David Koren

The Big Issue: the Influence of Wealth on Government Decision-Making

When I woke up this morning and heard that police had cleared Zuccotti Park late last night under the orders of Mayor Mike Bloomberg, I was immediately struck by the irony of the fact that the sole decision to evict people who are protesting economic inequality in NYC rests with the 30th wealthiest person in the world, who paid $102 Million to be elected to a third term in 2009 (a cost of $183 a vote!) after fighting to have the term limits law changed so he could run again. Now, I actually like Mike Bloomberg. I've voted for him. I think he's something of a benevolent dictator for New York City, and I believe he authentically cares about this city, and about doing the right thing for the people of New York.

But the fact that he's in office at all highlights the very issue which it seems to me is at the heart of the Occupation movement. And it isn't easy to get to the heart of it all, because there are so many issues heaped on top of it. We've got economic inequality, social issues, the failure of capitalism, the deregulation of the financial system, the recent economic collapse, the bailout of the banks, and everything else. But all these issues are, I think, united very simply in one core problem: 

Money buys political power, and our country is now effectively run by the wealthy, who exert tremendous influence over our government to make sure that policies that benefit their wealth are enacted, and that policies that do not benefit their wealth are blocked. 

The ways that money buys political power and influences government decision-making are many, some direct and some indirect, some legal and some illegal. Of course there's graft and corruption, but there's also the spin of the media, political donations (it takes a lot of money to get elected), paid lobbyists, the power of political appointments, the promise of future rewards after serving in office, and a host of other subtle and overt ways that money influences decision-making.

This problem is not just a problem for the left or the right. It's a problem that threatens our entire system. We have become a plutocracy in which those with the most money have the most influence. Without wealth, we have very little voice... all that we can do to influence government decision-making is to vote, or to protest, or to write a letter. But those with money can hire lobbyists, make large political donations, influence coverage in our media, hire a "consultant" (say, a former influential elected official) to make a few phone calls, promise someone a reward in the future, or make an out-and-out bribe. 

This is not about "capitalism" or "socialism." The ideological divide between these two idealized economic models frames a lot of the neverending debate between the left and the right about specific policies. But we don't have a capitalist society or a socialist one. We have a combination, and we choose when to adopt socialist principles or capitalist principles in our government. Capitalism works well for some things (incentivizing growth), and socialism works well for other things (military, major infrastructure, etc.). Some things work well when the government does them, and some things do not. Some things work well when businesses do them, and other things do not. We can debate when government or business is better equipped to handle one thing or another, but any dogmatic position that says "business is always good (or bad)" or "government is always good (or bad)" denies history and reality. 

If the wealthy are effectively controlling the decisions that our government makes on our behalf, they will make decisions about when to apply socialist principles and when to apply capitalist principles so as to maintain and increase their wealth. So we have socialized military, police, roads, and socialized risk for "too big to fail" financial institutions. But we continue to apply capitalist principles to health care (health insurance and hospitals) for most Americans, even as our costs continue to skyrocket, and the quality of our service continues to decline. And we apply capitalist principles to job creation, even though the "trickle down" from the wealthy "job creators" doesn't seem to result in very many new jobs, because the wealthy are generally hanging on to their money, rather than hiring new workers.

So we have a country in which our representative democracy, under the influence of pressure from moneyed interests, effectively makes decisions for the benefit of the few at the expense of the many. That is, actually, the definition of tyranny. Even though we still get to vote. Even though I can write to my senator if I want. My opinion is worth a lot less than that of Rupert Murdoch or George Soros.

If we approached decision-making at the governmental level from the perspective of "how can we make a decision that benefits the most citizens possible" we would have a very different approach to health care, financial regulation, job creation, defense, taxation, campaign finance and many other issues. But this isn't how most lawmakers approach the problems that face us. The one-person/one-vote system has far less power than the individual ambition and desire for personal benefit that wealth can bestow on our elected representatives and political appointees.

Let's look at three examples from the last few years, one from each branch of our Federal government, in which decisions very obviously placed the interests of the wealthy few over the interests of average Americans:

• The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 was drafted by Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (himself a former Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs) to provide $700 billion in bailouts to financial institutions through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Whether or not there is any actual conflict-of-interest in Paulson bailing out his former firm and many others, I don't think there can be any doubt that Paulson's perspective on the importance of the bailouts was influenced by his time on the inside at the most successful financial institution on Wall Street.
• The Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010 extended the Bush-era tax cuts after a bitter national debate over whether to let them lapse or not. As some conservatives chose to view the expiration of a temporary tax cut as a "tax increase," and given the pledge that many legislators have signed to not raise taxes under any circumstances, it was impossible to not extend the tax cut, even for the wealthiest Americans, and even in the midst of a national debate about the deficit. Unfortunately, the ongoing debate about fair taxation (highlighted most dramatically by Warren Buffett) has caused many to begin to think of the Republican party as the "Party of the Rich" since many Republican legislators vociferously defend against higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans, whether by closing tax loopholes or increasing taxes on capital gains or income taxes.
• The Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision of the Supreme Court essentially gives corporations the right to fund campaign advertisements without making that funding public. This decision gave additional credence to the view that corporations are people, with all the same rights as citizens, and that money is a form of free speech. John Paul Stevens, in his dissenting opinon, wrote that this decision "threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation. The path it has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution."

If we actually are a society in which everyone is equal... If we actually have a country that is (as Lincoln said at Gettysburg) "of the people, by the people, and for the people," then everyone's interests should be weighed equally in making decisions that affect us all. For many of us, I think that's the basis of our social compact, of what we agree to when we place our allegiance in America. And it is the very sense that this social compact has been violated through the pervasive influence of wealth in politics that has brought us the continuing Occupation movement. And this isn't going away until the social compact is restored, until we figure out a way to make decisions that affect us all in a way that serves the needs of the many, not just the needs of the wealthy few.

 

 

 

Steve Jobs, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Occupy Wall Street

Is the era of the single, charismatic leader/visionary over?

One month ago, the Occupation of Wall Street began, and in the intervening 30 days, we've seen other occupations, demonstrations, and gatherings in over a thousand cities around the world. This movement is basically leaderless. At the very least, there is no singular charismatic figure who is orchestrating what is happening. It is happening more as a force of nature than as a force of will. It is happening because it needs to happen, because there are so many people who share a disillusionment with the way things are and disenfranchisement from the existing social and economic structure.

During this month of occupation, Steve Jobs passed away on October 5, and there has been a lot written about his genius, and also about how difficult he was to work for. But whatever you think of him, there can be little doubt that he was the singular leader of Apple that transformed the way we interact with technology several times over.

Also during this month, the Memorial to Martin Luther King, Jr., was dedicated in Washington, DC, on October 16. It had been scheduled for August 28th, the 48th Anniversary of King's "I have a dream" speech, but was postponed due to Hurricane Irene. King, of course, was a charismatic leader of the Civil Rights Movement who was assassinated in 1968.

The passing of Jobs, and the memory of King, leave me wondering if something has changed in our world with regard to leadership. The fact that the Occupation movement manages to grow and spread without a singular leader makes me wonder if the era of "name above the title" "larger than life" personas like Jobs and King and so many others is simply over.

Clearly, we need leaders. And clearly, there are many leaders involved in the Occupation movement. But as soon as one singular leader emerges, as soon as one person stands up and says, "I speak for all the disaffected here," that person will very likely be immediately vilified, first by conservatives (watch how fast Fox News digs up dirt on this person), then by the mainstream media (trying to fill the 24 hours news cycle), then by elected officials, who will doubt this person's legitimacy, then by other leaders in the Occupation movement, and then by everyone else. This whole process will probably take a few days. It was shocking to watch how fast Julian Assange, the leader of Wikileaks, was discredited, brought up on charges, and silenced for the most part... all immediately following his rise to international prominence.

Why do we do this to our leaders? And what has changed to make this possible? Well, clearly, globalization, the Internet, the speed of communication, and the 24-hour news cycle enable this to happen. No sooner does a figure emerge on a national platform than we know everything there is to know about them. We've seen leaders like Eliot Spitzer, Rod Blagojevich, and many others exposed, discredited, and dismissed from public office almost instantly. When David Paterson took over for Spitzer after Spitzer's resignation, Paterson was quick to disclose publicly all of his dirty laundry: drug use, infidelity, basically everything he could think of that could be uncovered later... He just gave it all away, prior to his swearing-in, taking all the ammunition out of his enemy's hands.

So our leaders are instant targets... As soon as they emerge, they become the subject of a million Google searches, a hundred TV news stories, and a great hunger to figure out who they are, and what they have to hide. And that's scary. But maybe there's another way to look at this as a positive development... Since our leaders are no longer seen as everything, are no longer able to stand as singular representatives of all our collective hopes and dreams, it puts the responsibility more squarely on all of us, as leaders, to pull together and build the world that we would like to see.

Rapidly, the Occupy Wall Street movement has developed tools to communicate, both locally (the People's Mic) and globally (through websites and Twitter), and to make decisions (through the General Assembly and the proposed 2012 People's Congress). These tools, though in their infancy, are designed to reduce the power or authority of any one person over any other, to communicate and make decisions in as level a playing field as possible, to flatten the hierarchical structure that we all live and work in, so that every voice can be heard and that that decisions that are made can be as representative as possible of the collective will of the people.

And, if this movement can continue to pursue its highest ideals, without becoming compromised by the lure of the existing financial/governmental/media power structure, perhaps it can continue to grow without singular charismatic leaders. It can have spokespeople, of course. But as long as the movement continues to believe that every voice is as important as every other voice, maybe we won't need one singular voice to speak for us all. Maybe we can finally all speak for ourselves.

A Case for Participatory Government

The Occupation of Wall Street is two weeks old today. Like many people I know, I’ve been watching the protest emerge and evolve through Facebook updates and Tweets and from an occasional forwarded article in the Gothamist. As I write, there are not only people encamped downtown, but similar actions cropping around around the country, and in fact, around the world.

One of the areas of confusion and criticism around the protest is that it’s not clear what the protest is about specifically... There’s not a specific call for action that we’re supposed to take. As an audience, many people would like more definition in order to better understand the protest, and to put it in a specific envelope, “Oh, they’re protesting for more taxes on the rich” or “Oh, they’re protesting for mortgage debt forgiveness” or “Oh, they’re protesting for the government to focus on creating jobs.” I’ve also read that various members of the audience would like to see a clear spokesman for this movement, some one person to step forward and become the avatar through which we can experience what is going on downtown and in other cities.

But I think it’s important to resist this desire, from the general public, to have this thing wrapped up with a bow. There is tremendous value in bringing people together simply to object to the way that things have been run, to unify not around a specific change that must be made, but in order to make a general statement that something fundamental needs to change in America, that America’s government has not been serving the needs of its people, at least not as its primary objective, for some time now. And whether people join the occupation because they are members of the long-term unemployed or because they have been significantly hurt by the recent financial crisis and recession or because of some other reason, there is still significant value in having them come together and make a statement about the injustice they feel.

This reminds me, to some extent of Howard Beale in the 1976 film Network:

"Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: "I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"

Yes, there’s change that has to be made, that many of us have been hoping for and talking about for some time. But, clearly, this change is not going to happen if we all sit at home simply writing blogs and tweeting and updating our facebook status as our primary means of dissent. Or even if we become active in the conventional political process and campaign for the lesser of two evils, or write letters to our elected representatives encouraging them to do the right thing.

First, we actually have to get mad. And then, we have to take our actual physical bodies and go out and make a stand, in the street. We have to leave cyberspace and go out into meatspace. And if it’s not specific about exactly why people are taking to the streets, if it’s just from a general shared disillusionment with the capitalist status quo, a reaction against economic inequality, a riot against the growing sense that our best days are behind us, well, that’s ok. That’s what it needed right now, before we start to move toward any specific change, we need to get people on their feet.

It’s amazing what this movement has accomplished so far, in only two weeks, and how many things have been done just right. There is no specific leader who has emerged who can be ripped to shreds by the media and cynical spectators (remember Julian Assange?). The inclusive “General Assembly” model, instead of some more formal leadership structure, means that anyone who needs to be heard, can be heard, that anyone who has something to say can say it, that anyone can be a part of what is happening. And it’s all happening, ostensibly, without any big-money interests behind it or powerful existing organizations (political parties, unions) calling the shots. So far.

And at the center of this movement are kids, young people, Millennials... the generation that grew up with computers all around them, and that we didn’t think knew how to do anything that wasn’t tied to a computer or handheld device. This is the generation that is getting people up and out in general protest at the way things have been run.

To me, the promise of this movement isn’t some minor revision to the existing legal framework (reinstating the Glass-Steagal Act, or changing the tax code) but in creating a more participatory model for government, a government that actually serves the people, and is actually accountable to the people. Some people are looking at Occupy Wall Street and advocating for a technologically fueled direct democracy. I’m not sure that would work all that well... There are two kinds of tyranny: tyranny of the few over the many (dictatorship, oligarchy, plutocracy) and tyranny of the many over the few (mob rule, total democracy, communism). Our government is designed in some ways to slow down the heat of popular sentiment, to make sure that we don’t start burning people at the stake when their positions become unpopular, to protect the individual from the state. We need to maintain those protections.

One of the reasons that we need to have a government infrastructure is also so that we can all spend our time doing things other than governing ourselves. As Oscar Wilde may or may not have said, “The trouble with Socialism is that it takes up too many evenings.” So we elect officials that take on the job of running the state so that we can work for living and have some time for leisure. Because somebody has to run things around here.

But when we elect officials, we have to believe and trust that they are going to serve our interests, that they are going to work for us. That’s the basis of the social compact between the government and the governed. And our existing government in the United States has broken the trust of many of us. There is a widespread and growing sense that those in positions of authority are far more concerned with their own individual self-interest (whether it’s re-election, lining their pockets, protecting their friends) than they are in doing what is right for the longterm health and prosperity for the majority of the people of the United States. So we’ve seen a trend, for the past 30 years or more, of a society that increasingly favors those who already have the lion’s share of the wealth, as the wealthy, quite obviously and dramatically, get richer, while those at the bottom have less and less. This is not the appropriate result of a representative democracy in which one person has one vote to elect representatives to serve their interests.

One way to look at the history of humanity on this planet is as an ongoing struggle between those who would limit participation, and those who would seek to maximize it. We are now at a moment in history in which our communications technology enables more and more of us to participate, and we need to take advantage of that to insist that our representatives take action that is in our interest.

So I think what is happening here is that more and more people are standing up and saying, “You guys are doing a really lousy job representing me. In fact, you’re letting 1% of the country walk all over the other 99%. And you know what? We want to be more involved. We don’t just want to elect you every two or four or six year and let you start running for re-election the second you get into office. We actually want a government that works for us. And, damn it, if we have to give up some evenings to get that, well, so be it.”

Inevitably, however, this movement will need to begin to advocate for specific popular policy changes. As Occupy Together grows to locations all around the country, and gathers an increasing groundswell of popular support (if that can be sustained) I’d love to see the movement try to maintain both it’s inclination for direct democracy and a desire to respect the existing framework of the Constitution and the government of the United States... by drafting and working to pass a number of amendments to the Constitution to further protect us from our government and provide for better economic equality... whether these are the “fair tax amendment,” the “campaign finance amendment,” or the “full employment amendment,” I don’t know... but it would be great to find a way to change the system directly, without necessarily becoming just another pet issue to propel another party or slate of candidates into office, and begin the cycle of inaction and disaffection all over again.

Art and Populism on Governors Island

In Friday’s Weekend section of The New York Times, Edward Rothstein wrote a fairly evenhanded story about Governors Island as “A Playground for the Arts." As a follow-up, Ken Johnson contributed a dismissive and offensive post on the Times blog, the thrust of which is that good art requires money, the and if we want serious art people to take the art on Governors Island seriously, the best way for that to happen is to raise a few million dollars and throw an international art exhibition. Because, he writes, “Art just isn’t the kind of thing that lends itself to no-budget, laissez-faire populism.” He goes on to dismiss the work of No Longer Empty, FIGMENT, the Sculptor’s Guild, and even 4Heads, before their exhibition has even opened.

In his critique, Johnson manages to miss the point entirely. The art on Governors Island isn’t for him. And it’s not for the elite tastemakers who have decided who lives and dies in the art world for centuries. No, this is art for the rest of us. For everybody… for families, for communities, for every-day citizens who yearn for inspiration, for artists trying new things, and for connecting all of these pieces to each other in an accessible, fun, and interactive environment that encourages experimentation instead of censure.

Because Governors Island, unlike New York’s museums and galleries, is our place. It belongs to all of us. So the art that succeeds there is, by definition, populist (as you can see in videos of FIGMENT's projects). And, in the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, when foundations, individuals, and governments are stretched to their limits, that means low budget... reflecting the hardship in the lives of the people creating and enjoying that art.

And if this means that, to the elite sensibility, the FIGMENT minigolf course and interactive sculpture garden—enjoyed by tens of thousands of children and adults through summer at no cost (unlike MoMA, the Met, etc.)—is “an ugly mess.” Well, so be it. Better to be loved to death by the people of New York City than admired by an elite echelon of the art establishment.

We believe that public art is art created by and for the public. And Governors Island, as a place for all of us to share equally, is the ideal place for public art. And yes, this is a populist idea, and the point that Johnson misses entirely.

And, after all, as jaded as Johnson is about art that doesn't "thrill" him, what if something really important and innovative were actually going on here? How could Johnson tell? He is clearly so disinterested in populist forms that, if he had been writing at the time, he would have dismissed impressionism, dadaism, naturalism, abstract expressionism, pop art, performance art, and every other arts movement that came from the people, as opposed to those innovations, such as they are, that come from the establishment.

We believe in participation, the idea that we can all collaborate to create great art together that none of us could have created in isolation. FIGMENT has grown rapidly over the last four years on this simple idea, creating better and better participatory and interactive art each year. It's true that we're not in competition with the Venice Biennale, but that isn't really the goal. The fact that we're having this conversation in the blog of The New York Times is evidence that we're making tremendous progress in our goal to develop the island into an international arts destination focused on participation.

Mr. Johnson, we invite you to reconsider your position on what makes art important to society, and to learn more about FIGMENT and the other arts groups working on the island. We would love for you to join us and to be a participant in what we're building.

David Koren
Executive Producer
FIGMENT

 

 

The FIGMENT Update

When our group got together to start FIGMENT in 2007, we never had any idea that it could ever grow this much, this fast. In 2010, our three-day NYC event had nearly 25,000 participants, and our Boston event, just in its first year, had something like 10,000 participants. It's really amazing to see how quickly the community around FIGMENT has grown, and it's exciting to see where it can go next.

Welcome to FIGMENT! (Image (c) 2010 NY_Man)

FIGMENT began in New York in 2007 as a way to bring three important resources together: first, Governors Island, a former Army and then Coast Guard base in New York Harbor that had just been turned over to New York City; second, the creative energy of artists in New York, often creating work without ample resources, often desperately in need of space; and third, the ethos that many of the founders of FIGMENT had learned from Burning Man, expressed in the ten principles—basically, teaching us how to work collaboratively together to make great things happen in a way that is participatory, generous, and free from commoditization.

The idea took off immediately, and, while we expected 500 people or so at our first one-day event, we had over 2,600 people, with thousands more turned away at the ferries. We haven't stopped since. The New York event has grown exponentially each year, increasing how much art we cram onto the island's 172 acres, growing in participation as art projects become more ambitious, growing in duration as we add increasingly successful summer-long projects every year, and growing in stability as we build a team that believes in this event and can keep it going.

The Temple of Wonder by Jen Upchurch, Bryan Cates, and Douglas Hart, on Governors Island until October 3, 2010 (Image (c) 2010 Limelike)

So what is FIGMENT, anyway? FIGMENT is a free, large-scale, public participatory art explosion, in which absolutely everyone is encouraged to participate in any way they see fit. We select projects for FIGMENT via open calls for art, and apply a very basic criteria to submitted projects: Is the project participatory or interactive in some way? Is the project appropriate for the general public? Can it be cleaned up easily?

There are a lot of things that have surprised us along the way as FIGMENT has grown… One is the kids. We really didn't expect FIGMENT to become such an amazing event for children and young families. When we began to plan the first FIGMENT, none of the organizers had kids (now I have a two-year old daughter). But we quickly found, in our first year, just how much kids love what FIGMENT has to offer: art that you can play with, 200 ways to get messy, hula hoops, rave music, rose petal and glitter pools, minigolf! At FIGMENT, you often see kids leading their parents around, and kids and their parents playing together, in a way that is fun for everybody.

Another thing we really didn't expect was that a daytime-only, alcohol-free event could feel like such a fantastic party. Since Governors Island is only open during the day, FIGMENT was forced to begin as a daytime-only event, despite the hopes of some of the organizers that FIGMENT could grow to include a nighttime element, or even become a 24-hour event at some point. But, surprisingly, the focus on daytime, and on maintaining a public face that is appropriate for everyone, has meant that the event is actually completely inclusive. Also surprising is that big parties have not really become part of FIGMENT—there aren't huge afterparties or related nighttime events. People go to FIGMENT, and then go home to sleep so they can get up early and do it again!

One of 11 minigolf holes for 2010 in the FIGMENT Minigolf Course: Just Dreaming Is Not Enough by WUKAG (Wichita State University Kinetic Art Group) – Jeswin Joseph Chankaramangalam, Wai Seong Choy, John Harrison, MohamdAli Ishaque Kazi, Christian Kindel, Ivy Lanning, Alan Whitaker (Image (c) 2010 Jason Eppink)

Given the fact that Governors Island is an uninhabited island that is open to the public for about 18 weekends in the summer, the idea occurred to us very quickly to try to create art that could be up for a longer period of time. In 2008, FIGMENT expanded to include two longer-term exhibitions, both of which were funded in part by Black Rock Arts Foundation: Emergence, an interactive installation in a 100-year old officer's residence created by 30 artists or collectives, and the FIGMENT Minigolf Course, which was actually originally suggested by Leslie Koch, the President of Governors Island. The FIGMENT Minigolf Course has become a staple of summer in New York City, spurring a new trend in artist-designed minigolf courses in the New York area. Now in its third year, the FIGMENT Minigolf Course remains completely free and funded by donations, enabling children and adults of all backgrounds to engage in a participatory art experience, providing a summer-long cultural experience for many people who do not go to museums, or galleries, or professional theatres. In 2009, we also added a summer-long sculpture garden, which has grown again in 2010. In 2010, we created our first architectural design competition to create a pavilion as a performance and gathering space on the island. The winning design, the Living Pavilion, opened on June 11 at FIGMENT, and has received rave reviews for its innovative use of milk crates and plantings that have been turned upside down.

Another way in which FIGMENT is growing is geographically. In my first post on the Burning Man Blog, I talked about what it was like not to go to Burning Man in 2009 for the first time in a number of years. A first-time burner from Boston, Jason Turgeon, saw that post after he got back from the playa, noticed my reference to FIGMENT, and contacted me, inspired to figure out how to recreate the spirit he experienced at Burning Man in his local community. We met, and started talking. Jason started to build a core group that could make FIGMENT happen in Boston, including Peter Durand, one of the Burning Man Regional Contacts for Boston. In cooperation with the Cambridge Arts Council, FIGMENT Boston took place on June 5, on a closed stretch of Memorial Drive along the Charles River in Cambridge. Since the event was located right next to the Cambridge River Festival, a more conventional arts festival involving food vending, artists selling their work, and paid performers, visitors kept wandering across the road into FIGMENT, and asking, "So what is this? And why is everyone smiling over here?" While I was initially a little nervous about having FIGMENT be right next to a conventional arts festival, ultimately the juxtaposition served to highlight how FIGMENT is different, and what makes it special. This feeling was helping along by the fact that Cler, a wonderful Boston volunteer, created beautiful hand-painted signs that explained the Ten Principles.

The Self-Reliance principle, illustrated beautifully for the general public by Cler (Image (c) 2010 Yacht Boy)

So what's next for FIGMENT? Well, it's certainly possible that we could see more geographic expansion, with other events popping up in other cities following the FIGMENT model. One thing that we're really interested in exploring is the idea of learning as a formal part of FIGMENT. I've realized that one of the things that is appealing to me about FIGMENT is just how much I learn every year by working to make this event happen… I've learned so much about leadership, management, planning, community, creativity, collaboration… And, as I look around, I realize everyone else is learning too… The team members, the artists, the kids who are in glitter up to their waists… How do we take that process of informal learning through creativity and make it some more established part of what we do, without crushing it completely into an "educational curriculum" or something like that? I'd love to hear your ideas… Feel free to email me.

More Texting, Less Driving

When I was at the ARC-Interiors conference in late September in Miami, speaking on "A Sense of Purpose: The New Reality for Architecture Firms and How Principals will Need to Adapt" I had lunch at the conference after I spoke at a table with a bunch of nice conference attendees and exhibitors. Before long, the conversation turned to current events, and we touched on the controversy over texting while driving.

Without really thinking, in the middle of the conversation, I interjected, "The problem isn't texting... It's driving." I went with it: "I mean, texting doesn't kill people, driving does. The problem is that we drive too much, and driving is just too easy. We need to drive less, and when we do, it needs to be more difficult."

One of the others at the table asked, "Yeah, I need somebody to pick me up at my house and drive me to work."

I threw out, "We have that already. It's called a train."

Suddenly, I realized that I was in a group of people from all around the US, none of which lived in New York or one of the few other cities in the US where you can live a full and complete life without owning a car.

"Maybe we should spend less public money on roads, and more on trains. If the roads were more dangerous, you couldn't text while driving because you'd hit a pothole. Part of the problem here is that driving is too easy because our roads are too well-maintained. People have too much free time when they drive."

The entire controversy, and this conversation, points out to me that our dependence on the automobile, and all the evils that go with it (foreign oil, pollution, suburban sprawl, shopping malls, road rage, alienation, long commutes of wasted time) is a choice, a choice we can reverse. It doesn't have to be this way. And it shouldn't be this way.

I'm reminded of the James Howard Kunstler quote, that the suburbs "represent the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world." The current controversy over texting while driving should be another wake-up call. The problem isn't texting, it's driving. Driving kills. We should be driving less, and texting more. People, get on the train. Get off the road. You're wasting resources, you're wasting time, and you're running the risk of killing somebody, or yourself. Why live this way?

Business Development in a Nutshell

I was talking to some of the marketing staff and business developers in one of our offices recently, and I thought of a gross simplification for the whole business development process, in terms of what the steps are, that I thought might be helpful, especially in this economy. Here it goes…

FIRST, YOU HAVE TO FIND OPPORTUNITIES. So, where do opportunities come from? Well, they can come from anywhere, but the best opportunities come from existing relationships that you have, because those are the ones you are most likely to close. Aside from that, they can come from referrals, or from public listings, or in the mail. Or you can even find opportunities by making a list of the 50 organizations you’d like to work for, and calling them all on the phone. But that not only is much less fun than emptying the cat’s litterbox, it’s also highly unlikely to be productive, in terms of finding opportunities. Calling on the phone is great for finding out information, and really bad for generating business. To generate business effectively, you really need a relationship.

SECOND, YOU HAVE TO DECIDE WHICH OPPORTUNITIES TO PURSUE. One of my favorite business articles ever is David Maister’s “Strategy Means Saying No.” The idea being, if you don’t say “no” to something, you don’t have a strategy, you’re totally adrift in a turbulent sea. Which invokes the famous Yogi Berra quote, “If you don’t know where you’re trying to go, you’ll probably end up someplace else.” Too many firms believe that all business is good business, and it simply isn’t true. You need to focus your efforts predominantly on work that you can win and that you want to do, and that you can do (and make money doing) if you win. It’s ok to throw a Hail Mary pass every so often, and to pursue something you have no business pursuing because you REALLY want it, but you can’t base a career, or run a firm, on this strategy.

THIRD, WHEN YOU’VE DECIDED TO GO, YOU HAVE TO NAIL IT TO THE WALL. Ok, so you want the project, you think you can win the project, and if you get it, you can do it (and make money doing it). So, why are you pursuing the project in a half-assed way? Give it everything you have! Pull out all the stops! Have early meetings! Stay up late! Convince the client how much you want to work with him or her, and how important the challenge they’re facing is to you. Show your passion. Be bold. And check your work.

Yes, it’s grossly simplistic, but having a list of three things you have to do to succeed is even better than having a list of ten things you have to do to succeed!

How Do You Describe Social Media Tools to People Who Haven't Used Them?

I was at a design industry cocktail party a few days ago, and I was talking to someone who is roughly my age who doesn’t understand Social Media. She’s on Linked-in. She’s on Facebook. She hasn’t used Twitter (yet). As I am (like everybody else) trying to figure out how to use these tools in a way that is productive and useful and helpful to others but not a tremendously wasteful time-suck, I offered her what I’ve been thinking lately about these tools:

“Linked-in is your address book. It’s your network.”

“Facebook is like a neverending cocktail party with all your friends.”

“Twitter is the future of the newspaper.”

She was quite surprised at how I described Twitter, “Really???”

Yes, really. She, like a lot of people (and like me until my wife Sasha sat me down a few weeks ago and said, THIS is how you use Twitter) sees Twitter as a tremendous time-suck, just like Facebook. It all depends on how you use it. If you think of it as a billion-channel broadcast system that allows you to access all (or nearly all) of the up-to-the-minute information and perspective you do now, in one place, it’s invaluable, or on its way to becoming invaluable. And, besides that, you get to be a channel, or several channels, and tell the people who follow you what you’re doing, or what you think.

With print media evaporating at a rapid pace (Have you seen Newsweek lately?), increasingly Twitter is how the information we need is going to come to us. I just hope it can ramp up fast enough, and that we can all figure out how to make using it part of our daily routine.

The "Expert Traveler" Lane: Do you pick the blue pill or the red pill?

I’m writing this post on a plane from Chicago Midway to LaGuardia. At Midway I found something I haven’t seen before in an airport: a multiple-choice question that allows you to self-select which category of traveler you are, and the answer to your question determines which line you wait in as you go through security. There are three lines (and I’m paraphrasing the categories, because I’m on a plane without wifi!): “Family/Fluids,” for those of us traveling with kids or who have fluids of some kind with us, or some other item that’s going to raise eyebrows as it goes into the scanner, “Casual Traveler,” for those of us getting on a plane to go on vacation, or who don’t travel that much, and “Expert Traveler,” for those of us who travel all the time and have our whole ritual worked out… pull out computer, put in plastic tub, take off shoes, put in another plastic tub, put jacket over shoes, etc.

I kind of resented the segregation at first… I mean, am I really an “expert traveler”? Do I want to describe or label myself that way? So I got into the “Casual Traveler” line and got to the ID checkpoint. Then the lines continued toward the scanners. Overwhelmed by curiosity, I switched to the “Expert Traveler” line, and immediately felt my posture change. Now I had to perform. Through my choice, I had told everyone that I knew what I was doing. This was not the time to leave my Blackberry in my pocket, set off the beep, and have to go back through. This was a test, and I needed to nail it.

When I got to the scanners, I was surprised to see that the line really wasn’t moving any faster than the other lines. You would think that these “expert travelers” would be flying through the line! But, while not quite moving in a blur, we were remarkably efficient and well-behaved. It was a test for all of us. No one wanted to be the “expert traveler” to set off an alarm, or forget that we had a bottle of water or a letter opener in our bag.

This is the real benefit of this segregation: the choice we make changes the way that we define ourselves, which changes the way we behave. We have taken the blue pill (or was it the red pill?) and we are now on a journey that we have helped to create, and we are to some extent responsible for the results. This is actually a key lesson for participatory culture in general: it is important to make people partners in the experiences we create by giving them a choice. Once people pick the red pill or the blue pill, they become a partner in the journey, transformed from a spectator into a participant.

One of the (many) reasons that I believe Governors Island is a truly special (occasionally magical) place in New York City is that you have to choose to go there. You can’t just take a stroll into it, like you can with Central Park or Prospect Park. You have to get on a boat. Your journey is intentional. From the second you step onto the boat, you are a participant in the story, you are counted, you are a citizen of the island. You are no longer a spectator. And this influences the way people behave on the island, and the kinds of experiences that are open to them to have there.

Your Mission Is Your Competitive Advantage

Why are you in business anyway? To deliver shareholder value? Do you think that’s really enough?

Businesses, by definition, exist to engage in activities that deliver profits to their owners and shareholders. Other purposes or goals are secondary. For example, no matter how much a CEO believes that sustainability is important, unless the business case for investment in sustainable technologies can be made in terms of shareholder value, it likely can’t be justified.

But there is a fundamental shift underway in the way that our economy works, and the role of business in our society. It is becoming apparent that when we come out of this recession, the environment in which companies operate may be very different from the business environment we enjoyed when the recession began.

One of the big lessons from the unraveling of the financial products, unwise investments, and scandals that led us into recession was that it’s important to look at the whole system to understand what’s going on. From securitized mortgage products to Bernie Madoff’s fraud, many people chose to turn a blind eye to what happened behind closed doors they didn’t want to open.

At the same time, the general public is recognizing that climate change is an important issue, and that we simply cannot continue to pollute the planet. So it becomes important, to an increasing percentage of the population, to consider where products come from and where they go after we’re done with them.

As customers begin to recognize that with every purchase they make they are endorsing an ethical framework, both in terms of how the products they buy were manufactured, and in terms of how they can be reused, all businesses will be increasingly accountable not only for delivering shareholder returns, and for serving their customers, but also for serving the greater good.

In a world of increasing transparency, dramatically accelerated by the explosion of self-publishing and social media on the Internet, any organization will much have a much harder time playing anything “close to the breast.” If you aren’t walking your own talk, your customers will know.

Companies that have a clearly articulated mission to guide their decisions and actions will have an advantage over companies that operate by the same old rules of offering a good product or service to meet a client need at a fair price. A sense of purpose gives a company a way to inspire their employees and connect with their clients and other audiences. A good mission statement brings passion to business, creating a connection that is tough to match.

In this new model, profits are not the singular goal for an enterprise to exist; they are the result of the enterprise relentlessly pursuing its mission in service to humanity.

Two examples that come to mind of companies that seem to have a mission that guides them, even to the exclusion of profits (although both have been incredibly profitable) are Google and Apple. Google didn’t initially set out to be a technology juggernaut… they just wanted to make information as accessible as possible to everyone, and had an algorithm that could help facilitate that better than any that had existed previously. The profits came later, as Google figured out how to monetize the value that they were bringing to us all. Apple, in its latest incarnation, seems to have, as its highest purpose, the utilization of design to make our lives easier, simpler, and more reliable. BP also seems to be pursuing a mission (“Beyond Petroleum”) to be the clean energy leader, and to provide the cleanest power possible for all of our needs, but I’m not sure to what extent this is just marketing spin, and to what extent this vision actually guides the company. I’ll need to do more research on that.

There are a few companies out there that have been very good at times, and done a lot of good things for their employees and customers, but who do these things as a secondary priority after profits. Examples that come to mind are Starbucks and Ben & Jerry’s. Both companies grew from a desire to provide a food product to customers in a new way, and as both took off and soared into profitability, they looked for ways to use their profits to do good for their employees and in the world. But I believe the profitability in both cases comes first, and that we will see Starbucks shrink its philanthropic programs and generous employee benefits as conditions become more difficult, and that, if Ben and Jerry’s was following a higher purpose, they never would have sold to Unilever.

In the current recession, so many factors that companies have used in the past to differentiate themselves have just become part of the cost of doing business. Think about sustainability (who isn’t?) or fair prices or the use of technology to serve the customer or helpful customer service. If you don’t have all these things (and more) you’re probably not doing well.

So, in the next economic cycle, in order to pull away from the pack, companies need to find something else to make them special. Nothing is more special than what is in your heart, the reason that you do what you do. Discover it, connect it to helping the world and your customers, and talk about it. We want to know why you do what you do!

(I’m working on this topic for a series of talks I’m giving this fall in Miami, New York, Chicago, and Houston… So let me know if you have thoughts or ideas!)