Gabe Klein presenting at the Move Together Summit
I recently attended the book presentation Start-Up City by Gabe Klein, former Director of Transportation of both D.C. and Chicago. The first thing I thought was: Wow this guy is pretty young – aren’t high ranking city officials supposed to be white haired? Second thought: That’s a pretty unusual book format – a small, square paperback featuring a colorful, fun graphic.
Probably everyone in the public realm, especially those working in transportation, have heard of Gabe Klein before. As I’m new to the space, I hadn’t. I was delighted to learn that Gabe was an entrepreneur before he joined the city official ranks , and that his experience of running a food truck business in D.C. formed his philosophy of how a city should interact with new concepts and ideas. He also was part of Zipcar and Bikexx, hence his love for new mobility concepts. Klein’s entrepreneurial life has greatly influenced his work as an administrator, and probably has saved him from being burnt out by bureaucracy.
In his book, Klein talks about how he applied startup thinking and working to running a (huge) city department. Chapters with titles like “Don’t be afraid to Screw Up and Learn” sound right out of the tech lit staple – the trick is that Klein tells entertaining stories of how he applied these principles in union-run cities and huge bureaucracies. Stressing the importance of marketing and communication for cities, Klein recalls some of his less glamorous city projects in the transportation department like filling potholes (after 10 years of living in New York, I’d love to see this project copied here!) He created a 3 month “Potholepalooza” campaign, in which he asked the public to take photos of potholes, posting them on the ‘See-click-fix’ website, with the promise to have them fixed within 48 hours. Of course, being able to deliver on this promise was a major accomplishment (and a lot of hard work) but Klein was apparently also able to bring a sense of fun and accomplishment to workers and city officials alike. He stresses the need to work with the best-in-class and that marketing the projects (in chapter 4 “Sell Your City”) is just as important as completing them. It does make sense that “Getting Sh*t Done” – was his personal motto during his time as chief of transportation in Chicago.
Having worked with cities and innovation units in larger corporate companies I appreciate that this book applies the seemingly “easy” concepts of building successful startups to the sometimes tough realities of large organizations where not everyone embraces change. Sometimes the author uses simple tips like using S.M.A.R.T. management tools even for government employees–S.M.A.R.T. stands for Specific, Measurable, Agreed-upon, Realistic and Timely. People need to love what they do, and Klein doesn’t get tired of telling us that cities all around the country can be leaders in changing behaviors in a profound way.
While Start-Up City starts on an easy note, Klein gets into more complex topics in the second half of the book. His thesis is that cities and governments need to adapt to consumer behavior and a shift in paradigm in which many of the old models of doing business simply do not apply any longer. The likes of Uber and Airbnb have forced cities to rethink not only modes of transportation but also the way consumers want to interact with administrations. Klein showcases how the more progressive-thinking cities have found creative ways of public-private partnerships and what else is awaiting us in a future with autonomous cars and citizens that embrace being self-employed, even when that means holding two or three jobs.
One shouldn’t judge a book by the cover after all. The light title and the fun graphics are not here to cover for little content – the opposite is true. We need to see graphics and pictures to understand the fundamental changes our society is undergoing. Klein manages to explain these changes systematically and at the same time to suggest solutions to big challenges that lie ahead of us.
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