How Officials and Board Members can be more Idea Friendly

And help their towns to prosper

It’s not easy to serve as an official or on a board.

Elected or appointed, you end up saying “no” a lot.

The divide between officials and communities

Once you take on an official role, you are separated from your community. You can’t say yes to everything people want.

Your hands are tied – you have to say no to almost everything. There’s only so much you can do with limited time and money.

Promising ideas get watered down as you try to make them acceptable to a majority,

And a certain few of your fellow officials seem to be dedicated to ruining every great idea.  

You’re doing the best you can within limits, but public comment sessions quickly turn to griping and complaining.

It’s frustrating, but it doesn’t have to be. 

The new way for officials

There is a new Idea Friendly way for officials and board members.

You can tap the community. You don’t have to do it all alone.

Officials and board members all over are putting Idea Friendly principles into action. You’re going to learn from real-world examples and what the underlying principles are even when the officials involved didn’t realize why what they were doing was Idea Friendly.   

How the City of Alva, Oklahoma, cooperated with a group of motivated moms to upgrade playground equipment in the parks

How the City of Pullman, Washington, built on the enthusiasm of local merchants to crowdsource cleaner streets and sidewalks without extra work for the city

How the City of Akron, Iowa, put on a public ideas session that didn’t descend into gripes and complaints and how it lead to real action by citizens

How the City of Bolivar, Missouri, stumbled over the one idea out of 10 that sparked the community and took off, run entirely by volunteers

You’re going to learn practical steps you can put into action right away to change the way you approach your role as an official.

• Look at a new way to see your role as an official, one that puts you in the center of the network
• Discover your superpower as an official and put your connections to work for you
• Turn public gripe sessions into crowdsourcing events that mobilize people into action
• Learn the one question that turns even bad ideas into something positive

If you’re tired of saying no to too many good ideas, you’re going to want to join us for this video. 

Who is this video for? 

People who serve as elected or appointed officials for a town, city, county, tribe or any other government

People who serve on boards, committees or other formal organization leadership roles, whether public or nonprofit

Officials and leaders who are pretty open to new ideas, but need to know how to make that work in their formal roles

What would you have done differently?

How a city could have turned around a public investment disaster

Everyone in town is still talking about that electric car company that took city money then went bankrupt. How could council members have used Idea Friendly principles and kept “electric car company” from being the local synonym for bad decisions?

How could a city have made a better streetscape decision by acting faster? 

Facing a decision that would shape the downtown for decades, the city council spent years debating and delaying their choices. What one Idea Friendly action could have accelerated the complex process and brought the whole community together? 

What about hard public infrastructure projects like landfills and bridge plans? 

How could you turn your hardest questions into energizing cooperative activities? How do you make an Idea Friendly bridge plan? Or an Idea Friendly landfill expansion? Or an Idea Friendly pool project? We’re going to tell you exactly how to do it in practical steps.