Fail to connect? It will bite you

A Future Here Now Selection.

Today’s future here now selection is a video from last year in which I am reading a selection from The Local Economy Revolution Has Arrived: What’s Changed and How You Can Help.

When I wrote the first version of this chapter over 10 years ago, I was thinking specifically about urban planners, economic developers and other types who run public meetings, such as you might have for a highway project or a zone change. But as I have explored the world outside of plannng and economic development over the past years, I’ve been realizing that this same risk - of alienating the people whose support you need - runs through nearly every type of business, although the default methods of doing “public engagement” may not look the same as they do to a city council.

How different, I’ve been asking myself, would our businesses be if we got better at co-creating with our customers and clients and suppliers. In a sense, the arms-length at which we keep those relationships, and the ways in which we …