Redefining Expectations: An ASPA Conference Attendee Experience

How ASPA included innovative ideas, bottom-up strategies and sustainability

By Andrea Stover

Earlier this month, I traveled to Las Vegas, Nevada for the American Society of Public Administration (ASPA) Annual Conference to speak on “Community Mapping: Tools to visualize, empower, and build sustainable communities.” I decided to attend the entire 5-day event and volunteer in order to better network and bring down the cost of my registration fee.  I highly recommend students and emerging professionals; strapped for cash, consider volunteering options for admission to intriguing conferences.

ASPA is attended by a variety of practitioners and academics of the public administration field. Last May 2011, I received my Masters in Public Administration from Presidio Graduate School in San Francisco, CA. Although Presidio Graduate School is known for its sustainability focused MBA program, I was part of the first cohort of MPAs to have sustainable management completely integrated how we interpret the role of public administrators. At Presidio, we focus on integrated bottom-lines, environmental, economic and social justice, how to create a more fair, equitable, empowering, creative, and sustainable system.  A system designed to operate in harmony with our natural environment and one that values natural and social capital as part of economic wealth. At the ASPA conference, I was very curious to see how respected people in the field and in government were articulating these concepts.

This year’s ASPA Conference was titled: “Redefining Public Administration through Civic Engagement”. The conference was divided into different components and a variety of tracks or themes. I made it my mission to ask a question during every session I attended. Some I chose, others I attended to complete my volunteer obligations. I was impressed by the variety of perspectives at the conference and the response I got to my questions. Even when I stumbled unknowingly into rather conservative arenas, speakers responded positively to my pointed queries.

The discussion circle I led included just a few interested attendees. I was disappointed, but understood it was more of a scheduling problem than content issue, as I looked around the room and noticed other experts sitting at empty tables. This is the primary reason I have decided to give you a sample of my discussion circle right here.

Community Asset Mapping is a tool to visualize the skills, gifts, and resources in a small geographical area and use that information to achieve a common purpose. The tool requires grassroots networking, filling out capacity inventories, social media advertising, and online mapping tools. In addition to discussing how to use this tool, I focused on the various impacts. For instance, the impact on how leaders approach fundraising options, local economic development strategies, and prevention of urban gentrification, rural ghost towns, and energy-intensive suburbs.

McKnight and Kretzmann argue that the needs map is a prison because it isolates “labeled” people or “devastated” communities by surrounding them with services. Institutions like universities, foundations, governments, and the mass media all rely on measuring needs and deficiencies. They encourage community leaders to stress the needs and plight of their neighborhood to secure funding. This process creates burned-out leaders, as year after year they must downplay successes to continue receiving support.  Further, every time people must turn to an institution as a client, they do not use and maintain direct ties with the community.

Further, I explained: large powerful institutions lead to “weak communities that are fully served” whereas what we want are “strong communities with institutions that are servants.” (McKnight) But unfortunately since the 1990s we have not seen a decline in the size and power of institutions, rather we have seen business and institutions fuse and swell at the expense of communities. Privatized government translates into more dependency on outsiders, both in the local and national context, and creates a client/consumer society. This erodes the self-sufficiency of our communities and individuals. Sustainability agendas that heavily rely on government offering business incentives for job growth, while not empowering citizens directly, will never be as sustainable or effective. That is why we have Occupy movements, high unemployment, and massive debt on a personal, national, and global scale. We need institutions and government, but we need to flip the power structure for genuine democracy that is representative of the people.

I feel elated that ASPA accepted my “radical” perspective into the conference.  It demonstrates the willingness of ASPA volunteers to support innovative ideas and approaches to government.  The 2013 ASPA conference focuses on the role of “sustainability” in government. I hope practitioners and academics will remember the role of citizen engagement in “sustainability” agendas. Further, I hope the discussions we have at ASPA influence practice. Lastly, I hope by reading this article young professionals and students will feel empowered to write submissions and get out their ideas. We can never have too many people pushing a bottom-up strategy; in fact, it’s the only way these approaches will ever become fully realized in our society.

References:

Kretzmann, John & McKnight, John, 1993, Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community’s Assets, The Asset-Based Community Development Institute, Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.

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Andrea Stover earned a Masters of Public Administration in 2011 from Presidio Graduate School. This degree compliments her Bachelor of Arts in Geography from the University of California at Berkeley. Both degrees emphasize how social, environmental, and economic conditions are constructed by human society and therefore within our power to transform into more just systems. Andrea is an international globe-trotter as well as someone who gets her hands dirty planting gardens, teaching kids, and developing local capacity through bottom-up strategies.

Nonprofit Sustainable Competitive Advantage

In both the for profit and nonprofit business environment, the keys to sustainable competitive advantage are a firm’s resources, including assets, organizational core competencies, knowledge, and processes. Professor Michael Porter (Harvard) theorizes that in order for these resources to create a competitive advantage they must have four characteristics:

The resources must be valuable. The value of an organizational resource is the degree to which it contributes to efficiency and effectiveness.

The resources must be rare. If many organizations have the same valuable resources, they can replicate your advantage.

The resources must be imperfectly imitable.  They must be impossible to duplicate. This may be due to sheer difficulty, actual impossibility, or because it would be cost prohibitive.

The resources must be nonsubstitutable.  This means that your resources cannot be replaced, and the use of other resources would not produce the same value.

It isn’t easy for a nonprofit to create a sustainable competitive advantage. Society expects nonprofits to avoid competition of any sort. Our history speaks of collaboration, scarce resources and community, a combination that is the antithesis of competition. However in this economic climate charitable, educational, artistic and other types of not-for-profit organizations are struggling with declining fee and grant revenue, decreasing charitable contributions, increased operational and program costs, and increased struggle for limited new funding. In order to remain viable, nonprofits must compete. But competition doesn’t have to be aggressive, as is sometimes seen in the for profit environment. A nonprofit can compete by demonstrating value to its clients/customers in ways that distinguish it from other, similar organizations.

But if we are all performing meaningful and collaborative service in the spirit of our missions, how does one organization set itself apart from the pack?

No matter what your mission is or the types of programming you offer, I suggest there are five steps that can help a nonprofit gain a sustainable competitive advantage: 1. Hire competent employees and developing them into superstars. 2. Use organizational knowledge and skilled analysis to accurately determine what stakeholders want or need. 3. Meet emerging needs by creating innovative systems and programs. 4. Develop organizational competencies in areas that increase efficiencies. 5. Identify target outcomes and meet them to prove you are effective.

Nonprofits must compete to remain viable. It does not diminish our mission to create rare, imperfectly imitable, nonsubstitutable and valuable resources.  In fact it creates value by demonstrating our worth to the community. This form of competition is not a necessary evil; it is simply necessary.

Top 10 WWWD (What Would Washington Do?)

Nearly daily a political figure or commentator demands a return to the principles of America’s founding fathers.  For a few of these speakers, incorporating colonial ideas on civility & decent behavior in company and conversation, might be very worthwhile.

The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, operator of the world’s largest living history museum in Williamsburg, Virginia holds a treasure trove of founding father wisdom.  A paper on civility, with 110 rules of behavior, prepared by George Washington, sometime before the age of 16, is on the Foundation website.

The ten page list begins with rules of conversation, then discusses behavior among different classes (“people of quality,” servants, masters, etc.).  A significant part of the list addresses table manners and still other sections discuss public presence, including how to act when observing misfortune or punishment of others.  Many rules prescribe modulation in demeanor and keeping one’s business to oneself.

Today, many bemoan the state of public discourse.  Given that a common best practice for effective meetings is use of ground rules, I wondered, what would happen if Washington’s mid 1700’s ground rules were adopted today?  We, of course, would need a different method for enforcing ground rules as duels are not practical or legal.

I sifted through the list to find key guidelines.  Picking a top 10 from the original 110 rules wasn’t easy.  A few of the rules that didn’t make the final cut are still great for staff meetings, such as rule #5, use a handkerchief when you cough or sneeze, or #6, “Sleep not when others Speak, Sit not when others stand, Speak not when you Should hold your Peace …”

Still, a top ten WWWD (what would Washington do?) list for public meetings follows:

• Every Action done in Company, ought to be with Some Sign of Respect, to those that are Present.
• When in Company, put not your Hands to any Part of the Body, not usually Discovered.
• Use no Reproachful Language against any one neither Curse nor Revile.
• Speak not injurious Words neither in Jest nor Earnest Scoff at none although they give Occasion.
• If two contend together take not the part of either unconstrained; and be not obstinate in your own Opinion, in Things indifferent be of the Major Side.
• While you are talking, Point not with your Finger at him of Whom you Discourse nor Approach too near him to whom you talk especially to his face.
• In Disputes, be not So Desirous to Overcome as not to give Liberty to each one to deliver his Opinion and Submit to the Judgment of the Major Part especially if they are Judges of the Dispute.
• Let thy carriage be such as becomes a Man Grave Settled and attentive to that which is spoken. Contradict not at every turn what others Say.
• Be not tedious in Discourse, make not many Digressions, nor repeat often the Same manner of Discourse.
• Speak not Evil of the absent for it is unjust.

These ground rules echo ones I use in public meetings today.  Civility in the public dialogue is practical for the efficient functioning of governance and respectful of those who engage in it.  Calls for civility are not new or partisan.

Some may accuse me of being selective, cherry picking a list to prove a point.  This is true.  As an example, the WWWD list doesn’t include #13, “Kill no Vermin as Fleas, lice or ticks in the Sight of Others. If you See any filth or thick Spittle put your foot Dexterously upon it. If it be upon the Cloths of your Companions, Put it off privately, and if it be upon your own Cloths return Thanks to him who puts it off.”    (Although, in retrospect I should rethink this, as it seems to be good advice.)

In fact most forays to the past are selective.  Context does matter.  What need not change is a foundational belief in a form of government strong enough to consider multiple points of view.   Knowing this, we can affirm that respectful listening and civil exchange are worthwhile endeavors.

Changing Workforce, Changing Job Hunting Skills

By Elaine Orr

Few studies about labor force growth and change have captured the nation’s attention as did the Hudson Institute’s1987 report, Workforce 2000.  Part of it was the fascination of a new millennium and our need to examine where we were and where we are going — witness books such as Megatrends and its sequel– and part was the style of Workforce 2000.  There was no need for a degree in labor economics to understand it.

But the media’s misinterpretation (or at least mis-presentation) of parts of the report also catapulted it to prominence.  Headlines blared that by 2000, white men would make up only fifteen percent of the American workforce.  In fact, the report said that the number of white men in the workforce would grow more slowly than women or nonwhite men, and white men would comprise approximately fifteen percent of new entrants to the workforce by 2000.  This was a big change from the 1950s-1970s, but not unexpected given that society had become less biased about women and African Americans or Hispanics going to college, and baby-boomers were not going to inhabit the one wage-earner world of their parents.

Government and private companies sought a more diverse workforce, and while some complained that there was reverse discrimination, over time the workplace ultimately did what it has always done — employers tried to get the talent needed for the best price.  Lately, employers have had quite the pickings.

In 2004, the RAND Corporation (for the U.S. Department of Labor) examined what it saw as three major factors that were “expected to shape the world of work in the coming decades: shifting demographic patterns, the pace of technological change, and the path of economic globalization.”  It concluded, among other things, that technological advances would continue to increase demand for a highly skilled workforce.  The report saw this as one factor that would support higher productivity growth and change the organization of business and the nature of employment relationships.”

The Hudson Institute’s Workforce 2020 addressed how companies needed to adapt to an aging workforce and change jobs to accommodate technology changes, and how trends such as telecommuting, temporary staffing, and employee leasing affect the workplace.  Boston College’s Sloan Center on Aging and Work issued Engaging the 21st Century Multi-generational Workforce (prepared for Met Life), which examined levels of “employee engagement” and how it might vary by age.

The themes of technological change and age were everywhere.  College students looked at those studies (or at least articles about them) and considered them as they picked majors.  While technology and aging baby boomers continue to resonate in reports about the workforce and potential careers, what no one could have predicted even five years ago was that the Great Recession would make many reports outmoded before they had time to accumulate dust on a library shelf.  (A shelf?  Don’t you mean the digital files would be corrupted?)

Baby boomers, who were expected to retire in such droves that there would be excruciating talent shortages, have watched retirement nest eggs shrink and many remained at work — at least those who have kept pace with newer workplace technologies.  However, those same boomers paid for the education of their children and grandchildren and now must open their doors to let them back in when the economy did not seem to want the skills of recent graduates — or the jobs just plain end.  Grandparents and parents don’t like that anymore than the unemployed graduates.

Those who find work relatively quickly are graduates of specialized programs whose curricula relate directly to specific skills employers need.  Many nursing and laser manufacturing programs at community colleges turn away students by the bushel.

The Great Recession may have done us one favor.  We appreciate our jobs more, and more people consider two-year degrees that lead to profitable careers.  This hardly makes a master’s degree in public administration obsolete, but the skills used after graduation may be those that deal with budgeting more than public policy.  The economy seems to have enough thinkers, it’s looking to doers to set the pace for the next decade.

There is not truly a dichotomy between graduates who are thinkers or doers, of course, and not everyone needs to be a database manager, pharmacist, or physical therapist (gotta love those aging baby boomers).  If graduates with a public sector management perspective cannot find a job quickly there are some strategies that may help.

• Take a tip from young actors.  No one will think less of you for doing part-time or volunteer work in your field while you make a living doing something outside of your hoped-for career field.  And yes, it can be typing, table waiting, or sales.
• Acquire more skills.  Can you build a web page or maintain a small network?  As web design or management moves beyond a discipline to a skill, if you can spend five hours a week updating a web page you will be a more attractive candidate than the job-seeker who still sees web work as a separate field.  Community college courses are reasonably priced, and your Internet provider may provide free hosting, so practice is free.
• Learn the ins and outs of public sector budgeting.  Emphasis now is on making cuts, but even as tax revenues increase again, states and municipalities will continue to confront rising costs to maintain infrastructure or pay for employee pensions.  See if you can be an intern for a local city or county as it prepares its budget.  There is a major crunch (and no more staff) to draft the annual budget for a city council or county board of supervisors to approve, and even in a small town the city manager or budget director could appreciate your time.  Even if you don’t go into public budgeting, what you learn will be useful throughout a career.
• Ask currently employed workers in your hoped-for field to give you a fifteen-minute interview to describe what they do and the skills needed.  You will learn something and it gives a potential employer a chance to know you without having to tell you there is no job.
• Start a blog that deals with the area in which you want to work.  You can write some, but you can also ask others in the field to write guest posts.  You learn more and you are known as committed to your field.
• Keep reading.  Who would have thought Workforce 2020 would be read on a Kindle?
• If all else fails, ask your parents or grandparents to stop postponing retirement.  You may not get their job, but a friend might.  Let the older generation stay home and start a blog.