Preparations Underway for Municipal Insighting Sessions

Communities of Tomorrow staff are working with a number of Saskatchewan municipalities to prepare brainstorming sessions on innovative approaches to the cities’ infrastructure challenges.

“We call the process insighting,” says Communities of Tomorrow Technical Support and Business Development Coordinator, Bland Brown. “It’s all about getting everyone from equipment operators to city engineers in a room, talking about their big infrastructure problems, and possible solutions.”

The idea for the sessions arose from Communities of Tomorrow staff consultations with municipal representatives across the province.

“During our meetings with engineers and city managers, we heard time and time again that focusing time and resources on innovative approaches is a challenge for municipalities,” says Brown. “In many cases they may even have a great new idea, but just don’t have the time and people to flesh it out.”

Bland Brown stresses that the municipal insighting sessions are not necessarily about finding answers, but about asking the right questions.

“We want to build an atmosphere where everyone feels comfortable speaking up and being open and what is challenging them, even if they don’t have any answers,” says Brown. “But we do expect that some great ideas will emerge.”

A total of seven cities have committed to holding the sessions, and are now working with Communities of Tomorrow to find dates when their staff can be pulled together for a day. A number of other communities have expressed some interest in this concept, and are also considering scheduling meetings.

“Our role is to lend a helping hand in developing a path to innovative thinking,” says Bland Brown. “Once we see the problems, and perhaps potential solutions, we can also look at finding resources for these cities, whether that be industrial suppliers of services or researchers to take a deeper look at the issues.”

It is also hoped that the insighting sessions will create a longer term legacy, assisting municipalities to grow a culture of innovative thinking within their organizations.

“There is an enormous reserve of human capital in our cities,” says Brown. “We have experienced people with very creative minds, and we see this process as a way of sharing all that knowledge to find new approaches to the infrastructure challenges that all of our cities face.” Municipalities interested in pursuing insighting sessions for their group can contact Bland Brown at 306.522.6699 or e-mail Bland at bbrown@communitiesoftomorrow.ca .