Category: Community

Here at e-bydesign we take community involvement seriously.  And as one of our communities, Edmonton, is currently going through the paces of its current municipal election, I thought I would take a moment to reflect on the issues that are resonating with me at this early stage.  My goal is awareness and my own feeble ploy to save some of you from municipal electile disfunction: that state where you can’t be bothered to get up and vote, or worse, voting without knowing who or what you’re supporting.
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Jon just sent me an article, “Why Gandhi Hated Iodine”, and suggested that it felt a great deal like some of the things we face in our work.  The old truths that hold long after the context they were created in has fallen away.  These are often the most steadfast characteristic of an organization.  In our work, uncovering the old truths and building new ones is part of each project we take on and the most difficult part.

Like modern day India, when we arrive we have new tools, techniques and stories from around the economic community that suggests some things work better than others.  What we don’t have is the old truths, hard won stays of execution on past challenges.  And so we see the new list of Job Titles including Culture Officers and Corporate Evangelist whose responsibility it is to protect the hard won truths in the new contexts of technology, policy and social norms.

But for us, we bring new truths and bristle against the old ones, half in misunderstanding and half in disbelief.  Without the context of the culture and a true appreciation of how deep those old truths run we wrestle.  Thrashing our way to organizational change, slowly, often painfully, until we align the old truths with the new truths.

And as hard as it is, we know, one day, ours will be the old truths that hold steadfast for new ideas to come crashing against making them stronger and better.