Please help me set my #OGT14 table! (UPDATED)

I am going to be an "Official Speaker" at the September 16 close of #OGT14: Open Government on the Open Road at City Hall in Ottawa. 

Events take place starting at 6:30PM in Jean Pigott Hall at Ottawa City Hall, 110 Laurier Avenue West, Ottawa. The doors will be open at 6PM.

I have to fill a maximum of 8 minutes of speaking time saying something poignant about why you can't have Open Government without a Responsible Society.

What I wasn't counting on was this - I've been assigned a 2 x 6 table that I need to populate with something.  Here are my directions:

Remaining décor is up to your imagination. Bring your own displays, banners, posters, props, pamphlets, swag ... Etc, but be aware that they will need to be free standing or on the table.

Here's where I need your help.

My firm Wakata Inc. is dedicated to public affairs with a social purpose; I like to frame my partner Jen Li and I as the stone in the soup, bringing people and organizations together and facilitating shared solutions.  While I'm going to #OGT14 as me, not as Wakata, I want to hold true to what I believe in.

So - what should I display on my table?  Who can I promote, what shared solutions can I hint at in my space?

M first thoughts were that I'd like to promote the following:

Samara - democracy renewal

Why Should I Care - civic engagement

Exhibit Change - improving communication and comprehension

SoJo - a cool web platform that will create community and help individuals turn ideas into action.

MaRS Solutions Lab - anyone planning policy past the four-year cycle deserves some space!

I would have included Make Web Not War, but I imagine they have their own table, being the patrons of #OGT14 and all.

Those are my first thoughts, though I would need some resources from them to put on my table around the stone I just asked Richard Pietro to pick up for me somewhere between Vancouver and here.

What do you think?  All cool suggestions are welcome - and feel free to share them on Twitter using #OGT14!

UPDATED Sept 2 2014:

And the gold star for first carrot goes to Samara!  Samara has offered materials about their Everyday Political Citizen project for my #OGT14 table.

Samara is a perfect compliment for what OpenGov and Responsible Society are all about - our politics can do better, but not without an informed, engaged public.  Their Everyday Political Citizen project is designed to recognize and celebrate the democratic catalysts in our midst; the people who ask questions, who encourage you to get informed, who believe that it's through direct engagement that we can make a difference.

My #EPCitizen nominee for this year, as it happens, is Richard Pietro.

Richard has picked up a stone out west for me to use as the centrepiece of my table, the thing that brings groups like Samara (and hopefully, SoJo, WSIC, Exhibit Change, MaRS) together.  This is appropriate, because his #OGT14 tour has served the same role this summer - bringing together an incredibly diverse community from across the country around one shared theme:

Open Government.

Richard's brought the stone, Samara the first ingredient - but there's lots of space left!  Who's up next?

Experience Ontario from the Grassroots Up

 

 

Last is the government's plan to spend more on skills training, including a new program called Experience Ontario - details of which are not spelled out in the speech - to help recent high school graduates get work experience.

 

That's great - truly.  We can do so much more than that, though.  What about empowering youth with leadership skills, business management, project management finance, etc. - and doing it through NFPs like SoJo or through youth job subsidies to employer that require certain training components attached?

 

There are so many innovative, cost-effective and community-empowering ways this stuff can be done, if the consultation and planning process behind these initiatives is done right. 

 

Two things not yet addressed that I hope to see - you can't do labour and hiring better unless you include things like management training and cognitive labour, which has to include some emphasis on mental health.  This is simply what the evolving nature of work requires.  It'd be great for government to take the lead.

 

And - Open Government.  That one has to happen.

 

On Youth Employment, Chow is Half-Way There

Her Tuesday plan said she will "approach our city's business community" to ask them to "match the city's efforts."  Chow said her proposed interactions with business would be different than Tory's because they are attached to a "very specific proposal" while his are not.  Tory's campaign suggested Chow is proposing the same thing he did.

Let's skip past the candidate fun and games, because there's a real challenge here with tangible solutions that are pretty awesome.

Here are the facts:

- Particularly in the work culture we have now, employers want low-risk, low-commitment and cheap hires.  Only a few firms are getting ahead of the curve and recognizing that "spend money to earn money" applies equally to investing in your workforce

- What are the training opportunities that exist for youth out there?  We can talk about a specific trade - construction, for instance, or programming - but we're moving back towards a top-heavy, laissez-faire market where would-be employees are expected to do all the sales and convince the employers of their value (on the golf course, as an example).

- Customers, for their part, are looking for more than products - they want experiences.  They want to engage with firms, products and services where they get to be a bit of the process and can tell that the teams love what they do and feel empowered to take ownership of their work.

- Canada's corporate culture is largely stuck in a 20th Century, Industrial Economy mentality; they don't get the dynamism, interactivity and post-transactional relationships that are defining modern HR practices and economic opportunity.

- One-off employment opportunities for youth, especially marginalized youth, isn't translating into full-time offers; too often it's companies taking the matched, cheaper labour costs for a short-term project then moving on, which doesn't help youth at all

That's all the bad news.  The good news is that the tide is turning.  

- There's a move towards Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) not just as a branding exercise, but a means to add value to a companies work, empower employees and develop in-kind partnerships

- User Generated Content (UGC) is a growing thing - corporations, political parties and a growing host of organizations are making users part of their solution and part of their team, with engaged staff serving as the interface - this is what the whole Open Data and Open Government building a city that thinks like the web thing is about

- Many organizations, such as Make Web Not War, are looking at doing CSR through in-kind donations of time and expertise rather than just donating cash.  It's a bit of the teach an individual to fish mentality 

- instead of a lump-sum grant, dedicate staff hours to do organizational, communications and other activity while teaching the tricks of those trades to members of the team being supported

- youth with great ambition but less access to specialized skills training or traditional job opportunities are trying to strike out on their own through entrepreneurial efforts - what they lack, more than anything else, is the refined skills to excel at and sell what they do

So, with all that in mind, here's something for Team Chow to consider:

Don't just hire youth for government infrastructure projects; match those contracts with entrepreneurship/life skills training opportunities.  Find partners (maybe Swerhun, Exhibit Change, Canadian Training Institute - build up some vendors of record) you can put on retainers that get funded by successful applicants to go in and provide life-skills, communications, etc. training for hired youth.

A company landing a city contract will have access to a cheaper pool of youth labour, but those youth are going to walk away with more than just a line on their CV; they'll be spending some of their time in class, at events or in the field learning and applying the value-add skills that will really help them succeed in the future.

Start wiring these engaged, empowered youth into social movements like SoJo, Girl Geeks TO and Open Data TO, you're actively shaping the next generation of community leaders, and they will remember you for it.

There's a market for this; there's precedent for this; there's a need for this.

Chow's half-way there, it seems; just imagine how much further she could go if she committed to bringing Toronto's youth along with her.