Let's face the facts. That anybody in the 'big states' even has an opinion of RI is a step in the right direction. At least we have some kind of identity in the broader market. Maybe it's not the one we want. Maybe it's not even accurate. But it is what it is.

As they say: I don't care what you write about me in the paper. Just spell my name right.

These days, the top RI memes are:

• Almost Michigan in unemployment
• Unfriendly towards business
• Government corruption
• That wacky lady in Cranston in the bunny suit

The broader market for the most part does not know much about, oh, let's call it 'our' Rhode Island. Progressive, creative, dynamic, entrepreneurial. You know the drill. 

But 'the underground' knows that story, and knows it well. Do other cities have a homegrown recruiting campaign? I've even heard about a meet-up / support group for NYC transplants. (Take that, Declining Population Studies!)

The fact is that perception generally lags behind reality, and, when reality is focused in the underground, you've got a ways to go to change perception in the broader market.  

Rhody Smart: The Top 5

It's one thing to be an underground sensation known for hip, progressive, creative people doing hip, progressive, creative things (and we still have a ways to go there). It's something altogether different to be known far and wide as a place where smart people go to do smart things with other smart people. 

You've got to start somewhere, and it's not like we don't have plenty of smart things going on. So here's my Top 5 Inaugural Rhody Smart game-changers. 

#5 - The Supercluster

The Supercluster is Providence's unique conglomeration of creative, technical, entrepreneurial and social / sustainable workers. There's quite a heavy dose of self-employment in the Supercluster, so it might not move the needle on any existing government indicators. Still, this is the cultural core of the greater Providence region. Perhaps this should be #1, because this is what's resonating so strongly with like-minded people coast to coast.

#4 - RI.gov

RI.gov has impressed me in general and in particular. I feel the quality of this piece of infrastucture has gone largely unnoticed locally. High usability, enterprise scale websites deliver massive efficiency improvements, and this has important implications for both quality of life and economic development. 

#3 - GCPVD

Just like Providence has a homegrown recruiting program, it also has a homegrown, non-profit to advocate for world-class urban design standards. Greater City: Providence did not start because the founders had too much free time and disposable income. This is a working-man's new urbanism non-profit. Their exceptional work is having a positive impact on crucial projects like the new I-Way and the return of two-way traffic on Empire Street.

#2 - I-Way / Knowledge District

The original "no-brainer" - crumbling, foolishly-sited, ugly and dangerous highway replaced with modern, rational, fully engineered highway. BTW, downtown expands about 30%. And, BTW, you get almost 20 acres of prime urban land for fresh, modern, efficient, green buidlings. Hey, and let's put the wikkit smaat bio-science research kids down there. That'd be awesome. 

#1 - Betaspring

Two of the region's most effective, self-appointed recruiter-ambassadors start a company that makes companies. Governor's Workforce Board wisely sees the value in that. Even if this never produces that massive, breakthrough company, it will certainly produce more modest successes. That is exists and receives substantial public support is a super-awesome message to send to those like-minded people coast to coast. 

You know...the future.

ShareTweet

About Somoco - Is it true that "you feed off the island and the island feeds off you"?

Integrated might be a better term, and we are about integration. Somoco is integrated design build. If we build it, then we designed it, and if we designed it, then we built it.

Integrating "the island" is a real challenge. MV has massive seasonal shift of a factor of 4 or 5. Diverse full time population: native Amer tribe, large black year round, past 20 years - Brazilians - who changed everything. Food, work ethic, nightlife, religion.

Somoco work is 1/3 affordable, 1/3 market and 1/3 in between/other. Now lots of energy work now, "deep energy retrofits".

We had to create non-profits to manage affordable housing and now energy, but Somoco has to keep a distance. Potential for / perception of conflict of interest limits how integrated a company can get with a community.

Simple question: What is your personal challenge?

For years, there was always too much work. Then economic collapse dried that all up. Suddenly, there were many new challenges we never had faced. One of them was the possibility of not having enough work for everybody. Were layoffs a possibility? Not really. Many, many other options before actually getting to a layoff. Bottom line - it's changed our thinking about what work we would accept.

In 2007, Woods Hole Research Center - a world class climate change think tank asked us deep energy retrofit. Our reply was, "thanks, but Somoco doesn't work off the island".  This year we got together to explore the possibilities, and now we're doing the job. People are on the ferry in the cold, dark early morning.

So now we've broken off this island. If we were a design firm, we could go a lot farther, but the build part limits that. We're not sure how we're moving forward.

Somoco is 'employee owned ' but it's not an ESOP. What's the difference between a worker coop vs. an ESOP?

Worker coop, each owner has one vote. An ESOP is broader than traditional ownership, but it doesn't bring any policy changes or democracy. Many ESOPs are less democratic than 'traditional' companies. Some are great. But in an ESOP, the structure does not confer power. In a worker coop, the structure confers power to the worker / owners.

Our model was the Mondragon Coops , a 50 year old coop of coops that's now a multinational corporation. Employee / owners have direct, voting input on policy.

One of their current projects involves a buying or starting US manufacturing companies to do 'good things' like make wind turbines. It's a partnership with the US steelworkers union. That in itself is an emerging trend, and very exciting. Unions and coops have stayed away from each other. Recently, steel workers "got trashed" by Wall St., and are forming worker coops based on work in Spain with Mondragon.

What are the downsides of this structure?

The only real drawback is that once you're successful and have a substantial block of cash equity, they tend to get conservative and risk-averse. Also, people don't leave, so we've had to actively develop a 'next generation' plan to find and develop the new backbone of the company.

What about being the founder and now really letting go?

Fortunately, I didn't know what I was doing. We started as close friends but it was a benevolent dictatorship. The shared ownership didn't replicate the past. The ownership made people much more involved. It took time for people to grow into the role. My fear was that those decisions make this thing I love into something I don't love anymore. And now that's a real possibility.

Another part of this is the generational transfer. Two 6-month sabbaticals I took served as a kind of test to see how people would act in my absence. 1st one was a disaster, but we learned and adjusted. The 2nd one was successful and that approach has 'stuck' with the company.

What's driving the renewed interest in coops?

Baby boomer own a few million small businesses, and over the next few decades, they'll all have to deal with succession. Some think about the legacy, and the options aren't great. Give it to kids who may not care? Shut it down? Sell it to whoever wants it? Not much of a legacy. Forming an employee coop gives them a good option.

How have you gotten into the energy business?

We always did energy work, but it only as part of our own design / build work. Now we do energy-only projects, and that part of the business is active.

You've hired Marc Rosenbaum full time. How is that?

A pain in the ass. (laughter) Marc and Energysmiths have been a consultant to almost every project we've done since almost the beginning. Interestingly, even though Marc's now one of the top salaries, the vestiture process at Somoco is very long on average - 5 years. Because he brings so much experience and has been our ally, the owners - in consensus - abbreviated it for him. To 4 years.

MV economy is 50% hospitality and retail. What effort are affecting the goal of diversification?

My aspirations for the 50 year plan were much higher than what's actually happened. But the Island Plan has created a real awareness about what the local economy is and how it works. So in the current downturn, there is a desire and awareness to make for ourselves. It's really food, craft and energy, and the energy part is crucial.

Our idea is Vineyard Power, and energy coop. Producer coops, consumer coops, and workers coops. VP is a combination of a producer coop and a consumer coop. Offshore wind is going to be a part of it. Cape Wind and its problems are mostly associated with the fact that they did not work in partnership with the Cape and Islands.

Our plan came right from the communities themselves. We fully expect these turbines to be sited and soon.

What emerging conditions do you see for the local economy?

The food part is very exciting, both agriculture and aquaculture. We now have a mobile poultry processing unit, and people have started raising poultry. I expect us to have a permanent poultry processing facility and maybe a fish processing facility.

Also, the island has a very strong land conservation program, and there's nothing to preclude some of this land being used for agriculture.

About the 50 Year Plan planning process, so much of the effort was NOT about the built environment. How did that integration play out in reality?

Much of my disappointment is about my own failing. The plan required us to work full time, and we couldn't. But this was a great effort in the network building, and it could play a guiding role in the future.

Audience Question: What is co-housing ?

It's a Danish housing model that houses about 30 people or so. Enough so there's some level of anonymity / independence, but not so many that you can't know everybody. Parking is on the periphery so it's a pedestrian environment, there are shared amenities, so individual houses are smaller. It's not a social structure or planned-community structure, but it has a lot of community-promoting features.

ShareTweet

First, I didn't know exactly where to go. After a few false starts, I decided to go to the RI.gov homepage where I saw this:

Note the way they promote this common task with a direct link from the homepage. A+

Second, the application itself follows one of the most important usability recommendation for multi-step processes of any kind: chart the user's progress. This clearly shows that I am in the first of seven stages of the process. Because I can see how far I have to go, I am far less likely to give up half-way. If you think this is important for a government web application, imagine how importantit is for an e-commerce website.

Finally - and this is just a small thing, but it means a lot - notice how the "State" field _IS NOT A DROP DOWN MENU_. Drop down menus generally represent a pro-developer / anti-user perspective. Drop downs make things easier for developers and harder for users. The drop down menu for state abbreviations is perhaps the most egregious example. 

I'm going to take a flyer here and suggest that virtually 100% of people who would fill out this kind of form know their state abbreviations. I'm out on a limb here, I know. Jokes aside, usability studies show that people's addresses and other key information becomes 'hard wired' into their muscle memory the point that filling out these forms is virtually autonomic. It's just so much easier to tab / type than to move your hands from the keyboard to work the mouse.

(Note: not all OS / browser combinations support "tabbing into drop downs". Also, a relatively small percentage of users know about those more advanced capabilities - most see the drop down and reach for the mouse.)

There it is: three ways that RI.gov loves users. And they're three good ones. 

If you want to learn more about how non-web-developer executives can make better websites through better usabiity, I'll be conduting a HiPPO training later in February. We'll post date and time on our events calendar soon.

ShareTweet