President’s Message, July 2009

I am a firm believer that focused planning is what turns organizational goals into real outcomes.  We at Communities of Tomorrow engage in a continuing process of planning for outcomes, starting with our long term strategic plan, which is then broken down into shorter term business plans, and then tightly-targeted implementation plans with accountability benchmarks.

The reason that I wanted to touch on this internal process, is that we are seeing results from our efforts.  The work we do of building collaborative partnerships in the innovative infrastructure field can often take a long time to bear fruit. It is simply a characteristic of the process.  New concepts need to be fleshed out. Often a prototype must be designed and built.  Next field-testing must be undertaken. All of this requires close co-operation between numerous players, which means that it all takes time.

One of the areas where we are now seeing some good results is in our relationships with municipalities.  We have been working hard to get input from the people that run Saskatchewan’s cities, in terms of how they can introduce innovative approaches to dealing with their existing infrastructure challenges. Based on the feedback we’re received, our experts Bland Brown and Harlan Ritchie are now working with several cities to plan special-purpose meetings with their staff members.  During these meetings they will be assisting the staff in trying out creative thinking processes that lead to innovations.

I want to thank the Mayors and City Managers of Saskatchewan’s cities, for inviting us to their annual meeting in Melville.  They provided us with an excellent opportunity to talk about building a Municipal Innovation Network in Saskatchewan, and gave a strong endorsement to CT’s efforts.

Our e-newsletter will be taking a summer vacation. But our work continues, and we’ll be back in September to report on the latest developments. In the meantime, have a great summer, and think innovation!