The 2019 ICMA Annual Conference wrapped up on Wednesday, October 23, with the Celebration of Service and an inspiring closing keynote address from Gina Rudan, thought leader and cultural alchemist at Google X. Outgoing President Karen Pinkos, city manager, El Cerrito, California, presided over the final plenary.

Kicking off the morning, Pinkos introduced Marc Landry, co-chair of the 2020 Conference Planning Committee, and Jennifer Veenboer, member of the 2020 Conference Host Committee, who presented a video about the site of next year’s annual conference—the city of Toronto, Canada. The excitement of Toronto in 2020 was followed by the Celebration of Service, a program of ICMA member recognition.

Celebration of Service: Recognizing Professional Achievement

Service awards were announced for those ICMA members celebrating 50 and 45 years of dedication to public service and professional management at the local level. John T. Weiland, city manager, Paola, Kansas, spoke about his 50 years of service, saying he felt like a true American success story, having grown up mowing the lawn outside city hall.

The program also recognized Mike Conduff, Kevin Duggan, and Michael Willis as Distinguished Service Award recipients. In his heartfelt speech, Duggan emphasized that when it comes to local government leadership, “the sacrifices are always worth it.”

Recipients of the Professional Awards included Allen Bogard, Courtney Christensen, Jennifer Cunningham, Howard Balanoff, and Jerrid McKenna.

Honorary Membership Awards were presented to David Altman, Alejandro Rodriguez, and Patricia Salkin. Altman, who was honored for his mentorship over the years, said that it was particularly gratifying to see so many of his former interns now sitting in the audience, having come so far in their careers.

Read more about the recipients of the 2019 Local Government Excellence Awards in the October issue of PM Magazine.

Induction of Incoming President Jane S. Brautigam

Following recognition of the 2019 Conference Planning Committee and 2019 Conference Host Committee, Pinkos introduced Jane Brautigam, incoming president; James Malloy, incoming president-elect; and other incoming members of the ICMA Executive Board: Raymond Gonzales, Michael Kaigler, Robert Kristof, Molly Mehner, Terese Tieman, and Peter Troedsson.

The audience was presented a video about Jane Brautigam and her home of Boulder, Colorado, where she serves as city manager, before hearing from the incoming president herself. Having grown up outside of Philadelphia, she said she learned early on about the importance of American history and of liberty and justice for all. “History tells the stories of the powerful, but often ignores the histories of the underrepresented.”

She continued, “How can we lift up the ideals of justice and equality in our communities while addressing the injustices that exist? We have the responsibility to care deeply and achieve change on the local level. It’s our responsibility to foster hope and optimism, but hope is only the beginning. It’s the impetus to taking action.” Brautigam’s words were truly inspiring and received a standing ovation, and immediately following, Karen Pinkos noted that this is the first time in ICMA history that a female president is succeeding another female president, an important milestone for the association.

Closing Keynote Gina Rudan: “Genius is a choice, not a gift.”

As Google X’s cultural alchemist, Gina Rudan is up close and personal with genius on a daily basis, working with teams of innovators thinking up the latest revolutionary technologies. But she’s convinced that genius lives inside us all, and in her keynote address, offered a number of ways for us to consider our own innate genius.

Finding Your Genius

We were raised to think of genius as a gift and not something we all innately have, when she feels strongly that genius is a choice and is something we can all choose to possess. The key to identifying your genius is determining where genius resides within you, and that can be found at the intersection of what you’re good at and what you love. Rudan tasked us with looking at how our hard professional assets (our strengths, skills, and expertise) line up with our soft personal assets (our values, creative abilities, and passions).

After we’ve identified our genius, we’ve got to express it. She emphasized that once we’ve determined what we’re passionate about and where our expertise lies, we can make the convergence and move toward projects where are hearts and minds can come together.

Having the Courage to Express It

Rudan said a few words about her place of work—Moonshot Factory at Google X, where their mission is no small feat: to invent technologies that make the world a radically better place. She explained that a group can only take on such aspirations if they’re able to truly embrace failure and reframe each instance of failure as a learning opportunity. One of her favorite quotes on the subject is that of Thomas Edison: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

Failure takes courage. Rudan feels that courage and creativity can often make the difference between a project that succeeds and a project that fails. She has witnessed this firsthand on the teams of Google X. She asked us to think back to when and where we’ve had the opportunity to strengthen our courage, most likely in those moments of getting back up after we haven’t succeeded. (And if you’re not failing enough, you’re not trying hard enough.)

Permission to Fail

In her role as cultural alchemist at Google X, Rudan created an awards program for failed projects, hoping to bolster confidence and instill some faith in those employees battling shame and depression because of projects gone wrong. She created “Dia de X” (inspired by Dia de los Muertos, the Mexican holiday celebrating loved ones who have passed away) to eulogize failed projects and emphasize the power of lessons learned.

She explained that many of us don’t give ourselves permission to fail, saying that even at the community level, we have to be ok with failure as a means of finding what works best for our residents.

Want more?

You can access this presentation and other 2019 ICMA Annual Conference sessions through the ICMA Virtual Annual Conference Archives. Available on demand, it’s a great way to participate in educational sessions presented by knowledgeable speakers and earn credits toward your ICMA-CM or AICP-CM without the cost of travel.