go up—and they don’t get exposed by a former employee in a tell-all column.
A coach who lies and cheats has no respect for the game that gives him his living, for the institution that employs him, or for players and fans; he simply believes that if he wins, all else will be forgiven. The same is true of a journalist who prefers a hot story to a true one. It’s true for politicians or business executives who do whatever they think it will take to win. They have no respect for their profession, their colleagues, or the public.
The opposite of respect, it turns out, isn’t disrespect.
The opposite of respect is cynicism.
The notion is that you can fool some of the people some of the time, and those you can’t fool, you can seduce by winning.
The 2012 NCAA basketball tournament is history; the NCAA football season hasn’t started; the NFL hasn’t resumed practicing yet. And to be fair, Petrino got fired from Arkansas--score one for respect. Williams has been suspended by the NFL--score another for respect. And Calipari is losing a big chunk of his semi-pro, one-and-done, rent-a-basketball team to the NBA. So maybe karma and respect go hand in hand.
But the news is on every night. Candidates for offices at every level across America are exchanging ludicrous charges. Companies in every industry are doing everything they can to lure customers and drive up stock prices. The culture war between respect and cynicism goes on every day.
So here’s the challenge.
Ask yourself which you value more.
Are you a win-at-all-costs kind of person? The kind who bets on cynicism as the bottom line of the human condition?
Or do you believe in respect? Are you willing to put your name down as someone who wants to build a culture of respect in America, in every field and every endeavor?
Maybe, just maybe, respect starts with something as simple as how we tie our shoes. At least that’s the way Coach Wooden taught it.
Monday, April 2, 2012
Rule #49: Border Guards
In 1968 I went to Germany to connect with my brother, Mark.
He was finishing up a Fulbright scholarship in German and when his academic program was over we took his newly purchased VW bug and drove to Prague. The Czechs were celebrating an outbreak of freedom from the Soviet Union (this was back when there was both a Czechoslovakia and a Soviet Union). Prague was filled with happy, carefree young people, students at bars and cafes, drinking beer and luxuriating in what was called Prague Spring.
We celebrated with them for a time, but finally we had to get back to West Germany (there was also a West and East Germany back then). To do that meant we would pass through an East German military checkpoint.
We pulled up to the checkpoint and a huge East German border guard armed with a scary looking sub-machine gun took our passports, looked at them dismissively, and ordered us to get out of the line of cars that had been allowed transit, and to park over in an area off to one side.
Three hours later we were still parked there. Waiting. Watching other cars pass through the checkpoint. Wondering what had happened to our passports. And looking at the big East German soldiers and their lethal-looking weapons.
Finally, my brother had had enough.
He waved one of the guards over and said in perfect German, "One of your buddies took our passports and he's probably all the way over in West Berlin by now."
The look on the border guard's face betrayed his emotions. He'd been insulted--in at least three ways.
First, who ever heard of an American who spoke perfect German--with the appropriate Bavarian accent?
Second, it was an insult to think an East German soldier would steal anything--especially from an American!
And third, no self-respecting East German soldier would ever even think of running off to West Germany!
The border guard goose-stepped back to the booth, found our passports where they'd been carelessly left lying around, and waved us through the checkpoint.
We made it--but only because my brother was brave enough to confront the border guard.
I've been telling that story lately to all kinds of groups of business people, in all kinds of companies and organizations, and all age groups and nationalities.
And I always get the same reaction: people nod. They know that each of us has his or her own border guards that keep us from growing, experimenting, innovating, listening, learning.
One man held up his hand when I told the story in his group and said, "My border guard is, I always have to be right." Another said, "I always have to be in control."
Sometimes a company's border guard isn't a person--it's a tradition. "That's not the way we do things around here." Or an unwillingness to experiment. "It won't work anyway, so why even try." Or a feeling of helplessness. "The boss will never go for that."
And, to be fair, sometimes a smart border guard is exactly what a company needs.
One of Steve Jobs' greatest strengths was his ability to say "no." When he came back to Apple, he cut off projects that made no sense, ended unfocused activities that weren't core to Apple's business. His border-guard-like focus kept Apple focused and prevented the company from wandering into areas that weren't what Apple was all about.
But for most of us, most leaders and organizations, that's not the case.
Most of the time, we get offered an opportunity to try something new, and some little voice in our heads tells us, "That's not really you!" Even if it could be. Our own border guard keeps us from innovating, from experimenting, from expanding into new, unexplored territory.
And companies and organizations that want to innovate, but keep finding themselves frustrated in their efforts--for them, the problem could well be the border guards, inside the company and out, that confine them to a small territory that is already too-well known.
"Our customers would never go for that."
"We probably couldn't sell it any way."
"Marketing would like it, but I can tell you right now, manufacturing will kill it."
There are more border guards than there are good ideas. Which is why so many successful organizations end up suffering from their own success. The border guards take over and erect a wall that keeps the organization from getting to the fresh thinking and new ideas that are on the other side of the border.
What are your border guards? Are they helpful in giving you focus? Or harmful in keeping you confined?
What are your company's border guards? Can you name them?
And what would happen if you confronted them? Maybe, just maybe, they'd produce your passport to the other side, and you'd discover a whole new, fertile area for your exploration.
It's worth a try!
He was finishing up a Fulbright scholarship in German and when his academic program was over we took his newly purchased VW bug and drove to Prague. The Czechs were celebrating an outbreak of freedom from the Soviet Union (this was back when there was both a Czechoslovakia and a Soviet Union). Prague was filled with happy, carefree young people, students at bars and cafes, drinking beer and luxuriating in what was called Prague Spring.
We celebrated with them for a time, but finally we had to get back to West Germany (there was also a West and East Germany back then). To do that meant we would pass through an East German military checkpoint.
We pulled up to the checkpoint and a huge East German border guard armed with a scary looking sub-machine gun took our passports, looked at them dismissively, and ordered us to get out of the line of cars that had been allowed transit, and to park over in an area off to one side.
Three hours later we were still parked there. Waiting. Watching other cars pass through the checkpoint. Wondering what had happened to our passports. And looking at the big East German soldiers and their lethal-looking weapons.
Finally, my brother had had enough.
He waved one of the guards over and said in perfect German, "One of your buddies took our passports and he's probably all the way over in West Berlin by now."
The look on the border guard's face betrayed his emotions. He'd been insulted--in at least three ways.
First, who ever heard of an American who spoke perfect German--with the appropriate Bavarian accent?
Second, it was an insult to think an East German soldier would steal anything--especially from an American!
And third, no self-respecting East German soldier would ever even think of running off to West Germany!
The border guard goose-stepped back to the booth, found our passports where they'd been carelessly left lying around, and waved us through the checkpoint.
We made it--but only because my brother was brave enough to confront the border guard.
I've been telling that story lately to all kinds of groups of business people, in all kinds of companies and organizations, and all age groups and nationalities.
And I always get the same reaction: people nod. They know that each of us has his or her own border guards that keep us from growing, experimenting, innovating, listening, learning.
One man held up his hand when I told the story in his group and said, "My border guard is, I always have to be right." Another said, "I always have to be in control."
Sometimes a company's border guard isn't a person--it's a tradition. "That's not the way we do things around here." Or an unwillingness to experiment. "It won't work anyway, so why even try." Or a feeling of helplessness. "The boss will never go for that."
And, to be fair, sometimes a smart border guard is exactly what a company needs.
One of Steve Jobs' greatest strengths was his ability to say "no." When he came back to Apple, he cut off projects that made no sense, ended unfocused activities that weren't core to Apple's business. His border-guard-like focus kept Apple focused and prevented the company from wandering into areas that weren't what Apple was all about.
But for most of us, most leaders and organizations, that's not the case.
Most of the time, we get offered an opportunity to try something new, and some little voice in our heads tells us, "That's not really you!" Even if it could be. Our own border guard keeps us from innovating, from experimenting, from expanding into new, unexplored territory.
And companies and organizations that want to innovate, but keep finding themselves frustrated in their efforts--for them, the problem could well be the border guards, inside the company and out, that confine them to a small territory that is already too-well known.
"Our customers would never go for that."
"We probably couldn't sell it any way."
"Marketing would like it, but I can tell you right now, manufacturing will kill it."
There are more border guards than there are good ideas. Which is why so many successful organizations end up suffering from their own success. The border guards take over and erect a wall that keeps the organization from getting to the fresh thinking and new ideas that are on the other side of the border.
What are your border guards? Are they helpful in giving you focus? Or harmful in keeping you confined?
What are your company's border guards? Can you name them?
And what would happen if you confronted them? Maybe, just maybe, they'd produce your passport to the other side, and you'd discover a whole new, fertile area for your exploration.
It's worth a try!
Friday, March 23, 2012
The Case for High Gas Prices
Once again, gas prices are up — more than 30 cents over the past month. Some forecasters are predicting a price of $4.25 per gallon at the pump next month; others see it going up to $5 per gallon this summer.
And once again, the response is predictable, if not comical. The Republicans blame President Obama. They say that he blocked the Keystone XL pipeline and that he's secretly in favor of higher gas prices as a social engineering strategy designed to punish Americans into accepting alternative energy.
Obama blames Iran for disrupting oil supplies, sees growth in China and India as driving up oil consumption and, when asked whether he secretly favors price hikes, resorts to sarcasm to dismiss the accusation.
Me, I'm not running for office. I blame feckless politicians from both parties for the lack of a sane energy policy over the past 40 years. And unlike Obama or his Republican challengers, I want higher gas prices. At least for a while. Long enough for us to get the market signals right and to continue to wean ourselves off our fossil fuel addiction. The way I see it, every time we've been confronted by an energy crisis, Americans have done the right thing. Faced with the cold hard economic facts of life when it comes to oil availability and price, we've figured out for ourselves how to be innovative, resilient and sensible. Having plentiful cheap resources can make us wasteful; scarcity and high prices can make us smart.
If that's what it takes, I'm all for it. And if it can drag business and the government along behind us, I'm for that, too.
Take the auto companies. For years, General Motors resisted doing what everybody knew it needed to do to adapt to global competition and a changing market. Finally, the crushing financial crisis and rising gas prices pushed the hubris-haunted company into Chapter 11. Today, GM can claim record profits and its Volt electric vehicle, though struggling in the U.S., was chosen car of the year in Europe. The whole auto industry, which resisted the suggestion of government-mandated fuel economy standards back in the 1970s, today has demonstrated a new sense of responsibility for more ambitious requirements. Why? Because the automakers can read the writing of the gas prices on the wall.
Today, while politicians do their comedy acts about energy prices and Obama promises Americans he's doing all he can to keep gas costs at the pump from rising, pragmatic business people are doing what they know they should. Architects and developers are calculating the lifetime costs of the buildings they put up, with the knowledge that oil-based energy will only get more expensive over time. More and more Americans are looking to alternative energy sources for their homes; companies and communities want to kick the oil habit; the rise of car-sharing and increase in public transit use demonstrate how expensive gasoline can create new economic opportunities and spawn new habits. Last year, Americans took 200 million more rides on subways, commuter trains, light rail and public buses than we did the year before, the American Public Transportation Association reports.
And it's not just in the private sector or our private lives. One of the leading areas of change is in the military, which is going green for more than just environmental reasons. The Navy has figured out that the "all-in" price of oil means that it's cheaper, safer and smarter to switch our war-fighting operations from fossil fuel to renewable resources. They're doing it because they have calculated the real cost of oil and figured out that embracing renewable energy makes sound economic and military sense.
All that has been happening before the latest price spike. Now it's time to think seriously about what comes next. Beyond fuel efficiency in transportation and buildings, beyond alternative energy sources is the next big thing: the switch to local economic development.
As the late House speaker Tip O'Neill once observed, "All politics is local." It turns out that for a better, smarter, more sustainable future, all economic development is local, too. If we want to embrace a future with more and better jobs, more local autonomy and more sustainable communities, we need to look at this oil price rise as another market signal: It's time to focus on local economic development.
It's just plain smarter to produce and buy local products and services. Whether products come from local farms or local shops, local factories or local vendors, when we support community-based businesses we contribute to more home-grown jobs, stronger communities and a sustainable future.
It's the next stage of an evolutionary process that has been unfolding below the radar screen for the past 40 years. It's a simple enough equation to grasp: The more we see oil prices rise globally, the more we'll see the emergence of economic development locally.
Change happens when the cost of the status quo is greater than the risk of change. Right now, rising oil prices are driving up the cost of the status quo. That means it's time for all of us to embrace the risk of change. Once again. Because that's what we've done every time in the past when we've been challenged with higher prices and lower availability. It turns out, we're at our best, our most innovative and our most pragmatic when times get a little bit tougher.
(My column this week from USA Today)
And once again, the response is predictable, if not comical. The Republicans blame President Obama. They say that he blocked the Keystone XL pipeline and that he's secretly in favor of higher gas prices as a social engineering strategy designed to punish Americans into accepting alternative energy.
Obama blames Iran for disrupting oil supplies, sees growth in China and India as driving up oil consumption and, when asked whether he secretly favors price hikes, resorts to sarcasm to dismiss the accusation.
Me, I'm not running for office. I blame feckless politicians from both parties for the lack of a sane energy policy over the past 40 years. And unlike Obama or his Republican challengers, I want higher gas prices. At least for a while. Long enough for us to get the market signals right and to continue to wean ourselves off our fossil fuel addiction. The way I see it, every time we've been confronted by an energy crisis, Americans have done the right thing. Faced with the cold hard economic facts of life when it comes to oil availability and price, we've figured out for ourselves how to be innovative, resilient and sensible. Having plentiful cheap resources can make us wasteful; scarcity and high prices can make us smart.
If that's what it takes, I'm all for it. And if it can drag business and the government along behind us, I'm for that, too.
Take the auto companies. For years, General Motors resisted doing what everybody knew it needed to do to adapt to global competition and a changing market. Finally, the crushing financial crisis and rising gas prices pushed the hubris-haunted company into Chapter 11. Today, GM can claim record profits and its Volt electric vehicle, though struggling in the U.S., was chosen car of the year in Europe. The whole auto industry, which resisted the suggestion of government-mandated fuel economy standards back in the 1970s, today has demonstrated a new sense of responsibility for more ambitious requirements. Why? Because the automakers can read the writing of the gas prices on the wall.
Today, while politicians do their comedy acts about energy prices and Obama promises Americans he's doing all he can to keep gas costs at the pump from rising, pragmatic business people are doing what they know they should. Architects and developers are calculating the lifetime costs of the buildings they put up, with the knowledge that oil-based energy will only get more expensive over time. More and more Americans are looking to alternative energy sources for their homes; companies and communities want to kick the oil habit; the rise of car-sharing and increase in public transit use demonstrate how expensive gasoline can create new economic opportunities and spawn new habits. Last year, Americans took 200 million more rides on subways, commuter trains, light rail and public buses than we did the year before, the American Public Transportation Association reports.
And it's not just in the private sector or our private lives. One of the leading areas of change is in the military, which is going green for more than just environmental reasons. The Navy has figured out that the "all-in" price of oil means that it's cheaper, safer and smarter to switch our war-fighting operations from fossil fuel to renewable resources. They're doing it because they have calculated the real cost of oil and figured out that embracing renewable energy makes sound economic and military sense.
All that has been happening before the latest price spike. Now it's time to think seriously about what comes next. Beyond fuel efficiency in transportation and buildings, beyond alternative energy sources is the next big thing: the switch to local economic development.
As the late House speaker Tip O'Neill once observed, "All politics is local." It turns out that for a better, smarter, more sustainable future, all economic development is local, too. If we want to embrace a future with more and better jobs, more local autonomy and more sustainable communities, we need to look at this oil price rise as another market signal: It's time to focus on local economic development.
It's just plain smarter to produce and buy local products and services. Whether products come from local farms or local shops, local factories or local vendors, when we support community-based businesses we contribute to more home-grown jobs, stronger communities and a sustainable future.
It's the next stage of an evolutionary process that has been unfolding below the radar screen for the past 40 years. It's a simple enough equation to grasp: The more we see oil prices rise globally, the more we'll see the emergence of economic development locally.
Change happens when the cost of the status quo is greater than the risk of change. Right now, rising oil prices are driving up the cost of the status quo. That means it's time for all of us to embrace the risk of change. Once again. Because that's what we've done every time in the past when we've been challenged with higher prices and lower availability. It turns out, we're at our best, our most innovative and our most pragmatic when times get a little bit tougher.
(My column this week from USA Today)
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Leave Bad Enough Alone
A few days ago the Santa Fe school board summoned its courage and did the right thing: it voted (narrowly, 3-2) to buy out the contract of school superintendent Bobbie Gutierrez.
The actual vote was a long time coming, although to be honest, the last school board election which voted in three new reform-minded candidates was clearly intended as something of a referendum on the public schools and the leadership.
Voters, it seemed, were upset at the performance of the school system--poor graduation rates, overwhelmingly failing efforts to meet annual improvement goals--and the way the outgoing board did its business--a lack of transparency and very poor communications with the broader community.
In a remarkable piece of political theater, the outgoing board even voted to extend Ms. Gutierrez's contract as one of their last pieces of business, right before they were replaced by a board that clearly had serious reservations with the adequacy of her performance. The schools-as-theater got even more absurd when the in-coming board learned that one of Ms. Gutierrez's employees had doctored the numbers given to the old board before they voted--actually omitting data that showed areas of failure by the administration. She didn't think the board was looking for bad news, the employee explained.
So now the reformers have voted to buy out Ms. Gutierrez's contract--and surprise, surprise, the editorial writers at The New Mexican, Santa Fe's home-grown daily, are outraged! (No surprise there; The New Mexican has been an apologist for the superintendent and her poor performance for some time. Students don't test well in annual yearly progress exams? Must be the fault of the exams! The numbers were fudged on that memo to the out-going board? Don't make too much of it; let's move on!)
The New Mexican writes a mean editorial: There was no warning of this vote! It happened late at night! The people who voted to buy out her contract didn't campaign on that platform!
Lame arguments, but at least they're arguments
But then the editorial writer at The New Mexican veers from the lame to the inane.
There are two problems, says The New Mexican, with terminating Ms. Gutierrez's services.
First, the three school board members who voted to buy out the contract weren't born in Santa Fe.
That's right, The New Mexican is now in the camp of the "birthers."
If you weren't born here, you don't belong here!
In a state that still approves of giving undocumented immigrants a driver's license, the newspaper of record wants to revoke the voting rights of school board members who weren't born in Santa Fe.
But wait. It gets weirder.
The real reason not to buy out Ms. Gutierrez's contract?
Efforts at school reform in the past didn't produce great results. In fact, some were failures. Some superintendents brought in from outside didn't stick. Others didn't click. And others were okay, but not exceptional.
In other words, leave bad enough alone.
If the schools in Santa Fe aren't graduating students, aren't meeting mandated improvement levels, aren't teaching kids the skills they need to go on to college and get good jobs--well, at least life in Santa Fe is good. We've got a lot of artists. And Richard Florida says that's good. And we've got great festivals. World-class, in fact.
So if the schools are terrible, and the educational opportunities offered to Santa Fe's children rank at the bottom of the nation, well, what can you do?
Why bother trying? Why get rid of an ineffective leader who hasn't produced? Why try to improve the status quo?
After all, a truly ambitious new superintendent probably wouldn't have been born in Santa Fe either.
So here's Santa Fe's new motto, courtesy of The New Mexican: Santa Fe--We're mediocre, and that's great!
The actual vote was a long time coming, although to be honest, the last school board election which voted in three new reform-minded candidates was clearly intended as something of a referendum on the public schools and the leadership.
Voters, it seemed, were upset at the performance of the school system--poor graduation rates, overwhelmingly failing efforts to meet annual improvement goals--and the way the outgoing board did its business--a lack of transparency and very poor communications with the broader community.
In a remarkable piece of political theater, the outgoing board even voted to extend Ms. Gutierrez's contract as one of their last pieces of business, right before they were replaced by a board that clearly had serious reservations with the adequacy of her performance. The schools-as-theater got even more absurd when the in-coming board learned that one of Ms. Gutierrez's employees had doctored the numbers given to the old board before they voted--actually omitting data that showed areas of failure by the administration. She didn't think the board was looking for bad news, the employee explained.
So now the reformers have voted to buy out Ms. Gutierrez's contract--and surprise, surprise, the editorial writers at The New Mexican, Santa Fe's home-grown daily, are outraged! (No surprise there; The New Mexican has been an apologist for the superintendent and her poor performance for some time. Students don't test well in annual yearly progress exams? Must be the fault of the exams! The numbers were fudged on that memo to the out-going board? Don't make too much of it; let's move on!)
The New Mexican writes a mean editorial: There was no warning of this vote! It happened late at night! The people who voted to buy out her contract didn't campaign on that platform!
Lame arguments, but at least they're arguments
But then the editorial writer at The New Mexican veers from the lame to the inane.
There are two problems, says The New Mexican, with terminating Ms. Gutierrez's services.
First, the three school board members who voted to buy out the contract weren't born in Santa Fe.
That's right, The New Mexican is now in the camp of the "birthers."
If you weren't born here, you don't belong here!
In a state that still approves of giving undocumented immigrants a driver's license, the newspaper of record wants to revoke the voting rights of school board members who weren't born in Santa Fe.
But wait. It gets weirder.
The real reason not to buy out Ms. Gutierrez's contract?
Efforts at school reform in the past didn't produce great results. In fact, some were failures. Some superintendents brought in from outside didn't stick. Others didn't click. And others were okay, but not exceptional.
In other words, leave bad enough alone.
If the schools in Santa Fe aren't graduating students, aren't meeting mandated improvement levels, aren't teaching kids the skills they need to go on to college and get good jobs--well, at least life in Santa Fe is good. We've got a lot of artists. And Richard Florida says that's good. And we've got great festivals. World-class, in fact.
So if the schools are terrible, and the educational opportunities offered to Santa Fe's children rank at the bottom of the nation, well, what can you do?
Why bother trying? Why get rid of an ineffective leader who hasn't produced? Why try to improve the status quo?
After all, a truly ambitious new superintendent probably wouldn't have been born in Santa Fe either.
So here's Santa Fe's new motto, courtesy of The New Mexican: Santa Fe--We're mediocre, and that's great!
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
How a Population Strategy Works
In my last blog I suggested that what Santa Fe needs (as an example of how to spark local economic development) is a population strategy, one that would concentrate on the "missing middle"--the young people who can bring innovation, entrepreneurship, and energy to a flagging economy.
A population strategy can work. I know, because I've seen one work. I was part of the team in Portland, Oregon in the 1970s that put a population strategy to work. Here's what happened.
If you visit Portland today, you'll see a city that is widely admired, both here and abroad, for its livability. The downtown is charming, the neighborhoods desirable places to live. The public transportation system is a model, with light rail lines and bike paths that offer reliable, dependable, and affordable alternatives to the automobile. The Waterfront Park is delightful, the housing options in the Pearl District represent wonderful living spaces for a broad demographic.
It wasn't always like this. And it didn't happen by accident.
In the mid-1970s, a poll of Portlanders revealed a startling trend: middle income families with children were beginning to leave the city and move to the suburbs.
If you lived in almost any other city in America, of course, that kind of suburban flight had already happened. Freeway construction had torn through urban neighborhoods, worsening race relations had polarized communities, and the suburbs beckoned to many middle class, middle income families.
But it hadn't happened in Portland . . . yet.
At the time I was an assistant to Mayor Neil Goldschmidt, who was working to rescue and revitalize the city on a number of fronts, from stopping a disastrous freeway from wrecking Southeast Portland, to implementing an innovative Downtown Plan, to trying to make Portland's neighborhoods safer. This poll and the threat of losing a key demographic from the city's population became the policy glue that held all the pieces together.
The Mayor and his team adopted a Population Strategy: the goal was to use the city's resources and policy instruments to convince middle-income, employed families with children to choose to stay in the city. We wanted them to vote with their feet--by staying put.
Why?
Because middle-income, employed families with children provide social glue to an otherwise unstable community fabric.
Without that cohort, Portland would be a city like so many other cities--a place filled with retired people living on their pensions, and young, unmarried people, just starting out their work lives and careers. Nothing wrong with either group--but not enough in the middle to hold the community together.
We needed the middle-income employed families with children so there'd be a group of people who cared deeply about the health and well-being of the city's neighborhoods; who had a stake in the schools; who had the time and motive to volunteer to be den mothers and scout masters; who would look out for their neighbors and their neighborhoods; who could afford to pay taxes and contribute to charities. And if we lost that group, then we'd lose a critical component that held so much of the rest of the community together.
The Portland Population Strategy knit the pieces of the Mayor's vision together into a coherent approach to problem-solving.
Why stop the Mt. Hood Freeway? Because it would destroy the livability of Southeast Portland, destroy much-needed housing stock, dump more cars into downtown Portland, add more air pollution to the mix, and facilitate the flight of families to the suburbs of the East Side. Building it would mean Portland was committing suicide!
Why implement the Downtown Plan? Because a healthy city core would contribute to the health of the surrounding neighborhoods. If downtown was vibrant, there'd be another reason for people to live in Portland's neighborhoods, another attraction to urban life. There'd be shopping, jobs, conventions, arts, culture, vitality.
Why invest in crime prevention? Because safe neighborhoods, with neighbors looking after each other, not only stopped stranger-to-stranger street crime from happening; safe neighborhoods, where neighbors knew each other and looked out for each was an antidote to the anonymous suburbs. Community was better than isolation.
There were other pieces, as well: the quality of public education, improvements in parks and recreation, efforts to recruit new companies and new investments.
But what made it work was that the pieces all fit together, once you framed it in terms of a population strategy. Efforts to bring companies to Portland and have them locate their new factories and facilities in particular parts of the city were linked to transportation investments that both protected neighborhoods and made for an easy commute. When the first OPEC oil embargo drove up the price and availability of gas at the pumps, a Portland Energy Policy became another argument for living in the city: the commute was less expensive--and you could do it using public transit.
The reason Portland looks the way it does today draws directly from the Population Strategy of the 1970s. And interestingly, in making life better for employed, middle-income families with children, Portland has also made life better for the senior citizens living on their pensions and the new generation of young people looking to get started in their lives.
A Population Strategy can work--it can help a city focus its efforts, use its resources more wisely, and bring together the pieces of life and work that create a desirable, attractive, and livable community for everybody who lives there.
How do you make it work? It takes leadership and vision, courage and conviction. It takes a fresh way of looking at the world and an innovative way of solving problems.
But it can be done. And it can work. I know. Because I've seen it happen. And I've seen the results.
The first step? Looking at the data, seeing what's missing, what's at risk, what can leverage the most change. After that, it's a question of fitting the pieces together into a coherent whole. It's how a town can create its own future.
A population strategy can work. I know, because I've seen one work. I was part of the team in Portland, Oregon in the 1970s that put a population strategy to work. Here's what happened.
If you visit Portland today, you'll see a city that is widely admired, both here and abroad, for its livability. The downtown is charming, the neighborhoods desirable places to live. The public transportation system is a model, with light rail lines and bike paths that offer reliable, dependable, and affordable alternatives to the automobile. The Waterfront Park is delightful, the housing options in the Pearl District represent wonderful living spaces for a broad demographic.
It wasn't always like this. And it didn't happen by accident.
In the mid-1970s, a poll of Portlanders revealed a startling trend: middle income families with children were beginning to leave the city and move to the suburbs.
If you lived in almost any other city in America, of course, that kind of suburban flight had already happened. Freeway construction had torn through urban neighborhoods, worsening race relations had polarized communities, and the suburbs beckoned to many middle class, middle income families.
But it hadn't happened in Portland . . . yet.
At the time I was an assistant to Mayor Neil Goldschmidt, who was working to rescue and revitalize the city on a number of fronts, from stopping a disastrous freeway from wrecking Southeast Portland, to implementing an innovative Downtown Plan, to trying to make Portland's neighborhoods safer. This poll and the threat of losing a key demographic from the city's population became the policy glue that held all the pieces together.
The Mayor and his team adopted a Population Strategy: the goal was to use the city's resources and policy instruments to convince middle-income, employed families with children to choose to stay in the city. We wanted them to vote with their feet--by staying put.
Why?
Because middle-income, employed families with children provide social glue to an otherwise unstable community fabric.
Without that cohort, Portland would be a city like so many other cities--a place filled with retired people living on their pensions, and young, unmarried people, just starting out their work lives and careers. Nothing wrong with either group--but not enough in the middle to hold the community together.
We needed the middle-income employed families with children so there'd be a group of people who cared deeply about the health and well-being of the city's neighborhoods; who had a stake in the schools; who had the time and motive to volunteer to be den mothers and scout masters; who would look out for their neighbors and their neighborhoods; who could afford to pay taxes and contribute to charities. And if we lost that group, then we'd lose a critical component that held so much of the rest of the community together.
The Portland Population Strategy knit the pieces of the Mayor's vision together into a coherent approach to problem-solving.
Why stop the Mt. Hood Freeway? Because it would destroy the livability of Southeast Portland, destroy much-needed housing stock, dump more cars into downtown Portland, add more air pollution to the mix, and facilitate the flight of families to the suburbs of the East Side. Building it would mean Portland was committing suicide!
Why implement the Downtown Plan? Because a healthy city core would contribute to the health of the surrounding neighborhoods. If downtown was vibrant, there'd be another reason for people to live in Portland's neighborhoods, another attraction to urban life. There'd be shopping, jobs, conventions, arts, culture, vitality.
Why invest in crime prevention? Because safe neighborhoods, with neighbors looking after each other, not only stopped stranger-to-stranger street crime from happening; safe neighborhoods, where neighbors knew each other and looked out for each was an antidote to the anonymous suburbs. Community was better than isolation.
There were other pieces, as well: the quality of public education, improvements in parks and recreation, efforts to recruit new companies and new investments.
But what made it work was that the pieces all fit together, once you framed it in terms of a population strategy. Efforts to bring companies to Portland and have them locate their new factories and facilities in particular parts of the city were linked to transportation investments that both protected neighborhoods and made for an easy commute. When the first OPEC oil embargo drove up the price and availability of gas at the pumps, a Portland Energy Policy became another argument for living in the city: the commute was less expensive--and you could do it using public transit.
The reason Portland looks the way it does today draws directly from the Population Strategy of the 1970s. And interestingly, in making life better for employed, middle-income families with children, Portland has also made life better for the senior citizens living on their pensions and the new generation of young people looking to get started in their lives.
A Population Strategy can work--it can help a city focus its efforts, use its resources more wisely, and bring together the pieces of life and work that create a desirable, attractive, and livable community for everybody who lives there.
How do you make it work? It takes leadership and vision, courage and conviction. It takes a fresh way of looking at the world and an innovative way of solving problems.
But it can be done. And it can work. I know. Because I've seen it happen. And I've seen the results.
The first step? Looking at the data, seeing what's missing, what's at risk, what can leverage the most change. After that, it's a question of fitting the pieces together into a coherent whole. It's how a town can create its own future.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
All Economics Is Local
For those of you who don't recognize the reference, it was former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill who famously said, "All politics is local."
Today, if you take a minute and look around, you'll see that despite all the rhetoric of globalization, all economics is local.
Take Santa Fe, New Mexico, my home town. Not even a town, at roughly 70,000 people, a village really.
The economic base of Santa Fe has been a three-legged stool: it's the capital of the state, so there are government jobs; it is a tourist destination; and it has had a booming real estate business for people looking for second homes or a place to retire. Cutting across these categories is the art market: Santa Fe boasts a large community of artists and a concentration of art galleries and artistic events, from the Indian Market to the Santa Fe Opera.
But the last couple of years have been tough.
State government has been starved for funds; tourists aren't coming to visit, and if they do come, they've curtailed their spending; and real estate, well, you know that story--that's the cause of much of the pain in the first place. That leaves the art community. And while it's an asset and a boon to the town, it has yet to become an economic force on its own terms: It takes tourists to come to buy the art, new home owners to need art to decorate their walls, collectors to feel flush enough to add to their art holdings.
The town is suffering. Help isn't going to come from the federal government. The state government doesn't have a strategy for state-wide economic development, never mind local economic development. Even if the economy starts to recover, tourism and real estate aren't going to return to pre-crash levels any time soon, if they ever do.
So it's time for serious reflection: What does a local economic development strategy for Santa Fe look like?
Most economists agree that there are two kinds of investments that can promote economic growth: investment in infrastructure and investment in human capital. Infrastructure investment can help put people back to work, and, if it's truly strategic, can add to a community's productivity and attractiveness--whether the investment builds a light rail line, adds new parks, or puts in place a city-wide Internet network. Investment in human capital is the smarter play, but requires longer-term thinking: better public schools produce a generation of well-educated kids who are capable of working smarter and generating more income; job retraining takes people out of unproductive, dead-end careers and outfits them to adapt to the changing demands of a changing economy, public-private partnerships provide mentors and markets to teach aspiring business leaders how to play the game and win.
But Santa Fe's problem--as is true for the small towns across the country--is different. It needs a new way to think about and look at an economic strategy. Public schools aren't going to get better any time soon; and there isn't the money or the political intelligence or will to create an infrastructure investment strategy. As the economy recovers on its own, the town may get a little healthier around the edges, and maybe complacency will return.
But the question is, what can and should Santa Fe do--right now--to craft a strategy for a better economic future?
I don't think the answer is to do more of what is already there, or even to do it a little better. Better marketing, better messaging, better packaging--that won't change the game.
Santa Fe--and the Santa Fe's of America--need to think different, not about what assets the town has, but about what's missing.
In Santa Fe's case, what's missing are talented, entrepreneurial young people. Santa Fe suffers from "the case of the missing middle"--young people in their 20s and 30s who can start businesses, grow enterprises, take entrepreneurial risks, look beyond government and tourism and real estate and art and see a much bigger picture.
It could be that this all-important cohort is missing from Santa Fe's demographic profile because there isn't anything meaningful, productive, or exciting for them to do in town. Or it could be that there isn't anything meaningful, productive, or exciting for them to do, because they're missing.
Cause and effect aren't the issue here, however. What's at issue is the need for an explicit strategy, targeted, not at jobs, or reviving tourism, or helping promote art.
Santa Fe needs to ask a different question if it hopes to get a different answer. The right question is all about a population cohort, not an economic category.
Santa Fe needs a population strategy that aims explicitly at keeping the young people who come to school in Santa Fe and New Mexico, attracting more young people to the mix, and giving them the tools, the incentives, the technology, the entrepreneurial opportunities that will make Santa Fe a vibrant place for creativity and innovation to flourish.
The right question for Santa Fe to ask is, "How do we attract, retain, develop, promote, and reward a missing demographic group--well-educated, technologically sophisticated, entrepreneurial young people?"
That's the right question, and asking it can lead to the right answers.
There are examples all over America of communities attempting just this strategy, creating incubators, partnering with academic institutions, offering technological incentives, pooling venture capital funds, sponsoring conferences and gatherings that bring young people together and give them a feeling that there is a community of like-minded individuals ready to work together to do really cool things. But it's not enough to know that there are lots of pieces lying around loose on the ground. Someone has to assemble them into a real strategy, so the pieces fit together and reinforce each other. They have to be particular to Santa Fe--or any other community looking for its population strategy--to the place, the history, the culture, and the context. And it takes work--real work--to execute a strategy. It won't just happen on its own.
In the end, all economics is local. And that means it's up to the people at the local level to articulate their own economic strategy, and then create their own economic future.
Today, if you take a minute and look around, you'll see that despite all the rhetoric of globalization, all economics is local.
Take Santa Fe, New Mexico, my home town. Not even a town, at roughly 70,000 people, a village really.
The economic base of Santa Fe has been a three-legged stool: it's the capital of the state, so there are government jobs; it is a tourist destination; and it has had a booming real estate business for people looking for second homes or a place to retire. Cutting across these categories is the art market: Santa Fe boasts a large community of artists and a concentration of art galleries and artistic events, from the Indian Market to the Santa Fe Opera.
But the last couple of years have been tough.
State government has been starved for funds; tourists aren't coming to visit, and if they do come, they've curtailed their spending; and real estate, well, you know that story--that's the cause of much of the pain in the first place. That leaves the art community. And while it's an asset and a boon to the town, it has yet to become an economic force on its own terms: It takes tourists to come to buy the art, new home owners to need art to decorate their walls, collectors to feel flush enough to add to their art holdings.
The town is suffering. Help isn't going to come from the federal government. The state government doesn't have a strategy for state-wide economic development, never mind local economic development. Even if the economy starts to recover, tourism and real estate aren't going to return to pre-crash levels any time soon, if they ever do.
So it's time for serious reflection: What does a local economic development strategy for Santa Fe look like?
Most economists agree that there are two kinds of investments that can promote economic growth: investment in infrastructure and investment in human capital. Infrastructure investment can help put people back to work, and, if it's truly strategic, can add to a community's productivity and attractiveness--whether the investment builds a light rail line, adds new parks, or puts in place a city-wide Internet network. Investment in human capital is the smarter play, but requires longer-term thinking: better public schools produce a generation of well-educated kids who are capable of working smarter and generating more income; job retraining takes people out of unproductive, dead-end careers and outfits them to adapt to the changing demands of a changing economy, public-private partnerships provide mentors and markets to teach aspiring business leaders how to play the game and win.
But Santa Fe's problem--as is true for the small towns across the country--is different. It needs a new way to think about and look at an economic strategy. Public schools aren't going to get better any time soon; and there isn't the money or the political intelligence or will to create an infrastructure investment strategy. As the economy recovers on its own, the town may get a little healthier around the edges, and maybe complacency will return.
But the question is, what can and should Santa Fe do--right now--to craft a strategy for a better economic future?
I don't think the answer is to do more of what is already there, or even to do it a little better. Better marketing, better messaging, better packaging--that won't change the game.
Santa Fe--and the Santa Fe's of America--need to think different, not about what assets the town has, but about what's missing.
In Santa Fe's case, what's missing are talented, entrepreneurial young people. Santa Fe suffers from "the case of the missing middle"--young people in their 20s and 30s who can start businesses, grow enterprises, take entrepreneurial risks, look beyond government and tourism and real estate and art and see a much bigger picture.
It could be that this all-important cohort is missing from Santa Fe's demographic profile because there isn't anything meaningful, productive, or exciting for them to do in town. Or it could be that there isn't anything meaningful, productive, or exciting for them to do, because they're missing.
Cause and effect aren't the issue here, however. What's at issue is the need for an explicit strategy, targeted, not at jobs, or reviving tourism, or helping promote art.
Santa Fe needs to ask a different question if it hopes to get a different answer. The right question is all about a population cohort, not an economic category.
Santa Fe needs a population strategy that aims explicitly at keeping the young people who come to school in Santa Fe and New Mexico, attracting more young people to the mix, and giving them the tools, the incentives, the technology, the entrepreneurial opportunities that will make Santa Fe a vibrant place for creativity and innovation to flourish.
The right question for Santa Fe to ask is, "How do we attract, retain, develop, promote, and reward a missing demographic group--well-educated, technologically sophisticated, entrepreneurial young people?"
That's the right question, and asking it can lead to the right answers.
There are examples all over America of communities attempting just this strategy, creating incubators, partnering with academic institutions, offering technological incentives, pooling venture capital funds, sponsoring conferences and gatherings that bring young people together and give them a feeling that there is a community of like-minded individuals ready to work together to do really cool things. But it's not enough to know that there are lots of pieces lying around loose on the ground. Someone has to assemble them into a real strategy, so the pieces fit together and reinforce each other. They have to be particular to Santa Fe--or any other community looking for its population strategy--to the place, the history, the culture, and the context. And it takes work--real work--to execute a strategy. It won't just happen on its own.
In the end, all economics is local. And that means it's up to the people at the local level to articulate their own economic strategy, and then create their own economic future.
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