Alan Gutierrez

I went to the communications and outreach meeting that Concordia held. It was disturbing.

We are shortly approaching the anniversary of the flood. In the meeting, we were asked to brainstorm on ideas outreach. Let’s define the problem, and start spit-balling. This is where the frustration the neighborhoods felt, is felt by me. You cannot tell me that we need to start with a blank sheet of paper. Bettie Hill was literally writing “Phone Banking” on a blank sheet of paper on an easel.

WWL-TV was there. Not to brainstorm, sadly. They were there to film the event for the evening news. The correspondent had to explain to Stephen Bingler, that there were ethical boundaries that prevented WWL from participating, now that they had been invited to cover the meeting, rather than contribute to it. Despite the fact that she wishes she could, she would have to be invited, and no, it was too late to change.

That was a glaring failure on the part of this krewe. It was a stunning admission.
It is now obvious that television to them means publicity for Concordia, and not outreach. Had they been in touch at all with local television during the UNOP carnival?

Concordia did not want television at the UNOP meetings. Concordia wants to control the process, as if it were a product launch.

Which it may well be.

The meeting was another display of the Concordia’s “Gosh, this is hard,” fig leaf. They have no idea what they are doing, and they have no shame in displaying their ignorance, despite the handsome sum they are being paid for their guidance in the process. Yet they have no guidance to offer. They best they can do, is beg for answers at every turn. They love to remind us that this is a unique catastrophe, and to our criticisms, they respond, well can you suggest anything better?

The answer to this tidbit of rhetoric, is always yes, but it’s too late by then. Without the easel with the big sheets of paper, how can they capture your idea? Gosh, this is hard.

That was the case with my recent article, For the Record, This Is Not An Election. In it, I offered a viable solution for voting. One that deserves a follow up. There are may viable solutions on offer over at Think New Orleans. Myself and other volunteers are following up on these daily.

There an an old software industry trick. It’s called Vaporware. Tell your use based something new and better is coming, gather user feedback, have press conferences, and while they wait they’ll make do with what we’ve got for them already.

By promising answers and not delivering, this process obstructs progress, it makes us wait until the official communications and outreach plan is released, doing without. Suffering.