Flying Tapmaster at the Detroit Jazz Festival

People from Detroit call their hometown the “D.” The reason at first appears obvious—Detroit, the letter D—it’s straightforward.  But below the surface, that single letter represents so much more.  Walking around the city center, it’s impossible to miss the Diverse city culture.  Artists and foodies intermingle with suits rushing from one meeting to the next.  White faces intermingle with black.  From Dawn until Dusk, the business district is a melting pot of culture and creed.  But as evening approaches, faces grow darker, not for lack of light, but because 8-5 Detroit has gone home for the day, leaving 24-7 Detroit to its reality.

Harsh Reality
Beyond the gleaming high rises and art-deco sky scrapers, is the real city center.   Detroit, which was home to over 1 million-souls just 20 years ago (and close to 2 million 40 years ago) will be lucky in the next census to reach 800,000.  The aftermath of this Decline includes 30,000 homes that must be raised in just the next few years; 10,000 school children who leave the school district every year in search of a quality education; the collapse of median home values from $50-60,000 just five years ago to $7,500 today; and a population where over 1/3 live in poverty.

Detroit Moxie
Despite this reality, Detroiters are proud, professing their moxie and facing challenge like home-town hero Joe Louis, chin set and fists flying.  Thousands of homes lost? We’ll develop green space and explore urban farming.  School children lost? We’ll build a robust charter school system that outshines the old. Adults left behind? We’ll promote broadband access and help thousands cross the digital divide to promote access to learning and information.  National media reports negative views of our city?  We’ll launch Declare Detroit, Detroit Yes, Model D, and an array of grassroots community and media efforts to organize, provide a balanced view, convey hope, and clean up our act.

Detroit takes punch after punch and keeps on rolling, but if the city is to move forward it must do more than endure. Various transformation efforts underway in the City have become points of pride that drive passion and hope.  A recent Knight Foundation/Gallup study shows that strong passion for community is highly correlated with economic growth.  The question is how to best help these transformation efforts not just stay on track but maximize their capacity to yield a brighter future.

Transformative Engagement
A 2004 MIT book, Why the Garden Club Couldn’t Save Youngstown, looked to two struggling manufacturing communities in Pennsylvania (Youngstown and Allentown) and found that, despite sharing very similar economic histories, the two took very different transformation paths.  The critical success factor for Allentown over Youngstown was the mobilization of key organizational actors around desired outcomes.

Both communities had prevalent and strong social networks and relationships, but in Youngstown social ties among the community’s leadership tended to reinforce civic relationships among actors who were already well-connected.  In Allentown civic ties tended to bring together more diverse actors who were not traditionally well connected and emphasized idea-sharing and alignment.  The book concludes that, an important element of Allentown’s relative success was its broader, more interactive civic-engagement approach.

Communities that emphasize the development of smart social networks, and that cultivate those networks around a common vision and goals, experience more inward investment, innovative thinking, and ownership and action-taking. It is a positive outcome that numerous stakeholders are organizing to take on Detroit’s many challenges and are harnessing passion to build a new community future.  But understanding how to harness the strength of social networks and to maximize the power of well-conceived civic engagement could accelerate positive momentum and shift efforts to a higher playing field.

Winning Team
Communities are made up of complex webs of systems and networks that emerge and recede depending on the moment’s need.  If those systems and networks fail, communities can fail, regardless of the passion people have toward an alternative outcome.  Detroiters are not willing or ready to admit defeat, despite unprecedented socio-economic and other challenges.  In fact, many Detroiters are struggling against all odds to repurpose and rebuild.  In the midst of the scramble, we can give these efforts a significant boost by helping them align with and engage key players that can help them innovate, connect resources, and succeed in moving their implementation strategies forward.

In these unusual times, we must look beyond the usual suspects to cultivate innovation and commitment that can turn the tides for the city.  Moxie counts, but it’s the people who are in your corner who can help you lose or win the fight.  Being deliberate about engagement and collaboration can make world of Difference in the D.

Share/Save

“We’re All Doing It”

Last month the US Department of Labor (DOL) launched a Facebook page. Other federal agencies maintain them too, but DOL hasn’t really been out-front in implementing the Administration’s early commitment to communication, transparency, and participation. While Facebook is just one means of demonstrating this commitment (the Department, and Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis also tweet), it is an important one for which the department deserves kudos.

Concern About Jobs

It goes without saying (but I’m going to say it anyway) that the “jobs agenda” has reached fever pitch across the country. During the past several months, jobs – the lack of them, the low pay associated with them, the fear of losing them, the benefits associated (or not associated) with them, even guilt on the part of people who still have them – have dominated the public discourse. Many times I’ve felt helpless in trying to refer people with questions to the right agency, department, workforce board or one-stop (and I’m familiar with the workforce system). But within moments of the Department launching its Facebook page, people inside and outside the agency were getting their questions answered—in public.

People Meeting (and Learning from) People

Here are my favorite examples* to date:

1. Sonya Schurr Taylor (GA)

Last Thursday evening Sonya asked USDOL why the Georgia Department of Labor’s website had no information about extended unemployment insurance. By 7:30 the next morning, this information was posted on the Georgia DOL site. Sonya shared this with USDOL, and USDOL reponded, letting her know the agency was “glad to hear it”, and providing a link to additional services.

What happened here?

Did someone at USDOL contact someone at the Georgia State DOL? Did someone at Georgia DOL catch the mention because they were scanning for social intelligence? Did a previous inquiry by Sonya prompt the change? Was it a coincidence? We don’t know. But by simply allowing such problems to appear in public, the likelihood that they will be noticed and resolved quickly dramatically increases. And positive resolutions to citizen problems generate trust between citizens and their government.

2. Daliah Holmes, USDOL

Daliah’s question – posted on November 16 – was intended for DOL insiders with knowledge about recent policy changes having to do with building security. The November 18 response answered her question, and was right there for everyone else to see.

What’s going on here?

Facebook is helping DOL employees respond to their colleagues’ questions. We outsiders can see this, and assess for ourselves whether this kind of conduct inspires confidence. For me, the answer is an unqualified yes.

3. Jordana Cohen, (NY)

Jordana, clearly agitated about the lack of information provided to her about extended benefits by the State of New York, posted an article about it, along with a question and plea for clarity on November 18. Hours later, Karin Gehn Barrett responded, indicating what she knew (and confirming what Jordana feared). Jordana, outraged, posted instructions for contacting New York’s Congressional delegation to insist on a change.

What do we make of this?

In this case, two strangers from New York are using Facebook to share information about issues of concern to both of them (and certainly to others). There is no DOL response here, probably because the interaction raises tricky questions for the agency. Joanna is asking for political action using the DOL Facebook page.

Transparency Brings Challenges and Opportunities to DOL

Transparency brings new challenges that DOL attorneys and others will undoubtedly fret over, but efforts like these bring welcome opportunities for citizens and residents to interact with their government and with each other—across geographies, time zones, and demographic groups – in ways that help all of us get smarter, faster.

* At posting time, all three examples were accessible from the Department’s front page here. By the time you see this, you may have to scroll back a few pages. I hope so.

Kristin Wolff
@kristinwolff

Share/Save

Thanks to deanmeyersnet on Flickr.

Really high unemployment among youth.

One of the most alarming bits of bad news in a sea of unwelcome statistics about unemployment, is just how bad it is for the young American worker these days. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) finds that the proportion of young people employed in July was 51.4 percent, “the lowest July rate on record for the series, which began in 1948.”

Where is this headed?

This is the future of our country being handed a raw deal. It is the responsibility of workforce professionals to think outside the box and create new methods of mentoring, offering career ladders that make sense, and nurturing an entrepreneurial culture to foster innovation.

“When I was coming up…”

When thinking back to my own career and its challenges, I realized that I know something about looking for work during a recession. In fact I was born during the recession of 1958.

Overqualified and underemployed.

I graduated from college in the recession of 1981. I turned to the government agency to help me and my employment counselor told me my BA was worth “bugger all”, and it wouldn’t help me contend with the dearth of good jobs. I waited tables until American Motors was hiring, found work there, and got laid off three months later. Entering the workforce during a recession ensured I would remain underemployed until I decided to go to graduate school.

“Hey, does anybody give a rip?”

The unemployed person is in a vexing solitary cycle of rejection. This recession amplifies the alienation the unemployed experience, possibly more so for young people who are used to the support and camaraderie of a social group. When you look for work, you’re on your own. Some blame a higher minimum wage for higher youth unemployment rates, and make comments like “Most of these teens and twenty-somethings aren’t worth a damn even when they are “employed”

Bootstraps and all that…

When you are young, you are often undervalued by your elders. You’re told to work hard to get ahead but no one tells you how, and you have to find your own way. We love people who succeeded through adversity with hard work.

Can we have some collaboration please?

But if we are to successfully transform this great challenge into opportunity, we all need to counter the pessimism and negativity floating around America right now by offering help, wisdom and compassion. Here in Southern Arizona we are at work on a community collaboration platform called (AZ)WeToo.^TM Initially created as a platform for supporting entrepreneurs in Michigan, we are finding new applications for WeToo^TM in other communities.  It could be used to help aggregate job-finding (or job-making) resources and connect these young people to each other. Whether through this tool or others, we need to connect young people around work in the same way we connect them socially or around other common interests.

WorkBook

I propose is that Workforce Boards, One Stops, all levels of government create a FaceBook for workers, a WorkBook if you will, where young workers can find information, mentors, networks, and each other. While web tools alone are not the solution, they do address many of the vexing problems of alienation and isolation that create a sense of hopelessness in the face of so much adversity. Online profiles lead to visibility, visibility leads to connection and a sense of community. Job opportunities can come as a tweet, and mentors can offer advice and wisdom from their BlackBerries.

It’s time to act.

We should all pay attention to this serious problem of youth unemployment. We owe it to our children and grandchildren to help them help us create the eventual recovery and a sustainable economy.

Share/Save

Beets in Detroit by ellievanhoutte

Unemployment in Macomb County

I recently met with a Macomb county commissioner whose district is embedded in the metro Detroit region of roughly 5 million people. The commissioner was concerned because, despite state unemployment in excess of 15%, county unemployment exceeded 16%, and pockets in her district face rates as high as 25%. “We’re heading toward a brick wall,” she noted.  ”We just don’t know when we’ll hit.”

What New Jobs?

The commissioner voiced concern about moving forward job training strategies when, really, the potential for new job creation has no hope of matching—even remotely—the rate of job loss. “I  sometimes actually wonder if we should do what New Orleans did and offer to help people relocate to places with more opportunity.”

Exclusive Collaboration?

This commissioner, like so many public officials, economic and workforce developers, community organizers, and even citizens, is overwhelmed by the immensity of the employment challenge in Michigan and daunted by a lack of public resources to make a difference. “I know there’s the Recovery Act—I just don’t know what we’re getting out of it.”

Moreover, she expressed confusion over facing these challenges in a large geographic region where, certainly, people are working overtime to shift economic gears, but the results are dispersed, and her constituents are her neighbors who don’t see a direct or immediate benefit.

Home-grown Efforts

She knows about a host of home-grown efforts, including the New Economy Initiative (NEI), Road to Renaissance, and others, she just don’t know anyone who is part of these efforts. How can she connect? She can’t be everywhere at once. How can she learn whether and where her county benefits from these efforts?  Is it enough for community “big dogs” to drive community change, and can they do so successfully—or at least meaningfully—without bringing other community stakeholders on board?

Resilient Outcomes and Communities

Having a resilient community means recognizing the importance of social capital and having an engaged and informed community, both organizationally and individually. People at all levels need to feel they are contributing to solutions or, at the very least, feel in touch with them, and there are many ways to do this:

• IdeaMinnesota is an effort of the state community foundation, which has asked community residents to share their ideas to address community problems and has agreed to fund the best ones.
• “My Region” in central Florida has asked community members, “How shall we grow?”  Roughly 20,000 people have responded through surveys, videos and other means, and many have invested out-of-pocket in the effort, which has driven several community-change initiatives.

Michigan’s Defining Moment has engaged 2,000 people in outreach efforts to express their views on Michigan’s future. And One D’s online scorecard allows organizations to show how their efforts are moving forward key community indicators. How can these efforts be channeled to engage regional community stakeholders in thinking about solutions for the region’s future but in conjunction with stakeholders like NEI that are investing resources in solutions to improve it?

Solutions-driven engagement

Some fear that community engagement may open the door to unwarranted critique and judgment, but the alternative could remain the sense of disconectedness and concern like that expressed by our county commissioner.  And, yes, community engagement is time intensive and difficult, but investing in it is questionable only if viewed as an end in itself.  The ultimate goal in engagement should be to connect real people to the development of real outcomes and solutions and, ideally, investment in them.  This will give participation true meaning and foster a sense of pride and ownership in the outcome.

After all, is innovation really game changing if only some people feel part of it?

Share/Save

Students, educators and others can access syllabi, lecture notes, audio and video for almost every MIT course offered today, and over 50 million have done so. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of education has done a meta-analysis that shows that students who take all or part of their classes online generally perform better than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face instruction (results are statistically significant).

The Web Makes it Possible to Support Learning and Work in New Ways

The way society thinks and learns is changing faster than, well, the speed of digital transmission. This opens doors to new ways of helping students and workers meet education and training demands in the midst of constant innovation and increasingly tough competition for jobs.  But there are still
those who cannot imagine the extent modern technology foretells for work and learning.  They point to social media tools like FaceBook and Twitter and oddly-named collaboration tools like wikis and blogs and wonder about, if not challenge, their relevance in today’s talent landscape.

The Web Helps People Help Themselves and Each Other

Yet 85% of college students use FaceBook – 3.85 million users.  Of these, 60% log in every day, 85% at least once per week, and 93% at least once per month. These figures will pale with recent new accessibility for high schoolers.  And while much of the usage is social, it also includes tracking and collaborating homework assignments, arranging study groups, and more.  Adults are also heavy internet users: According to the Pew Internet and American Life project, over 1/3 of adults have participated on online social networking, and 69% of all Americans have used the internet to cope with the recession, including finding jobs and ways to upgrade their skills. (This includes using social networks to land employment, an increasing phenomenon in today’s economic climate.)

It’s Not About The Tools Alone, But the Tools Accelerate Broader Social Change

The truth is, like the Commodor 64 and Atari, some – if not all – of these social networking and collaborative platforms are likely to be replaced by more powerful, agile, and ubiquitous versions themselves. But their legacy will remain, meeting demand for transparency, collaboration, and the ability to teach and learn any time, any place, on any subject imaginable, at increasing speed and diminishing cost to the end beneficiary.

We’re Only At the Beginning

There likely will always be a place for traditional work and learning systems, but not without integration of online tools, resources, and even social networking platforms that add to the richness of the educational experience through easier-maintained relationships with educators and peers.  The future of work and learning is today, it includes online tools, content, and networks, and there is no going back.

Lisa Baragar Katz
@katz_lisa

Share/Save