Coming Together for Positive Change in Corvallis
October 27, 2009 8 Comments
One of the reasons that compelled us to create this forum was our desire for more engagements of a higher quality between the community and city leaders. In a comment on a previous post, Corvallis City Counselor Mark O’Brien (Ward 1 Rules!) shared what I hopefully believe is a similar feeling.
“Something I’ve noted during my Council term is that there’s a big part of the population that is simply stupefied by the prospect of engaging in the civic dialogue or the City for that matter. I think that spills over to the business community too. Maybe it seems too complicated, time consuming or just plain frustrating. I’m not sure but it was my personal frustration dealing with the Council that prompted me to run for office in the first place. It seems like the Council often runs more like a tram then a taxi. You know, just going along with the program. It’s tough to break old habits.”
“If we business persons would come together and express our aspirations and frustrations openly and often I think you’d start to see a positive change in culture of the Council.”
I absolutely agree and I am thankful that Mark is willing to walk the talk by engaging with us here on the web, the most public of channels. But I would add that any good communication and relationship is a two-way street. It is also important for our leaders to participate in important discussions openly.
How can we overcome our old habits and talk about our City’s direction openly? Warts and all. Several city leaders such as Mark have stepped forward as brave examples here. I am aware of personal invitations between city leaders to participate. Are some still absent by choice? Is it a reluctance to use the web as a communication platform? Is the level of transparency too uncomfortable?
What are the obstacles? What do you think we can do to encourage the business community and city leaders to come together for positive change?
Business, City Leadership, Community, Loyan Roylance
Chris: I don’t think most people regard posting to a blog site as having a conversation. It’s not as fast and easy and effective as talking face-to-face, with the communications enhancements made possible by instantaneous give-and-take, and the communications power of body language, . It’s more like monologues, sequentially posted. It’s more like the letters to the editors page of the G-T, but with the benefit of being able to more readily trace back the “conversation’s” thread. So some folks just aren’t going to opt in to having an “open and honest conversation” with you in this format. Not everyone sees this as the best way to communicate, let alone even seeing it as “communication.” And you and Matt and Loyan and other believers of social media shouldn’t assume the rest of the world is wrong just because it doesn’t see things the way you do.
“Coming together for positive change” sure sounds good. But it doesn’t have much more meaningfulness to it than “hope on a poster.” What are the specific things you believe need to be changed in this City, or by the City government, that would be positive things? Put forth those concrete, clearly-dileniated points and people can (and will) engage around them. And don’t be surprised when some things you might see as “positive change:” for Corvallis, or its City government, or its civic organizations are not viewed that way by some/many/all others. But that doesn’t mean you and Matt and Loyan and the rest of the believers are wrong. :-)
Curt,
Loyan was the originator of this post, but I thought I’d respond, as it looks like the first part is directed to me.
For several years, but much more intensely in the last 6 months, I’ve been meeting with leadership and stakeholders to begin engaging in conversation on a one on one basis.
Today for example, I met with Mysty Rusk for an hour and a half at 830, then Jon Nelson at 10, Charlie Tomlinson at 1130 and then Catherine Mater at 1245.
None of these conversations centered on insurance(where I derive income) but rather our community and “what next”. So just for your clarification, I place a high value on analog conversations, but also consider social media to be a highly effective, scalable supplement to it.
However, I would disagree with your premise that blogs cannot be made up of conversations. In fact, I think the laws of communication extend across all mediums. Regardless of what medium one is using, you have to be a good listener.
And secondly, meaningful conversation is dependent on each participants willingness to be candid and vulnerable. Without that, it does become a series of monologues.
The three of us have never expected everyone to engage on WLC. I’m content to have these discussions with people in the conference room of my office, on twitter, at Block 15 or at Red Horse.
I’m also comfortable with the fact that we may only reach a half dozen or dozen smart and passionate people. Maybe that’s all it will take.
WLC just happens to be the most efficient and scalable platform we could come up with for the time being.
Loyan and Chris: Sorry about “talking” with my fingertips when I should have done a better job of “listening” with my eyeballs. I should have caught that Loyan was the lead cheerleader on the cheerleading post.
Drat! Still wrong about who posted what. Maybe I better just go away and talk to the nearest fence post for a while.
Curt,
whatever you do, don’t go away.
Cheers.
Curt do you think I misunderstood Mark O’Brien’s point regarding the potential benefit of us coming together and expressing our aspirations and frustrations openly and often? Is that “hope on a poster”?
As a web professional I will admit that I have some strong opinions regarding the web as an effective communication tool. I would like to try to offer something we can agree on:
A growing number of people from all demographics and are spending a growing amount of time on the web. Can we agree that is an indicator of value demonstrated by those users?
I would also like to pose a plain question to you: Do you think WeLoveCorvallis.com is a waste of our time?
Chris and Loyan: In the next-to-last paragraph of Loyan’s (got it right!) original post on this matter, the observation is made that some city leaders have been invited to participate in this forum, and plaintive questions are posed as to why they’re not here “conversing” with you and whomever else purposefully or accidentally comes to your site.
My response was intended only to suggest one reason for many people (perhaps the City leaders to whom you referred) not choosing to “converse” at at blog site is because they don’t view it as a “conversation.” I know you don’t agree with that. And obviously, I don’t either. (Otherwise, why would I be here pounding on a keyboard?).The only point I was trying to point out is that not everyone agrees that this is the way to have a good, meaningful, open, honest conversation. I think we should all be okay with that. I don’t think one builds an environment of trust – needed for open and honest conversations – by questioning why some others don’t want to “converse” with fingertips and eyeballs. End of clarification.
Thank you for your feedback Curtis. I can appreciate that what we are proposing here is something different. Understanding any obstacles that prevent people from joining us here (and anywhere else) may help us change what is going on here and enable more open conversations.