Monday, July 9, 2012
Time to Smile
9 comments:
Your comments are welcome. Please abide by the blog's policy on posting. This blog facilitates discussion from all sides of issues. Opposite viewpoints, spirited discussion and even pointed comments are welcome, provided they are respectful. Name calling is not allowed and any posts that violate the policy, will simply not be authorized to appear. This blog also reserves the right to exclude comments that are off topic or are otherwise unprofessional. This blog does not assume any liability whatsoever for comments posted. People posting comments or providing information on interviews, do so at their own risk.
Comments posted on this blog, may be used as excerpts in whole or in part, in other media sources .
This blog believes in freedom of speech and operates in the context of a democratic society, which many have fought and died for.
Views expressed by commentators or in articles that appear here, cannot be assumed to be espoused by The Hamiltonian staff or its publisher.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I salute this initiative. (Although I am expecting the more cynical amongst us to raise the question of cost.)
ReplyDeleteI'm curious...and this is a sincere question, I'm not being glib, because I respect his experience and viewpoint in this arena...about how Graham Crawford sees this, given his Spec op-ed of last October 11.
I think it is good to "show off" once in a while. I think we need council to be more inspirational for the people who work for the city.
ReplyDeleteA nice video- saw a few staffers in there who definitely deserve recgonition for what they do. I hate to even bring it up, but the musician/videographer that made it lives in Aurora. Considering the content, wouldn't it be appropriate to hire someone locally to produce this?
ReplyDeleteMSC, for me, cost is not an issue. These kinds of things are important and are not that expensive these days.
ReplyDeleteAnother non-issue is the "showing off" as Anonymous puts it. Employee morale is a huge factor. Poor morale costs more. High morale costs less. That's just the way it is.
What does concern me though is the question as to what this video is tied to. It makes no mention of the vision. It makes no mention of progress-to-date. It doesn't have an obvious purpose other than a feel-good exercise. Feeling good is good. Feeling good about progress toward a shared vision is not only better, it's way better. This seems like an independent idea. One that is neither driven by, nor tied to a bigger, grander purpose. I may be wrong, but I tried searching for it on the City of Hamilton website and can't find it. Therefore, exactly what is the purpose of the video? Who is its intended audience? How is it being communicated? What are people (staff and citizens) supposed to think or, more importantly, do once they've seen it?
I was able to check out the video that "inspired" this one on the Town of Newmarket's website. Inspired? That's a bit rich. It's a direct copy. Everything about it is the same, save for the people. While I know the old expression, "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.", I really have to question why one would literally copy another municipality's video. Inspiration suggests that you see something you like, and that it leads you to create/expand/extend your own version of it. This is a direct copy. That doesn't inspire me. It disappoints me. It's a weak and misguided decision.
While I could go on at some length about the implications of this video in terms of what it is, what it isn't, what should be, what could be, I won't on this post. We're floundering. We don't even understand what a vision is, how it's supposed to be used, how ancillary videos and communication items are just that, ancillary. This is an embarrassing attempt to hype the employees. We have some fundamentals that must be addressed first, and then progress should be celebrated. Like an integrated succession plan. Like an plan to understand and to deal with absenteeism. Like focusing and inspiring over 5,000+ people to know, understand, believe in, and act on a clear, compelling, measurable, sustainable vision.
These kinds of videos are part of that process. They are not the process itself. I don't doubt the sincerity of every single person connected to this video. But it's like putting lipstick on a pig. It still ain't pretty. And there is much work that lies ahead. All of which must be driven by a common vision. It isn't. But nice try. As the video suggests, I did smile. And then I frowned.
I agree. It hit home a few weeks ago when TH had a quote from Terry Whitehead. Something about him tying the start time for city council,meetings, to the best place to raise a child. I think they don't get it or don't want to.
DeleteI agree with everything said so far, but sometimes you just have to cut some slack. I am thankful for the people who I have dealt with at the city who are true professionals. There are some who are just collecting a pay, but I will stay on the positive and say this is a good video.
ReplyDeleteSevern
I have to agree with Graham on this one.
ReplyDeleteWhile such videos are important from staff morale boosting perspective, however given the state of our city and the mixed/confusing/contradictory council messaging on the infrastructure deficit, the perennial joblessness - and the ongoing urban-suburban polarization on account of the airport lands, the waterfront projects, as well the decades old 'downtown project' - this morale boosting video could easily been delayed until the more critical objective of boosting the citizen's morale had been first achieved.
On the face of it most city employers do have a union backed commitment for lifetime employment, guaranteed pensions and a fairly laid back work arrangement. Hardly conditions worthy of a systemic morale boost. Such conditions would make anyone smile all day long, all year!
Compare this to the conditions which taxpayers have to continually face which are a direct result of the much uninspired council decision making process - or compare the plight of the lower city residents who have to continually face deplorable "living and working" conditions from factors such as: poverty and mental health and its fall out on our downtown streets, the iron-grip of the poverty industry on downtown, the unchecked speeding vehicles in the core, or the bye-laws and zoning that penalize small/medium size investors for attempting to revive the core, etc., etc... and you will come to the conclusion that it is the local residents (i.e. the tax-payers, the employers, the citizens) who are desperately in need of a morale-boost and hardly the staff or for that matter the hard working and tired council members.
On realizing that this video was an exact copy of the one it was inspired from, here is an unoriginal idea:
How about getting these white boards from the city (they are already paid for), and recycling them for a new "citizen morale boosting video" - a video which would be an exact copy of the original - only instead of the staff, it would pay tribute to the residents... with residents writing up their own messages to the council and the staff on the flip side of the white boards...
Now this could be a pretty interesting video to watch, no? Being a community building venture, this video could also be eligible for some serious community development funding!!
Any takers?? Who knows, it may even become our local entry to the Sundance festival...
Would love to see that video but about the Councillors. What would their signs say, Pearsons would say, "I only do what benefits me personally", and Merulla's would say, "Had a Breakdown", need I say more.
ReplyDeleteMaybe someone should do a parody of this video with the councillors. Lets get Russel Peters the Commedian to help out.
Oh come on, Merulla's would not say that. It would say "We serve tallboys at Ti-Cat games". LOL
ReplyDelete