Amy and I visited Dr. Patrick Jones and Dr. Dr. Linda Kieffer at Eastern Washington University yesterday to better understand how the Spokane Community Indicator Initiative (SCII) and its website works. We found their process and their site as pure as, well the adjacent glob of Schmaltz! (Seriously, this is my highest seal of approval!) Very nice work!!There are some slippery complications with Walla Walla replicating what the SCII has been doing.
First, notice that I didn't say, "what the SCII has done." I chose this form because SCII isn't done yet, and, frankly never expects to be done. Starting a community indicator website is one of those forever events that might require only a small step to get inside, but has no exit. Their website calls what they are doing "a process, not a product." It's a fine process. With fine results. We should enter knowing there's no exit.
Second, the SCII was, and still is, an emergent effort. It started by accident. Continued through voluntary choice. Expanded through fortunate circumstance. Seemed to attract the support and funding it needed. And resulted in a satisfying result. The process by which that result was achieved isn't repeatable. This is no criticism, but an acknowledgment of how it was, and is. SCII is a happy marriage of convenience, but marriages of convenience are not anything like a certain ticket to paradise. How will our emergent process appear here?
Third, SCII has a champion in the person of Dr. Jones. This isn't a job assignment for him, but a resonance of his personal interests, passion, and professional skill. This means he doesn't count the hours, begrudge the difficulties, or sweat the complications. For him, doing this process is being who he is. Having such a champion is communicable and convenient. Others are inspired by someone so engaged. Effort is not contingent upon funding or scheduling. Stuff just gets done. How will stuff just get done here?
Fourth, SCII is fortunate to be working in such close association with Eastern Washington University. The website design and construction work was done by a grad student, with minimal supervision. The data detective work was (and is) accomplished by Mark Wagner, a data analyst on Dr. Jones' Institute for Public Policy and Economic Analysis staff, with grad student assistance. Lisa Capoccia, program coordinator on the IPPEA staff, facilitated meetings, coordinated contacting participants, and resolved a thousand complications. The focus groups and website development work was supported by what ultimately became a six figure grant. Part of the convergence this process experiences is the convergence between EWU's strategic objectives, IPPEA's passionate director and capable staff, EWU's Center for Digital Media Design and Development, and a supportive funding source. What will Walla Walla's process be like? Who will be our staff?
Fifth, the SCII process is fairly tightly coupled. The relationships are mind-reading close. This means that Dr. Jones can intuit meaning from focus group intention and, working with his staff, translate that into acceptable results. I'm wondering how, in the absence of Dr. Jones, meaning will be interpreted here.
Sixth, IPPEA is really offering two things to Walla Walla.
- data detective services. We provide the question, for instance, how is the population distributed here? They search for sources and choose the most authoritative source, then feedback the resulting data series.
- if the series is found acceptable, they format it and load it into the site. (This is a fairly simple process and requires no intervention from the Computer Science staff.)
I could go on. The challenge here is to create, not replicate, an emergent, self-sustaining, long-lived process for initiating and maintaining a community indicators website. The initiating activities will, as with all emergent processes, deeply influence the later life of the process. This means that the initial implementation of the site cannot be accomplished by out-of-long-term-context subcontractors without incurring some long-term reconfiguration costs, but seems to need a deeply caring steward. Someone willing, even anxious, to make this effort a part of their life's work.
The process is relationship sensitive. The trust elicited in the sessions to decide what's important will be leverageable only if the relationships continue. Switching in and out will hamper the long-term viability.
The Port has proposed funding the initial creation of the site and agreed to funding EWU's site hosting and data maintenance fees, but the funding for the staff required to maintain the process here is missing. This isn't a full time job, but it is a long-term commitment. Not something that a volunteer committee, for instance, can likely satisfy.
This opportunity seems to present a larger opportunity for Walla Walla to decide that a Community Indicators process is an essential part of life here, and to fund the full ramifications of that decision with a passionate director and adequate staff. Otherwise, I'd classify this as an alluring bright idea with few long-term prospects.
The site architecture is excellent. Dr. Kiefer's insistence that her students engage in real-world development work with real clients has resulted in a world-class website. I have no reservations about utilizing this technology to display indicators here. We brought Tom Heavey, formerly the IT guy for Spokane's Hoopfest and now an IT manager at Avista (Spokane's electric utility), and one of the architects of Spokane's Hot Zone, to our meeting with Dr. Kiefer. He found the website architecture appropriately conservative, exceptionally well designed, and robust.
Likewise the data detective services. These are world-class. I have no reservations in recommending these both for their resourcefullness and for the quality of their results. They know what they are doing and do it very well.
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