Public Engagement ideas
The new consumer/public - new rules in public engagement:
1) embracing the tremendous increase in the power of the individual (Facebook: Middlebury, Twitter: Superbowl marketing, Super Tuesday, Blogs/Internet: Hillary’s laugh)
2) addressing an organizational approach to honoring and catalyzing this new paradym (combined with Vermont’s private personality or how to get people to participate while not paying too much attention to them) - the flat and even relationship model at River Arts and how that appears to be addressing the issue.
a) How these fundamental changes in the power structures call for some redefinition of effective leadership. No longer can leadership be opaque. It doesn’t work. Public participation, or the perception of participation is a prerequisite to effective leadership in almost all cases, with the exception of emergency management.
b) The authentic message - what is valuable now? Real and authentic conversation and presentation. Spin doesn’t cut the mustard as much as it did. In fact, spin can sink the endevour if done poorly. (Art fits into here)
c) The creation of content - as a new and unusual. What kind of content, or message has any traction in the world today. How do we work with time poverty and the collapsing attention span? Less than 1% of web content, for example, is original. How can that originality/creativity support efforts at public engagement? (Art fits here)
d) The diminishing cost of acquiring stuff, and the increasing costs of owning it (Zipcar/Rent don’t own/portable work places/vagabond vocations) - how does this affect public engagement? By magnifying the importance of a b and c, above. I think there are aspects of power that are less related to how many cows you own, and increasingly related to the value of information you can provide in relationships.
How can VELCO, for example, sell the value of public engagement now - in the new world. And is that a Stowe Mountain Resort case study application (I have a story to expand on this, but won’t go into it here). Bringing the constituency to the table and utilizing the change in effective leadership by defining that role as one of relationship building - authentic, valuable, non material donations to peoples lives… catalyzing creative and engaged solutions to problems or challenges … catalyzing unique and individual collections of assets in the community.
