Shift Happens/Did You Know 2.0

A second Blog entry in one day – what’s the world coming to?? A friend of mine mentioned a video that has been seen by over 3 million people (in its various versions) in the last 9 months. The video is entitled “Shift Happens” and asks some fundamental questions about the future and provides some startling information. Its purpose is to elicit the participation of people to come up with a system of education for our children that prepares them for the 21st century. Along with the video is a Wiki to give people a forum for discussion and collaboration. Though the video is aimed at the US, there are parallels for Canada. Education is the great leveler in society, and to compete in the new economy our education system must meet the challenge.

Go here to view video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U

Evidence Based Policy Making

I had the pleasure of attending the Deloitte Public Sector Leadership Forum on November 13, 2007 as a guest speaker (more about my talk later). One of the other guest speakers was Darrell Bricker, President and COO for Public Affairs of Ipsos Reid. Darrell is co-author (with Edward Greenspon) of a very interesting book that came out a few years ago entitled “Searching for Certainty: Inside the New Canadian Mindset” and a more recent one with John Wright entitled “What Canadians Think (about Almost Everything)”.

In his talk, Darrell spoke about the increasing importance of “evidence” in the development of government policy and in program evaluation. There are three underlying trends that one should be cognizant of:

1) The decline in public trust – not only in government, but in all institutions and organizations. Gone are the days when government could get away with saying to citizens “trust us”. Trust is now situational and has to be earned every time. It can also vanish very rapidly.

2) The rise of the knowledge consumer/citizen – people are not only more educated but they also have available at their fingertips a vast reservoir of human knowledge (thru the Web). People are more likely to challenge authority figures as they too have access to the same knowledge.

3) Searching for Certainty – Canadians are looks for the right answers to questions. They want to be certain about the solutions.

Darrell spoke about the “Rules of the Road” for navigating the new Canadian mindset. Fundamentally as I stated above, it is all about Trust. Citizens will judge the credibility of the sources of information and will seek what is called “trust marks” in judging the quality of the information provided. As part of this, citizens are demanding higher levels of accountability from their governments. This is why governments must move to “evidence based” policy making. As governments move to an “outcome” focus the accumulation of this evidence in an unbiased form that is readily available to citizens becomes more and more crucial not only in helping shape new policies and programs but also in evaluating the effectiveness of existing policies and programs.

In part of my talk I spoke about the massive demographic shifts that Canada will be experiencing in the next 25 years. I was therefore quite interested to hear Darrell speak of Multiculturalism as the new demographic Mega-trend. He also noted that governments are unprepared to deal with this Mega-trend. I will shortly put my speech up on the IPAC site – watch for it.

The Best Laid Plans

I just finished reading a wonderful book for anyone interested in Canadian politics, government, well-written prose and relaxing with a good book.

The book in question is called "The Best Laid Plans" by Terry Fallis. It is Mr. Fallis' first novel and frankly I could not put it down.

It is the story of a disillusioned and burned out political staffer in Ottawa who teams up with a one of kind maverick who reluctantly agrees to run as the Liberal candidate in a riding that has always elected Conservatives. I don't want to spoil the story so I won't get into too many details. The novel is funny, well written and insightful.

My fellow bus passengers must have thought I was crazy laughing out loud at a particular passage that described the dalliance between our hero's then girlfriend and her boss! In between the laughs,the wonderful prose and imagery there are serious issues raised about the role of the elected official in our modern democratic institutions. I heartily recommend this book. You can visit Terry's website athttp://www.terryfallis.com/ to listen to the podcast of the book and to find a list of bookstores where you can purchase the book.

Happy Birthday Ryerson

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending a celebration of 45 years of teaching public administration at Ryerson University.

It was a great event that started with a panel speaking about public administration in general and the Ryerson program in particular. Among the panelists were NDP leader and former prof at Ryerson, Jack Layton; the 2007 Pierre de Celles award winner Paul Thomas from the University of Manitoba; Marg Rapapolt, the Deputy Minister of Aboriginal Affairs from the Government of Ontario; and 2 graduates from the Ryerson program. The two graduates spoke about Ryerson's unique approach to connecting to the community in offering their programs.

Ryerson Prez Sheldon Levy then introduced one of the original profs in the program and later Chancellor of the University, also former mayor of Toronto, Federal MP and Cabinet Minister (and many more titles) David Crombie. Mr. Crombie gave an off the cuff speech about how he started at Ryerson - teaching sociology, something he knew nothing about. His students quickly asked him to teach them how city hall worked. The rest is history as they say! Mr. Crombie's speech was entertaining and I am always amazed at how some people can, without any notes, give a wonderful speech.

It was a great afternoon - Congratulations to Ryerson University!!