A talk at Ignite Birmingham
One troubling but recurring theme in Birmingham’s struggle to emerge as a true New South city is splintered efforts. This isn’t a surprise: Our community has been fractured for decades: black and white, suburbs and city, educated and uneducated, white collar and blue collar and so on.
We see recurring examples of a lack of cooperation, communication and coordination across the city. But we can also break this pattern with concerted effort.
A telling example of this duplication problem is the battle over the Neighborhoods USA annual conference, this year in Alaska. The City of Birmingham has sent an overwhelming number of delegates in years past, mostly leaders of the 99 neighborhoods.
The original travel plans for this year included sending 168 delegates for a total cost of more than $370,000. The finalized plan — after weeks of deliberation and political tactics — has whittled it to $68,000 for 28 representatives.
This would seem sane, except that the city continues to struggle with finances after the fiscal irresponsibility of one Larry Langford.
But a city that understood the value of proper leadership training would have invested in a more homegrown approach decades ago. Simply put, the conference trip is nothing more than political patronage for the mayor and city council.
Neighborhood leaders should be well trained to run their associations, 99 in all throughout the city. But to have to do it across a continent seems extravagant at a time when jobs, salaries and budgets are being cut.
The leaders who actually want better training and resources could work together with City Hall to come up with modestly funded workshops every 2 years for incoming officers. And the leaders who just want a free trip to Anchorage are unlikely to do much beyond what benefits them most.
The next example hits a little closer to home for me.
For the past 12 months, my friend Henry McBride has been working tirelessly on putting together a quarterly series of free events called Ignite Birmingham. This would be in addition to his full-time job, his family and his other community obligations.
An Ignite brings together speakers from across the community to share ideas and passions onstage. These talks are often recorded on video to share online. It gives people the opportunity to learn and to discuss ways to make the world a better place.
The idea has been kicked around Birmingham for at least 3 years, but Henry was the one who started actually putting nose to grindstone in early 2010. Since then, hundreds of attendees and dozens of speakers have taken part in a lively and intriguing event.
I’ve had the privilege of working with Henry on publicizing the events, recruiting speakers and even speaking at a couple of them.
Henry had a bigger concept in mind, what he calls the Birmingham Idea Ecosystem. He wrote about it on his site earlier this month, outlining how Ignite and another similar international phenomenon, TED Talks, could enrich the community.
Fortunately, someone launched TedxRedMountain last week, an eerily similar cause and event. How similar?
- Both events are spinoffs of global organizations.
- Both events features speakers sharing ideas in short presentations.
- Both events are new to Birmingham.
- Both events are volunteer driven and nonprofit in nature.
- Both events use similar promotional language …
- Ignite Birmingham: Sparking the Magic City’s Creative Class. Ignite Birmingham is an information exchange for fostering and inspiring the city’s diverse community. While mainly focused on the tech and creative communities, we encourage anyone with a good idea to speak.
- TedxRedMountain: Bringing together some of Greater Birmingham’s leading thinkers, doers, innovators, idea-generators, creators, developers, researchers, and connectors. Creating a spark, that ignites a fire. To Advance. Grow. Act. Produce. Change. Inspire.
A couple of differences do stand out.
For instance, Ignite Birmingham is free and open to all attendees. TedxRedMountain is not:
“Invitations are extended at the discretion of the organizing team based on a broad set of criteria. Attendees will be a diverse group of remarkable individuals from Birmingham, representing a wide variety of professions.” (from the TedxRedMountain website)
No information is given on if an admission fee will be charged or how much.
‘One of Birmingham’s least functional traits
is a strong tendency towards cliques —
very high school.’
Another is the approach to cooperation, communication and coordination. I can say first hand that Henry has been open to ideas, help, sponsorship and delegation throughout the past 12 months.
I asked him if anyone from Tedx had contacted him. No one had — and we both know members of the organizing group.
Without Henry’s prior knowledge, I e-mailed them last week to voice my concern.
While this is an exciting new addition to the Birmingham scene, it also represents another missed opportunity for cooperation and collaboration.
I’m terribly disappointed that no one from this new group ever reached out to my friend Henry McBride, who has almost singlehandedly organized Ignite Birmingham events for the last year. …
Although I do not speak for him, I think Henry would have been glad to help with advice, promotion or just a friendly welcome. But for some reason, this group chose to forge its own path.
Good luck with your new endeavor. I hope in the future you do not overlook those who paved the way for you.
After e-mailing twice, I did hear back. And it was an underwhelming, generic e-mail reply:
Thank you for your e-mail concerning TEDxRedMountain.
TEDx events are designed to be be an experience unique to other events and as such, will compliment and augment other presentation-format events in the area. Our goal is not to exclude, but to provide an enriching experience that will be a benefit for all realms of the Birmingham area.
We certainly hope that your concerns will not preclude you from applying to attend or nominate a presenter and we hope that you’ll still seek to join us as we help spread “inspiring ideas” on May 19th.
Sincerely,
TedxRedMountain
I guess the part about the “goal (being) not to exclude” rings the most hollow in my ears. One of Birmingham’s least functional traits is a strong tendency towards cliques — very high school. It’s bothered me every time I’ve reached out into the community.
I did apply to be a speaker, though I doubt my rabble rousing will endear me to the organizers. And when I say organizers, I’m talking largely about friends and acquaintances, not strangers. The disappointment is greater when it seems they are caught up in advancing a cause with little consideration to the community already in place, willing to help if only given the opportunity.
Birmingham certainly has room for two idea-generating events. If only they were working in tandem. (And this may border on the absurd, but a different Tedx Birmingham, completely separate from TedxRedMountain, is scheduled for August. Poetic, ironic and sad.)
My last example is also close to home, but one I feel is positive in approach and outcome.
Two weeks ago, we launched a new nonprofit organization called the Alabama Social Media Association, based in Birmingham. It is an open group that seeks to educate anyone interested about better uses of social media.
Our founding board — I am a member — reached out to organizations across the state before launch day to explain who we are and why we’re here. It was a gentle invitation to work together in the future on events and projects.
And we continue to reach out to groups to answer questions and explain our mission. If you’re interested, contact me, and I’ll be happy to give you more information.
We’ve been working on it since last fall, and we deliberated time and again if we could have done more to work within the existing social media group in Birmingham. But after repeated candid conversations with organizers at the local and national level, we reached an impasse.
But it forced us to line up a stronger mission and a more open, broader approach. And it worked well.
Our experience has shown us that cooperation, communication and coordination can yield great results. Not everyone will jump on board, but those that do begin building partnerships for the long haul.
We feel it’s critical, because we won’t always be here in these roles, and we want this association to be approachable, sustainable, durable.
Birmingham, blow up the sandboxes. Working together can make the load a lot lighter.
Update March 15: One of the Tedx Birmingham organizers called me today for a short chat. He reached out to Henry McBride, and they discussed ways Ignite Birmingham and Tedx Birmingham can collaborate.
He also said he reached out to TedxRedMountain, but has yet to hear back.
Photo: Josh Self
What do you think? What can be done to encourage cooperation and overcome cliques? Leave a comment with your thoughts.
And we both love Birmingham.
