Challenges and Opportunities

I got involved with the Innovation Group after the Trek 2007 Futuring conference because I saw an opportunity to get creative and address what I saw were pressing needs for the City to innovate or stagnate. Although my enthusiasm has dampened somewhat, I still see some great opportunities and a few challenges before us in the realm of innovation.

The challenges are twofold. First, there is a culture of what I would call historical malaise, or “that’s how we’ve always done it here, and I don’t see the need to change”. This problem seems to pervade every government agency or bureaucracy, and the only way to address it is to either bring in new blood, or force change from the top down. Both options have pitfalls—bringing in new blood generally means you’ve lost some “old” blood, and with it, the institutional knowledge that often helps get things done in an organization. Forcing change from the top down will often meet with resistance from those who don’t want to change, and may result in a loss of efficiency in the organization.

The second challenge is fear of change. Good or bad, change is often fraught with uncertainty, even in organizations that do a good job at communicating with their employees. When people have a fear of the something, they will often revert to their comfort zone, unwilling to stretch themselves and try new things. This type of behavior does not bode well for an organization, and may destroy any chance at changing the organization.

That brings us to the opportunities, which are myriad. I don’t think you would get much argument from anyone who’s worked somewhere else then came to the City, that we meet a LOT. One opportunity is to make those meetings more efficient, and less frequent, through the use of technology. I love the concept of this Blog. We can exchange ideas from the comfort of our workspace without physically attending a meeting. Why not use this same technology to achieve the same end with our day-to-day work? Have you ever sat through a one-hour (or longer) meeting, only to ask yourself, “couldn’t we have achieved the same result with an e-mail exchange?” I guess there is something to be said for the face-to-face interaction of meetings, but when you add in the preparation time and travel time for off-site meetings, it really adds up.

What types of opportunities do you see in a more innovative Carlsbad? Here are some ideas:
Automated Timesheets
Automated Agenda Bill Processing
Extended Service Hours for Citizen
Reverse Auctions for Goods and Services
More efficient and happier employees
More responsive government—happy taxpayers
And, importantly, how do we make progress toward being more innovative, keeping the challenges I noted above in mind? What is our prescription for success?

I would agree that at least two paths were described at our last meeting.

As I noted I am most interested in the path which will help all staff do their job more efficiently and with higher quality. By implementing continuous improvement processes and eliminating hurdles to the process of continuously refining and improving how we do what we do we can start/keep the ball of innovation rolling. These activities will lead to a multicultural organization that can take advantage of new/emerging markets in the local government industry.

This path would be analogous to the “Toyota Paint Booth” article in which their staff was engaged in a continuous improvement process that enabled them to improve their efficiency and their product. As a result of Toyota's systemic approach they have been able to take advantage of their gains throughout the company which has facilitated the growth and success of their company.

I would like to help initiate this incremental approach to improvement and innovation which I believe will lead to gains that benefit the entire organization.

Innovative Culture Folk

Welcome to the Blog!

We have some interesting times ahead and hopefully we can be innovative and use this Blog to have some of those discussions.

I got from our last meeting that we have perhaps a dual headed purpose to pursue,

We have an interest and desire to promote, create, and foster innovation at the City - such as generate new ideas and try them out, or help other departments to find ways to try their ideas out, or research other organizations for new ways for us to do things.

And we also want to take on the discussion of what our City Culture is, why it is like it is, how it helps or hinders our future path to City greatness, and what barriers/changes could be made to encourage a culture shift to facilitate more flexibility and innovation.

Did anyone else attend the same meeting as I did? :)

Please comment / post on your take of what our purpose is.

R.

WELCOME

Our blog is finally set up. I'm not sure if everyone is able to post links to other sites. Thus, if you are unable to and have some you would like listed, please send them to me and I'll add them to the dashboard.