Champion City Part 4: Doing the Pivot!
Square-dancing: it was once all the rage. Then came the jitterbug. Later, the twist, followed by the cabbage patch and the macarena. Today’s dance du jour? The Pivot! If you haven’t heard, The Pivot is sweeping the nation by storm. Pop into any of the 35 cities in the US known as 2018 Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors’ Challenge cities (of which New Rochelle is proudly one!) and you’re bound to see municipal Mayors’ Challenge teams doing a synchronized one-two, one-two, stop, pop…and PIVOT. City government is rocking out and it’s never looked so good.
But what does it mean to pivot and can you find a good demonstration video on YouTube in advance of your next office social? Regrettably, not yet. In the meantime, allow our New Rochelle Mayors’ Challenge team to give you a primer. The main idea behind The Pivot, really, is flexibility. You’ve got to be limber and open-minded in your approach, otherwise it just won’t work. Move in one direction with purpose. If you suddenly realize that something doesn’t jive, with a swivel your hips and a toss of your glossy mane, boldly adjust direction. Hence, “The Pivot”.
In all seriousness, Bloomberg Philanthropies emphasized the action of “pivoting” as a critical step in the Mayors’ Challenge process when we attended the in-depth training and coaching conference called Ideas Camp way back in March. We were advised to expect that our city’s big idea - as initially brainstormed and submitted in our winning proposal - wouldn’t necessary roll out the way we expected. Therefore, as we proceeded through the process (via a series of three increasingly complex prototypes/tests of our idea) we would need to adjust and refine our approach in accordance with what we learned from each successive experience. That might sound scary and unsettling if you like certainty. In reality, it’s been freeing and eye-opening to our team, leading to creative bursts and a better thought-out idea concept overall. We are really liking the dance of prototype, learn, and pivot.
So, how has our New Rochelle Mayors’ Challenge team pivoted on our project so far? One way we pivoted was by how we defined our end-user. Initially, we were focused on city planners as our sole end user of immersive media tools for planning/design purposes. We later realized that immersive media could be used as a unique and accessible tool to also involve everyday citizens in the urban design process. We broadened our approach to study how, and when, to engage residents in the design of community places using the unique offerings of immersive media. Huge change, and we are really glad we made that adjustment, which now feels like a no-brainer.
Another example: We began the Mayors’ Challenge fixated on virtual reality as the answer to better engaging the community in public design. Those futuristic VR goggles are very stylish accoutrements and we were taken by the mental image of our city’s residents sporting them. But then we realized how interesting AR could be as an option as well. So while we haven’t replaced VR with AR in this project, we have broadened our thinking to consider both as potential new tools in the urban planning toolkit. Figuring out when to employ one over the other is something this process will ideally start to reveal.
We hope our execution of The Pivot is as flawless as those moments when Fred Astaire floats through the air, umbrella in hand, while singing in the rain. A better comparison is probably that of enthusiastic middle-schoolers doing our best wriggling around at our first school dance, hoping we’re doing it right. That’s okay. Either way, we’re learning a lot. And sometimes, when we really manage to nail The Pivot, we are really glad our community is watching and cheering us on.
