Gee 20

Gee 20 (An Older Post recopied here)

My mother came to visit us a few weeks back. We had invited her to come for a long-overdue visit. My family is spread out around the country, she lives in Wisconsin and getting face-to-face time is unfortunately an all too infrequent occurrence so this qualified as a big event. Even though it was only my mom or perhaps precisely because it was only my mom we spent the better part of the week leading up to the visit engaged in a flurry of cleaning, organizing and, to borrow the ubiquitous Pittsburgh term, “redding up” the ol’ domicile.

Pittsburgh is undergoing much the same endeavor with the impending G20 Summit as we “Welcome the World” to the banks of the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio this September. Big events are great catalysts for change. Valentino Castellani, the Mayor of Torino, Italy spoke at a CityLive lecture here recently about how the Winter Olympics of 2006 became a catalyst for that region’s realization of a litany of infrastructure projects – the foremost being hi-speed rail that connects Torino to other parts of Italy as well as Europe with an ease and speed that was unprecedented. Big events elicit big ideas, hopes and dreams. They also puff out a lot of hot air – creating events designed specifically around the big event that typically become forums for politicians to take credit – some deservedly - but more often not so much.

Now, my mother’s visit required that I give attention to some neglected tasks that the everyday routines had rendered insignificant – in short, I got a bit lazy. Everyday routines tend to do that – get in the way of progress. Rebuilding the garden wall, staining the deck and patching the hole in the kitchen wall were secondary to grocery store runs, laundry cycles, some golf and, oh yeah, going to work. But coming she was and even at age 48, fear of your mother’s disapproval is still a great motivating factor to get things done.

Similarly, the region is hyperventilating as it prepares to “Welcome the World”. “Clean up! Fix the roads! Cover up the decay, neglect and ugliness! Show we’re not the smoky city! We’re green! ” All have been shouted from rooftops and boardrooms in one form or another since the announcement. All are laudable. All should have been shouted about before.

The singular difference, of course, between my exertions to our Penn Hills chalet and the ones currently underway region wide is that while my mother – or anyone invited to our home – comes around fairly infrequently, this region is – or should be – constantly inviting people, businesses, conventions and summits to live, work, meet and play here. “Welcome the World” should be a 24/7/365 thought process – not reserved just for Sept 24th and 25th.

It says here that we should be who we always were – resourceful, inventive, energetic, and tolerant and for the most part, you know – fairly happy and productive. The G20 is a great thing for us to be hosting and this is in no way knocking any of the enthusiasm for being excited about it – it’s most definitely a good thing. The hope is most of that energy gets channeled into lasting initiatives and not built up with vacuous and ineffectual grand gestures for what is fundamentally a business meeting that most of us will not be attending. It’s ironic and a bit sad that we all of a sudden have a mad desire to “clean up” abandoned storefronts and the like because of the great motivator that is the G20. That’s a stimulus that should be ever present.

We were picked for a reason – several reasons actually. President Obama likes Pittsburgh. That seems fairly obvious – roots for the Steelers (after Da’ Bears), appoints Dan Rooney Ambassador to Ireland and occasionally requests Pamela’s pancakes for breakfast. I think the real reason he likes us though is because of the aforementioned attributes – we figure things out and get things done. Not always cleanly or the most efficiently - there’s a chunnel and a casino that come to mind – but there are a lot of good minds and good businesses here that contribute mightily to the potential that is Pittsburgh. We’ve transformed. What attracts the President and others is what has been building for the past 25 years or so as we have evolved into a hub for healthcare, academia, the related tech associated with both and of course, there are those pancakes.

Nathan Martin, CEO of the mobile software design, development and strategy studio deeplocal, (www.deeplocal.com) which is housed in Pittsburgh’s increasingly hip east end and is most definitely one of those good businesses that contributes, has spoken about the idea of “micro-revolutions” which advances the notion that grand revolutions (or big events) are rarer – not impossible but harder to author and more importantly, to fund - especially in an urban redevelopment model. Smaller, incremental gains accomplished over time will foster larger and longer-term career gains for a region. What will make Pittsburgh audacious, weirder and more interesting will be rooted more in thousands of small community projects through service, donations, design and diverse thinking and less so in singular big events.

I’m not convinced big events even really get remembered all that much. I mean I know the Steelers won the last Super Bowl but I couldn’t tell you who was even in Super Bowl XXXIV (OK, I googled it – Rams vs Titans). There are also the various monuments to unintended consequences that big events typically produce – most recently evidenced by Bejing, China’s Bird’s Nest stadium. Not even a year after their own big event, the stadium stands virtually empty – the home to nothing in particular. Paint is already peeling and there are nebulous plans to turn it into a “shopping and entertainment complex” – not exactly an Olympian ideal.

What are remembered are moments. Moments are rooted in consistency, authenticity and surprise. Moments are sustained by an emotional connection. Pittsburgh needs to continue to produce more moments. The real opportunity here is to do less chest beating, take more action and produce more moments. If we harness this collective energy inspired by the big event into ongoing, sustainable and authentic community organizations, businesses, neighborhoods and individuals that make this place vibrant, eclectic and an interesting place to live – rather than fabricating temporary ones around this singular occasion – these will sustain long after the motorcades leave town and we’ll be doing more to ensure future Presidents and G20’s come to visit more often.