In
his TED Talk, Dave Meslin wondered: What would happen if Nike
advertised sneakers in the same way local governments announced
important information — with long, bland, black-and-white newspaper
ads filled with jargon?
“Apathy
as we think we know it doesn’t actually exist,” said Meslin, a
local organizer in Toronto. “People do care, but we live in a
world that actively discourages engagement by constantly putting
obstacles and barriers in the way.”
Across
Canada, Natasha Letchford — a Deputy Municipal Clerk in North
Vancouver — stumbled on Meslin’s talk on Facebook. She found
herself highly inspired, in part because she wanted to prove
it wrong.
“One
of reasons I went into local government was because I truly believe
that I make a difference. So when Dave Meslin said that
government is in some ways trying to deny people an opportunity to
involved, I disagreed with him on that,” she says. “I took
it as a bit of a challenge.”
“We
in local government get so focused on making sure that the water’s
turned on and making sure that the garbage gets taken away that
when it comes to something like statutory notices … it becomes
‘that’s just the way we’ve always done it.’”
As
she puts it, “We’re not going out of our way to deny people the
opportunity to understand what’s going on. We just weren’t
making the time to re-think our standard statutory notices.”
Just
before Letchford watched this talk, the senior executive team in
North Vancouver’s city hall had asked employees to think about
year-long projects. So Letchford decided to update North
Vancouver’s notices and signage. Read more at: A TED Talk inspires government change in North Vancouver | TED Blog
