thirty two

Last Sunday, we kicked off our dinner series “A Movable Feast – Urban Gatherings to Celebrate the Cities” at the Paper Darts Pop-Up. It was a simple idea: get a bunch of strangers together to inspire a conversation about the creative future of the Twin Cities. At thirty two, we don’t see creativity as something that belongs to the arts alone – instead, we’re curious about the human drive to create across all disciplines, including urban design, science and technology.

As the night drew nearer, however, my nerves started to rattle. With people of so many different backgrounds attending, all ditching a balmy summer night to sit down with strangers, would our little experiment succeed?

As it turned out, equipping each guest with a colored pen and a piece of paper was all we needed to do to get the conversation flowing. We asked a number of conversation starter questions, prompting attendees to write down their answers and then move to the next seat. This spin on ‘musical chairs’ allowed each guest to read their neighbor’s answers, and add on to them with their own thoughts.

We used the table decoration to give subtle cues -- literary quotes about our region were printed on paper luminaries, and pull-out quotes from our own publication were placed on stickers across the table, including Frank Bures’ widely read critique of the Creative Class theory, and his insight that “… it may be wiser to create the place you want to live, rather than to keep trying to find it.”

But folks needed no cues. As it turned out, guests easily connected over their shared passion for their city, and indeed, over the shared opportunities to create the place they want to live.

At the end of the night, we found ourselves with dozens of sheets of paper teeming with ideas and thoughts, and glimpses into the worlds of strangers, both oddly familiar and intriguingly different.  

As expected, the question “What do you love most about the Twin Cities?” yielded familiar answers, but also eloquent explorations of our sense of place: “It is still considered an up-and-coming city. For the most part, you can still be a part of change and a newness that seems to pair so perfectly with the lasting nostalgia of the Midwest.”

Asked about what we’re lacking, or don’t have enough of, many guests – and by no means only the twentysomethings  -- wanted to see a more vibrant late-night culture and late-night transportation. The most frequent answer, however, was a call for more candid and open conversations, for more irreverent humor and no-apologies honesty. And there was this: “I would love to see the appreciation of culture, food, music and architecture that exists within the Twin Cities spread outward until it takes over the suburbs and the Mall of America implodes.”

Throughout the night, we paid homage to our literary host by adding readings of poems by Dallas Crow and a short story by Katie Sisneros--courtesy of the latest Paper Darts short story contest-- who drew laughs with her tale about a sloth gone wild.

At the end of the night, I left both exhausted and happy, kicking myself a little for letting my nerves get the better of me. After all, readers of thirty two and of Paper Darts -- and people in general -- are pretty darn cool. A big thank you to everyone who participated and helped make this a memorable night – we can’t wait to do it all over again at the Soap Factory on July 12 with Andy Sturdevant!

I have never seen a civically minded creative class so large and so strong as I see in the Twin Cities. It’s our brand mark. It’s our true essence. Silicon Valley has tech, D.C. has government, and we have civic engagement. And it’s more than our good voting record. Social innovators are flying around like bombarding atoms, creating sparks and energy wherever they collide. But social innovation is in need of an overhaul. We’re still struggling to solve (not just manage) the big issues of the day, such as poverty, homelessness, and health care. We don’t need  more motion, activity, or discussion, but lasting positive change. The only motion that really counts is the infamous needle, the one that tells us we’re making a true impact. Here are some ideas on how to jumpstart our impact. Here’s how to innovate social innovation.

  1. Move beyond talk. Lou Holtz is right: “When all is said and done, more is said than done.” We love the TEDx and the SXSW conferences. Like caffeine, they give us a buzz to talk about big ideas. But it’s time to move beyond talk. It’s time to take the Polar Bear Plunge into action. Go ahead and fail. Fail and fail fast, and get all the learning you can out of that failure. Let’s emulate our tech kin: less studying and more experimenting. Prototype, test drive, learn, and repeat. The Crispin Porter + Bogusky Employee Handbook says, “Brilliant thinking not executed is literally worthless.” Let’s get in the game. There are no sidelines.

2. We need a core. There are a lot of atoms bouncing around randomly but no “thing” to give it a nucleus or direction, something that grounds the community, acts as the central hub, and conducts all this activity. Maybe there doesn’t need to be, but just as many of us are talking about collective impact to fight poverty, is there a collective impact model to social innovation? Where’s the clubhouse? Where’s Cheers? Who orchestrates at least some of our actions so that the sum is greater than the parts? There are many lone wolves, each working on their parts. It’s valiant, heart-felt work, but we need a central marketplace, a town square. We need an idea pipeline. We need someone or something that can say, “If you have a good idea, I know how to get it to market.”

3. Government and nonprofits are not the only tools in the toolbox. As Nate Garvis points out in his book Naked Civics, our knee-jerk reaction shouldn’t be how much or how little government we throw at challenges. Nor do we need to create a new nonprofit for every problem. The IRS lists almost 17,000 nonprofits in Minnesota. That represents an incredibly generous spirit, but that’s also a lot of mouths to feed. Nate sees more opportunity in the middle of the Venn diagram where community values and business interests overlap. Let’s do something as easy as changing our own buying habits and letting our social media friends know about it. Let’s do something where we don’t have to ask for permission all the time.

4. Share the risk. An overlooked question about engaging in social innovative projects is, “Who will manage risk and how?” We need to think differently about structuring deals as it relates to sharing risk. Instead of getting someone else, such as a foundation, to pay 100 percent of a social innovative project, let’s do something more imaginative. Like a venture capitalist, could a funding source get a share of the savings? For example, if I were to create an organization that is able to reduce the cost of health care, could the foundation that backed me get a return on their initial investment? Under this new model, the foundation, the social entrepreneur, and the client all share the risks and rewards.

5. Spur demand. There are tons of good people and good ideas in the Twin Cities, but no one is breaking down our door for help. Instead of convincing folks of the need for social innovation, we need to demonstrate its utility and profitability. If we can demonstrate that social innovation can drive a wildly successful, profitable, and socially beneficial project, others will demand the same thing.

6. Prepare, mentally and physically, for this journey. Most organizations are not ready for innovation. They say they are, but they are not willing to face the risk and discomfort. It’s like saying they want to lose twenty pounds but not diet and exercise. Failure is inherent in innovation. And while people pay lip service to it, are they really ready to back employees after they have failed, when colleagues and board members may be whispering, and when failure is embarrassing and makes leaders feel vulnerable? That is the leadership we will need. We don’t just need innovators who have the courage to fail, but leaders who have the courage to forgive, praise, and even reward failure.

It’s time to move beyond talk, establish a nucleus, develop more tools in the toolbox, share risk, spur demand, and prepare for the journey. Doing these six things will help us move from good intentions to effective action.

We swarm Northeast for Art-a-Whirl and pack the Turf Club to see our favorite local band’s record release show. We support theaters large and small, neighborhood galleries and the Walker Art Center. Yet it’s almost always the finished sculpture we see, the final mix we hear on The Current. It’s not always easy to find the right place to saw or rehearse, to figure out what works and what’s affordable. Eight local artists invite us into their workspaces to share their experiences and shed some light on where we make things.