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Time to Open the Door Opinion
from Zeitgeist President Bill Geist, taken from the Autumn 2003 issue
of the ZEITGEIST Client Newsletter For some, it’s when they peer into a full length mirror after stepping out of the shower. For others, it’s when they realize they’ve “lost a step” when competing in a sport that once came so naturally. And for others, it comes when hair begins to thin or gray. Despite looking into that mirror, losing a step (or two) around the basepaths and having my temples turn silver, it took a recent post on a community bulletin board in my town to drive the message home with shuddering finality. It was the day after our Mayoral elections. A man that had been dubbed the “Madisonian of the Century” (the last one, not this one) was coming out of political retirement to run once again for an office and a City that fit him like a glove. Indeed, Madison, Wisconsin’s, recent spate of Top Ten Awards for everything from livability to business owe more to this man’s vision of the way a city should work than anything else in the past half century. A leader in the anti-war movement in the ‘60s, Paul Soglin started a four-term run as Mayor of the City at the age of 27…so he had that anti-establishment thing going on. But somehow, it worked…and he revitalized our signature “State Street” (which connects the Capitol and the University) and realized the creation of a jewel of a Performing Arts Center. He came back to be Mayor again in the late 1980s and pulled the City kicking and screaming into the realization that it couldn’t rest on its laurels. He led the drive to build the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Monona Terrace Convention Center in the 90s…and the downtown, which had become drab and lifeless in his absence, exploded into an eclectic mix of entertainment and dining venues and unique shops. He stepped away from the Mayor’s chair again in 1996 in an unsuccessful Congressional bid (polling research revealed that Madisonians didn’t want him to go to DC…they wanted him to keep on being their Mayor). But, after six years of listless leadership by his successor, Soglin couldn’t stand by any longer. He had to run again. He lost. The Madisonian of the Century. One of the most brilliant urban minds in the country lost to a baby-faced newcomer with no meaningful management skills or experience in city government. He lost to a non-profit-world X’er who stressed that he had “new ideas” and that his opponent possessed only “yesterday’s answers.” Never mind that this was all so much meaningless rhetoric. It’s what resonated with a cadre of citizens that normally didn’t vote...but did this time because someone that looked like them was running. Soglin lost because he looked old. He was positioned by his opponent as yesterday’s news. And one look at the victory party of the newly anointed Mayor should have told me what it took an arrogant post on an internet bulletin board the next day to drive home. “We took this City yesterday,” read the post. “Long Live the Creative Class. It’s our City now.” As I stared at the words on the screen in front of me, it became crystal clear. This is a world that is being claimed by 30-somethings. Just as a cartel of 30-somethings changed the face of Madison in the 90s…a new group of 30-year olds is stepping up to take their swing at the ball. Leaving the boomers on the sideline to help…but not lead. And I thought back to those heady days when a handful of us ran headlong against and into history. We didn’t wait for the 40 and 50 year olds to lead us to the promised land. We took the wheel of the City and flattened the pedal against the floorboard. And we chuckled as our seniors strained to keep up. While I can’t prove my theory, I believe that it’s more difficult for those of us that are boomers to let go of the wheel than our parents. We are the generation that still thinks it is young. We still like to rock. Many of us are still as active as we were as kids. We don’t feel old. But, guess what? Old or not, it’s time to understand that the Xers are ready to try their hand at the wheel. It is a new world with new expectations. Boomers accused their parents of screwing up the world’s environment and plunging us into Vietnam. Xers need only look at the Enrons, WorldComs and the Clinton White House to say (as boomers did 30 years ago), “OK, time’s up. Move over.” As I look around at the scandals that have buffeted the CVB industry over the past year, I can’t help but wonder if some of our veterans have stayed, as Bonnie Raitt once sang, “too long at the fair.” Yesterday’s modus operandi doesn’t cut it in today’s world…and yet many of our veterans haven’t been very quick to pick up on this trend. But, that’s fodder for another rant down the road. Instead, the moral of this story is that each one of us that serves a DMO Board needs to take a long, hard look at the people in those seats. How old are they? Chances are there are few Xers and even fewer Millennials on your Board. And that, in my opinion, is a recipe for disaster. It’s their town too…and, if you buy into the tenets of Richard Florida’s “The Rise of the Creative Class,” it’s today’s young talent that will make or break our cities. If they are not at the table, if we are not focused on what they are thinking, saying and doing, our destinations will suffer in the decade ahead. They want to build a Brave New World. Let’s help. The smart DMO CEO helps focus their Board’s Nominating Committee on pursuing diversity of industry, race, gender, geography and other representation when it’s time to add new blood. The even smarter CEO will add age to that mix. We need WWII generation Board members to help us understand where we’ve been and where the bodies are buried. We need Millennial Board members to suggest where we might go. We need Xers to drive the train. And, we need Boomers to help connect the dots that the Xers haven’t yet figured out. We need them all at the table if our organizations and destinations are to thrive in the years ahead. As you approach your next set of Board Nominations, do what you can to encourage your Board to broaden its base....
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