#3x2x8 – Kick starting the "sustainability convo" in the Comox Valley #CV2050

The Comox Valley is an amazing place. Visually stunning. Socially alive. Culturally vibrant. Politically entangled. A set of human/natural/historical circumstances that confounds newcomers, exhausts those who butt their heads against the status quo. A can of worms that doesn't want to get opened. Yet always shifting, and capable of great – sometimes surprising! – shifts.

One of these is the current Comox Valley Sustainability Strategy (CVSS). I'm not going to go into all the history and the political machinations that led to this... (let me tell you folks, it's been stewing for at least 16 years) I'm just happy that there is a CVSS, a regional conversation on what "sustainability" might mean in this place.

I'm also tickled that I get to play a small role in stimulating this convo. The deal? I've got a teeny tiny contract to do something I love, related to this place I love, about a topic I think is ¡muy importante!

With a couple of long time friends and fellow Valley-lovers/crazy people, we cooked up a project and called it #3x2x8. Lucky me (I'm not being ironic – I feel pretty blessed right now), I get to interview people about "sustainability." I get to do my social media schtick with these interviews (that means I'll be using YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc and tagging it all with #3x2x8 and #CV2050 so you can find it). I get to talk to people about stuff that matters to me in a way that means something to me (and isn't just more policy/public meetings stuff – frankly folks, if I have to go to one more public meeting it's one too many). With #3x2x8 I get to cut through some of the noise around "sustainability." I get to make it a little momre real, tangible, and accessible.

Sorry if #3x2x8 sounds like geek-speak. In real-time/real-space, #3x2x8 means this: some folks who love the Comox Valley (that's David Stapley, Meaghan Cursons, and me) wanted a simple, straightforward way to stimulate and deepen the conversation about sustainability in the Comox Valley. We also wanted something that would sustain and change over the coming months and years as all of us work towards making this place a more resilient and thriving home. It looks like this:

3 = 3 questions / 2 = 2 community leaders / 8 = 8 pillars of sustainability

3 questions...
1. What part of the CVSS excites you?
2. What will be the challenges in implementing the Sustainability Strategy in the Comox Valley?
3. In what ways do you think your community organizations / business / local government / neighbourhood
can work with local government /neighbourhood / business / community organization
...to help create a sustainable Comox Valley?

I'm already off and running with #3x2x8. I've been doing video interviews of 16 community leaders (2 leaders x 8 pillars) and posting them to YouTube and Facebook.

The 16 Community Leaders...
How did we come up with our 16? This was tough. In a community like ours, choosing only 2x8 "community leaders" is a challenge. Politically risky. We have lots of great people in "community leadership" roles – and very poor mechanisms for mentoring/laddering them into "useful" positions. (I can't help digressing here: Folks, this is not rocket science. One of our neighbouring communities is quite successful, in part because it uses a civic "committee" system to bring fresh ideas/blood to the Council table. They're building community capacity/leadership/resilience. We waste our leadership talent – but we've got so much we don't even notice!) 

We just plunged in with our choices. We invited folks who've taken a lead in being involved one of the 8 pillars of "sustainability" in our community. But we think you'll disagree with some of our choices... and....

....This is what I love about the #3x2x8 project: we're only kick-staring the convo. We KNOW you'll see the gaps in our leadership roster (it's true, there are more than 16 perspectives on what sustainability in the Comox Valley looks like – amazing, but true). Given the means of production (a simple digital camera, access to a YouTube and Facebook and Twitter account) and our #3x2x8 template, we WANT YOU TO PICK A BONE WITH US.

Democracy in action... or something messy like that
We hope you'll go and interview the folks we've missed (your neighbour, for one; your spouse for another). All that we ask is that you post them to Facebook or YouTube or VIMEO. Tweet about them. But, above all, we ask that you TAG THEM: #CV2050 #3x2x8. Why? Because then anyone in the Comox Valley can search and find the convo – and your contributions will rank as high or low as ours, maybe higher if you've got lots of readers/followers/etc. Democracy of the media.

Reasons for being...interested in sustainability in the Comox Valley
Why are we doing this? The big motivation behind the whole #3x2x8 thing (and the #CV2050 convo that preceeded it) is about trying to stimulate an important discussion that doesn't stop at a civic policy document. It's something that Señor Stapley, Ms. Cursons, and I have been working on in our different ways for years now (15 for me). Muy cool that we get to connect – and connect to something like CVSS.

But #3x2x8 is just a start. I'm just doing 16 interviews. Asking 3 questions. That's 48 responses. In a region with about 62,326 folks (that's from BC Stats).

Help!
I want your help. Take the template. Run with it. Play with the process. Interview your sister, your father, the guy who delivers the mail. Buy your boss a beer and ask him the 3 questions. Video it. Make an audio podcast. Write it up. Post it to our CV2050.com website. Or our CV2050 Facebook page. Follow the convo at our CV2050 Twitter account.

This is serious stuff.

But it's also something to play with.

People in the Comox Valley know how to get things done, and we know how to dance, sing, throw parties and festivals – we know how to make things happen and how to have fun doing it. I think it can be the same with "sustainability."

The important thing is that people are talking about and thinking about what kinds of changes do we need to make, to ensure that in the next decade (2020), or at 2050, there's a beautiful place to live in what we now know as the Comox Valley.

hpm
October 28, 2009