West Wing Wednesday Night #27 June 9, 2010

by now you know the drill… fun and dynamic conversation awaits you on the second Wednesday of the month – June 9^th in this case. Last month’s conversation fundamentally changed many of our ideas about food, and after the silence that followed the question of how many of us put slightly blemished produce back and choose the more perfect ones – if you are like me, it ain’t happening anymore!

This month – a few thoughts to get us started:

·         Jeffrey Simpson was in town last week for the Action Canada Dialogue Summit and mentioned that after 30 years of covering the nation’s affairs, he believes that citizens as a group fluctuate between a state amenable to being called to a big hairy audacious goal (a BHAG in Jim Collins speak) and a state of needing to recuperate. His take is that we are in the latter and we just want to recover from the recession. As the liberal federal party is mulling their policy platform through their phase II of regional policy summits, is Jeffrey Simpson right? Are our neighbors in the South on a different swing of the pendulum, as their president boldly envisions a mission to Mars?

·         And speaking of the future, we are now in 2010 (which was hard to imagine in the 19 hundreds), and … it doesn’t feel that much different from 5-7 years ago. Even the headlines read the same. So question to you: what is fundamentally different or new in your work or personal lives (both positive and things you can do without….)?

·         Less government… every government seems to promise that yet, the trend is steady in the opposite direction… Vancouver has the same number of municipal workers (admin, police, fire etc)  as Edmonton, even though the population of Metro Vancouver is about 160,000 less… We have been dodging productivity as a topic, but it’s time has come – how can we hold our different governments accountable, get them to reduce their sizes and be more effective?

Some additional thought sent to me by the group, inspired by the posting and current events:

Tories drowned by calls attacking $2M fake lake
Opposition MPs hollered at the Conservative government Monday for a decision to spend about $2-million to build an indoor fake lake in downtown Toronto to impress international journalists attending the G20 summit

Fake Muskoka costs real bucks
Plan to take the great outdoors indoors for global media more than a little loony… the federal government is shelling out millions of dollars to re-create cottage country — complete with a small lake — inside a Toronto convention facility that will warehouse most of the media during the three-day windfest. Your tax dollars at work.

On CBC TV English:

On new copyright bill: Clement defends new copyright bill on Twitter 
On lunacy: Palin Blames Environmentalists For Oil Spill

Have a look at the great write up by Diana Nicholson for Wednesday Night in Montreal 1474: 

We look forward to welcoming friends back and meeting new guests. Come to think, discuss, be inspired, and exchange ideas and insights, all you of interested, interesting, informed and informative folks in town.

If you want to bring a guest – we would be delighted, but do let us know ahead of time. As always bring your questions, comments, ideas and musings for the mutual enjoyment and knowledge advancement of the gathering.

P.S. This month Linda Naiman, Founder of Creativity at Work, and Ralph Kerle, CEO of the Creative Leadership Forum, Sydney, Australia are doing an arts-based learning for business workshop June 29, 1:00 pm – 8:00 pm – The Alchemy of Leadership: Transforming leaden thinking into the gold of wisdom – to register