 
About Us and the Project

Hello and thanks for downloading our e-book project, Who Gets To Lead When We Don't Know Where We Are Going Or What We Are To Become?

This is our work in progress – and we want to invite you to join our conversation.

John McLaughlin has an academic background in engineering and institutional economics. He is president emeritus of the University of New Brunswick and Scholar-in-Residence at UNB's Dr. J. Herbert Smith Centre for Technology Management and Entrepreneurship at the Faculty of Engineering. John is an advisor to Wicked Ideas.

Lisa Hrabluk is a writer. She is also an award-winning journalist, entrepreneur and the founder of Wicked Ideas.

Wicked Ideas is a knowledge-based company that helps build community trust by reframing the conversation around complex public issues. It will host our conversation and that is where we'll further explore the ideas in this e-book – and hopefully meet a lot of you.

UNB's Centre for Technology Management and Entrepreneurship provides technology and engineering students and professionals with the necessary business and entrepreneurial skills to succeed in our ever-changing world. John is co-presenting with TME Chair Dhirendra Shukla the graduate course "Leadership in an Era of Deep Change", which takes a high-level view at the nature of change and what it will take for leaders to be truly effective in this era of deep change.

This e-book explores the issues to be discussed in the course and brings together the ideas we've been exploring for over a decade.

Our collaboration began in June 2003 when John was UNB president and vice-chancellor and Lisa was a political columnist with the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal.

Together, we set out to create a new citizen-focused, public outreach project. We called it Next NB/Avenir NB.

Between 2003 and 2005 we experimented with new ways to connect people and get them working together to develop new ideas to transform New Brunswick. We published nine discussion papers, hosted 16 public forums across New Brunswick and held New Brunswick's first "Big Think" event – SeaChange/Métamorphose in Saint John in June 2005.

We also created a community leadership program, 21 Leaders for the 21st Century/21 Leaders pour le 21e siècle, known today as 21inc.

Over that two-year period we engaged a few hundred people in a deep conversation about the challenges facing New Brunswick and our options for its future.

Now it's time to restart that conversation by using new communications technologies to bring more people together to connect and to collaborate.

Hence the e-book; we think of it as a working document, designed to get you thinking and prompt you to join us – in person and online – to expand upon the ideas in this e-book and to add your own ideas to the mix.

But we don't just want to sit around talking – we want to identify a new cadre of community leaders who will step up and lead the charge for change.

We know who some of you are – and we're excited to meet more of you and to hear what you're doing.

So let us know what you think. Join us at WickedIdeas.ca to delve deeper into some of the ideas in the e-book. Follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/wickedideasmedia or on Twitter @wickedideas or follow Lisa @lisahrabluk. You can email us too, at lisa@wickedideas.ca.

Thanks again and we look forward to connecting.

John & Lisa

October 1st, 2014

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Where Do We Start?

By just about any standard New Brunswick is small. A small population. A small resource base. A small place on the map. But there are advantages to being small. As we seek out our place – be it within the region, the country or the world – we should remember that those who are small can also be nimble. And when you're nimble, sometimes you get to lead.1

The end: that's what the above statement was meant to be. These are the closing lines of Next NB, a two-year public outreach initiative that sought to explore new ideas and plant those ideas in the heads of a new network of community leaders. It was written eight years ago, and in the intervening years, New Brunswick has weathered three premiers, a global recession, the disruptive innovation of digital media, unease around energy prices and a growing feeling that New Brunswick is being passed over. But passed over by what, and how is it happening?

The answers to these questions remain vexingly just out of our reach. Adding to our unease is the sense that no one is actually trying to identify the root of New Brunswick's problems, which means the options now before us may be based more on superficial observations than on deep analysis of our core issues.

While the headlines might imply our greatest challenges lie with the economy and shifting political interests, our problem lies much deeper and the solutions are complicated. There is a lot we don't know, but we know enough about New Brunswick, and the nature of change, to map those first, crucial steps. We are entering unknown territory, brought here by two powerful forces: rapid and profound global change banging up against the demographic and fiscal reality of New Brunswick.

The theories developed by traditional business and public administration schools over the past 50 years will be of little use in dealing with what lies ahead. To survive, and hopefully thrive, in this new post-modern reality we need strategies that develop organically, can shift to accommodate society's changing needs and which, in the end, can provide us with long-term economic stability.

We began Next NB in 2003 asking ourselves if New Brunswickers had a clear view of who and what they were. The blunt answer is...sort of.

There is an obvious pride of place, very specifically defined by our deep attachment to New Brunswick's physical and social geography. However, the province has long been riven with internal divisions. The prevailing wisdom is we are divided by language (French-English) and geography (urban-rural), creating a "rural, French north vs an urban, English south" dichotomy.

It is a division rooted in a long and complicated history, but, over the past half century, New Brunswickers themselves have changed, welcoming and supporting cultural institutions and language policies that reflect modern, bilingual aspirations. However, the political conversation around language has not followed us and instead remains mired in the tired language of division.

Meanwhile, other more contemporary divisions have taken root, specifically ones of age (seniors vs. everyone else) and education (post-secondary graduates vs. high school drop-outs). Together, these newer divisions could have a far greater impact on the scope and tone of our conversation than anything else.

The question is no longer where do you live; rather, it is how. Our inability to understand our shared culture has compounded the failure of our public institutions – government, media and universities – to explore and analyze New Brunswick's contemporary culture in any great depth, or develop policies that reflect its reality.

In his 2011 book "The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You," Eli Pariser quotes pioneering media scholar George Gerbner as saying; "Who tells the stories of a culture really governs human behaviour."2

For well over a decade, the stories that New Brunswick's governments and media have told are ones of mismanagement (Atcon, Caisse Populaire de Shippagan), challenging global markets (particularly for forestry, beer, chocolates), deficit-plagued public finances (NB Power, pension funds, crumbling infrastructure) and inadequate social supports (nursing homes, old public schools, potholed streets).

In addition, New Brunswick is rarely the hero in the stories told by others. In the national conversation, New Brunswick has, for well over a century, been assigned the role of one of the have-nots – a forgettable, semi-rural place populated by fishermen, loggers and socially-conservative senior citizens. It's the drive-through province; barely worth a glance in the rearview mirror as the rest of Canada hurries past.

Meanwhile, New Brunswick's side of the national story is dominated by one narrative: that large outside forces ('Ottawa', 'Bay Street', 'Central Canada', 'U.S. business people') make promises and then consistently fail to deliver.

New Brunswick is used to being disappointed. Do we have any success stories upon which to build a strong society?

To find them, New Brunswickers must let go of their tribal-like connections to individual communities and their resentments of powerful outsiders in favour of embracing a singular sense of who they are. In 2013, those divisive seams cracked open to reveal a deep chasm.

A charred RCMP car and SUV in the middle of Route 134 in Rexton is the defining image of 2013 in New Brunswick. It was the Wednesday after Thanksgiving in mid-October and RCMP officers, acting on a court order to remove anti-shale gas protesters, fired sock rounds and used tear gas on about 100 protesters, many of them Mi'kmaq from the nearby community of Elsipogtog.

The protest camp and blockade had begun two-and-a-half weeks earlier, supported by environmental and native rights activists determined to stop SWN Resources Canada, a subsidiary of Houston, TX.-based Southwestern Energy Company, from conducting seismic testing for shale gas deposits in Kent County. The violence shocked New Brunswickers, who, like most Canadians, are unaccustomed to that level of public rage.

How did we get here? Was Rexton an aberration or a sign we have entered a new, fractious age?

That depends.

New Brunswick will continue to struggle, as will the rest of Canada, as long as we continue to equate the public interest with our own. We may crave to aspire to something bigger than ourselves but in New Brunswick, as in the rest of Canada, we have yet to find it. Neither our national nor provincial narratives tell us who we are as a people and what role we want to play in this new, networked era.

What is our common purpose? How do we balance shared risk with shared value in the face of changing social, demographic, technological and economic forces? We simply don't know.

In the absence of answers to these fundamental questions, Canada's institutions – business, labour organizations, politics, government, journalism, schools, academia, medicine, law, religious organizations and non-profits – have each attempted to frame the conversation through their own, narrow lens. Each attempt has failed because Canadians recognize, whether consciously or not, that the story being told is incomplete. So, without a common purpose to unite us, we become distrustful of our institutions.

This is particularly true of our political institutions, which since the 1950s have experienced a deepening loss of trust. Public policy theorist Hugh Heclo concludes that this indicates "a great many citizens think the ongoing process of our government (winning office, legislating, administering and so on) are failing to work for the institutional purpose intended – namely, to serve the interests of the people."3

Here in New Brunswick, shale gas is simply the latest in a decade-long list of failed conversations between our province's institutions and its people. It failed because the New Brunswick government, under the leadership of both Shawn Graham and David Alward, assumed the government's view of resource development was the people's view too.

This assumption is an absolutist viewpoint destined to fail in a pluralistic society, particularly when we are forced to confront difficult issues such as shale gas and its impact on rural life. It's what we call a wicked problem – an issue that is difficult to define, dominated by multiple viewpoints and linked to other wicked problems.

New Brunswick, and the new government of Premier Brian Gallant, is facing down a lot of wicked problems these days. Coastal climate change, income inequality, Aboriginal self-determination, public education reform, health care delivery, economic growth, debt reduction and population growth are all demanding our attention – and threatening to harm our way of life if we don't come up with solutions, fast. While we may not understand what motivated some anti-shale gas protesters to turn violent, we may feel an affinity for part of their message: their steadfast insistence that they are leaderless.

It's a familiar feeling. As disruptive forces of change chip away at the foundation of our institutions, the rest of us are left to wonder where and how do we have a public discussion about our common interests? In an era of customization, how do we inspire collective action?

Here in New Brunswick, as in the rest of North America, the 1960s and early 1970s are remembered as a period of great optimism and change, with the province's stories dominated by grand gestures and charismatic figures such as premiers Louis Robichaud and Richard Hatfield. Then along came Frank McKenna, New Brunswick's most famous – and successful – political export.

He was premier for 10 years, overseeing the development of e-government at Service New Brunswick, the building of New Brunswick's call centre sector and successive balanced budgets. Looking back, it feels like McKenna was the end of an era, the golden age of New Brunswick political personalities. In fact, viewed through the larger lens of economic and social change, McKenna marks the beginning of New Brunswick's great transition. But transition into what?

Seventeen years have passed since McKenna left the premier's office, and we still don't know what we are going to become in this era of deep change. We are stuck, following well-trod policy paths that continually loop us back to where we started. The end result is a succession of failed conversations around the issues New Brunswickers care most about – K-12 schools, post-secondary education, health care, water quality, forestry management, urban development, rural living, seniors care and resource development.

Meanwhile, in the newsrooms of the province, journalists are leaving. News aggregators and bloggers are challenging traditional media's role as community storytellers. Advertising revenue has decamped to the online world, leaving newsrooms with shrunken budgets, smaller news holes and fewer journalists telling in-depth investigative and analytical stories.

New Brunswick today is a province with a weakened political class and a hobbled media, at a time when we desperately need a vibrant public forum. To begin to tackle New Brunswick's wicked problems, we need to consider what we know and don't know about the rhythm of contemporary New Brunswick life including:

• Our Culture, which represents our shared values;

• Our Institutions, which should embody our shared purpose;

• Our Infrastructure, which supports the exchange of ideas, people, goods and services; and,

• Our Economy, which produces individual and community wealth.

These four elements flow and blend together in our societal sea, and most of the time we are content to float atop its surface. But you can't do that when the waves hit. They bear down on us and wash over us when we are caught unprepared.

Here's the interesting science of a wave: its power is not found in the water; it's in the energy that flows through it.

The energy to push a society forward comes from the imagination and knowledge that flows through its citizens. If we in New Brunswick, and indeed the rest of Canada, are to chart a new course, our traditional business and political leadership must cede its natural inclination to control the agenda, in exchange for gaining access to the collaborative power of the Commons. The power we once ascribed to our public and private institutions is migrating to the crowd and we must follow – or risk being lost in its wake.

1 Hrabluk, Lisa. The Next New Brunswick: A Story of Transformation. University of New Brunswick. June 2005. Pp. 89-90.

2 Pariser, Eli. The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You. New York: Penguin Press, 2011. Pgs. 148-149.

3 Heclo, Hugh. On Thinking Institutionally. Boulder, Colo.: Paradigm Publishers, 2008. P. 12.
New Brunswick's Lost Decade

Spring 2014 arrived in New Brunswick true to its name: it sprung forth in early June, eager and aggressive to erase all signs of our long, cold winter. While on a global scale, the planet experienced its warmest May on record – 0.74 C warmer than the 20th century world average – New Brunswick and much of eastern North America found itself on the dark side of climate change, with a history-making cold wave courtesy of the North Polar Vortex.4 Fatalistic New Brunswickers, so accustomed to having their fates determined by powerful, exterior forces, merely shrugged, cracked jokes about global warming and left the house clothed in layers. Not even Mother Nature is on our side.

Nothing comes easy in New Brunswick. It is a province that craves power but rejects the powerful; that seeks consensus while picking fights; and which bills itself as a province of traders while distrusting all that is worldly. Small wonder that the rest of Canada, proudly flexing its multicultural, urban sensibilities, condescendingly regards the province as a reminder of a simpler time.

Save for the beer ads on Saturday night that laud the East Coast ethos of the impromptu kitchen/cottage party, the region's primary role in the national conversation is to stand as an example of what Canada does not want to be: saddled by debt, under-employed and over-represented by graceless and/or meek public officials. That this describes every region in Canada is conveniently ignored by our national storytellers, who primarily live in one of Canada's six big cities5 and who view big urban policy as interchangeable with national policy.

"Trust us," murmurs Canada's business and political elite, "we've got this bout of economic and social upheaval under control." It's a perspective that conveniently ignores Canadians who don't live in metropolises of over a million people, which according to the 2011 Canadian census was about 54 per cent of the nation's population.6

Our storytellers, both elected and self-appointed, believe they have quite a story to tell. It is a story of hope and promise that views B.C. as our entry to Asia, Alberta as too big to fail, the prairie provinces as our steady heartland, southern Ontario as world-class and Quebec as too big to ignore. Even Newfoundland and Labrador has elevated its national reputation, basking in an alt cool persona thanks to energy mega-projects, icebergs and a unique cultural perspective. But the Maritimes? Now, there's a basket case.

Truth be told, we just might live up to Bay Street's expectations. New Brunswick, along with Nova Scotia and P.E.I., is running out of options. Quite simply we do not have enough money to pay for all the things we take for granted – local schools, hospitals, roads, parks and businesses. More importantly, we have failed to secure new sources of funding, which means we will lose what we cherish because we can no longer afford it.

To understand the severity of New Brunswick's fiscal problem, let's consider the province's net debt per capita7. This number illustrates the size of the debt by dividing it evenly among every New Brunswick woman, man and child. In 2014 the estimated net debt per capita is $15,000. That's a 73-per-cent increase from 2003, when our net debt per capita sat at $8,944. During the same period, our population grew by a scant 0.5 per cent – not exactly a healthy statement.

So what's going on? What happened to the money?

Our economy slowed down, driven largely by global forces, most notably the downturn in the U.S. economy caused by the 2008 financial crisis. However, while other jurisdictions got to work looking for new sources of revenue, New Brunswick faltered.

If we've proven ourselves adept at anything, it is our ability to quietly accept incremental loss. How else to explain the last decade?

In 2003, at the start of the Next NB project, we wrote the following:

"As New Brunswickers we face a great challenge. Between 1999 and 2003 only two of Canada's 10 provinces failed to see their populations increase: Newfoundland and Labrador, which watched its population fall by 1 per cent and New Brunswick, which experienced no change at all. Today New Brunswick is home to approximately three-quarter of a million people, roughly equal to the city of Ottawa. Coupled with the lowest birth rate in Canada and continued loss of young people to opportunities beyond our borders, New Brunswick is on a downward slide that must be halted. That is why we must transform New Brunswick society – economically, socially and culturally – to become a place worth coming home to, a place more people will want to call their home."8

That statement could have been written in 2014; the facts are unchanged: we wasted a decade. We wasted it on false hopes, ineffective policies and tired political rhetoric.

Many New Brunswickers have already felt that loss in a deeply personal way. Our children are gone, and we don't expect them to ever return. Even more damning is the parental advice to "leave and don't look back." New Brunswickers of a certain age now swap travel tips on how to find cheap airfare to visit their children in Toronto, Calgary and Montreal, or they're making note of specials at Sobey's to stock up for the kids' annual visit home. Meanwhile, New Brunswickers in their 20s and teens are making plans to leave, convinced that there is nothing here for them if they envision a future for themselves outside of government, retail or resource development. This leaves the few people in their 30s, 40s and 50s who have settled in New Brunswick to wonder if, despite the great views and cheap housing, they made the right choice to bet their futures on New Brunswick and the Maritimes.

Jean-Guy Finn's 2008 report, Building Stronger Local Governments and Regions, illustrates how bureaucratic boundaries have, over time, enforced cultural divisions. As he writes in his introduction, "tight institutional separation of urban and rural communities without regard for the actual pattern of life and settlement in 21st century New Brunswick doesn't constitute a realistic or worthwhile goal."9

The province currently has eight cities, 26 towns, 66 villages, five rural communities, 245 local service districts (known by the trippy acronym LSD) and, in May 2014, it created its first regional municipality with the amalgamation of Tracadie-Sheila and 18 LSDs. The following chart illustrates how a succession of provincial and municipal governments has failed to follow the guidelines set by the old municipal model.10

Source: Report of the Commissioner of the Future of Local Governance 11

We have been left with communities that lack the capacity to finance a long list of infrastructure repairs, upgrades and additions. First on that list is access to safe and secure water, which Finn predicts will become a significant problem for growing communities. "Future construction of subdivisions will have to be far more sensitive to such considerations as location and density of development," he writes. "Over time, it is inevitable that there will be a need to retrofit communities with communal systems that will provide for more reliable, safe and sustainable water supplies and wastewater treatment."

Finn estimates New Brunswick's municipal infrastructure deficit to be $2.5 billion. Overlaying this and other public policy challenges are New Brunswick's changing demographics.

We are aging. As of September 2014, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia were tied for the oldest population in Canada – and second oldest in North America, just a scant half-a-percentage point behind Florida, the popular retiree state. New Brunswick's senior citizens (people 65 and older) account for 18.3 per cent of the population compared to 15.7 per cent nationally, on average.12

This difference will widen over the next 20 years because our population is not only older than the rest of the country, it is aging faster.

Statistics Canada projects that by 2030, seniors will represent one-quarter of New Brunswick's population.13 This will have a profound impact on our communities – and it will reach beyond the obvious issue of health care. Issues of mobility, housing and recreation will become increasingly important for an aging population of baby boomers who have high expectations of service delivery and of retaining their independence. Government adding more nursing home beds is unlikely to be their preferred solution.

The accompanying graphic illustrates the relationship between New Brunswick's cities and the small communities that surround each, using data from the 2011 Canadian census.

These seven communities are home to 458,642 people, roughly two-thirds of New Brunswick's population. The bulk of them – 360,673 – live in the three southern communities of Fredericton, Saint John and Moncton. Combined, this trio of municipalities is home to 48 per cent of the province's people. New Brunswick is quite obviously becoming more urbanized, just like the rest of the world. But, what does it mean to be urban in New Brunswick?

By contemporary standards, neither Saint John, nor Moncton, nor Fredericton are urban centres – at least not on their own. The story unfolding around the world is of the concentration of people in large cities, who together generate wealth. We see this happening in the development of mega-projects in Asia and Latin America, and in the emergence of new businesses and policy models coming out of knowledge hubs in Boston and Silicon Valley.

Neither New Brunswick's, nor Atlantic Canada's, small cities can compete on their own with what is going on beyond our borders; we simply don't have the minimum threshold population base to stand alone.

This is why we need to learn to stand together as a region. Nova Scotia, P.E.I. and Newfoundland and Labrador each have one dominant city to anchor that growth, but New Brunswick continues to cleave to political boundaries that do not reflect our economic and social realities.

If we want to compete with the world, we have to stop competing with each other. Moncton, Saint John, and Fredericton must work together to create a vibrant, integrated urban community of 400,000+ people – the minimum threshold required to participate and succeed in the new economy.

That will require a level of cooperation and integration from municipal governments and local service district councils that recognizes the symbiotic relationship between town and country.

For instance in Fredericton, 34 per cent of residents live in the unincorporated areas around the city and the adjacent village of New Maryland.14 Most of these residents work in Fredericton for the university, the ICT sector and the provincial government. It is a similar story in Saint John, Bathurst, Edmundston, Miramichi, and Moncton where there are three layers of community – the city, the surrounding bedroom communities and, on the outskirts, unincorporated areas, all home to people who travel for work and play in the city core.

In addition, technological innovation is changing the way we harvest and extract value from our natural resources, enabling community-based industries to develop while increasing efficiencies in the province's large industrial plants.

The old urban and rural divide is giving way to a blended concept of community, which sees rural residents traveling into the city for work and public services and urban dwellers with access to the land and water as an integral part of life in the Maritimes.

This sense of place, so deep in our cultural understanding of New Brunswick, will have a powerful impact on public policy as our aging demographic story unfolds. We have already witnessed one great migration within New Brunswick: the move of young francophones to Dieppe.

The first generation left the Acadian Peninsula in the 1970s to attend the Université de Moncton; they stayed, and subsequent generations followed for both education and economic opportunities. Are we on the verge of a similar exodus?

This time it will be driven by seniors moving to urban areas for greater access to health care services, family supports and transportation, all necessary to maintain independence and stave off isolation. Meanwhile, our working-age population is also looking for communities that suit their needs, whether it's a fun nightlife for young singles or good schools and robust recreation facilities for parents with young children.

Internal migration over the next decade will be driven by a search for age-friendly communities. That's why understanding where we live is vital to defining New Brunswick, because it tells us how we live. Once we understand that, we can begin to ask the right questions about what we want for our future in this province and how we will get there.

New Brunswick's overall economic situation, as it compares to national trends, is where it usually is: behind. The first decade of the 21st century has delivered little good news, with both GDP and population growth consistently below national averages.

As with so much about New Brunswick, this is, at its heart, a geographic story. Dig into the regional numbers and a stark division is revealed. The areas in and around the three southern cities – Moncton, Saint John, and Fredericton – saw an overall population increase, while New Brunswick's rural and northern communities recorded a population decline.15

The Government of New Brunswick's 2014/15 Economic Outlook contained little hope that things will significantly improve under current conditions. The provincial economy isn't growing, due to a combination of slow employment, weak exports, flat consumer expenditures and the completion of the latest round of major projects. As the Economic Outlook went on to observe, "primary household income growth is expected to remain weak until the provincial labour market shows sustained improvement."16 The report does predict limited economic growth via American exports and a weaker Canadian dollar.

New Brunswick business and political leaders like to boast the province has an export-driven economy, but it is far from a diversified one. This is an economy that will, for the foreseeable future, depend on forestry, mining, and oil and gas refining for its economic base. That means it will continue to be susceptible to the volatility of world commodity prices.

Clearly, New Brunswick needs to increase economic growth, but that's hardly news. The demand to increase both productivity and the labour force has dominated New Brunswick's public discourse for more than three decades. In response, successive governments have experimented with public/private partnerships, lowered corporate tax rates, offered tax incentives to encourage labour growth, and created regional investment funds. We've touted community miracles, prosperity plans, self-sufficiency agendas, and government restraint and yet, still New Brunswick falters.

According to RBC's June 2014 provincial outlook17, the gap between Alberta and the rest of the country is stark, with New Brunswick projected to continue to sit near the bottom of the list through to the end of 2015.

Throughout the 20th century New Brunswickers used to comfort themselves that they were never at the bottom of the Atlantic Canadian heap; that place was reserved for Newfoundland and Labrador, purveyor of salt cod and Canada's version of racial humour - the Newfie joke.

Look who's laughing now.

In 2013, Newfoundland and Labrador had the highest growth in Canada at 7.9 per cent, thanks to a rebound in oil production and mining. The province's growth declined in 2014 but long-term, RBC likes what it sees – further increases in mining activity, the start of the Labrador-Island underseas transmission link, and the ramping up of the hydropower mega-project at Muskrat Falls.

As for New Brunswick, the headline on our growth forecast story reads "Warming up but still not sizzling." While others explore new markets, New Brunswick's economy remains chained to American markets; New Brunswick's GDP depends on the U.S. more than any other province.

Hanging over it all is the March 2013 closure of the Xstrata Brunswick mine in Bathurst. New Brunswick's leaders knew about this deadline for years and failed to find a new revenue source to replace Xstrata, until the final hour and the discovery of shale gas reserves by Corridor Resources in 2009. Even in a best-case scenario, with shale gas development allowed to proceed unencumbered by public opposition, New Brunswick still would have experienced a revenue gap between Xstrata winding down and shale gas starting up. Why? Were our political, business and community leaders simply inept and blind to the fiscal threat, or was it something deeper that prevented New Brunswick from planning for success?

We aren't going to lie; we have good days and bad days when we think about being in this place. So with a nod to the power of the listicle, here are three reasons why it's tough to live in New Brunswick these days.

1. New Brunswick's media voices are the stars in a home-grown disaster show.

Based solely on the coverage leading up to the September 22nd provincial election, it's a wonder we all haven't packed up and left. To begin with, there are the hard facts of New Brunswick's poor performance on just about every socio-economic front. Layer on top of that the 'angry citizen' stories that highlight one person's fight with [insert large government or corporate entity here] and the commentators on radio, TV and in newspapers warning us of a dire future, and we are left to stew in a dismal mix of problems. We got everything except what we wanted: a conversation between our leaders and citizens around how to make life better in New Brunswick.

Take, for example the release and coverage of Université de Moncton public policy analyst Richard Saillant's book Over the Cliff? Acting Now to Avoid New Brunswick's Bankruptcy just prior to the election. Dr. Saillant, Director General of U de M's Canadian Institute for Research on Public Policy and Public Administration, treads down a familiar path with his research, the latest in a significant list of data-rich prescriptions for New Brunswick's chronic economic malaise that includes the Deutsch Report on Maritime Union (1970); research presented in Acadiensis, the Journal of the History of the Atlantic Region; the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council's annual Outlook papers; and our own Next NB papers (2003-2005).

Saillant rightfully lays out the story with hard data that should scare anyone. According to Saillant's research, New Brunswick (much like the rest of North America) has reached the end of an extended period of economic growth that was driven by pure demographics; over the past 30 years the economy expanded to accommodate the arrival of the large baby boom generation and women in the workforce. Those demographic factors that once primed the engine of growth are now threatening to send New Brunswick speeding over the proverbial cliff.

Between 2000 and 2010, public spending in New Brunswick grew five times faster than it did over the previous two decades; now three-quarters of the province's revenue is spent on three programs: health, social supports, and education.18 The solution, Saillant states, will be difficult and painful: the New Brunswick government will need to raise taxes and cut services. It is a classic neo-liberal economic prescription, and one New Brunswickers have heard before.

Over the Cliff was endorsed by editorial writers and commentators who have long supported a thesis that the provincial government isn't doing enough to halt New Brunswick's decline. At the same time, it was politely welcomed by the ruling Conservatives, who just as politely declined the suggested tax increase. That, stated the ministers, will be unnecessary if New Brunswick develops shale gas and the Energy East pipeline.

There were a few letters to the editor, columnists quoted him, and Dr. Saillant joined a rather short list of political commentators, called upon to assess New Brunswick's political landscape during the election campaign. However, while the book may be widely shared among New Brunswick's small business and political network, the conversation went largely ignored by New Brunswick citizens.

Take more of their paycheques and give them less services? For New Brunswickers, that's the definition of a problem, not a solution.

2. Our political class is addicted to reruns.

In the lead-up to New Brunswick's Sept. 22nd, 2014 provincial election the five political parties appeared to agree on one key fact: this campaign could be a fight for the future of the province. We agree – but that's not what we got. Instead, we lived through a rerun of the 2003 and 2007 elections, which themselves were a mixed medley of each party's greatest hits from the '80s and '90s. That's not what New Brunswickers wanted.

Consider the highly contentious issue of shale gas development: the Conservatives support it; the Liberals will institute a moratorium in order to reevaluate it through a human health lens; the NDP want to put a legislated halt on exploration until three environmental conditions are met; and the Greens don't want it at all.

The Conservatives' support for shale gas should come as no surprise. From its inception, New Brunswick's economy has been built on resource extraction – trees, fish, minerals, and food. These four sectors have fed the provincial economy, along with a healthy dose of imported petroleum for Irving Oil's Saint John refinery. From the perspective of the provincial GDP (which tells only part of our economic story), this isn't going to change in the near-term.

Who can blame New Brunswick politicians and business leaders for jumping at the chance to spin a little gold of their own and attempt to reduce, or possibly eliminate, the province's chronic have-not status?

Newfoundland and Labrador are doing it with offshore oil and gas; why shouldn't New Brunswick do it too? However, look deeper at Newfoundland and Labrador, and it's apparent that offshore success has had little impact on the province's population decline. Herein lies the deeper challenge for New Brunswick: an election focused on shale gas fails to address the root of our problems. We are being offered a prescription without understanding the disease.

While shale gas may indeed deliver a new economic boom for New Brunswick, the business model is as old as the province itself. For well over 300 years, natural resource extraction has dominated the regional economy. Shale gas is the 21st century addition to that model, which delivers the promise of economic extremes. As anyone in a logging, mining or fishing town will tell you, things will be booming – until the resource runs out or the commodity market changes.

New Brunswickers are united in their desire not to experience that boom-bust cycle again – which means the real question we need to ask is not whether we want shale gas or not, but rather "what else is there?"

It isn't enough that shale gas may dig New Brunswick out of its current fiscal hole; we must set in place new economic, social, and political structures to ensure we don't fall back again. To do that, we have to change the conversation about what we make and how.

Imbedded in those two questions is the understanding that economic growth in the 21st century, be it in New Brunswick or elsewhere in the world, will be driven by knowledge-based capital, classified by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) into three groups: computerized information (software and databases), innovative property (patents, copyrights, designs, and trademarks), and economic competencies (brand equity, firm-specific human capital, networks of people and institutions, and organizational know-how that increases enterprise efficiency). As the OECD reported, "this non-tangible form of capital is, increasingly, the largest form of business investment and a key contributor to growth in advanced economies."19

The way forward over the near-term for New Brunswick and the rest of Canada is going to be a mix of old and new: resource development and knowledge development, not either/or. Until we understand our core values (what we want and what we don't), determine the rules of the game (a new regulatory environment), and place shale gas within the context of a larger, diversified economic development strategy, we cannot confidently decide the fate of shale gas or any other stand-alone economic opportunity.

3. Business and political leaders are reading from an old script that typecasts opponents as angry people itching for a fight.

Our lost decade is littered with the detritus of failed conversations, such as the Fredericton-Moncton toll highway, the NB Power/Hydro Quebec sale, post-secondary education changes, and public-sector pension reform. The pension issue is of particular interest, because its failure is directly related not to the idea itself, but to our inability to develop a solution that serves two core principles that on the surface are in conflict with each other.

In the public pension case, it is the need to honour past contractual promises with retirees while ensuring we treat existing employees fairly.

Between March 2013 and June 2014 the pension plan conversation went from a conversation about reducing financial risk to a fight over intergenerational entitlements. Over the course of 12 months, New Brunswickers watched as middle-class seniors took to the streets of Fredericton to protest government reforms, confronting Finance Minister Blaine Higgs and shouting him down in public meetings. Rather than build consensus, the government now faces a lawsuit, filed by Pension Coalition NB in June 2014, which argues that the changes infringe on retirees' Charter rights.

How did the current government become embroiled in a fight with the former leaders of the very civil service that has spent the past decade warning legislators of New Brunswick's perilous financial state?

By breaking its promise.

At the heart of the relationship between the legislative branch and the civil service is the recognition that public employees accept lower salaries than they can achieve in the private sector in exchange for a good pension when they retire.

This was the basis of the relationship between the Government of New Brunswick and its civil service throughout the 20th century and up until 2012, when the Government's financial position necessitated the renegotiation of that relationship.

But that renegotiation didn't really happen.

Instead, the Government presented retirees with the new, retroactive plan and called it consultation. Retirees – some of who took early retirement to help government reduce the public payroll and/or to clear the way for younger people – pushed back.

They had honoured their end of the bargain through their work – now it was time for the Government of New Brunswick, their employer, to do the same.

At its heart, this is a fight for fairness, and both sides are right. The Government of New Brunswick needs to reduce government spending, and that includes pension costs, while retirees need to trust that the pension benefits they negotiated in good faith will not be clawed back retroactively.

Neither trumps the other, and we need leaders who can work through competing demands to arrive at solutions that provide more help than harm.

Solving each of these public policy issues – public debt recovery, resource development, and public pension management – is essential to New Brunswick's near-term success. We simply will not move forward if we fail to provide wealth security across sectors, age groups, and communities. We must radically change our economic, social and political structures to enable us to take full advantage of the new economy that is forming around us.

We must do to New Brunswick society what early tech innovators such as Tim Berners-Lee, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Larry Page did to information: we must change it so quickly and so radically as to produce an obvious break between 'then' and 'now.'

There are examples for us to follow of governments that undertook deep, transformative change in a short period of time. What is of particular note is not the actual policy changes each government enacted, but the speed and confidence of their actions.

Over the course of two terms, in the mid-1980s, New Zealand's Labour government radically changed the country's economic structure under the direction of Prime Minister David Lange and Finance Minister Roger Douglas. Faced with a staggering public debt – the result of years of government intervention in the economy – Lange and Douglas' solution was to campaign for reelection on a platform of utter honesty about the country's perilous financial situation. Voters returned them to power with a 17-seat majority and Douglas interpreted this as a mandate to moved quickly. His reforms, known colloquially as Rogernomics, reduced the size of the state by instituting deep reforms to the welfare system, reducing the civil service, and ending many economic controls.

A decade later, Estonia followed a similar route. In 1991, it emerged from the Soviet era with a crippling debt and a society out of step with the modern world. In response to their specific situation, Prime Minister Mart Laar and his government introduce a flat income-tax, free trade, its own currency, and privatization – and they did it in less than two years.

During that transformation, Estonian officials visited New Brunswick to learn about Service New Brunswick, at the time a world leader in e-government services. We aren't anymore. While we floundered, Estonia surged ahead, and now it is New Brunswick officials travelling to Estonia to learn from them.

What did New Zealand and Estonia have that New Brunswick lacks?

Analysis of both countries' economic and social reforms always mentions three things: crippling debt, the distain of the world economic community and young leaders who represent generational change. Check. Check. Check. New Brunswick has had all three components for the past 17 years – and yet change never arrives. Why?

We believe there is a fourth element that New Brunswick has always lacked: the belief that we are on our own.

Precipitating New Zealand's reforms was the entry of Great Britain into the new European Union, which ended old colonial-era trade patterns. For Estonia, it was the fall of the Soviet Union and a desire to build a bridge to the open economies of the West. Here in New Brunswick, despite all the dire warnings, we continue to believe that Canadian federalism won't let us fail. No matter how bad it gets, Ottawa will bail us out.

If New Brunswick is to stand on its own, we, its citizens, must learn to let go.

4 Associated Press. Climate Change: May Breaks Global Temperature Record – Technology & Science – CBC News." CBC.ca. June 23, 2014. Accessed September 29, 2014.

5 Canada23, 2014. Accessed September 29, 2014. nto (5.6 million), Montrd September 29, 2014. couver (2.3 million), Ottawa-Gatineau (1.23 million) Calgary (1.21 million) and Edmonton (1.16 million) according to the 2011 Canadian census.

6 Statistics Canada. "Population and Dwelling Counts, for Canada, Provinces and Territories, 2011 and 2006 Censuses." Government of Canada, Statistics Canada. January 13, 2014. Accessed September 29, 2014. http://www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement/2011/dp-pd/hlt-fst/pd-pl/Table-Tableau.cfm?LANG=Eng&T=201&S=3&O=D&RPP=150.

7 We used the New Brunswick Auditor-General, Provinces and Territories, 2011 and 2006 Censuses.&T=201&S=3&O=D&RPP=150 the net debt per capita numbers from 2009 forward. For the years 2003-2008 we divided the net debt by the population, as reported in the Finance Department's annual Economic Outlook report. The Auditor General reports are available here: http://www.gnb.ca/oag-bvg/Reports-e.asp. The Economic Outlook reports are available here: http://www2.gnb.ca/content/gnb/en/departments/finance/budget.html

8 Hrabluk, Lisa. The Next New Brunswick: A Story of Transformation. University of New Brunswick. June 2005. P. 6.

9 Finn, Jean-Guy. Building Stronger Local Governments and Regions an Action Plan for the Future of Local Governance in New Brunswick: Report of the Commissioner on the Future of Local Governance.

10 "List of Municipalities in New Brunswick." Wikipedia. Accessed September 29, 2014. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_municipalities_in_New_Brunswick.

11 Finn, Jean-Guy. Building Stronger Local Governments and Regions an Action Plan for the Future of Local Governance in New Brunswick: Report of the Commissioner on the Future of Local Governance. Fredericton, N.B.: Government of New Brunswick, 2008. P. 29. http://www.gnb.ca/cnb/promos/FLG/PDF/MainReport/mainreport-e.pdf

12 "New Brunswick Now Tied with Nova Scotia for Oldest Population – New Brunswick – CBC News." CBC.ca. September 26, 2014. Accessed September 29, 2014. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/new-brunswick-now-tied-with-nova-scotia-for-oldest-population-1.2778964.

13 Statistics Canada. Population projections for Canada, Provinces and Territories, 2009-2036. Statistics Canada. Catalogue no. 91-520-X, Ottawa, Ontario. Minister of Industry. June 2010. Accessed September 29, 2014. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/91-520-x/91-520-x2010001-eng.pdf

14 Statistics Canada. "Population and Dwelling Counts, for Canada, Provinces and Territories, 2011 and 2006 Censuses: Fredericton." Government of Canada, Statistics Canada. January 13, 2013. Accessed September 29, 2014. http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/dp-pd/hlt-fst/pd-pl/Table-Tableau.cfm?LANG=Eng&T=203&CMA=320&S=0&O=D&RPP=25.

15 Statistics Canada. "Population and Dwelling Counts, for Canada, Provinces and Territories, 2011 and 2006 Censuses." Government of Canada, Statistics Canada. January 13, 2014. Accessed August 20, 2014. http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/dp-pd/hlt-fst/pd-pl/Table-Tableau.cfm?LANG=Eng&T=304&SR=1&S=3&O=D&RPP=10&PR=13

16 Finance Department. "2014-2015 Economic Outlook." Government of New Brunswick. February 4, 2014. Accessed August 20, 2014. p. 9 http://www2.gnb.ca/content/dam/gnb/Departments/fin/pdf/Budget/2014-2015/EconomicOutlook2014-2015.pdf.

17 Ferley, Paul, Robert Hogue, and Laura Cooper. "RBC Economics Research: Provincial Outlook June 2014." June 1, 2014. Accessed August 20, 2014. http://www.rbc.com/economics/economic-reports/pdf/provincial-forecasts/provfcst-june2014.pdf.

18 Saillant, Richard. Over the Cliff? Acting Now to Avoid New Brunswick's Bankruptcy. Moncton: Canadian Institute for Research on Public Policy and Public Administration (CIRPPPA), 2014. pp. 35, 43, 93 & 134.

19 OECD. Supporting Investment in Knowledge Capital, Investment and Innovation. OECD Publishing, 2013. http://www.oecd.org/science/inno/newsourcesofgrowthknowledge-basedcapital.htm
True Innovation Changes Us, the Rest is Marketing

Ignored, abused and sued: this is the state of the Government of New Brunswick's relationship with its citizens in 2014. How did we get here?

Blame it on the Internet.

Amidst all the Silicon Valley-inspired rhetoric about world-changing technological innovations, the Internet is the one piece of technology that has lived up to the hype. Like Guttenburg's printing press and Marconi's telegraph, the Internet and its companion, the World Wide Web, have irrevocably changed how we communicate and in the process, have changed us too.

To understand that change, let's first consider what it means to be human. We are, according to evolutionary biologist Mark Pagel, hard-wired to learn from others. Known as cultural, or social learning, it is distinct from the way all other animals learn in one important way: over time, social learning leads to more sophisticated and refined behaviour. In other words, we improve over time by learning from each other.

For most of our history, we limited that learning to small social groups – our tribes – which, because we knew everyone, enjoyed high levels of trust and an understanding that cooperation was to everyone's mutual benefit.20 Over time, that desire to cooperate for mutual benefit enabled humans to form larger and larger groups, leading to organized society with its metropolitan cities, regional governments, and nation-states.

So how do we manage to stay civil in our growing world? By seeking out people who share our values and allegiances.21 Medieval Europe had its merchant and artisan guilds, the Industrial Revolution witnessed the arrival of social clubs, the Victorian Era introduced volunteer associations, and, for more than 1,000 years, coffeehouses have served as meeting places to discuss politics, trade, and the latest local gossip.

These social interactions proved to be incredibly efficient and effective at sharing information and knowledge. While the arrival of the printing press accelerated the spread of information, human interaction remained essential to building trust and a sense of group identity. In other words, getting together isn't just fun, it's necessary to build and maintain social capital – the glue that holds civil society together. That desire to share doesn't just make us feel good; that ongoing exchange of information is key to our survival.

If the rise of social media is any indication, we are much more generous with our ideas (social capital) than we are with our stuff (manufactured capital), our money (financial capital), our talent (human capital), or, as climate science suggests, our use of the planet's resources (natural capital).

Those ideas – and our compulsive desire to share them – are what will save us, but only if we are willing to mimic the natural world in one other key way: we must be open to adaptation. We must be willing to bend; however, the Web's ability to reinforce our own biases is hardening our approach to civic life.

While each of us practise compromise and conciliation with varying degrees of success in our private lives, as a society, we are becoming far more unyielding in our approach to civic life. As New York Times media critic David Carr said; "The problem with the Web is whatever answer you are seeking, you will find it."22

Of all the Internet's promises, the one that we failed to deliver on is also its most famous: Think Different. Apple's iconic ad campaign, which has decorated countless dorm rooms and office cubicles, is classic Steve Jobs-era Apple: aspirational in its intent.23 Even now, 17 years after it debuted, we can hear Richard Dreyfus' voice in our heads say those now-famous lines:

"Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. But the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."

It was the perfect value proposition for The Breakfast Club/Reality Bites generation, the kids raised on video games, music videos, the 24-hour news cycle, and the John Hughes universe of geeks, nerds, and outcasts. In 1997, they were young adults, trying to fit into a workforce grappling with disruptive new technologies: misfits and rebels, every one, at least in their own minds.

Former Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson's theory of the long tail, which has propelled countless tech start-up ideas since it was developed a decade ago, is born of Gen X's early use of digital technology. Buzzfeed, amazon.com, and the U.S.-led network of progressive political organizations have their roots in Anderson's theory that as distribution costs fall, narrowly-targeted messages can connect with a large number of like-minded people.24

That's great if you're selling stuff, connecting with fellow fans or planning a grassroots rebellion, but the long tail is highly problematic for civil society because it does precisely the opposite of Apple's aspirational message: it reinforces our desire to think similar.

Why? Because our brains are trained to filter out most of the information and stimuli we encounter by concentrating on the information that coincides with our existing cultural, social, and personal experiences. Psychologists call this "the confirmation bias," and it plays into our social learning by drawing us to similar-minded groups of people. Traditionally these include organized religion, political parties, service groups, sports teams, fan clubs, school activities, and our feelings of nationalism. To be successful, these groups needed to employ broad messages to appeal to the largest number of people. That's not the case online, where network effects have enabled niche groups to attract large audiences, all with a narrowly-defined shared focus. 9/11 never happened! Sunscreen causes cancer! Big Oil is destroying the planet! Environmentalist is another word for eco-terrorist! Organized religion is the root of all evil! God is great! This place sucks! I live in the best city in the world! Our singular interests are having a detrimental impact on our sense of community in the digital age.

The guiding mantra of Silicon Valley may be "innovate or die," but in truth, that has never been the secret to society's success. Our greatest talent is our ability to copy. According to Pagel "a social learner who copies what others do, introduced into an environment of innovators, would survive and prosper better than the innovators."25 In all societies, imitators far outnumber the innovators, each making incremental changes to our collective body of knowledge.

Corporate investors have long recognized this fact. Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffet has famously opined that there are three types of people in the world: innovators, imitators, and idiots. If you're lucky you'll meet the first, who see what others don't; you can do business with those in the second group, who add to the work of the innovators; and you should avoid the third, because they are driven by greed, self-importance – or both.

In our current hyped-up business culture, it can be difficult to distinguish between the three. If high tech announcements are to be believed, we are living in an era of superheroes: everyone, it seems, is capable of changing the world. That's the hype we're asked to believe as entrepreneurs race to be first to market, sign outsized venture capital deals, or sell their companies to one of the world's tech giants.

What's it take to change the world these days? Not much. Recent world-changers who are disrupting traditional markets (disruption is another Silicon Valley-blessed descriptor) include a digital marketing company (DEG), a commercially-available daily HD video satellite system (Skybox Imaging) and the hip hop generation's headphones of choice (Beats by Dr. Dre). And those are just the ones that come up on the first page of a Google search for "change the world" company.

Walter Isaacson, author of biographies of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, believes the word "innovation" has lost all meaning. "Innovation comes from collaboration, it comes from teamwork, and it comes from being able to take visionary ideas and actually execute them with good engineering. T]here's no simple buzzword definition of innovation."26 Issacson's new book, [The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution, explores how transformative change actually happens.

"Albert Einstein was much more of a loner, whereas Ben Franklin's genius was bringing people together into teams. Steve Jobs' genius was applying creativity and beauty to technology. But the one thing they had in common is they were all imaginative. They all questioned the conventional way of doing things," said Issacson. "As Einstein once said, imagination is more important than knowledge."27

Moving forward, we will need both: people who can design new approaches to old problems, and the ability to convert these ideas into products and services that deliver impact. Rarely do we find all these talents in one person, which means we will have to learn to embrace collaborative behaviour.

In his book, Here Comes Everybody, media theorist Clay Shirkey describes three possible levels of community collaboration. The first level is sharing our work with others, which has been made easy with digital communications tools. The second is cooperation, which is harder than sharing because it requires a group of people to change their behaviour in order to synchronize with each other. The top level is collective action, which requires the group to agree to a specific goal in a way that binds individuals to the group decision.

"All group structures create dilemmas, but these dilemmas are hardest when it comes to collective action," writes Shirkey, "because the cohesion of the group becomes critical to its success."28

Historically, collective action has been difficult to achieve here in New Brunswick. While we may pride ourselves on being good neighbours, the flip side of that magnanimity is the declaration that we look after our own. It is the latter trait that has become engrained in our political and business culture.

The economic structure of New Brunswick society at the start of the 21st century has a lot in common with the structure that was in place at the end of the 19th century. We are a province of small regional economies, each dominated by a few prominent privately-held, resource-based businesses: fisheries on our coasts, agriculture along the St. John River Valley and its tributaries, and forestry and mining in the centre.

These regional economies translate into regional political concerns. Constituents expect their MLAs to lobby for their specific interests, sometimes at the expense of a pan-provincial vision.

"The responsibility of government to respond to a complex array of representatives of regional and special interests...results in a rather negative introversion that emphasizes the smaller and more local interests."29 This was how Queen's University political scientist Hugh Thorburn described New Brunswick – in 1961. "Those who 'kick against the pricks'30 are encouraged to leave; those who accommodate themselves to things as they are tend to remain."31 Half a century later, and New Brunswick's political and business culture remains largely unchanged.

There are some in New Brunswick trying to imagine a different way of doing things, or at least identify those who can. Around the same time we were experimenting with new forms of public engagement via Next NB, UNB was in the midst of formalizing new structures to help researchers commercialize their ideas with both the federal and provincial governments as willing partners.

In 2002, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) created the Atlantic Innovation Fund, which to date has invested $190.4 million in the province. At the same time, the provincial government created the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation (NBIF) to provide venture capital to start-ups and researchers to explore their ideas. Then, in 2004, the private sector got involved via a group of Saint John-based tech leaders led by former NBTel CEO Gerry Pond. Like us, they also believed there was untapped power in the region's networks, and they put theirs to work creating an investment culture in New Brunswick.

Their goal was to convince senior business leaders to invest either their time, their money, or both in helping to develop a new generation of tech entrepreneurs capable of building companies that could scale up quickly in order to compete in the global economy. To support this new network, they created PropelICT, the region's first start-accelerator, in 2004.

In its first decade, this cluster of entrepreneurial supports helped attract over $1 billion in venture capital, thanks in part to a couple of significant wins: Q1 Labs and Radian6. Both owe a debt to Chris Newton, the developer behind both original technologies.

Q1 Labs was born out of Newton's work as an IT security programmer at UNB. From there, the company grew under the business direction of entrepreneur Brian Flood and executive experience of Pond. The company was sold to IBM for a reported $600 million in 2011.

By that time, Newton was already at work on his second venture, Radian6, an early entrant in the social media monitoring field, this time with Chris Ramsey guiding product management and sales. Once again Pond was there to help, also bringing in Marcel Lebrun, whom he had mentored at former NBTel start-up subsidiary iMagicTV. From there, the company grew at a terrific pace, opening offices in Fredericton, Saint John, and Halifax, before being acquired by Salesforce.com in 2011 in a deal worth $340 million.

Radian6 was named the "2011 Deal of the Year" by Canada's Venture Capital and Private Equity Association, because it generated an internal rate of return (IRR) of 142 per cent for its institutional investors. NBIF did even better, generating an IRR of 170 per cent – 28 times the value of its initial investment. The next year, the Q1 Labs sale kept the "Deal of the Year" title in New Brunswick – and with a lot of the same investors. It produced an internal rate of return of 32.8 per cent, which translated into about $378 million U.S. for investors.

It's a great story, but what does it mean? Are we in the midst of New Brunswick's transition into a nimble and entrepreneurial place? Or were Q1 Labs and Radian6 an anomaly?

We simply don't know because we do not measure the impact of innovation in New Brunswick in any cohesive way. We have anecdotal evidence of local successes, such as, Atlantic Hydrogen, Remsoft, and C-Therm Technologies in Fredericton; Innovatia, BASE Engineering, and Mariner Partners in Saint John; SPIELO, Gogli Games, and Qimple in Moncton; Corruven, Prelco, and IPL Plastics in Edmundston; Industrial Rubber in Bathurst; the AIL Group in Sackville; and Sunny Corner Enterprises in Miramichi.

In June 2014, the New Brunswick Research and Innovation Council, led by co-chair and T4G president Geoff Flood and its executive director René Boudreau, made the first real attempt to assess New Brunswick innovation with the inaugural State of Innovation Report. It assessed available statistics and concluded the results are mixed. (Full disclosure: Lisa helped write and edit the report.) While New Brunswick's science and technology capacity has expanded over the past 10 years, growth has slowed in recent years, matching other sectors of the provincial economy.

The work begun by UNB, PropelICT, and NBIF appears to be producing results. Growth in New Brunswick's ICT sector outpaces the province's traditional resource sector, but on a national scale our results are middling at best. The province's ICT exports are less than one-third the national average. That's hardly surprising, since the sector accounts for only 4 per cent of New Brunswick's GDP, compared to 30 per cent at the national level.

The New Brunswick Information Technology Council, in a 2011 report to the provincial government, argued the ICT sector has the potential to drive growth in the New Brunswick economy through a trio of connected parts – private sector and university-supported R&D, commercialization (by start-ups and established players), and exports. That growth will be hard to track using our current economic measurements, because high-tech workers can now be found throughout our economy, in both ICT firms, and as the people driving the evolution of our traditional industries, and in the emerging social enterprise space. This is the result of rapid technological change: we are all, at some level, technologists now.

20 Pagel, Mark D. "Ultra-sociality and the Cultural Survival Vehicle." In Wired for culture: origins of the human social mind. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 2013. pp. 69-75.

21 Pagel, Mark D. "Termite Mounds and the Exploitation of our Social Instincts." In Wired for culture: origins of the human social mind. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 2013. p. 368.

22 Livestream. "A Digital Native and a Digital Adopter in a Complicated Media Age: A Conversation with Brian Stelter and David Carr." Accessed accessed July 10, 2014. http://new.livestream.com/smwnyc/events/1867435

23 For a great story on the making of the campaign, read former TBWA/Chiat/Day creative director Rob Siltanen, who wrote the famous line and copy. Jobs' initial reaction was to label the ad Jobspy. Siltanen, Rob. "The Real Story Behind Apple's 'Think Different' Campaign." Accessed July 10, 2014. http://www.forbes.com/sites/onmarketing/2011/12/14/

24 Wired.com. "The Long Tail". Wired 12.10: The Long Tail. Accessed July 13, 2014. http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html

25 Pagel, Mark D. Wired for culture: origins of the human social mind. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 2013. p. 336.

26 Gray, Sarah. "Walter Isaacson: 'Innovation' Doesn't Mean Anything Anymore." Salon.com. August 5, 2014. Accessed September 29, 2014. http://www.salon.com/2014/08/05/

27 Ibid.

28 Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations. New York: Penguin Press, 2008. p. 51

29 Thorburn, Hugh G. Politics in New Brunswick. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1961. p. 50

30 The phrase 'to kick against the pricks' is taken from the King James Bible in reference to Saul's (later St. Paul) attempts to fight the absolute power of God. The prick is a piece of wood with a pointed spike, used to force oxen to follow commands. Also known as a goad. By the mid-20th century the expression meant to fight against people in authority.

31 Ibid. p. 51
Ideas, Ideas, Everywhere and Not a Place to Think

We may be trying out some ideas, but our partners remain the same. New Brunswick's homogeneity may be its most distinctive feature.

The province, with its tightly-knit political and business class, small population, and insignificant immigration (New Brunswick's last great immigration age was the 1840s, courtesy of the Irish potato famine) is a study of inward thinking. While much of Canada has steadily concentrated its wealth, economic growth and population around large regional hubs, New Brunswick has remained wedded to maintaining small community centres that compete against each other for the province's finite natural, human, and economic resources. What we end up with is public discourse dominated by self-interest and fear of loss. New Brunswick's two-decade-long outmigration trend compounds this thinking, by robbing the province of the benefits an influx of newcomers would bring.

Consider the relationship between New Brunswick's political and business class, the public education system, and the province's universities. A child educated in New Brunswick's public K-12 system will be taught, for the most part, by teachers who are native New Brunswickers, and who earned their degrees at New Brunswick universities (UNB and STU on the anglophone side, and U de M on the francophone side). If that child graduates to university he or she will, statistically speaking, also likely choose a New Brunswick university for undergraduate work, and if she or he chooses to become a teacher, the pattern will be repeated. It is a similar story for New Brunswick's civil service, elected officials, and business managers, the majority of whom followed the exact same path as the teachers, minus the teaching degree.

For skilled trades and administrative positions, the New Brunswick Community College fulfills the same role. The end result is here in New Brunswick we have built a political and business network, supported by the province's media outlets, that is populated with people who generally think alike because they draw their evidence from a similar set of experiences, assumptions, and biases.

Faced with a significant challenge, be it deficit reduction, health care reform, or energy management, we draw on our past collective experiences, without recognizing how limited – and limiting – those experiences can be.

Compounding this isolation is our political, business, and media elites' adherence to communications tools from the pre-digital era. According to public affairs researcher Hugh Heclo, this form of public communications has eight telltale elements:

1. Stay on message. Don't deal with complex realities.

2. Appeal to emotions. Don't try to reason with the audience.

3. Frame issues to steer people toward the desired conclusion. Don't inform them about the substance of any given issue.

4. Project self-assurance. Don't admit uncertainty or ignorance.

5. Counterattack or switch the subject. Don't try to answer tough questions.

6. Avoid self-criticism. Don't try to correct errors.

7. Claim to have the whole answer. Don't admit there exists independent expertise that isn't on your side.

8. Talk to win. Don't talk to get to the truth of things.32

In order for this to work, public relations depends on the news media to deliver its message, a role the latter not only fulfills, but also entrenches through its own institutional behaviour.

In its attempt to offset public relations' mass act of persuasion, contemporary journalism excels at two things: first, it tells us how and why we're being manipulated through "behind the scenes," process-driven stories; and second, in its reporting33 of public issues, it officially picks no side. The first feeds our natural distrust of institutions, and the second starves us of the information we need to figure out what to do next.

The culprit behind this mess is one of journalism's most-celebrated virtues – its principle of impartiality. New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen calls it the "View from Nowhere," and he characterizes it as a practice that nurtures contemporary journalism's pack mentality and "holds smart people to dumb practices."

"Frequently it places the journalist between polarized extremes, and calls the neither-nor position 'impartial'," writes Rosen on his blog, PressThink. "It's a means of defence against a style of criticism that is fully anticipated: charges of bias."34

Lately, things have not been going according to plan. Compared to the vitality of the Web, journalism's "view from nowhere" stands out – for all the wrong reasons.

At best, it appears stiff and old-fashioned and at worst, it is giving credence to minority viewpoints that prevent us from moving forward.

John Oliver, a graduate of the Jon Stewart School of Media Satire, revealed the ridiculousness of this position (warning: swear words) as it pertains to climate change science.

In its attempt to appear above the fray, contemporary journalism is losing the two things it needs the most: money, and relevance. News has become a commodity, flooding the marketplace that formerly was the sole domain of the news media. That rise in volume has lowered the value of hard news, making it next to impossible to earn a living trying to sell it. Canada's resource sector knows all about commodity markets and what to do about it: refine the raw materials. Journalists need to follow their lead or risk irrelevance.

New communications technologies are enabling new entrants to challenge the province's closed political and business network. New Brunswick's media audience has morphed into a heterogenous mix of users – and they are sharing information largely outside the formal constraints of our traditional institutions.

The first to feel this change was the province's newsrooms, as both audiences and advertisers decamped to more collaborative, open spaces. In 2014, our political, business, and academic institutions felt it too. Robust, online debates now exist for a variety of topics, including UNB's strategic direction, resource development, and urban renewal (#livelifeuptown about Saint John's urban core is one of New Brunswick's most popular and enduring hashtags).

Tired of waiting for the elites to change the status quo, New Brunswickers are attempting to do it themselves.

"Our social tools are not an improvement to modern society; they are a challenge to it," says Clay Shirkey. "The hallmark of revolution is that the goals of the revolutionaries cannot be contained by the institutional structure of the existing society. As a result, either the revolutionaries are put down, or some of those institutions are altered, replaced or destroyed."35 We are watching this happen in real time in New Brunswick.

Our old, asymmetrical communications model, which limited access to the means of production and transmission, is being challenged by our new symmetrical communications, which enables just about anyone with a wireless connection and a smart phone to send and receive in equal measure.

And what is it that prompts so many of us to freely share information? Love for the things we hold most dear. The dispassionate language of business and government can't compete with that.

That dichotomy revealed itself following the early spring release of the Government of New Brunswick's new forest management policy. Putting our Resources to Work: A Strategy for Crown Lands Forest Management was announced by Premier David Alward on Tuesday, March 12, 2014 to a standing-room-only crowd that included Jim Irving, president of J.D. Irving, Limited. The plan reduces to 23 per cent the amount of Crown land protected from commercial logging, down from the traditional 30 per cent, opening up previously protected areas of old growth forest and deer wintering habitat to forestry companies.

Two days later, it was Premier Alward's turn to travel, journeying down Highway 7 to join Mr. Irving as he announced his eponymous corporation will invest $513 million in its New Brunswick mills, $450 million of it at the pulp mill in Saint John. It's the largest investment in a pulp mill in Canada since 1993.

The timing of the announcement, undoubtedly planned with great precision by government and company communications staff, received the expected positive reception from Saint John's mayor, the Saint John Chamber, the Irving-owned Telegraph-Journal and government ministers. The elites were on board. In the past, that's all anyone ever needed, but this time things didn't go as planned.

First to speak out was Green Party president David Coon, who used this and his opposition to shale gas to propel him to victory in the September 22nd provincial election. He is the first Green Party politician to be elected to a provincial legislature and only the third Green member to be elected in Canada. Coon was followed by researchers at UNB's forestry department, who penned a letter signed by 184 professors from the province's four universities and the Maritime College of Forestry Technology. J.D. Irving, Limited countered that its work is based on science and, along with its staff biologists, the company draws on the advice of a scientific committee, which includes university scientists. Two days later, CBC interviewed committee member and Université de Moncton biologist Marc-Andre Villard, who offered an alternate view. "We were not consulted whatsoever on the contents of the plan," said Dr. Villard. "Myself and other researchers expressed concern [in 2012] (during the last forestry plan revisions) so you can imagine how we feel about this new strategy that was proposed without any consultation from scientists."

In just one week, the government's position that the forestry plan was anchored in verifiable research and community collaboration was faltering under public scrutiny. As the opposition increased, government officials stuck to the traditional script, projecting self-assurance in its plan and reminding people the new policy would produce jobs – the very thing New Brunswickers claim in public opinion polls they are most concerned about.

New Brunswick's business and political elites were kickin' it old school – and the crowd kicked right back.

Online, a community formed around a single question: is our forest really ours? Posed by Kedgewick-based filmmaker and Restigouche West independent candidate Charles Thériault, it was the starting point of a real-time documentary consisting of a series of video interviews with experts in forestry, biology, and government transparency, and people who live and work in the woods of northern New Brunswick.

"I'm of the opinion, as is multiple experts because I've been reading reports...that we need to change how we do business in the Crown forests," Thériault explains in his introduction to the project. "We need to modify, do something, because the Crown forests as its being used today, although it is aiding industry, it is also harming New Brunswickers and that's not right."

As the September 22nd election results suggest, Thériault wasn't speaking into the wind. He placed third in a four-person race, earning 1,514 votes – about 18 per cent of the vote and just 96 votes shy of incumbent Progressive Conservative Martine Coulombe. Thériault accounted for 46 per cent of all independent votes cast in New Brunswick – an indication that New Brunswick voters can be convinced to abandon their traditional two-party loyalties when local issues are at stake.

By mid-summer, five months after the deal was announced, the forestry plan had become part of the larger narrative that included the failed pension reform and shale gas debates, and which characterized the Conservative government as out-of-touch with what New Brunswick residents value.

In mid-June, UNB forestry researcher Tom Buckley released a commissioned Oraclepoll Research poll that found 61 per cent of New Brunswickers oppose the government forestry plan. A month later, J.D. Irving, Limited released the findings of its own commissioned poll, conducted by CRA, which found a slight majority favoured the policy.

It appears when it comes to the fate of New Brunswick's forests, we don't know who to believe.

In the face of uncertainty, we press pause. That direct appeal to our emotions, for so long the central tenet of corporate public relations and political propaganda, doesn't draw us in like it once did. There are other voices in the conversation now, and they bring a passion to their message that feels more authentic than the carefully controlled messages of professional communications.

Why? Because recent history has taught us to doubt the veracity of our institutional leaders.

The 21st century's first decade-and-a-half is littered with the public failures and disappointments of politicians, corporations, and non-profits. Combine that with our growing uncertainty over our personal financial and job security, and we are left with the unease that our institutions are no longer looking out for our best interests.

Uncertainty breeds conflict, and as our conflicts multiply, so does our level of anger. Here, as in so many other aspects of our modern world, digital networks are driving this change.

Like it or not, conflict is an inevitable byproduct of new communications technologies. By lowering the barriers for people to connect with each other, power is shifting away from traditional hierarchical models of authority towards flat, interconnected networks. Hierarchies contain conflict – networks release them.

It's why democracies appear more argumentative than authoritarian regimes and the 1950s seems downright pastoral compared to our snarky present. But despite our discomfort at the volume and tone of public debate, we can't wish it away. Nor should we, because somewhere in the chaos lie the solutions we seek. We need to listen closely as we wade in, so we can hear its signal amidst all the noise.

It's tempting to look around at all the big problems we need to address and tell whoever is in charge to wake us when it's over. Problem is, we'd be talking to ourselves.

Communications technologies have handed power to the people, and we're not quite ready to bear the weight of responsibility that comes with the crown. We are about 30 years into a transitional period that is guiding us into a new, still largely undefined era. While the tech community refers to this transition period as the Digital Age, it's unclear whether we'll stick with that label.

In the life sciences, researchers have labelled this the Anthropocene, an age in which humanity is changing the earth's life support systems. What is clear is we are breaking away from the Late Modern Era, which in North America was marked by the emergence of the U.S. from its Civil War (1861-1865) and the creation of Canada as a politically-independent nation via Confederation (1864-1867).

Just as Reconstruction and Confederation saw the emergence of new political, economic and social structures to support people's changing values, so too do we face a similar task. The railway and telegraph were that era's technological innovations; the Internet and World Wide Web are ours. While the Internet was first envisioned in 1962 by MIT researcher J.C.R. Licklider, it did not begin to expand into the public consciousness until the mid-1990s, following the launch of the world's first website on what British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee called the World Wide Web, "a wide-area hypermedia information retrieval initiative aiming to give universal access to a large universe of documents."36 By 1996, early web portals such as Mosaic, Yahoo! and AOL were providing users with ready access to the Web, and people were using these new tools to create websites, send emails, and explore information.

Today, it is almost impossible to determine precisely how much information exists on the Internet. A commonly repeated statement made by Google CEO Eric Schmidt states that we create as much information every two days online as we did from the dawn of human civilization up to 2003.

According to Cisco, Internet traffic will grow at an annual compound rate of 21 per cent between 2013 and 2018, and in 2016 Internet traffic will surpass the zettabyte. A zettabyte is equivalent about 250 billion DVDs. To quote Cisco's own infographic; "It would take over five years to watch the amount of video that will cross global networks every second in 2015."37

All that sharing and community building has helped amass one of the world's largest concentrations of wealth. The five largest tech companies – Apple, Google, Microsoft, IBM, and Facebook – have a combined market capitalization of about $1.7 trillion. That's about $300 billion more than the five largest oil and gas companies – Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, PetroChina and BP.38

While the latter are experts at mass production and distribution – of great value in the old economy – the former are masters of personalization, which has great value in the new economy. The tech sector is in the business of giving us precisely what we want – and scaling it to global proportions. It's all in the algorithms, those computational formulas that enable Google to personalize our searches, Facebook to imbed ads in our newsfeed for companies that complement our activities, and Amazon to direct us to stuff we'll probably like, based on our browsing and shopping history.

All that personalization works great when we know what we are searching for, but what happens when we don't? How can we use the power of the Web to solve our greatest challenges? There is an old business school adage that you can't manage what you can't measure, but in a world awash with data, how do we choose what to measure?

A quick survey of the statistical landscape reveals the limited scope of New Brunswick and Atlantic Canadian studies. Statistics Canada remains the largest repository of national data; however, the loss of the mandatory long-form census has had an impact. The June 2013 release of a decidedly weak National Household Survey proved to be of little value for parsing information at a local level. The same was true of earlier releases on the state of Canada's Aboriginal and immigrant populations. The national and provincial pictures are still clear, but the local picture is not, particularly for communities under 100,000 – basically most of Atlantic Canada and everyone located outside Canada's six urban regions.

If the 20th century was supposed to belong to Canada, the 21st century is being positioned as belonging to Canada's largest cities. Canada as Urban Nation is now the dominant national narrative, and the data is being built to support it. New Brunswick and the rest are fading from the big picture. We simply don't measure up.

To develop answers for society's wicked problems, we need to know if we're asking the right questions. Right now, we don't know if we are.

32 Heclo, Hugh. In On Thinking Institutionally. Boulder, Colo.: Paradigm Publishers, 2008. p. 29.

33 We have specifically chosen the word 2008. p. 29..Saulrganizationsean_anything_anymore/rian , 2013. p. 368.75.3, 93O=D&ed in the traditional reporting style known as the inverted pyramid. Opinion and investigative journalism exist outside this definition.

34 Rosen, Jay. "The View from Nowhere: Questions and Answers." Pressthink. Accessed July 14, 2014. http://pressthink.org/2010/11/the-view-from-nowhere-questions-and-answers/

35 Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations. New York: Penguin Press, 2008. p. 107

36 "World Wide Web." The project. CERN. Access July 14, 2014. http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html

37 Arthur, Charles. "What's a zettabyte? By 2015, the internet will know, says Cisco." Theguardian.com. July 10, 2014. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2011/jun/29/zettabyte-data-internet-cisco

38 Wright Investors' Service. "Corporate Information." Accessed July 10, 2014. http://www.corporateinformation.com/Top-100.aspx?topcase=b
Think Wicked

There is one trait that most innovative, world-changing ideas share: we rarely recognize them for what they are when they first appear. Just like the overnight sensation who has actually worked at his or her art for years, big ideas take a long time to develop into transformative events.

It goes something like this: a small group of people passionate about the idea get together to work on it, regardless of how much money or time it takes. Soon they're joined by curious bystanders, who add their resources (financial and human) to the mix. Next, formal structures appear to support the growth of the idea and to accommodate the growing number of people involved. This attracts the attention of the crowd, which spreads the idea through their communities until finally the idea is everywhere, engrained in the fabric of society.

We rarely notice the first three steps, which is why big ideas seem to arrive so quickly and cause such social and economic upheaval. By the time they arrive in the public square, the ideas have had a long time to build speed, strength, and endurance. Little wonder they barrel over those of us caught standing still.

Consider the issue of climate change. Prior to the start of this decade, we hardly talked about it, and it certainly didn't have the power to alter regional or national economies. Few would have believed environmental groups would have had the clout to halt multi-billion dollar energy projects, but that's precisely what did happen the week before Easter, in April 2014.

It began with Kitimat, B.C. residents voting to reject Enbridge's Northern Gateway pipeline in a non-binding plebiscite, and ended with the U.S. government's indefinite delay of TransCanada Pipeline's Keystone XL project. More than $12 billion in capital investment was halted by protests.

We shouldn't be surprised. When it comes to the literal fate of the earth, business and political elites have always been a step behind the crowd; their initial response is always to push back against change. The pitched battle between industrial interests and environmentalists follows a predicable pattern.

This pattern always concludes with the same result: a groundswell of public support for change. It is slow to build – sometimes taking decades to reach its tipping point – but the public, once comfortable with the idea of change, will demand it.

When they do, government acts, introducing stronger regulations to control or fix the root cause of the public's concern, which forces the private sector to respond in one of three ways: the weak are forced out, the strong reinvest in new technologies to improve environmental efficiencies, and the creative launch new businesses to take advantage of the market opportunities change creates.

North America has experienced this cycle at least three times over the past 100 years.

First, in the early years of the 20th century, concern over the accelerated settlement and industrial exploitation of North America's open spaces led to the creation of the conservation movement during the height of the Progressive Era. Conservationists believed that controlled human activity, such as hydroelectric dams, hunting, fishing, mining, and logging could co-exist along nature. They successfully lobbied governments to introduce regulatory controls.

The industrialists of the day fought against any control placed on the exploitation of what appeared to be boundless land and natural resources. However, the conservationists pushed back and succeeded, creating nature and environmental trusts to fund the protection of designated spaces. These trusts – and the conservation philosophy – are embodied today in national organizations such as Ducks Unlimited, the Nature Conservancy of Canada, and the Atlantic Salmon Federation.

The next skirmish happened at the height of post-war America's massive population boom and industrial expansion. In 1962, biologist Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, which documented the negative effects of pesticides on birds. It caused a public sensation, led to the banning of DDT in North America, and launched the sustainable development movement.

Once again, large industry fought back, commissioning its own research to refute Carson and other scientists' claims of environmental damage. In response, new environmental groups such as Greenpeace (former New Brunswicker Paul Watson was an influential early member), the Sierra Club, and the World Wildlife Fund became masters of grassroots campaigns, informing people of the harmful effects pollution was having on the earth's water, air and, land. Once again, after decades of fighting and intense lobbying from both sides, government acted, introducing new regulations, this time to monitor and protect air and water quality, land use, and species at risk.

Now we find ourselves caught in the middle of another political scrum, this time over the issue of climate change. After decades of lobbying by environmental groups and large industry, the public is starting to pay attention and demand action from governments. And now, government is beginning to respond.

In June 2014, the U.S. Government announced plans to cut carbon pollution from power plants 30 per cent by 2030, from 2005 levels, effectively signalling the demise of the American coal industry. The next day, government officials in China, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, announced they would issue a carbon cap in early 2015 to limit total emissions by the end of the decade.

Together, the U.S. and China are the world's largest economies and account for 40 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions; when they act in concert, they have a global impact.

The earth sciences – started by passionate amateurs, supported by educational institutions, and embraced by the crowd – have arrived at the centre of global economic and political power, and this is disrupting the established order. Why? Because our values are changing. Our desire for material wealthy is increasingly matched by our desire for security in our politically and ecologically insecure world.

We have a serious global challenge in front of us as we figure out how to balance population growth with increasing access to energy, food, and water – three resources that are already under pressure. According to the United Nations' 2012 World Water Development Report, by 2035 global energy consumption will increase 50 per cent, which will cause an 85-per-cent increase in water consumption. Meanwhile, on the human side of the ledger, of the 7 billion people who call Earth home, 2.8 billion currently live in areas with scare water supplies, and 2.5 billion have either no access or unreliable access to electricity.39

The U.S. Pentagon has identified resource competition as a threat multiplier "that will aggravate stressors abroad such as poverty, environmental degradation, political instability and social tensions – conditions that can enable terrorist activity and other forms of violence."40 Here in North America, the energy and environment debate is epitomized by opposition to Alberta's oil, or tar, sands and hydraulic fracking. In the past year, it has halted the Keystone XL Pipeline, slowed the Northern Gateway pipeline in British Columbia, and set fire to police cars in New Brunswick.

Resource development – and in particular the interdependence of energy, water, and food – is the defining issue of our age. It brings together all the major disruptive forces driving change – the science of global warming, rapid urbanization, technological innovation, capitalism, social innovation, and behavioural change – and it is crashing up against our established status quo.

At the heart of this revolution is a familiar combo: massive behavioural change driven by new technologies, most notably geolocation, communications, mobility, data, and sensors. These five technologies are beginning to converge, creating large-scale operating systems that connect people, places, and things in global networks. Colloquially known as the internet of things (IoT), these technologies may allow traditionally marginalized jurisdictions, such as New Brunswick, to reengage in the North American economy via smart manufacturing and its promise of upmarket, value-added production and new means of distribution.

We see positive evidence of this change here in New Brunswick's food sector. McCain Foods, the world's largest producer of French fries, announced plans in June 2014 to spend $10 million (half from McCains and half from the government-supported New Brunswick Research and Innovation Council) over the next five years on projects with small and medium-sized businesses to improve manufacturing processes, product development, and soil remediation.

New Brunswick has also quietly emerged as a fisheries value-added leader. The province is Canada's second largest exporter of fish and seafood, just behind Nova Scotia with exports valued at $1 billion. It earns just over $10,000/tonne; in comparison, Canada's other major seafood producers extract less value. Nova Scotia earns about $9,000/tonne, while B.C. and Newfoundland and Labrador each earn just under $6,000/tonne. Driving that change are three big exports. New Brunswick is Canada's largest exporter of lobster and Atlantic salmon, and the country's second largest exporter of snow/queen grab (behind Nova Scotia).41

Now juxtapose the quiet evolution happening in agriculture and fisheries with shale gas. A September 2014 CBC/Radio-Canada poll found New Brunswickers divided on the issue, with 49 in favour and 44 against shale gas. Dig deeper and New Brunswick's confusion over the issue is evident. Over half – 54 per cent – believe it will have negative environmental impacts that will outweigh the economic benefits, but then when asked whether it is important to New Brunswick's economic future, 61 per cent said yes.42

That is what the Progressive Conservatives decided to bet their electoral future on with their campaign slogan – Say Yes! Instead, over 64 per cent of voters said 'no thanks' to David Alward and the Progressive Conservatives, with the bulk of that anti-government vote electing to back Brian Gallant.

As Lisa wrote in a Wicked Ideas' piece entitled "Hey Brian Gallant! Do us all a favour and act your age", there were many historic moments to election night. "[Gallant] is Canada's youngest premier and the first political leader from the Millennial generation.

"We also leap-frogged over the NDP – the traditional voice of Canadian progressives – and chose instead to elect Green Party leader and long-time environmental activist David Coon to the Legislative Assembly. It's a first for New Brunswick and something relatively new for Canada too. Coon is only the third Green Party candidate to be elected anywhere in the country.

"The Greens earned 6.6 per cent of the popular vote and when combined with the NDP's 13 per cent and the more libertarian-hued People's Alliance party's 2.1 per cent, it means about 20 per cent of New Brunswick voters elected to vote against government – both old and new – and instead vote for something different.

But what exactly is that? If there is one message to take away from this election, it is that New Brunswick voters are deeply ambivalent about their political choices."43

New Brunswick is one province, embroiled in two very different conversations; one for the elites and another for everyone else.

Obviously, the way we talk about big issues isn't working. We need to reframe the conversation away from our various conflicting self-interests and towards an identification of common purpose – a pragmatic rather than ideological approach.

American philosophers Charles Pierce and John Dewey laid out the tools we need almost a century ago.

Both are founders of American Pragmatism and both were profoundly influenced by the social and economic disruptions caused by the American Civil War and the Progressive Era, which taught them the danger of adhering to fixed principles regardless of the impact those theoretical principles have on people's lives.

In fact, personal experience sits at the centre of Dewey's thoughts on civic life. Our personal experiences, argued Dewey, give life meaning and should be our primary guide in how to live. He rejected the traditional extremes of philosophical and political thought in favour of a more practical, empirical approach to complex problems.44

That emphasis on experience rather than theory demands a continuous cycle of testing, revising, and implementing ideas. It is the root of the arts, science, and technological innovation. It must be the guiding principle of our institutions, too.

In order to understand where we want our societies to end up, we must first understand the impact each course of action will have on our lives and the lives of our fellow citizens. This will require a level of self-reflection that is rare today in the era of viral snarks and selfies.

We believe New Brunswickers are ready to change the conversation. In the decade since we completed Next NB, we have listened to New Brunswickers talk about the province with a mixture of frustration, resignation – and hope. Today, more people understand New Brunswick's structural problems and not only agree that significant changes are needed, but are ready to get to work finding solutions.

As they have watched family, neighbours, and friends leave amidst a backdrop of failed political conversations and revelations of backroom deals, New Brunswickers have looked at each other and said "enough."

Technology has also played a role.

In 2003, we built our network by physically driving around the province to meet with people in small gatherings – 18 in all. Today, we can spread information and engage with thousands online. And then there's 21inc. April 2015 marks the 10th anniversary of the first 21 Leaders for the 21st Century province-wide tour.

We believed then, as we believe now, that transformational change is driven by new people exploring new ideas. To get that started, we took a group of young people between the ages of 20 and 35 from business, the arts, government, and social development, stuck them on a bus and drove them around the province, introducing them to interesting people at every stop – and then talking about it as they rode New Brunswick's highways and back roads. That first tour concluded with a powerful evening at Old Government House with then-Lieutenant Governor Herménégilde Chiasson.

In that room, New Brunswick's self-imposed divisions – of language, geography, occupation, race, age, and gender – went silent, replaced by the participants' realization that New Brunswick's success must be a collaborative effort. Today, 21inc. is going strong, with a network of over 200 alumni in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, P.E.I. and Newfoundland. It's proof that for an idea is to grow, it needs to be shared.

To get there we need to recognize the importance of three key players: the state, the markets, and the commons.

The State: We know government plays an important role in a collaborative world. It sets the tone, representing our society's values through institutional arrangements, regulations, and policies. Right now, it's not working because it is bogged down by the practices of the late modern age, which is now fading from view. It is hierarchal by design and opaque in its practices, a model at odds with a networked world.

This is why we need to reinvent the public service and politics, so both may benefit from the body of knowledge and expertise now being developed by New Brunswickers across their informal networks. Citizens want in, and our governmental leaders must set the stage to welcome them.

We must accelerate our participation in the open government movement, by providing citizens with free and open access to a wide array of government statistics and information, at both the provincial and municipal levels. Transparency is the new currency of our connected age, and it is how we will rebuild trust in government and our political class. It will enable citizen oversight of government and, more importantly, it will give citizens and government greater access to each other to collaborate on solutions for community problems.

While we improve our practices, we must also address the root problem of today's cynical political culture: us.

We have placed unattainable expectations on our politicians and civil servants by demanding they solve problems that lie outside their control. For instance, during the recent provincial election the Liberals and the Conservatives presented complicated plans to drive economic development based on the premise that government policy can play a direct role in creating private-sector jobs. It can't, but they pedal their job creation stories anyway, because we've told them that's what we want to hear. We hold them to false promises, and when they fail – as they have repeatedly over the past two decades – it feeds our cynicism and reduces our levels of trust.

But while we hold them to false expectations on policy, we seem strangely content to accept poor performance. A steady supply of well-meaning but ineffective politicians have run under various party banners and been not only elected, but re-elected by constituents who fail to hold their MLAs to a higher standard.

Caught napping by the Legislative Assembly cameras? Averse to bipartisan committee work? Unseen and unheard around the riding or in Fredericton? No problem, it's all forgivable in the eyes of New Brunswick voters.

Enough. We'll never solve New Brunswick's complex web of economic and social problems until we as citizens demand more of government and give more in return. Only then will we attract the people with the managerial experience, the applied knowledge, and the passion we need to reimagine New Brunswick.

We must be committed to ignore the partisan call for big or small government and instead fight to develop an effective government that, freed from the strictures of party philosophy, can develop the policies and regulations to support the growth of private and social enterprises.

The Markets: Let's be honest: no one really knows what is happening with the markets. Technological change is a disruptive force, creating new industries and business models out of the remnants of the old. It moves quickly and is unpredictable, which means we lack the insight to identify long-term winners and losers in any economic sector. But that doesn't stop us from trying.

Here in New Brunswick, as in the rest of Canada, we have focused our attention and resources on the two extremes – large corporations and small start-ups, while ignoring medium-sized businesses, which is where wealth is created. We need government regulations that enable these mid-sized firms to quickly expand through improved productivity and increased access to outside markets, both within Canada and internationally.

We also need to understand what we mean when we talk about innovation. We have bought into this story without understanding how and why innovation matters. Business and government need a new set of metrics to determine its impact, which should include measurements around wealth creation, market reach, and knowledge dissemination. What it needn't include is job creation.

We have overvalued this metric, and in the process hindered the evolution of New Brunswick into a nimble, knowledge-based economy. Job creation doesn't drive entrepreneurship; the coming together of creative minds to develop products and services to serve a real need is its purpose. Customer acquisition, market reach, and community impact should be our new measures of success.

Our fixation on job creation has also warped the development of our traditional resource sector. We must rid ourselves of the mindset that we can socially engineer this sector into a job creation engine. The primary goal of our resource sector should be to add value to the raw resources – forestry, mining, fishing, and energy – so it benefits our communities.

These are our shared resources, and New Brunswickers should expect to share in the added value in exchange for accepting the shared risk. Government's primary function is to create a regulatory environment that enables that – and nothing more. Government interventions such as taxation policies, job creation strategies, and location incentives do not accomplish that goal, which is why government needs to get out of the business of selecting winners. Government creates the rules; the private sector creates the wealth.

The Commons: Government and business are important – but only to a point. The creative leadership we need to reinvent New Brunswick lies within the crowd. In fact, look beyond our traditional leadership structures and the mood is decidedly bouyant. People are getting together online to share ideas and observations about the things for which they are most passionate – and then they are meeting in person to develop community projects with impact. These communities are leaderless, self-regulating, adaptive, and highly collaborative – everything our traditional public institutions are not.

If New Brunswick is to chart a new course, its traditional leadership – in government, business, media and education – must cede its natural inclination to control the agenda, in exchange for the public's permission to drive change. The authority we once ascribed to public institutions is migrating to the crowd, and we must follow.

We can start by building the social infrastructure to enable people to reengage with their communities, to rebuild trust in our neighbours, reduce isolation, and enjoy the good things in life such as urban green spaces, recreation, and the arts. It takes clusters of people, driven by passion, to figure out how to do that. Together, we will figure out what we want and how to get there.

We believe New Brunswick can change, if its traditional leadership embraces the power of the commons. They, or should we say "we," hold the keys to the province's success. In truth, the technological and social changes now disrupting life within New Brunswick are also creating opportunities for the province in the wider world. Open networks are flattening traditional hierarchies and breaking down barriers to participation and no jurisdiction, regardless of size or location, is immune.

We know we don't have all the answers, but we know enough – having listened, written, and talked about New Brunswick society for close to two decades – to take the first steps on the road to deep change and fundamental reform.

This is not about false cheerleading – we can all agree we've had enough of that. This is about taking the pieces of the puzzle that we understand and linking them together so we can begin to map out a new direction.

In that spirit, we offer our recommendations for forging a new, pragmatically optimistic, path for New Brunswick.

1. Generate wealth: This is New Brunswick's most pressing issue and needs to addressed in three concurrent ways. Within the next 18 months we should:

  * Develop a new, integrated energy strategy that rebalances our energy mix by introducing new sources of renewable energy, while continuing to develop more efficient use of fossil fuels, led by natural gas. Included in that is a need to accelerate development of a province-wide distributed energy system that rewards users and communities that produce and conserve electricity.
  * Invest in urban infrastructure that will attract and retain more people and businesses – the key ingredients needed to generate greater personal wealth for New Brunswickers. We need to create age-friendly communities that connect people via multi-modal (vehicle/biking/walking) public transportation routes, high-density mixed use neighbourhoods, multi-service primary health care centres, community-led schools and modern parks and recreation facilities, both publicly and privately financed.
  * Build a sustainable culture of entrepreneurship, centred around organizations such as PropelICT, BioNB, the Pond-Deshpande Centre, 21inc, the Wallace McCain Institute, Planet Hatch, Place aux compétences, The Gaia Project, ArtsLinkNB, Brilliant Labs, and Venn Innovation (formerly Tech South East) that encourage creative people to put structure to their ideas and turn them into products and services. It is not our job to pick the winners; the markets will do that. Our job is to develop strong players with scalable ideas across multiple sectors, disciplines and locations, with the endurance and financial backing to succeed.

2. Change the conversation: The past 40 years have been marked by a steady decline in public trust in governments, corporations and media. Journalists contributed by emphasizing problems in order to spur reform, and social media exacerbated it because of the speed ideas spread online. We need to reestablish our trust in each other and in our institutions. We are enthusiastically jumping into the fray with Wicked Ideas, which engages citizens in a deeper conversation about our shared values and the way forward.

3. Select a team of all-stars – and get moving: No single political party has all the answers; neither does any one economic or social sector. Premier Brian Gallant needs to build a non-partisan team of creative thinkers, project developers, and community leaders with deep integrity to chart our path forward. Like the war cabinets of past national governments, New Brunswick needs to set aside partisan divisions and get the best people working on solutions to our most pressing problems. A Liberal Party card should not be a requirement for membership.

A decade ago, when we began our study of how New Brunswick could change, the province was an outlier within Canada and North America, but now everybody's in the same position. We're all searching for safe passage through the storm. Why can't New Brunswick be the first to break out?

We are small, which means we can be nimble. We have tightly-knit social and business networks, which means we trust each other. We live and work outside the centres of power, which means we know how to develop creative solutions.

We have the tools to forge a new path, all we need is the will to do it.

For almost two decades we have been stuck, following a well-worn path that deceives us into thinking we are moving forward only to loop us back to where we began. We must step off, leave behind the familiar, and set off in a new, unmarked direction. It is time to venture into the wild and see what we can build.

It is time to begin.

39 U.N. "Decade, Water for Life, 2015, UN-Water, United Nations, MDG, water, energy, sanitation, financing, gender, IWRM, Human right, transboundary, cities, quality, food security, FAO, BKM, World Water Day." U.N. News Center. Accessed July 21, 2014. http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/water_and_energy.shtml

40 United States Secretary of Defense. Quadrennial Defense Review, 2014. Accessed July 21, 2014. P. 8. http://www.defense.gov/pubs/2014_Quadrennial_Defense_Review.pdf

41 "Provincial and Territorial Statistics on Canada's Fish and Seafood Exports in 2013." Government of Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada. March 2014. Accessed September 22, 2014. http://news.gc.ca/web/article-en.do?nid=825349

42 McHardie, Daniel. "Shale Gas Development Divides Voters, CBC Poll Finds." September 7, 2014. Accessed September 22, 2014. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/new-brunswick-votes-2014/shale-gas-development-divides-voters-cbc-poll-finds-1.2758482.

43 Hrabluk, Lisa. "Hey Brian Gallant! Do Us All a Favour and Act Your Age." Wicked Ideas. September 23, 2014. Accessed September 29, 2014. http://wickedideas.ca/p/hey-brian-gallant-do-us-all-a-favour-and-act-your-age/.

44 Pappas, Gregory Fernando. John Dewey's Ethics Democracy as Experience. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008. p. 20.
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  1. About Us and the Project
  2. Where Do We Start?
  3. New Brunswick's Lost Decade
  4. True Innovation Changes Us, the Rest is Marketing
  5. Ideas, Ideas, Everywhere and Not a Place to Think
  6. Think Wicked
  7. Bibliography
  8. Web Links

