Today’s Morning Buzz is by Josh Edwards, so be kind or not– either way connect with him on LinkedIn and Twitter!
- What I’m Listening To: Weezer Radio on Spotify (still..)
- What I’m Reading: Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes
- What I’m Watching: The Open
Curation and Accessibility, Who’s Ready for Next Steps from ELGL Innovation?
Forgive me if I am a little rusty on the morning buzz. I had a two month sabbatical post Innovation Summit at #ELGL19. A lot has happened in two months. I am happy to announce a third little Edwards is on the way and Monday I start a new job in Athens-Clarke County, Georgia.
I grew up in a college town, so I am excited for all three of my kids to have that experience, #GoDawgs!
It has been a period of transition for my family and me after spending 10 years living in Durham, NC. I was fortunate to have an incredible boss who empowered me and my team to dream and get stuff done, creating impact for Durham residents.
I also had the privilege of working alongside so many friends the last five years who pushed me to grow and provided new perspectives.
As discussed at the Innovation Summit, career pathways often take you new places in local government.
I was ready for the next professional challenge and am looking forward to working for Blaine Williams and learning as much as I can in the new role. I am honored to be a member of the Athens-Clarke County team which has a talented staff, engaged residents and Commissioners with a bold vision for the community. I am ready to get to work for my new community!.
Throughout this transition it is important for me to keep in touch with my ELGL Family. One way to do this is through ELGL Innovation.
My next few Morning Buzz’s will unpack what came out as next steps from the Innovation Summit. Today, I am going to share about two key themes that we heard from our attendees, accessible information and curation.
These two themes are important to everything we push out from ELGL Innovation, but for today’s post I want to highlight the ELGL Wiki where we are asking for your help to define Commonly Used Words in Innovation Work.
Why is curation important? Because we want content to be relevant and fresh, something everyone can use. Don’t take it from me, below are comments our ELGL members shared at the Innovation Summit related to curation:
- “We want a one stop shop info hub”
- “We want more crowdsourcing of topics as some things get stale”
- “We want a curating platform for better group discussion”
- “We need members to invest time in curating links and showing usefulness so we can answer question, has it served its purpose?
We heard loud and clear that ELGL members want ELGL Innovation to be accessible to all.
We don’t want gimmicks; just information sharing that benefits every person and every community.
Don’t take it from me, below are comments our ELGL members shared at the Innovation Summit related to accessible information:
- “We want to make it attainable and safe”
- “We want to make sure what is shared is easily readable and shareable”
- “We want to inspire an online community with requirements to collaborate/share”
- “We want to make projects, processes, slide decks, and ideas more available and accessible”
Reading our attendees comments from the Innovation Summit gets me ready to jump in and curate ELGL Innovation, how about you?
There is no better place to start then working together to define Commonly Used Words in Innovation Work. Working to define terms together will encourage accessibility because to share our work we can’t let confusing terms get in the way.
Let’s aim to dream, what if we could break this down to common language that no matter the location and size of the local government, we can meet them where they are. When we simplify the language we might find that there are other people in different roles around the country that are tackling similar challenges and could utilize strategies that we are using if only they were more approachable.
In addition, with a shared language it could be easier to identify who is doing this work in an organization and build the network.
So what do you need to do to jump in? Visit ELGL Innovation, click on the top right corner and create a login. Then you can choose to contribute in a few different ways, but first, go define a couple of terms or better yet add some words that you find confusing and see how others define them.
We are all better off when we are actively learning and encouraging one another. I look forward to sharing more insights from ELGL Innovation attendees next month.