MAP 150

It’s late…nearing 2 a.m. I’m wide awake thinking of how MAP 150 is sweeping along. I’m just riding the current; it’s amazing who you meet.

A few weeks ago I spoke with Anthony Williams co-author of Wikinomics. He starts his book with this true story. A gold mining company in Canada is about to go belly up. The in-house geologists have been unable to find any more gold on the land. In a last ditch desperate act, the owner of the company posts all the information he has about the land on the web and offers a prize for information that leads to finding gold. People from around the world accept the challenge. As a result, $3 billion of gold is found.

I tell this story all the time to explain MAP 150, and the power of opening up thorny problems to citizens. Maureen Reed, former Independent Party candidate for Lieutenant Governor and rightly pointed out that the story is also a metaphor for MAP 150: citizens are the gold waiting to be mined.

So here’s my week that makes Maureen’s point. Last week, I attended a LISC community seminar. It began with perfomance artists, hip hop artists and rappers.

It was humbling. Here were young people putting themsleves on the line in a way that policy makers rarely do. It forced me to confront my own perceptions of what “community’ means and what it means to really cede power to community. They and the partipants that followed them talked eanestly and frankly about what’s necessry to have their voices be heard: what’s their responsbility if they want to make a difference? Their voices sound different from mine. They come from a different place.

If MAP 150 is serious, we need to move over and make room for what are still frontier voices in Minnesota. The Native American, the Somali, Latino, Hmong, African American. Granted the people in the room were there because it’s their job to think about community. For them, building community is a matter of life and death that would feel strange in many white communities. My hat off to LISC: I’ve never been in a room with so much ethnic and racial diversity.

At the other end of the spectrum, I spoke with David Edery who recently became the “Worldwide Game Portfolio Planner” for Xbox Live Arcade. David is interested in “serious” games–games that can help us understand our world better and solve problems better. How can games and simulations be used to help citizens weigh in on problems?

We working with a group of mid-career students at the Humphrey Institute, who are interested in getting Mineapolis students’ views on why enrollment is declining in Minneapolis. The school district just announced its plan for closing a school in North iMnneapolis due to declining enrollment. It begs the question; why is enrollent delcining? The typical way of answering this looks to statistics: demographics, transfers, drop ou rates. But that only describes what is happening; it doesn’t tell us why. The Humphrey students, spearheaded by Traci Parmenter of Admission Possible, will help us learn from students what they think is going on.

I met with Ben Shardlow, a young man passionate about civic engagement and the the lack of meaningful opportunities for young people to be involved. From this converesation, MAP 150 is launcing a project for younger adults. Stay tuned.

Sean and I have met with various county and city officials. Their reaction to MAP 150 has raged from outright enthusiasm and tons of practical ideas, to explanations and excuses for why it’s so hard to involve citizens.

What’s interesting is simply this. Whether it’s a neighborhood advocate, a Humphrey student, a young adult starting out in the work world, a national gaming expert, or a local official…it’s clear that people are hungry for a diffent way of making policy that allows ordinary people to weigh in and make a difference. I don’t need to swim. They’re keeping me afloat.