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Brainzooming™
The Community Role
in Playbook Visioning
Mike Brown
The Brainzooming Group
January 2015
™

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Today’s Presenters
Aaron Deacon
@aarondeacon
KC Digital Drive
Mike Brown
@brainzooming
The Brainzooming Group

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The Brainzooming Group
• We help smart
organizations improve their
success by rapidly
expanding their strategic
options and creating
innovative, efficient‐to‐
implement plans.
Our Process Is:
– Adaptable
– Multi‐disciplinary
– Refined through hundreds of engagements
– Growing daily
™

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“We produce strategic
conversations.”

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What We’ll Cover
• The Benefits of a Different Way of
Creating Community Participation
• Your Gigabit City Summit
Workshop on Playbook Visioning
• Getting Ready

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Benefits of a
Different Way of
Creating Community
Participation

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Sound Familiar?
The Mayor said:
“Public input and
involvement are not
only invaluable, they are
absolutely essential to
ensure this resource is a
part of our economic
growth now and well
into the future.”
The chairperson
pledged to have a
process that is open,
inclusive, and sound.
But how?

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One‐to‐Many
Task Force Holds Community Forums
Makes sense when . . .
• One person has a more informed or
important perspective than all others
• Many people need to hear the same
message
• No expectation of attendees introducing
new and different perspectives
• Presenter time is limited
• Want to readily capture a single
message

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Challenges for a Task Force and Community Forums
Typical Task Force Challenges
A select committee participates and
struggles to include diverse perspectives
Community meetings with one individual
providing input at any one time
Difficult to quantify/describe public
participation
Protracted meetings and time (perhaps
months) to deliver a report
Challenges in getting positive attention
Public interest turning to frustration

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A Similar Situation with Google Fiber
An official said:
“Google Fiber doesn’t come with an
instruction manual on how to use it.
We’re looking to groups such as Social
Media Club of Kansas City to lead the
way in creating a vision for the future.”

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45 Seconds Later

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One‐to‐Many Many Twos and Threes
Our Strategy for Visioning

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The Brainzooming Group strategy for
“Building the Gigabit City”
• Create a multiple phase approach to address the opportunity and issues faced by SMCKC.
• Design the process around community and global input on the issues
• Identify invited participants to ensure both collective diversity and interest/knowledge base within
small brainstorming groups
• Leave the door open to other participants (even contrarians and opponents) who self‐identify
• Design and facilitate an interactive brainstorming session with 90+ participants focused on seven
targeted topics.
• Deliver a comprehensive 120‐page report within 5 weeks as input for Mayors’ Bi‐State Innovation
Team. Downloaded by people in 35+ states, 30+ countries.

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Mayors’ Bistate Innovations Team
Development of the Playbook
• Acknowledges the need for "official" leadership combined with community energy
• Builds on organic, grassroots community input
• Community‐focused leadership rather than technology expertise
• Engage diverse constituents and work with existing community initiatives; reflect the energy of
your city
• Allow time for critical stakeholder input, while maintaining a nimble planning process
• Don't wait until the planning is finished to start the work

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Available as Free Download:
Brainzooming.com/googlefiberkc
Available as Free Download:
KCDigitalDrive.com/playbook

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Collaborative Community Visioning Is Different
Typical Task Force Challenges Collaborative Community Visioning
A select committee participates and
struggles to include diverse perspectives
Open source input through multiple
stages
Community meetings with one individual
providing input at any one time
Large‐scale event with many people able
to provide input simultaneously
Difficult to quantify/describe public
participation
Quantifiable and descriptive participant
profile
Protracted meetings and time (perhaps
months) to deliver a report
Dramatically less time from input to
comprehensive report out
Challenges in getting positive attention An event‐based process generating
strong, positive‐media attention
Public interest turning to frustration Vibrant, positive public interest in the
ideation event, the report release event,
and afterward through report downloads
& references

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Why the Collaborative Process Is More Effective
• Gains efficiency by allowing multiple people to contribute
and collaborate simultaneously
• Uses multiple inputs ‐ both in‐person and online
• Provides structured input opportunities (vs. only a “blank
sheet of paper” approach)
• Gives visibility to the discussion throughout the process
• Promotes additive input
• Offers participants a range of concrete methods to
contribute from which they can choose the one(s) that best
fit their timing and inclination
• Applies an event production orientation to the venue,
atmosphere, and ambiance

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What We’ll Teach at
the Tuesday
Gigabit City Summit
Workshop

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Three‐Phased Community Visioning Strategy
Articulating
the Initial
Direction
Cultivating
Broad
Engagement
Creating
a Shared
Playbook
Vision
 Inventorying Big Vision
Statements in the
Community
 Devising the Best Path
to Strategic Change
 Identifying Diverse
Participants
 Building Your Peer
Network
 Checking Your
Readiness for Seeking
Large‐Scale Input
 Surveying Community
Members for Input
 Soliciting Community
Expectations and
Objectives
 Understanding Critical
Success Factors
 Seeking Input on Focus
Areas
 Documenting
Crowdsourced Concepts

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Inventorying Big Vision Statements
• What is the
community already
saving about the
future?
• Synthesizing input into
a collective starting
point

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The Best Path to Strategic Change
• Depending on the
current situation
and the extent of
the push for
change, the change
management
approach differs

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Cultivating Broad Engagement
Articulating
the Initial
Direction
Cultivating
Broad
Engagement
Creating
a Shared
Playbook
Vision

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Identifying Diverse Participants
• Anchor Institutions
• Varied Voices
– Three Experience
Groups
– Three Types of
Community Voices

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Building Your Peer Network
• Who are the “lead users” among Gigabit City
Summit attendees?
• Who can point you to lead users not in
attendance?

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Readiness for Large Scale Input
• Attitude toward
collaboration
• Ways to make the
experience
productive
• Efficient strategies
to capture and
report the input

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Creating a Shared Playbook Vision
Articulating
the Initial
Direction
Cultivating
Broad
Engagement
Creating
a Shared
Playbook
Vision

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Efficiently Gathering Input
• Using differing
formats
provides more
productive
experiences and
a more time‐
efficient
process.
Format
In PersonRemote
Individual
Small Group
Large Group
Collaboration
One‐on‐One
Interviews
Online
Surveys
Phone
Interviews
Online Collaboration
Platform Sessions
Interactive
Visioneering
Sessions
Small Group
Sessions

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“ . . . by pitting multiple scenarios
of the future against one
another and leaving many
different doors open,
you can prepare yourself for a
future that is inherently
unpredictable.
Brainstorming pays off.
And the more possibilities you
can entertain, the less likely
you are to be blindsided.”
‐ Peter Coy and Neil Gross
7

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Surveying Community Members
• Broadest input
opportunity, typically
• Input on
opportunities and
challenges in a
community segment
• Pre‐existing ideas
and thinking

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Soliciting Community Expectations
• Multiple ways to capture input
• Thinking and hopes on impacts
• Identifying other participants

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Understanding Critical Success Factors
• Perceptions on
make or break
issues
• Ways to shape
strategy
development

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Seeking Input on Focus Areas
• Where value is
being delivered now
through community
services
• Ideas to trade‐off
priorities to
enhance overall
community benefit

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Documenting Concepts
• Bringing together all
the thinking into
concepts
• Provide
opportunities for
even broader
community
reactions

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Varied Paths through “Open Sourcing”
• Share results
• Ask for more information
• Combine ideas and concepts
• Diversify concepts
• Simplify ideas
• Enrich concepts
• Dissect and narrow them
• Brainstorm more
• Support strong ideas with resources
• Solve ways to accomplish it
• Ignore the ideas and start over

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Getting Ready

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Available as Free Download:
Brainzooming.com/googlefiberkc
Available as Free Download:Available as Free Download:
KCDigitalDrive.com/playbook

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Questions to Consider Upfront
• What organizations in our community are
articulating visions for the future?
• Who is involved in our initiative right now?
• If we’re not very collaborative typically in
developing community visions and strategies,
what has slowed collaboration?
• What don’t we know that we’d like to gain input
on to shape a community playbook vision?

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Gigabit City Summit Opportunities
• Tuesday afternoon workshop
• Interaction / collaboration among your
delegation
• Networking with the other delegations and
experts at the Gigabit City Summit
• Thursday – individual city / metro discussions
• Post‐Gigabit City Summit webinar planned

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Today’s Blog at Brainzooming.com

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Free Outside‐In Innovation Tools at:
http://brainzooming.com/innovationfakebook/

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We help make smart organizations
more successful by rapidly:
• Expanding their strategic options
• Creating innovative plans they can
efficiently implement
Brainzooming.com
More info on the approach:
Brainzooming.com/today

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Thank you
for participating today, and
we’ll see you next week!