Yeah, thank you. So it's interesting. When I first moved to Detroit, that was January 2019. So obviously, before the pandemic, and at that time, director of digital equity and inclusion for the city of Detroit. And, you know, digital inclusion wasn't co-signed, because in the way that it is now because there wasn't a pandemic. And so when I went in, people thought I was the Director of Diversity and Inclusion, which I'm like, No, I'm not. And it's interesting, because when you're going in to a city government, and even the people within the city, the mayor, ultimately, they didn't understand this up either. And so you're going in to understand, not validated, I wasn't from Detroit, so no one knew me. So it's like, what are you going to do? What type of political power, if any, are you going to be able to wield in that case, you had to start grassroots, because at that point, I could show a unified constituency, which would then influence the municipal government, specifically, you would be able to influence the council layer, which would then allow the mayor to then be supportive or whatever I did. And he saw that was the strategy at the onset, get validation as much as possible from the grassroots. Then over time, in order to do the fundraising that was necessary. Again, we didn't have our but we didn't have infrastructure jobs. I didn't have any of that stuff. So all the maybe Oh gee, digital equity practitioners, you were fundraisers, everyone that was her job to fundraise. And so we had to do a lot of fundraising. And at that time, it was grass tops. And one of the things that I was able to do was just, I'll be honest, people might remember, but I was calling out a lot of the federal leaders at that time. Because in calling them out one, I felt like that was necessary to call them out. The result, as a result of that result was calling them out, they would oftentimes either book trips to Detroit directly, which then led to external validation, which then was able to start the connection point between the grassroots and grasstops. With that then resulted in with a clear pathway from the resident who maybe I went to I went to their church I spoke or whatever, maybe they were coming to some of our neighborhood technology hubs or whatever we were doing. So we're able to go from the grassroots, whatever the complaints, were, then cycling through Council through the mayor's office, through our state, and then all at the federal level, we kept doing that over and over and over again. And as a result, you had a machine. And that machine allowed you whether you needed additional fundraising, additional support, or digital storytelling, or if you wanted to hold someone accountable, you then were able to then pull the punch with all of your mind as a municipal government. The time when that mattered the most was when we switched from being I would say, even by my own admission, the italicized digital equity, to the all caps digital equity, when there was a 45 day internet outage in Detroit, and they hold the other neighborhood by TNT. And for 45 days, those residents didn't have internet, they didn't have voice. And it got brought to light. And that's what we said, Our infrastructure is unstable. And since the providers, we can't trust you, because when we did trust you this is what happened. We believe it is in the interest of the municipality to serve our people best. And so as a result, we did that. And then that's when all of those political relationships matter the most, because the tax tactics that they use was they began attacking every every thing that they could. They weren't at, you know, my credibility. They weren't at our offices, credibility. And even people that have working for Detroit at the time, they wanted as many ways as possible. Whenever we were doing a community event, somehow a hit piece would come out that same day, that same morning, whenever we were doing any type of outreach or engagement, somehow there'd be some type of messaging that would go out, it was just very, very methodical. But at the same time, when I was able to see it, that moment, was the grassroots organizing could counteract the grass tops, you know, media campaigns that they have run. And so those same stories over and over and over again, once you have that full political spectrum built out, once you have that machine built out, you're essentially protected. And you got to do the work that ensuring that that stays in tech, you got to keep people engaged, keep people organized. But every single one of those layers I couldn't do, we couldn't do it without anyone that was missing. And so as a result of that we were able to survive enough, there was a digital tactics that we did. But again, we had to rely on every layer and level of government all the way down to the non governmental actors, like a voter, or even a non voter who are still within the political atmosphere. And everyone played a role and you couldn't discount anybody. Because if you did, it came down to a game of inches. And the inch that we lost was essentially what killed a project. And so that would just be the thing that from my experience working in municipal government, that you need every single one, because that's going to protect your interest as well. A lot of these people do not have the ability to stand alone. And we all know this, when you all go back to your respective geographies, digital equity, you're still in an island. Yeah, you might have a coalition. But if you're a decision maker, you're like one of five who's actually making decisions, everybody else is working with you. But it's just it's you and Nick. And so as a result of that, you got to make sure that whatever you're building, like you have people who are around you can actually protect you because if not, it will fall apart. And these providers or anyone who's who's lobbying against you will start picking you off, and they will ruin your credibility, or at least they'll attempt to and that's exactly what we saw happening in Detroit.
Download Otter for your meeting notes