I love to vote. From the buzz of an engaged citizenry, to the sanctuary of the voting booth, to surfing channels and web sites to stay on top of exit polls and real time returns. I love everything about Election Day. Voting is at the heart of what makes our American experiment exciting. Voting is the gateway drug to civic engagement. I always look forward to Election Day. It energizes me when our community comes together around the sanctity of the polling place. I love seeing the faces of the many volunteers at the local senior center where I vote. What other civic process brings together elders, boomers, and millennials as volunteers to ensure that everyone who chooses to can exercise their vote? I am always one of the first ones at the polling place in the morning as if the great privilege of voting is fleeting and it might go away if not used immediately. Voting is one of the most important things we do as citizens. Voting is a celebration of human freedom.
As an innovation junkie I believe there is always a better way. The biggest challenges of our time, education, health care, energy, and economic prosperity are systems challenges that require solutions that cut across the public and private sector. Finger pointing across sectors will not work. Engagement and collaboration works. We need to get below the buzzwords of innovation and public private partnerships to co-create our future. We need public sector leaders that get innovation and who are willing to work across boundaries to help design, prototype and test new systems with citizens at the center. Tweaking our current systems won’t work. We need system transformation and that requires government leaders who inspire us and who we can collaborate with us to co-create our future. Election Day is where civic engagement starts. We have to make our votes count.
Rich Bendis and the folks behind innovationDAILY would like to encourage you all to get out and vote. Remember, every vote counts.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Innovate & Vote « It’s Saul Connected
