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| The winning inspiration from my 9yr old. |
As I was sitting mulling over all of the potential titles for this blog, as so many "labels" come to mind:
Here are a few of the non winning titles:
- Cultural Disconnect: Government in Action (reminded me too much of what Habermas would have written about in the "public sphere" way too mind numbing)
- Trained to Fail
- Why Wilbur & Orville Wright were able to succeed where others failed.
- And my personal favorite: Tales from the Island of Misfit Toys : AKA: Portland
I'm going to stop procrastinating now and get on with it. I have had so many thoughts about what I was exposed to it has overwhelmed my synapses and made the squirrels in my head wind the yarn into a big fat ball of permutations and combinations. I hope at least they are using a nice soft angora multicolored yarn with hues of periwinkle, blues, yellows and deep lavender :D
Enter the thought of all of the check boxes you need to be able to check to be accepted in the real world. Whether that be for school (yes, Billy was able to identify the shape as a hexagon....CHECK..Does Susie have the ability to color with the "appropriate colors" when given the picture of the elephant. NO! She colored the elephant with purple and pink dots with blue tusks ....and OH SO UN CHECK!), for a job, (to even have your resume put into consideration with the 5 billion others applying for a job), e-harmony for a potential mate, or when voting someone into office....CHECK the appropriate Box.
So here we all are Generation X, Y, Z etc. realizing the jobs of yesteryear IE the ones where you worked for 25 years and were delighted to be a well paid factory worker at Singer Sewing Machine Co. or some other large factory with your pension about to be paid. You are ready to get the RV started up for you and your high school sweetheart so you can finally start living the good life and throw care to the wind....and then ooops! Singer goes bankrupt, your pension disappears and your American Dream becomes Foreclosed. You now have a Government Pension Guarantee taking it's place and your upper limit wasn't exactly(far from it in some cases) the amount you had paid into the pension and expected for "the golden years" when living begins .....
Reality strikes! The benefit of the Generation "whichever letter you wish to identify yourself with, insert here X" is that the majority of us know that we are not guaranteed ANYTHING in job security, social security, any kind of "urity". It is now the norm no matter what industry you are in to switch jobs every 18 months or so...
UNLESS!!!! Eureka!!!
You do what your (depression era) parent's tell you to do: Find a nice safe job, one with benefits, a pension etc..
Enter the LAST BASTION of job security.... A job with the Government. (I am not meaning to generalize here as I know a ton of really cool forward thinking people who are public servants)
However, when sitting in Portland with the "Open Government Standards" group the NUMBER ONE hurdle to adoption was without a shadow of a doubt: Cultural Change. I don't get it! How could you NOT want to change something SO BROKEN! It is absolutely obvious that I have no qualms about challenging the public norm by any means. As I always say, I am data driven. So my squirrels start spinning...trying to put the puzzle pieces into place, where is the logic in this mess? It does not compute <<<Said like a machine>>> .
Then the patterns began to emerge. What do we know data wise about the demographics?
- You have a majority of public servants who are close or at retirement age.
- They are the majority of upper and middle management.
- They have lived by the codes, regulations that have been an institution for their entire gov lives.
- Their world has not had to change much in their tenure.
- They have learned to use PC's but don't really see them as tools because they still have to fill things out in triplicate.
- We have another "new greater, faster, prettier" application that someone has developed....But they forgot to do a business case and actually talk to the Users About What they ACTUALLY NEED! (That will be another blog in entirety) So it sucks and is much easier just to fill in the paperwork, get it signed up the routing list, fax it, scan it, put it in some file share where it will get lost with 50 other versions of the same variation of document...then file the paper copies in a big white binder and stash it in one of the gazillion filing cabinets where it will proceed to sit for time and all eternity. But it's certainly much more simple than using this POORLY designed software....Now which one of the 50 gov websites do I need to go to in order to get training for hours on end on this software that really sucks. How do I get my day job done when I am constantly having to certify, do paper work...MAN all I want to do is...RETIRE!
- The supervisor above them does NOT want to change either. Embracing difference is not our way! We need to make sure you dot your i's and CHECK THE PRETTY LITTLE BOXES!!!!!!!!
ENTER HOPE! I went to Open Standards West with absolutely NO expectations. I entered the Government Open Source Conference with the same....No expectations. I really didn't want to listen to a bunch of people pontificating anymore about how they plan on changing government....I want ACTION! Well hell, I've been looking for it for a long darn time now and I got smacked upside the head with people ACTUALLY DOING something...Not just talking about it! Wow! Deep breath.
I also have to admit, I had no idea who any of the other presenters, speakers etc. were. I wanted to enter into it with a completely blank slate. Well I did....and what I found was an amazing cross section of individuals who may or may NOT fit and check into Pretty Little Boxes. But they all want to do something to help our cities, states and governments locally and around the world embrace something that is a strategic game changing adaptation to reduce costs, spillages, over budget, over time....Transparency, Teamwork, Empower the people to Participate!
Why was Portland absolutely perfect for this event? People in Portland are well....different. It is not only ok to be different but it is embraced whole heartedly. As I always tell anyone that works for/with me: I don't care if you are a one eyed, purple tattooed, alien from mars that works the best between the hours of 0130am and 0700am. Ok so you may or may NOT have had the option of going to college but given that kids now days have grow up with a computer.....If you want to wear clothing that would be preferable since we do have to meet health codes....If you want to bring your dog fido or your iguana max to work as long as they play well with others and you do too I don't mind at all if it makes you happy to be at work or doing work. My main concern is:
"WHAT CAN YOU PRODUCE"? Show me what you can do and I will plow the road for you and your iguana.....and maybe give you a ride to your tattoo parlor on the back of my bike.
I'm exhausted now and have a conference call at 0815 tomorrow. Have to polish up 3 presentations....
But I wanted to thank all of the amazing people who I met in Portland. You gave me HOPE!
