Yearly Archives: 2007

The Fit City: Five Days, Five Ideas (part 3)

The Fit City: Five Days, Five Ideas (part 2)

Idea #2: Listen while you walk: A health city is a walking city. A walking city is a quiet city.

I travel for work, so when I am in Vancouver I’ve resolved to walk at least one direction to all my meetings (in an effort to get reacquainted with the city and keep in shape). Like virtually everyone else under 35 years of age I see walking and taking the bus I take my iPod with me everywhere. I know some people listen to podcasts, others music and others lectures. My shuffle always have a book on tape loaded up (hey, if you’ve got an 8km walk ahead of you it’s a lot easier if your listening to something).

All this to say that walking in cities is a surprisingly noisy affair. Indeed, after pointing this out during the dialogue another participant came up to me and claimed that if the sidewalks of even a moderately busy street were a work zone, workplace regulations would require you wear earplugs. Now that’s fascinating. Whether you listen to an MP3 player or not it’s hard to imagine that walking is an appealing option when it is so loud it runs the risk of damaging your ears. What to do? We have demarked bike paths in the city, so why not walking paths? These paths, which could link high-traffic/high density neighbourhoods in the city, might be extra wide, better lit, traffic quietened, lined with cross-walks, and a balance between the shortest route and flattest route.

[tags]health, fitness, urban planning, health policy[/tags]

The Fit City: Five Days, Five Ideas (part 1)

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Had an interesting time at the Fit City/Fat City dialogue the other week. Meant to blog on it sooner, but trips got in the way. However I’ve now had a week to reflect on the dialogue, and suddenly realizing that it’s the 5 year anniversary of Building Up (the Canada25 report on cities – can’t believe it’s been that long already) so I thought I would dedicate this week’s posts to public policy ideas for creating healthy cities.

Summary of the Fit City/Fat City Dialouge

Despite it’s title The Fit City/Fat City Dialogue was interesting, but didn’t feel much like a dialogue. It was more of a traditional public event with the panellists making presentations and the subsequent discussion essentially limited to a Q&A session.

Unfortunantely, rather than use the Q&A as an opportunity to develop ideas for advancing a fit city the panel fell into two traps. First, the panel kept dwelling on limited power of municipalities. True, cities don’t regulate food or manage healthcare, and their limited power of taxation constrain program delivery. But let us not underestimate the enormous influence they have on health issues. Indeed, given that municipal governments determine the physically environment in which citizens live, they probably control the single most important tool.

Secondly, the panel was dismissive of partial solutions. As Roland Guasparini, the Chief Medical Health Officer Fraser Health Authority stated: “What’s the point of designing a community that encourages walking when all it means is that people walk to the local store to buy a chocolate bar?” I couldn’t disagree more. Not only is this an opportunity for cities to lead, but the benefits of a walking community are significant no matter what its citizens eat. Yes, it would be nice if all three levels of government agreed to a single plan, but is it necessary? Moreover, the time consumed by such negotiations would be horrendous. In short, this problem can be addressed incrementally, knowing that we can’t solve the whole thing with a single policy doesn’t mean we shouldn’t act to solve some of it.

So, in the spirit of adding to the pool of ideas in support of a ‘healthy city’ here are my five policy suggestions in five days, one for each year of Building Up:

Idea #1: Physical Education: make it mandatory… and fun.

As this publication notes participation in physical education dropped from 70% to 60% in the province of Ontario. A trend that many Canadians believe is limited to the Unites States is indeed occurring here. Should we be surprised that an increasing number of young Canadians (not to mention Canadians generally) are becoming obese? Public Schools play a powerful role in instilling civic values and establishing behaviours. When we lower the expectations around physical education in our school we send a powerful message to all Canadians about the value we place on physical exercise.

Making PE mandatory feels like a good first step. But why not try some more creative ideas? Some American schools have been using the video game Dance Dance Revolution to encourage kids to get active (Norway even made it a national sport) and this blogger used his Wii game console to lose 2% of his body fat in 6 weeks. As Stephen Johnson notes in his book, video games can cultivate problem solving skills, if they can also help burn calories… why not?

[tags]health, fitness, urban planning, health policy[/tags]

The Smyth Deal: The Anatomy of a Positional Negotiation Gone Wrong

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A classic negotiation challenge is when parties lock into positions. Both sides articulate a demand – usually followed a threat such as “take it or leave it” – and then hopes the other side blinks first.

In the case of Ryan Smyth and the Edmonton Oilers’ I can almost imagine each parties’ statement. Smyth’s agent probably declared “my player is worth $6M dollars not a penny less – take it or leave it.” While the Oiler representative said “we can afford $5M and not a penny more – otherwise, we’ll go to the trading block.” Then, with both sides locked into a price, two things probably happened. First, the negotiation was restricted to a discussion about money to the detriment of the parties numerous other interests. Second, any change in either parties’ position would cause them to lose credibility and/or face. Consequently, any progress in the negotiation would have paradoxically increased the level distrust by confirming each party’s suspicion that the other could and would bend more.

And of course, this is what happened. Smyth was willing to accept less, and the Oiler’s were willing to pay more. A fact made evident as they managed to haggle their way to a difference of $5.4M and $5.5M per year. But getting closer probably had the perverse effect of making the negotiation harder. Each concession made the subsequent ‘demands’ appear less credible and firm. So, to prove that this was indeed ‘their final offer’ each side had to appear more and more inflexible. The result? A negotiation that collapses over a disagreement of $100,000 a year or $500,000 over the life of the contract – about 1.8% of the deals’ monetary value. Oiler’s GM Ken Lowe’s statement this was “a hockey decision and not a financial decision’ is laughable. This was neither a hockey or a financial decision – it was en ego decision.

Indeed, a tearful Smyth was more honest. While getting on a plane at Edmonton International Airport he summed up the process by virtually pulling the definition of positional negotiation out of a textbook: “We were stuck in our concrete, they were stuck in theirs.” (Edmonton Journal) Interestingly, the very fact that Smyth was crying indicates that, while both parties were arguing over money, financial concerns probably only made up a small fraction of each party’s numerous and complex interests.

To contrast against their positions I’ve quickly brainstormed the following list of each party’s core interests:

Ryan Smyth’s Interests

Oiler’s Interests

Maximize (or receive fair?) compensation
Set precedent for future negotiations
Stay close to/not have to relocate, family
Maintain links to community
Play on winning team
Play on Stanley Cup contender
Profitable franchise
Increase franchise’s marketability
Increase personal marketability
Increase interest in hockey
Play in a market where hockey is a major sport

Minimize (or pay fair?) compensation
Set precedent for future negotiations
Profitable franchise
Field a winning team under the salary cap
Field a Stanley Cup contender
Increase franchise’s marketability
Increase Smyth’s personal marketability
Increase interest in hockey
Maintain/improve morale of team and fans
Strong positive presence in the community

As you can see, money makes up only one (albeit important) piece of the puzzle. But in both cases numerous other issues whose value cannot be easily quantified also factor importantly.

For example, one wonders if $100,000 a year (our of $5.4M!) was worth forgoing if it allowed Smyth’s to keep his family in Alberta and stay close to them (especially given the after tax value of the $100K). Smyth probably also had an interest in maintaining/continuing his community work in Edmonton, a place he likely genuinely considers home (unlike Long Island). Smyth probably also had an interest in ensuring that the Oilers have enough money under the cap to acquire other key players that would have given him the chance to hold up a Stanley Cup.

Meanwhile, the Oiler management likely have an interest in players that are marketable and increase the profile of the team in the community (which Smyth is uniquely positioned to do). One wonders how much the lost revenue from merchandising will cost the Oilers. In a small market a local town hero can be worth their weigh in gold (and then some).

The point is that Smyth and the Oiler’s had relatively few conflicting interests compared to those that were either common or simply different (but not conflicting). Had both parties looked at their full range of interests, and not focused almost exclusively on money, it’s hard to imagine that some creative value-increasing options were not possible. For example: the difference of $100,000 could have been donated to a charity of Smyth choice every year – thus helping Smyth’s marketability, improving both his and the Oiler’s standing in the community all while not contributing to the salary cap. Or the $100,000 could have been converted into bonus pay contingent on Smyth’s performance. Ultimately, two negotiators thinking creatively about this negotiation as a collective challenge, and not locked into an ego-driven game of chicken, could have found a deal. But then Smyth’s agent is probably rewarded based on the money he pulls down and the Oiler’s manager on how much money he saves, so in the end money drove the negotiations… right over the cliff.

[tags]NHL, negotitation, negotiating, Ryan Smyth, Oilers, Edmonton, mozilla, sports, hockey [/tags]

Review of Steven Johnson’s "Everything Bad is Good For You"

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Steven Johnson’s contrarian book “Everything Bad is Good For You” argues that, for the past three decades, a combination of economic, technological and neurological forces have increased the complexity of popular culture. The result? Popular culture is causing us to exercise our minds in new and increasingly strenuous ways. In short, popular culture isn’t making us dumber, it is making us smarter.

To understand Johnson thesis it is essential to distinguish between the content and structure of pop culture. This is because Johnson is not applauding or even condoning the content of pop culture, what he is celebrating is how the increasing complexity of TV shows, video games and internet content is forcing us to work harder to explore, understand, engage and even guide, the content. Better yet, our brains want it this way. The result is a virtuous loop created within the pop culture industry. People who want and demand more engaging and complicated pop culture foster a media industry keen to serve it up. Don’t believe it? Try following Johnson’s advice and watch a TV show from 20 years ago. Invariably, you’ll quickly notice is how linear, simple and boring it is.

What makes this book compelling – particularly when juxtaposed against those who rant about the decline of culture – is its style. Everything Bad is Good For You is not a social commentary piece, anecdotally comparing a rose tinted past to the present (or vice versa). It is a book grounded in evidence and research relying, in particularly, on improving IQ tests as its principal data source. The result is a book filled with little gems. For example, contrary to all stereotypes, white collared professionals who play video games are actually more social, more confident and more adept at solving problems than their colleagues. Revenge of the nerds anyone?

The highlight though, was how the book provided an indirect explanation of a broader societal shift I’ve noticed, commented on, but have had difficulty articulating. Before it properly penetrated the popular consciousness the term ‘network’ kept cropping up in within Canada25. By the time we wrote From Middle to Model Power report the word was such a touchstone for the organization we decided to explicitly make it the central theme of the report. This turned out to be a wise decision.

Whenever I presented on or spoke about the report, the network theme resonated strongly, particularly but not exclusively, with younger members in the audience. Suddenly, everywhere I turned people were thinking in terms of networked systems. Up until this book I’d assumed that this was the result of the internet – that somehow its architecture was influencing how people thought and understood the world. It appears that that answer was only partly correct. Everything Bad is Good For You persuasively argues that the influences behind this emerging perspective are more pervasive than just the internet – they have permeated every medium of our pop culture including games, TV, movies, etc… Consequently, pop culture has been shaping the minds of an entire generation, turning them into system thinkers for whom the network is the structure they most naturally and intuitively identify with. Now there’s an idea I can’t wait to sink my teeth into further…

[tags] book review, Everything bad is good for you, steven johnson, popular culture[/tags]

Afghanistan Op-Ed in Friday's Toronto Star

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Taylor and I had an op-ed we’d written on Canada’s mission in Afghanistan published in the Toronto Star on Friday. Below is the original text we submitted to the Star. I like this version as it contains some of the arguments that got cut, most notably that there is a direct connection between our policies in the downtown eastside of Vancouver and the streets of Khandahar. Interestingly, Harper has promised, in the coming weeks, to table a strategy for Afghanistan. Our hope is that it will reflect some of the concerns outlined below.

Getting Back on Track in Afghanistan

Success in Afghanistan remains as vital today as when the government first sent troops, aid workers and diplomats to Kandahar in August 2005. Many Canadians, however, feel unsure about the mission and want to be assured that our government has a strategy. On February 6^th, Prime Minister Harper promised as much, stating his government will table a report summarizing the progress and challenges to date, and will make a significant announcement about our next steps. This is an opportunity to clarify our strategy and to unite both Parliament and the country around the largest deployment of Canadian forces since the Korean war.

First, let us be clear. Canada has an unambiguous purpose in Afghanistan. Failure to secure and rebuild will leave the country as a failed state, a neo-Taliban led fundamentalist regime, or a training ground for terrorists. Any of these would fundamentally threaten Afghan human security, regional stability, and our Canadian national interests.

Prime Minister Harper must reaffirm our commitment and clearly articulate our way forward. We suggest that his report must address three critical areas that if left unchecked, will cause the mission to deteriorate and could cause it to fail.

1. Return to a strategy that complements counterinsurgency with reconstruction and the imposition of the rule of law. Over the past year Prime Minister Harper has increasingly relied on failed US policies and rhetoric, compounding existing problems and creating new ones. In a battle for the hearts and minds of southern Afghans, an aggressive approach will do more harm than good.

Militarily, the killing of even one civilian can do great strategic harm, turning entire villages against us. The Taliban use these casualties to great effect, so that some Afghans now fear international forces more than those who brutally ruled over them.

We need to rethink our counterinsurgency strategy, by relying less on military force, and more on innovative local interactions. As a start, we must curtail the use of air strikes, resume the policy of compensating civilian casualties and determine how our forces can best support reconstruction. The Liberal cabinet deliberately chose not to deploy Leopard tanks and CF-18’s, prioritizing interpersonal contact with Afghans over brute military might. The Prime Minister must explain why we deviated from this strategy.

Most importantly, we need to ensure effective governance. Support for the Taliban derived, in part, from their capacity to impose law and order. Many felt a draconian but predictable governance structure was preferable to chaos and anarchy. Afghan’s desperately want the stability and freedom that comes with the rule of law. If we want to win their hearts and minds we must enable them to establish a just and fair system as quickly as possible.

Diplomatically, the Taliban resurgence in the south remains unchecked. Our problem starts, not from lofty negotiations with Pakistan, but from our own polarised view of the Taliban. Like the failed de-Baathification of Iraq, categorising all who support the Taliban as “against us”, both radicalizes and creates enemies out of moderates whose political support could help stabilize the country.

2. Align Domestic and Foreign Policies. Support for US-backed counter-narcotics tactics endangers the Afghan mission. Poppy eradication destroys the livelihoods of many Afghans and fuels Taliban recruitment. Forcing farmers to shift from poppies, which generate $5,200 per acre, to wheat, which generates $121, is unrealistic. Farmers need a viable alternative. One that curtails the influence of warlords and reduces the global supply of heroin.

Internationally, the Canadian government should ally with the British to develop a regulatory regime that legalizes the purchase of Afghan poppy crops. These crops could be used in the legal production of codeine and morphine, which are scarce in the developing world.

The Canadian Government should also support the Afghan mission by curbing demand for opiates the one place it can – at home. In our globalized world there is a direct link between the poppy fields of Afghanistan and overdose deaths in downtown Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. Domestic policies that reduce demand for illegal opiates – such as renewing Vancouver’s Insite safe injection site – diminish the market for these illicit crops and make it easier to shift Afghan farmers to alternatives.

3. Provide clarity of mission. Canadians must be provided with the necessary information to judge our strategy and progress in Afghanistan. When Canada agreed to the Kandahar mission it sought to balance development, military and diplomatic components. Prime Minister Paul Martin outlined this strategy on February 22^nd, 2005 when he described how Canadian Forces “…will be assisted by aid officers, who will identify key assistance projects to help to reduce tensions, and by diplomats, who will work with the provincial and local authorities in building confidence with the local population.” Are we still implementing a 3D strategy? If not, why not? If so, what are the benchmarks with which we can measure our success and evaluate the balance between our defence, development and diplomatic efforts?

Transparency is particularly important for effective humanitarian assistance. Critical questions remain unanswered. Where is our development money going? How much are we spending, and on what? Are these programs symbiotic with our military and diplomatic operations?

The Government would be well advised to establish a development measurement framework with clear milestones, based on the Afghanistan Compact, enabling projects to be evaluated and held accountable. Canada could also appoint a Director of Reconstruction to serve as a counterpart to our military commander and charged with achieving our development objectives. Combined, these initiatives would enhance security by ensuring those programs that most positively impact the lives of local Afghans are prioritized and monitored.

While we are but one partner of a large coalition, smart, targeted Canadian policies can make a substantial difference. Because the Afghanistan mission is difficult and, at times, dangerous it continues to test our leadership. Harper’s report is timely, but will only be valuable if he addresses head on the critical challenges we face. Canada needs a clear strategy for success – one that builds trust, engages in development and reconstruction, and ensures the rule of law, simultaneously. Without such a strategy we risk defaulting to a US-style military approach, neglecting development and diplomacy. This is Canada’s mission – let us ensure we tackle it Canada’s way.

[tags]Afghanistan, Canadian Foreign Policy, International Affairs, Canada in the World[/tags]

Yukon bound

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Hi friends, just a brief note to say that I’m Yukon bound in about 2 hours…

Apparently it is -23C in Whitehorse today, but that’s okay cause it feels like -34C with the wind chill. I guess we’ll be testing the limits of my parka.

I’ll be back on Tuesday the 27th but am hoping to post, contingent, of course on having internet access.

Hope to have lots to share – including possibly some insights on my collaborator’s philosophy
of negotiation. Barry’s a great guy and I’m lucky to know him, obviously he’s been doing this a while longer than me, so I’m hoping to learn a ton.

Last exciting piece about this trip. Once concluded I’ll have visited every province and terrirtory excecpt NWT, PEI and Newfoundland. Can’t wait to get to them…

Democracy vs. Gender: The Liberal Solution (part II)

Fit City, Fat City, Dialogue in Vancouver

Democracy vs. Gender: The Liberal Solution

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Dion’s most notable promise of the leadership race was guaranteeing that at least 33% of Liberal Party candidates will be women. This is a laudable goal. Moreover, I suspect the press will follow it closely. If the Liberals fail to reach it Dion’s credibility could be seriously undermined. It is would not be unreasonable to ask: if Dion can’t implement change within a party he controls, how does he intend to affect change if in government?

Some people are – justly – worried about how the goal will be met. Obviously there is a tension between allowing open and democratic nomination contests and ensuring that at least 33% of candidates are women. The easiest option would be to appoint female candidates. This however, carries with it some significant costs. In addition to being bad for morale, disenfranchised riding associations may not donate their time, energy and money to an appointed candidate (male or female) thereby diminishing their chances of winning the actual election.

However, what I have seen in British Columbia (so far) has been an interesting and compelling solution to this quandry. Rather than rig nomination processes (or eliminate them altogether) the party is making two smart plays. First, it is aggresively seeking out highly qualified women in an effort to create a rich pool of candidates. Second, (and this is most compelling part) it is making a direct appeal to members. It is, in effect, saying: when selecting who to support we understand that each of you has a criteria by which you evaluate candidates, we would greatly appreciate it if you made gender a stronger component in this criteria. Interestingly, this appeal could be doubly effective because membership lists may remain closed. Consequently, those campaigning for nomination will probably not be able to sign up new members and with thus have to appeal to the current pool of members (who are more likely to take this messaging to heart).

Best of all, I like what this messaging says about the party. Rather than adopt some centralized top-down way to shape and control the outcome this approach is compelling, appropriate and democratic because it does the exact opposite, it respects and appeals to the intelligence and integrity of party members. Very clever, and very liberal, indeed.

[tags]politics, canadian politics, liberal party of canada [/tags]

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