A Book Review by Matt McQuillen, Assistant to the City Manager, Ankeny, IA

In April 2010 I was in the audience for a keynote session by Jeremy Gutsche at the Creative Cities Summit in Lexington, KY.  He was a very engaging speaker talking about ways to harness the opportunities that times of change offer and turn them into new, innovative ideas in your organizations.  Jeremy’s energy and fun presentation style is translated in his book Exploiting Chaos.  Jeremy comes from a corporate marketing background and runs a website called www.trendhunter.com where he and his network of people identify upcoming trends in the areas of pop culture and innovation.  

I believe his book is a must read for anybody looking to find a different way to do things in their organization.  Jeremy presents interesting models to encourage new lines of thought, such as his “Adaptive Innovation” model which I have begun to use in my organization as a way to address an issue that needs fresh perspective and unique solutions.  

With all the discussion around the “new normal” communities need to figure out ways to adapt to an ever changing environment in terms of citizen expectations and service delivery.  To drive home this point Jeremy relates to a quote by Charles Darwin, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but rather the one most adaptable to change.”  The analogy for communities may not be death, instead other forms such as forced consolidation or bankruptcy.

Exploiting Chaos encourages communities to not be afraid of experimentation.  I believe we can all list off the barriers we see to experimentation in the public sector, whether it is risk-adverse elected officials or employees set in the “we have always done it that way” mentality.  Government has a tendency to stick with traditional techniques.  

In his book, Jeremy encourages you to “avoid retreating to your comfort zone.”  Finding a new way to deliver a service with experimentation requires commitment on behalf of the front line staff attempting the new technique and management for not being afraid to let it fail.  If a failure occurs Jeremy does not want you to revert to your comfort zone, rather go back to the drawing board using processes like his “Adaptive Innovation” cycle to create rapid prototypes and try again.  

The creation of ideas, or as Jeremy terms it “ideation”, is perhaps the most important element of experimentation.  If you go into an ideation session with passion and commitment it will translate into breakthroughs when you least expect them.  So be mindful of the ideation process, as my favorite quote from the book drives it home, “prevent ideation from sucking!”  Make it a fun environment and allow for the creativity of your employees to flow unimpeded.

Finally, experimentation requires you to stay abreast of the latest techniques and be a trend hunter.  Jeremy encourages this by suggesting you should actively be seeking different types and forms of inspiration.  This is where the Alliance For Innovation comes in.  With the infinite resources of the new Knowledge Network and various webinars/workshops any AFI member can be a trend hunter.  Use these resources and your regional director as the filter to help you cluster ideas and find new ways to experiment with service delivery.