Former county commissioner Melanie Worley told me recently about her first job. She was a fairy princess.
A local movie theater hired her, gave her a gown, cape, and wand, and instructed her to supervise the frequent hordes of children. Sometimes, she said, she had to bonk them with her wand.
It was excellent training.
Years later, when conflicts were running high between various government agencies, she suggested the formation of a group now known as the Partnership of Douglas County Governments (PDCG). It is comprised of representatives from Douglas County, the towns of Castle Rock, Larkspur and Parker, the cities of Castle Pines North and Lone Tree, the Highlands Ranch Metro District, the Douglas County School District and the Douglas County Libraries.
In brief, the PDCG makes it easier for governments to play well together. How? By introducing everyone to each other, and giving them a chance to share what is going on in their worlds.
Another countywide group - created in large part by now State Representative Carole Murray, Castle Rock Chamber of Commerce Director Pam Ridler, and ably assisted by Melissa Moroni - is called Leadership Douglas County. For the past eight years, a group of applicants has learned about the issues of the county, and, often, then stepped up to leadership positions. Such positions - on boards, commissions, and task forces - are always in need of new talent.
When Melanie Worley was termed out of her commissioner seat, she moved on to become the director of communications for Developmental Pathways (developmentalpathways.org), which "is dedicated to individuals with disabilities." She moved from public service to human services. (She would say, "it's all human services.")
And that's a nice parallel for the story of leadership development in the county. The 2010 class of Leadership Douglas County, in partnership with the Douglas County Community Foundation, recently produced a report called "Human Needs and Services in Douglas County: A Stakeholder's Assessment."
After conducting a series of interviews with 27 nonprofit and Douglas County human service agencies, and 46 surveys of community stakeholders, the report authors found the following:
* Human services needs have increased significantly. Douglas County has among the lowest rates of poverty in the nation. But let's put that in human terms: "Nearly 12,000 residents of Douglas County are living at or below federal poverty levels. Thirty-one percent of these are children." That's more people than live in either Castle Pines North or Lone Tree.
* Poverty, homelessness and reports of child abuse have more than doubled in the past three years.
* Stronger partnerships and even nonprofit mergers may be necessary to achieve sustainable service.
* Volunteers in Douglas County have demonstrated a keen ability to directly assist people in need. But there's still a shortfall of revenue.
* Charitable giving remains stagnant. Money to address human service needs comes from philanthropy or taxes. Douglas County lags both Colorado and the nation for charitable giving as a percentage of per capita income.
Nonetheless, the final finding is this:
* Optimism about sustained quality of life in Douglas County is high. And why not? We have much to be grateful for.
Yet, business, government and nonprofit leaders all agree that if we, as a county, fail to address these growing needs, the quality of all of our lives will suffer.
I commend the Leadership Douglas County class of 2010 for raising the important issue of the need and state of human services in our community. Fixing it will take more than waving a wand.
---
LaRue's Views are his own.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
June 17, 2010 - self-publishing on the rise
Former county commissioner Melanie Worley told me recently about her first job. She was a fairy princess.
A local movie theater hired her, gave her a gown, cape, and wand, and instructed her to supervise the frequent hordes of children. Sometimes, she said, she had to bonk them with her wand.
It was excellent training.
Years later, when conflicts were running high between various government agencies, she suggested the formation of a group now known as the Partnership of Douglas County Governments (PDCG). It is comprised of representatives from Douglas County, the towns of Castle Rock, Larkspur and Parker, the cities of Castle Pines North and Lone Tree, the Highlands Ranch Metro District, the Douglas County School District and the Douglas County Libraries.
In brief, the PDCG makes it easier for governments to play well together. How? By introducing everyone to each other, and giving them a chance to share what is going on in their worlds.
Another countywide group - created in large part by now State Representative Carole Murray, Castle Rock Chamber of Commerce Director Pam Ridler, and ably assisted by Melissa Moroni - is called Leadership Douglas County. For the past eight years, a group of applicants has learned about the issues of the county, and, often, then stepped up to leadership positions. Such positions - on boards, commissions, and task forces - are always in need of new talent.
When Melanie Worley was termed out of her commissioner seat, she moved on to become the director of communications for Developmental Pathways (developmentalpathways.org), which "is dedicated to individuals with disabilities." She moved from public service to human services. (She would say, "it's all human services.")
And that's a nice parallel for the story of leadership development in the county. The 2010 class of Leadership Douglas County, in partnership with the Douglas County Community Foundation, recently produced a report called "Human Needs and Services in Douglas County: A Stakeholder's Assessment."
After conducting a series of interviews with 27 nonprofit and Douglas County human service agencies, and 46 surveys of community stakeholders, the report authors found the following:
* Human services needs have increased significantly. Douglas County has among the lowest rates of poverty in the nation. But let's put that in human terms: "Nearly 12,000 residents of Douglas County are living at or below federal poverty levels. Thirty-one percent of these are children." That's more people than live in either Castle Pines North or Lone Tree.
* Poverty, homelessness and reports of child abuse have more than doubled in the past three years.
* Stronger partnerships and even nonprofit mergers may be necessary to achieve sustainable service.
* Volunteers in Douglas County have demonstrated a keen ability to directly assist people in need. But there's still a shortfall of revenue.
* Charitable giving remains stagnant. Money to address human service needs comes from philanthropy or taxes. Douglas County lags both Colorado and the nation for charitable giving as a percentage of per capita income.
Nonetheless, the final finding is this:
* Optimism about sustained quality of life in Douglas County is high. And why not? We have much to be grateful for.
Yet, business, government and nonprofit leaders all agree that if we, as a county, fail to address these growing needs, the quality of all of our lives will suffer.
I commend the Leadership Douglas County class of 2010 for raising the important issue of the need and state of human services in our community. Fixing it will take more than waving a wand.
---
LaRue's Views are his own.
A local movie theater hired her, gave her a gown, cape, and wand, and instructed her to supervise the frequent hordes of children. Sometimes, she said, she had to bonk them with her wand.
It was excellent training.
Years later, when conflicts were running high between various government agencies, she suggested the formation of a group now known as the Partnership of Douglas County Governments (PDCG). It is comprised of representatives from Douglas County, the towns of Castle Rock, Larkspur and Parker, the cities of Castle Pines North and Lone Tree, the Highlands Ranch Metro District, the Douglas County School District and the Douglas County Libraries.
In brief, the PDCG makes it easier for governments to play well together. How? By introducing everyone to each other, and giving them a chance to share what is going on in their worlds.
Another countywide group - created in large part by now State Representative Carole Murray, Castle Rock Chamber of Commerce Director Pam Ridler, and ably assisted by Melissa Moroni - is called Leadership Douglas County. For the past eight years, a group of applicants has learned about the issues of the county, and, often, then stepped up to leadership positions. Such positions - on boards, commissions, and task forces - are always in need of new talent.
When Melanie Worley was termed out of her commissioner seat, she moved on to become the director of communications for Developmental Pathways (developmentalpathways.org), which "is dedicated to individuals with disabilities." She moved from public service to human services. (She would say, "it's all human services.")
And that's a nice parallel for the story of leadership development in the county. The 2010 class of Leadership Douglas County, in partnership with the Douglas County Community Foundation, recently produced a report called "Human Needs and Services in Douglas County: A Stakeholder's Assessment."
After conducting a series of interviews with 27 nonprofit and Douglas County human service agencies, and 46 surveys of community stakeholders, the report authors found the following:
* Human services needs have increased significantly. Douglas County has among the lowest rates of poverty in the nation. But let's put that in human terms: "Nearly 12,000 residents of Douglas County are living at or below federal poverty levels. Thirty-one percent of these are children." That's more people than live in either Castle Pines North or Lone Tree.
* Poverty, homelessness and reports of child abuse have more than doubled in the past three years.
* Stronger partnerships and even nonprofit mergers may be necessary to achieve sustainable service.
* Volunteers in Douglas County have demonstrated a keen ability to directly assist people in need. But there's still a shortfall of revenue.
* Charitable giving remains stagnant. Money to address human service needs comes from philanthropy or taxes. Douglas County lags both Colorado and the nation for charitable giving as a percentage of per capita income.
Nonetheless, the final finding is this:
* Optimism about sustained quality of life in Douglas County is high. And why not? We have much to be grateful for.
Yet, business, government and nonprofit leaders all agree that if we, as a county, fail to address these growing needs, the quality of all of our lives will suffer.
I commend the Leadership Douglas County class of 2010 for raising the important issue of the need and state of human services in our community. Fixing it will take more than waving a wand.
---
LaRue's Views are his own.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
June 10, 2010 - what would Google do?
Almost everybody uses Google, even librarians.
And it gets easier all the time. It used to be, if you wanted to find the location of the nearest chain restaurant, you would type in the restaurant name, then look for locations.
That still works. But now, on that golden first page of hits, you'll also find a map of the Denver or Douglas County area.
How does that happen?
The short answer is "geocoding of IP addresses." That is, your Internet provider can be identified; the ranges of Internet Protocol numbers can be matched up to a geographic location. Helpfully, Google gives you results that are customized to your region.
What helps you also helps Google. Their business model is simple: advertising pays the bills. Obviously, the more local the advertising, the more likely you are to take advantage of it, which benefits the local business, which justifies buying the ad.
But this may bear more thinking about. Let me restate the issue: a combination of location and advertising drives the "hits" on your search screen.
For instance, I recently heard about an example given by a national library speaker, one Stephen Abram. He's been doing the same searches on Google as he travels around the country. But he gets different results.
One of the search terms is "Obama." In one southern city, he reported, the first hit to come up was a paid link by a nearby "birther" site (questioning whether Obama was born in the United States). "Search optimization" is another way to say "manipulated results."
I also read an article whose title begins with "How Apple Could Slay Google ..." by Daniel Eran Dilger. In brief, he argues that Apple could shut down the Google monopoly simply by building ad blocking into its browser.
Over time, he writes, "this would rid the web of ads and turn content into a paid model much like what existed before the web destroyed print, periodicals and newspapers with low quality content framed by copious amounts of irritating, flashing ads that pay just enough to perpetuate themselves and starve out good content, but not enough to actually fund high quality writing, reporting and other content."
There is certainly a lot of "content" on the Web. But Dilger is right that a good deal of it is low quality, and sometimes considerably lower than many of the newspapers and magazines it seems, inexorably, to be replacing.
Meanwhile, more and more of us put our contacts, our calendars, and our correspondence "in the cloud." In the cloud means "not on our own computers, but on those belonging to commercial entities."
It's hard to see where the trend is going when you're in the middle of it. Or as I once heard a science fiction author say, once you hear about the automobile, anybody can imagine a superhighway system. But it takes a science fiction writer to imagine the traffic jam.
Email was a boon. Spam is a problem.
The trend is clear: we are "monetizing" our content, and the "market" has increasingly biased results.
It's a good thing we have counterweights to the commercialization of information. It's a good thing we have public alternatives, a way to leverage the cooperative purchasing power of our citizens to find content whose sole purpose isn't to probe our pockets for loose change.
It's a good thing we have libraries.
---
LaRue's Views are his own.
And it gets easier all the time. It used to be, if you wanted to find the location of the nearest chain restaurant, you would type in the restaurant name, then look for locations.
That still works. But now, on that golden first page of hits, you'll also find a map of the Denver or Douglas County area.
How does that happen?
The short answer is "geocoding of IP addresses." That is, your Internet provider can be identified; the ranges of Internet Protocol numbers can be matched up to a geographic location. Helpfully, Google gives you results that are customized to your region.
What helps you also helps Google. Their business model is simple: advertising pays the bills. Obviously, the more local the advertising, the more likely you are to take advantage of it, which benefits the local business, which justifies buying the ad.
But this may bear more thinking about. Let me restate the issue: a combination of location and advertising drives the "hits" on your search screen.
For instance, I recently heard about an example given by a national library speaker, one Stephen Abram. He's been doing the same searches on Google as he travels around the country. But he gets different results.
One of the search terms is "Obama." In one southern city, he reported, the first hit to come up was a paid link by a nearby "birther" site (questioning whether Obama was born in the United States). "Search optimization" is another way to say "manipulated results."
I also read an article whose title begins with "How Apple Could Slay Google ..." by Daniel Eran Dilger. In brief, he argues that Apple could shut down the Google monopoly simply by building ad blocking into its browser.
Over time, he writes, "this would rid the web of ads and turn content into a paid model much like what existed before the web destroyed print, periodicals and newspapers with low quality content framed by copious amounts of irritating, flashing ads that pay just enough to perpetuate themselves and starve out good content, but not enough to actually fund high quality writing, reporting and other content."
There is certainly a lot of "content" on the Web. But Dilger is right that a good deal of it is low quality, and sometimes considerably lower than many of the newspapers and magazines it seems, inexorably, to be replacing.
Meanwhile, more and more of us put our contacts, our calendars, and our correspondence "in the cloud." In the cloud means "not on our own computers, but on those belonging to commercial entities."
It's hard to see where the trend is going when you're in the middle of it. Or as I once heard a science fiction author say, once you hear about the automobile, anybody can imagine a superhighway system. But it takes a science fiction writer to imagine the traffic jam.
Email was a boon. Spam is a problem.
The trend is clear: we are "monetizing" our content, and the "market" has increasingly biased results.
It's a good thing we have counterweights to the commercialization of information. It's a good thing we have public alternatives, a way to leverage the cooperative purchasing power of our citizens to find content whose sole purpose isn't to probe our pockets for loose change.
It's a good thing we have libraries.
---
LaRue's Views are his own.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
June 3, 2010 - whom should you trust?
Years ago, a friend of mine adopted a dog from the pound. The dog, a beautiful German shepherd/Doberman mix, had clearly been mistreated. The first time I met him, I greeted him with a happy "hello!" and put out my hand to pet him. He was so frightened he wet the carpet. Other dogs so treated turn vicious.
For humans, trust probably begins as our earliest childhood experience. As infants, we laugh or cry; somebody comes to see that we're OK.
If nobody comes, or they behave different each time, our openness to the world closes. We get suspicious and paranoid. We have trouble trusting.
Our early treatment in the world, while not absolutely definitive, touches our feelings about all kinds of things.
I'm reading a book called "How we decide," by Jonah Lehrer, who wrote something that really struck me. Our emotions, he said, are not irrational. Rather, they are deeply empirical.
He described one experiment about people who had to pull cards from one of four decks. One of the decks was "poison," costing big point losses in the experimental game. But it took maybe 20-30 tries before there was enough evidence to figure that out.
Nonetheless, in almost every case, people had a bad feeling about that deck long before the conscious mind knew what was up. The bad feeling manifest itself by a slight clamminess of the hands when they reached for the deck, a slight speeding up of the pulse.
The point is: we're wired to try to make sense of the world, to predict what's going to happen. To put it another way, both emotionally and mentally, we constantly strive to adjust ourselves to reality.
Lehrer also discusses many ways in which our neurochemistry can lead us astray. Our feelings aren't always reliable; they can be fooled.
We tell ourselves stories about how things are, and those stories can get so deeply engrained in us that they're hard to change, even when they're wrong.
A combination of these factors leads, I think, to the current lack of trust in some public institutions.
Remember last year when the state passed a "transparency" bill? It mandated that public school districts put their "checkbooks" up on a website. The theory: this total exposure of finances would result in greater public trust.
I didn't believe it. I believe, in fact, that it's likely to result in the opposite.
For instance, the Denver Post ran a front page article about how metro area public school districts had spent shocking amounts of money (thousands of dollars out of billions of dollars) on coffee. A person finding this expense on the website might say, "a shocking waste of tax payer dollars!"
But talk to somebody who bought the coffee, and they'll tell you the rest of the story behind the expense: he picked up coffee on the way into an emergency meeting of parents, a crisis team coming together in the wake of a student suicide. Later, the parents reimbursed him. Those details don't show up in the checkbook, at least not right next to each other.
"Transparency" in this case, in order to lead to trust, would require not just comprehensive review of expenses, but enough context to make sense of them.
And who is willing to spend that much time really digging into how things connect, when it's so much easier just to look for dirt -- or the appearance of it? Especially when you're just sure it's got to be there.
Logically, the best indicator of institutional trustworthiness should be experience over time. Consistent performance, walking the talk, increases trust.
But if the owner pets and praises the dog one time, and beats him the next, regardless of the dog's behavior, trust isn't easy to come by.
And that's true whether the dog is the citizen or the institution.
--
LaRue's Views are his own.
For humans, trust probably begins as our earliest childhood experience. As infants, we laugh or cry; somebody comes to see that we're OK.
If nobody comes, or they behave different each time, our openness to the world closes. We get suspicious and paranoid. We have trouble trusting.
Our early treatment in the world, while not absolutely definitive, touches our feelings about all kinds of things.
I'm reading a book called "How we decide," by Jonah Lehrer, who wrote something that really struck me. Our emotions, he said, are not irrational. Rather, they are deeply empirical.
He described one experiment about people who had to pull cards from one of four decks. One of the decks was "poison," costing big point losses in the experimental game. But it took maybe 20-30 tries before there was enough evidence to figure that out.
Nonetheless, in almost every case, people had a bad feeling about that deck long before the conscious mind knew what was up. The bad feeling manifest itself by a slight clamminess of the hands when they reached for the deck, a slight speeding up of the pulse.
The point is: we're wired to try to make sense of the world, to predict what's going to happen. To put it another way, both emotionally and mentally, we constantly strive to adjust ourselves to reality.
Lehrer also discusses many ways in which our neurochemistry can lead us astray. Our feelings aren't always reliable; they can be fooled.
We tell ourselves stories about how things are, and those stories can get so deeply engrained in us that they're hard to change, even when they're wrong.
A combination of these factors leads, I think, to the current lack of trust in some public institutions.
Remember last year when the state passed a "transparency" bill? It mandated that public school districts put their "checkbooks" up on a website. The theory: this total exposure of finances would result in greater public trust.
I didn't believe it. I believe, in fact, that it's likely to result in the opposite.
For instance, the Denver Post ran a front page article about how metro area public school districts had spent shocking amounts of money (thousands of dollars out of billions of dollars) on coffee. A person finding this expense on the website might say, "a shocking waste of tax payer dollars!"
But talk to somebody who bought the coffee, and they'll tell you the rest of the story behind the expense: he picked up coffee on the way into an emergency meeting of parents, a crisis team coming together in the wake of a student suicide. Later, the parents reimbursed him. Those details don't show up in the checkbook, at least not right next to each other.
"Transparency" in this case, in order to lead to trust, would require not just comprehensive review of expenses, but enough context to make sense of them.
And who is willing to spend that much time really digging into how things connect, when it's so much easier just to look for dirt -- or the appearance of it? Especially when you're just sure it's got to be there.
Logically, the best indicator of institutional trustworthiness should be experience over time. Consistent performance, walking the talk, increases trust.
But if the owner pets and praises the dog one time, and beats him the next, regardless of the dog's behavior, trust isn't easy to come by.
And that's true whether the dog is the citizen or the institution.
--
LaRue's Views are his own.
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