“Concepts are simple but citizen involvement is not easy to do.”
John McGillicuddy, General Manager Mecklenburg County, North Carolina

This is the final installment of the Ambassador Book Review of The Ten Faces of Innovation, written by Tom Kelley of IDEO. In the previous two installments we learned about The Learning Personas (Anthropologist, Experimenter, and Cross-Pollinator) and the three Organizing Personas (Hurdler, Collaborator, and Director).

On October 29, 2009 Katy Simon, County Manager, Washoe County, Nevada shared with Alliance members her thoughts and ideas on encouraging innovation in local government. During this 60-minute webinar she defined innovation, discussed the manager’s role in innovation, identified successful leadership characteristics, debunked myths surrounding innovation, and summarized results from a recent Alliance for Innovation survey on innovation.

We like to believe that we can plan for a desired future, but the reality is that we live in a complex world where many things are out of our control. I do not believe in traditional strategic planning as the means to overcome that uncertainty. I instead believe that scenario planning is the best way to realistically develop contingencies for likely futures. We have to be adaptive and organic and this mind set is in part necessary to be innovative.

What attracted attention on the Knowledge Network during 2012? What information did visitors find most interesting? Which blog posts resonated with readers?