#whatmattersmost

What matters most in our open data project?

John Case and Heather Acker co-host an interesting  cable news show about the City of Saint John every Wednesday evening. Generally, it is informative and at times, depending on the interviewee, pointed. 

The show is often over-looked for other news shows including Jake Tapper and Wolf Blitzer (CNN) or the local news on Global or CBC. More's the pity because what John and Heather have is much more enlightening than listening to the jibber jabber about #trumpsanass or about some one's lost cat, or the latest flood on a flood plain.

What does matter most?

The City of Saint John, throwing money at the development of an open data portal, might like to spend an hour, at no cost to themselves, to learn what portals might help the City move out of its economic, social and, political doldrums. 
John and Heather explore the extent of community engagement, in the City. This is actually important because 2/8 city councillors were acclaimed and the Mayor was elected with 22% of the eligible vote. Many of the members of the local District Education Committee (DEC) were elected by acclamation. 
How much confidence might a business looking to re-locate have that the city and educational system is well managed when the citizens take so little interest in how the locale is managed? 

0 interest

Will a start up entrepreneur choose Saint John to begin her/his business? 

Unlikely.

In fact, this City needs the kind of boosterism that John and Heather show. And the portal might help. Take a look at yesterday's post regarding John Putnam's book Bowling Alone.

John and Heather identify those metrics described by Putnam in a practical way and by doing so, they provide the template for a decent community engagement portal.

• voting patterns at the local, provincial and national levels. In fact, their show interviews local and newly elected reps. A portal could/should identify citizen engagement demographics by neighbourhood and ward. It might also identify what matters most to these communities. 
• how well is education in this City governed? what data exists about educational attainment in the City, by ward and by neighbourhood? How does UNB and NBCC contribute to the welfare of the City? What spin off businesses are attributed to the Brilliant Labs project? How many girls go onto higher education and then start up their own businesses? How does our educational system compare to others world wide? How many h/s grads go into maths and sciences at advanced levels? What is school attendance like?  
• volunteer activity by non profit, service club, sports associations. In fact, a board member from the local volunteer bureau spoke briefly about that. The problem she had was that she was unable to provide any analytics about activity. An open data portal would help the Volunteer Bureau and non profits, etc, to be more targeted in recruiting volunteers. And, communication is a two way street. Data about what these non profits and other associations do would therefore inform participants (and would be participants) about what matters most. They could then more effectively find volunteer activities which would use their skills and interests. 
• community issues. The HRDC (Human Resources Council) was interviewed about the range of social issues confronting the City. Why bother with the interference of government when communities have the where with all to do for themselves? Data would help non profits and others better target programs and potential funding and funders to address what matters most in the community. 
• the creative class. The City Council never asks the arts and culture community to speak to, or evaluate, their contribution to the economy. More to the point, how large is the creative class in Saint John?  What are its characteristics? Can it be expanded? How? By reading Richard Florida's work  about the contribution of the creative class to the development of a local economy is especially instructive. www.creativeclass.com/richard_florida                                      If we don't pay attention to this demographic, the City does not have a hope in hell of progressing. 
• women's engagement. Got a problem with your enterprise? Recruit women. To what degree are women engaged in the life of the community?? Don't believe me? Read my gamer blog about the contribution women make to the economic health status of the community. Recruiting women to serve at senior levels of troubled or under performing operations improves effectiveness by over 55%. 

This is only a sampling of how this one cable TV program could contribute to the design of one open data portal for the City of saint John. 

But there is more...a lot more which would lead to the creation of a Canadian jewel. 

Is the NBPSPP Board Accoutable??

Is the concept of Board performance evaluation far fetched? Is it wrong of retirees to expect the results of a board performance evaluation? 
Not really.
Here are some basics starting 25 years ago.

1. In 1992 Cadbury (UK) promoted the concept of the independent minded director, accountable to those who elected him or her. he also recommended that there be time limits to a director's appointment. Further, he recommended that a code of conduct be established for directors and that these principles ought to be reported to members...in this case us as retirees. 
2. In Canada ,1994, Dey too wrote about the independence of directors. he was more specific. Directors ought to be independent of management AND representative of the stakeholders or community they purported to represent. He went further than Cadbury and recommended strong committees, good strategic planning and sound succession planning. There is no accident that succession planning is linked to strategic planning. Skills ought to be a match for the anticipated challenges. Finally, he recommended that risks to the organization integrity be identified and reported to the members. 
3. In 2000, Guilanne Saucier added to Dey by recommending that directors have the education and expertise necessary to carry out the governance of the organization. She also recommended that there be continuous education for Board members and that these efforts be reported to the members (so us , as retirees). 
4. In 2003, Higgs (UK) recommended that directors have the requisite knowledge, skills and experience to be a good Board member. he also recommended that there be an ongoing dialogue between board members and stakeholders (so, again, us). He detailed the role of a Nominating Committee in recruitment. Like Dey, he too suggested a strong relationship between the strategic plan and the recruitment of new directors. 
5. Again, in 2003, Tyson (UK) recommended that the board have a broad diversity of background, skills, experience  and, gender .he further suggested that members be recruited form a variety of sources (so not an old boys club, not people from the same class, school or career). He further suggested that the search be advertised, thereby being transparent to the members. Finally, he, too , strongly recommended training programs for Board members. 

What happens if Boards do not follow this advice? 

One high profile mess from the early part of the century was the Enron failure. In this case

• the Board did a poor job of management oversight;
• the Audit committee failed to do its job...and represented the interests of the Board and not the members/shareholders;
• there was an absence of independent minded directors;
• the Board ignored the warnings of whistleblowers. 
• the Board was not transparent in its decision making.
• It did not even have governance guidelines. 

Did anyone learn???

No.

The 2008 meltdown threw more than 26m people in the US out of work. 4m people lost their homes. Another 4m families slipped into foreclosure. Nearly $11T in household wealth vanished. 

Warnings were ignored. Boards failed to question, understand or manage evolving risks for the well being, not just of their shareholders, but the whole public, as well. 

There were dramatic failures in corporate governance and risk management. Too big to fail meant, to these board members, too big to manage. Compensation schemes were designed to reward for quick gains and ignoring long term consequences. 

These are events which we , as retirees ignore at our own peril. And, as a consequence, we need to hold the Board accountable.

Tomorrow, I will precis each of these reports, outlining what our own Board, and what we as retirees, can learn from them. They serve as a basis by which our Board needs to evaluate its performance.