He Shoulda Listened...

The Conservatives ought to have promised something big – on the basis that the now balanced budget made it possible.

Suggest as much, I did.

Listen, Harper did not.

Alas.

And Now It Begins

"I think it's hard to know how one deals in situations of confrontation until you're actually in there, so I'm not going to speculate on what I would do."

Wise words, these.

Here's another similarity: like Obama, Trudeau now bears the weight of impossible expectations that he himself largely created.

But remember, it didn't take long for Obama to hit a bog of reality once his public rapture wore off six years ago.

The Opposition Parties are going to do what Opposition Parties do - oppose.  This won't just happen in the Legislature, but in the media, in constituencies and through fundraising letters (there will be a lot of those).  

Stakeholders who don't like certain chunks of Trudeau's platform, or his name, or are just anti-Liberal are going to make clear their dissatisfaction with Trudeau and co as well, before they even get out of the starting gate.

Expect Dan Gagnier to be flogged around a bit as proof the New Trudeau Government is COA - Corrupt On Arrival.  

Meanwhile, there are senior Liberal strategist very satisfied with how only they mapped out the path to success and ready to reap the benefits and reinforce their new positions that come as just desserts for their cleverness and dedication.  Countless volunteers will be following up on expectations of jobs; there will unquestionably be many people who worked very hard for the party walking away with the feeling they were used.  It's inevitable, with the way expectations exist in modern political culture.

Which is the crux of the matter - it's the culture, stupid!  

The culture of politics and the related culture of government are designed for a model of operation that is the status quo.  The status quo, as many have agreed, simply isn't working.

That's why the whole "real change" think caught on.  Yes, we want a change from Harper's oppressive cynicism and politics of division, but we also want a system that is more agile, more suited to the reality of modern Canada.

This change won't happen if Team Trudeau operates in the way they are used to, even if their traditional MO has brought them to where they are now.  

No longer can we afford to have even very smart operatives sitting in backrooms crafting platforms almost single-handedly.  

No longer can we assume that political victory equates to a divine mandate that public servants have to unquestioningly follow.

We can't afford to have political staffers come of age in an environment where MPs are not considered relevant and where the culture is one of either tight competition, being conduits for top-down messaging or considered less worthy than senior staff.

Above all, Team Trudeau needs to internalize the fact that Canadians aren't an audience - they are participants.  We simply have gotten used to being on the sidelines, which means a game that is way less than it can be.

The number one task of the Trudeau government, I would argue, is to foster just three things:

Open Government - transparent, facilitation-focused, story-telling and story-listening.  Sharing of information, relating information in user-friendly ways.  Starting communication at the ground, especially with communities whose voices are generally silenced, so that participation is built in from the beginning.

Responsible Society - ask not what your country can do for you, etc.  Only frame it differently; we're all here together and the same future lies before all of us.  What do we want that future to look like?  How can we be active players in building it?  What do we need to maximize our individual and collective potential - how might we be part of the team?

Communities of Engagement - tear down the silos between parties, between Ministries, between sectors.  Labs, hacks, co-working spaces, brand new opportunities to bring people together for individual wins and for common purpose, like CSLabs promises to do.

This is a much, much harder challenge than a quick blog post can relate, but it is the challenge of our times.  We simply cannot move forward if movement is being directed from the top without engagement from the ground.

Of course, the corollary of this is that whatever we have to confront, whatever bumps lie on the road to, say, 2067, Trudeau doesn't need to face them alone.

We stand tall when we stand together.

That is Trudeau's challenge.  

The question is - are we ready?

Fan Service: The Re-Telling of Star Wars

Nothing's changed really.  I mean everything's changed, but nothing's changed.  That's the way you want it to be.

    - Mark Hamill

Allow me to geek out here for a second before moving on to more serious, less epic things today.

Now, analysing a movie based on its trailer is a bit like calling an election from the earliest polls, but STILL!

From everything we've seen so far, it seems like JJ Abrams and crew distilled everything that worked in the Original Trilogy and has recombined the beats into an entirely new but completely evocative film (even internally referenced by Kylo Ren as a fanboy)

- Hero dressed like a Stormtrooper?  Check, but this time he IS a stormtrooper

- Wistful youth on a desert planet?  It's Rey, not Luke.

- Hero being helped to their feet?  Instead of Ben and Luke, it's Rey and Finn. And speaking of Ben...

- Heroes meeting wise mentor with links to the past?  Han is the new Obi-wan, which comes with certain implications

- The Empire searching for something on a desert planet - except perhaps it's Finn this time, not a droid?

- Yet the droid is there on the planet, walking with our fresh-faced hero across the dunes.

- A hero getting captured and tortured, with Poe being the new Leia

- The brief connect between heroes beneath an X-Wing (but no shouts of "Carrie!" this time)\

- the Millennium Falcon entering hyperspace - but the reverse of the perspective we're used to

- Perhaps twins?  Perhaps a shift from one side of the Force to the other?  

It goes on and on - the embrace between Han and Leia, Han and Chewie with their hands behind their heads in a green environment, etc, etc.

All of this implies a great deal of respect for the franchise and a deep-rooted level of passion from the film-makers themselves.

They have meticulously taken all the things they themselves love about Star Wars and have built a fresh story around those iconic beats, resulting in something that is so familiar that when it throws in left curves, we will genuinely be surprised.

Plus, the sheer epic-ness has been cranked up.  The emotions (and, it would seem, the emotional arcs) are deeper, raw.  You can feel the awakening - it's drawing you in.  It's drawing us all in.

These are expert fans making the movie they want to see.  

And I can't wait to see it.

Have you felt it?

GOTV!

Record numbers at advanced polls has agency anticipating crowds on election day

Whoever wins #elxn42...

We need government, regardless of who is in power.  Their track record and our previous disappointment with their unresponsiveness or callousness don't really matter.  We are they.  They are we.

We need government at its innovative best, particularly if we want its representatives to fulfil their roles as receptive social innovators.  

That's why a new breed of advocates is emerging, who support more innovation and risk taking within government.  These people are proponents of solution-based advocacy.  They have two objectives: to propose solutions and to enhance government's capacity to make better decisions.

Whoever wins, I think we'd all benefit from looking at some of Al Etmanski's suggestions on strengthening government - maximizing its collective potential, as it were.  It might not be as lucrative, this business of maximizing the potential and aiming for success instead of wins, but it makes a difference. 

And isn't that the real change we're looking for?

CPC Social Media Fail

 Retweeted 957 times

Stephen HarperVerified account ‏@pmharper  5h5 hours ago

Retweet if you’re voting Conservative to protect our economy. http://cpcp.cc/t3Wsse  #elxn42 #cdnpoli

957 retweets335 favorites

 

 

 

Amazing.  957 votes!!

I've been really interested in how all the parties have been playing the "join the crowd" numbers game this election,  1,000 Canadians have donated to the cause, have you?  

Unless the assumption here is that numbers really aren't relevant and it's just the appearance of a crowd that has psychological impact, I can't imagine how they would see this as helpful.

But what do I know?  Come this time tomorrow, one party will win and one war room will be reminding people it was their awesome strategy and tactics (culture? pshaw) that won the day - all of it.

Then we'll see what actual lessons they've learned for the next election.