Come From Away
The webinar was peculiar. Hosted by a place-based foundation, it featured presenters from a large, corporate consultancy situated elsewhere, ostensibly hired for their gravitas. I didn't start pursuing projects in Detroit until I had spent time getting to know some of the organizations and issues of my hometown. Local context has been essential to just about every project I've undertaken; subtleties and histories can, and should, inflect perspective, attitudes, and decisions. More political change has occurred in the last two years than I've ever experienced in any other period. The quality and direction of this transformation aside, its scale and scope is remarkable. Move fast and break things* better serves young tech companies than national government bureaucracies, depending on one's agenda of course. Every two years, a built-in opportunity happens to course correct our political trajectory in the matter of a single day. Fundamentally, every project I've worked on was a learning journey, taking the client from one place to another, with a change of assets, knowledge, and perspective along the way. What they do with that, if anything, I rarely get to influence. Since Covid, this country has been on an astonishing trajectory, broaching and redefining boundaries that previously seemed immutable. Remaining curious and philosophical about misdirected effort is one survival strategy for mitigating my rage at the crude assertion of non-local power on a people and place. There are no feedback mechanisms for my philanthropic clients, except what they might choose to initiate and control. Even the webinar had no post-session evaluation. However, until it is diluted, challenged, or redirected, which I think we all know with our new awareness is a possibility, the power of the vote remains. I have certainly learned things.
*A corporate motto generated by Mark Zuckerberg during Facebook's early growth years.
