Talking local leaders and climate influence with Alex Fisch

A few weeks after Culver City’s Alex Fisch and I had our fantastic conversation about his insights as a local leader for my Living Change podcast, we switched the microphones.

In his inaugural experience guest hosting the Bike Talk podcast, he guided a deep dive into my climate influence expertise and how it applies in political leadership (especially at the city level).  Alex is himself a shining example of a strategic, socially engaged leader and makes excellent lived-experience points all along the way. 

Worth note: We both emphasize Twitter here, but definitely see the same principles holding on LinkedIn. So, I bet this conversation could be a resource for many.

In this mid-February, 2023, episode, Alex and I talk about:

• Building social capital way in advance of needing to activate it.
• How leaders can get more visible by engaging in replies and “loving up” their peers or other good ideas.
• How *being seen* doing the livable community and climate action tool you are proposing (in this case – using transit, riding a bike or ebike for transportation and being on your own community’s streets) builds trust.
• How a hashtag really can build community and be leveraged for a specific political purpose ( example: #AB2097 re: parking mandates in the California 2022 affordable housing discussions ).
• How being active and accessible on social platforms can help build great media relationships.

And, we touch on so much more. 

Here’s a quote:

“So social capital is like creating this love and sort of this warm vibe of helping each other out and supporting each other for no particular cause. You don’t have an agenda like: tomorrow I want to leverage this, this way. You just go, “you know what, we’re all in this together and we’re going to build social capital,” and Twitter is a wonderful tool for that and we can all participate and we can all build our individual little niche-y sector of influence by building that social capital engagement.”

Any city leader who wants to study up on better practices for engaging, contributing and building their climate-acting influence could learn a few things from this conversation. 

***Subscribe to my LinkedIn Climate Influence Leadership newsletter to stay up-to-date on my latest articles, Living Change podcast episodes, and all sorts of other content to inspire you to be more visible with your own influence.***

Photo by Moritz Knöringer on Unsplash

The opportunity: What if even just one corporate leader with deep personal values on a particular topic takes that thread and explores a niggling idea to get louder about their organization’s climate action journey?  What if they took broader leadership platform-building ownership of that concept and formed a *super* strategic plan for leveraging leadership visibility (my expertise), forming coalitions, and involving other civil society and academic influencers, etc.,  as a way to scale a change in social norms, and fast? What if this whole idea *wasn’t* a huge add on to their budget or capacity, but instead a much more strategic curation of the usual tactics, but for more impact?

The value: The 10x value for the planet AND the corporation exists in the rapid way this approach would catch ON and the collective reduced emissions and the buzz it would garner. Done well (my expertise), the media coverage would be mainstream (not just industry verticals!) and would build new bridges that nudge leaders in other industries to also follow suit with whatever their focus emissions were.

The key: The secret sauce is the trust in taking a  “follow the leader” risk, and choosing to BE that leader. So many other CEOs and their communications departments after you will want that same love, to be keynote speakers or podcast guests on this pursuit. They’ll also want the same media coverage and the ability to be forever considered a first mover in claiming innovative Scope 3 emissions in their global climate reporting. They’ll want to have an amazing story to share and gather influencers around at ClimateWeek and COP28. Only one leader will forever be known as the one who had the gumption and strategic mindset, fueled by commitment to true climate action, to rapidly get a lot of others rolling with this in their own corporations.

In closing: Someone needs to start. The win will be exponentially “big”, beyond any other huge claim your corporate leadership has been able to make, in all of its history. There is no question: by catalyzing the desire to change in your industry, to use your climate influence to shift positive leadership social norms, you’d be justifiably seen as a key player in saving the planet. The bonus is that all of this is incredibly smart business. So, be the 2023 climate action trendsetter. Contact me when you are ready.

(Cross-posted on LinkedIn)

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Reminder: To learn more about surprising validators who have (a lot of) climate influence without being called ‘climate leaders’, as such, watch for Season 1 (last week of January 2023) of my Living Change: A Quest for Climate Leadership podcast, supported by Larj Media.

To get an every two week or so newsletter with insights and examples of climate influence and leaders who are living change, subscribe to my newsletter.

Towards “biking for transportation” being seen as normal U.S. mayor behavior. Photo credit: Tony Moore

What if you actually saw your mayor e-biking around your city? What if you could casually have a conversation while locking up your bikes side-by-side? Would you trust that they understood the transportation implications of climate change more? Would you trust that they’d have a better sense for what “safe streets” really meant?

I know you would.

That’s one of the reasons Larj Media and I partnered to develop the “Living Change” podcast. We focus on sharing stories of climate leadership in personal practice, especially when it comes to transportation and food policy topics.

Our first conversation was with Mark Gamba, the current dedicated transportation cyclist Mayor of Milwaukie, OR (but he is running for the Oregon State Legislature, so stay tuned).

A few excerpts (transcription slightly edited) that highlight the climate influence aspects of leaders being seen biking and centering it in policy:

Andrea: An e-bike is incredible. And I don’t think that that story is told well enough.  On that note, you’re talking about showing up at meetings as a mayor, riding your bike. … bikes as transportation, that’s not getting enough notice by mayors, in my opinion, and seeing more mayors like you, who are actually riding them, demonstrating it. And that is the name of this podcast, living change by doing that. That is huge. So that makes me wonder, as you implemented these changes in your town, did you get resistance?

Mark: …we looked at the entire city and the whole transportation system and said, okay, where do we need bike lanes, sidewalks, bike paths, crosswalks with flashing beacon, you know, all the things to make active transportation safe. And the engineering department worked on it and the planning department worked on it. And we did huge amounts of outreach, crazy outreach. We had, you know, big maps of the city at the farmer’s market and people could put stickers, well, this intersection is really dangerous and stuff like that.

Then we did another whole big process of how are we gonna pay for this? Because the first big process said, okay, it’s about $52 million worth of projects to, to build all this stuff out. So then the second was, how are we gonna pay for 52 million worth of projects in a city that has a general fund budget of 160 million? So the, the committee, again, that worked on that did a whole bunch of outreach, talked to everybody, you know, …how do you think we should pay for this? And in the end, we landed on a fee on the water bill that’s per household businesses pay a little more. There’s a whole calculation that engineers use for that kind of stuff. And, we did so much outreach and so many meetings that literally by the time the first charge went on the first water bill, and three years after we started, we got two angry phone calls. That’s unheard of, usually people just lose their minds when their water bill goes up.

Andrea: So what I’m wondering is because you’re quite visible and I’ve done my research on you… It’s very visible that you’re this bike riding mayor. So what I’m wondering, is how have you influenced political leaders in Portland? You know, are you seeing your influence spread a little bit?

Mark: …I would always show up to those meetings and all my other meetings at Metro and all my meetings with the county coordinating committee, you know, on a bike. And because it’s Oregon, often soaking wet in rain gear. And, I’d come in and take off my rain gear, put on my sport coat and sit down at the table and begin,… and it gives me a lot of credibility when I start talking about: if we spend money on bike infrastructure, instead of adding a lane to a freeway, a it’s cheaper B, it’s gonna reduce congestion over the long term.

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Please give it a listen. I’d love your feedback here, or via my Twitter or LinkedIn pages.

The Larj Media team and I are out talking with corporate sponsors and climate funders about Living Change podcast sponsorship opportunities, so please email the Larj team if you’d like to start a conversation.

Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/14132971@N05/

In the series of Bike Talk podcast conversations I had with present and former city leaders truly making transportation infrastructure and complete streets change, Bowinn Ma, Member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, also stood out. Her perspective and bold leadership approach are notable, and I bet is fueled by the fact that she, herself, rides an eCargoBike to get around North Vancouver. She pedals her talk. Ma is also actively engaged on Twitter (which made it easier for me to learn about her).

The truth is that I struggle to find U.S. mayors and other political leaders who are as brave and bold as those I’ve come across in Canada (and I am looking!), and specifically in British Columbia. Why would that be?

To be sure, they may exist, but my point is I can’t easily find them.

On that note, a friend in U.S. business media recently told me about how she gets to know her future sources: she sees them being accessible on Twitter and “wearing their expertise on their sleeves.” She takes note and follows them to build more insight on that person for future reference.

The thing to note here is that it is *not* press releases from cities about the wonders of what mayors or leaders are doing, it is personal reflection and engagement with these folks on a continual basis.

I could go on. Needless to say, I’d love to find more U.S. city leaders who are both pedaling their talk  AND authentically engaged on Twitter.  In order to be able to find those folks, I – like my reporter friend – need to *see* them regularly, suss out if they are truly leading change over time, build trust and, if so, start to help amplify them via my own platforms to give other’s leadership examples to follow. I shouldn’t have to ask friends where the U.S. biking mayors/city leaders are, for example. It should be really obvious for anyone who is looking.

All of this is to say, you *must* listen to the wisdom of Bowinn Ma (or read the full transcript at the end of this post). What she shares exemplifies what should be modern day legislating, or how to build resilient connections with a range of stakeholders (constituents to media, and beyond) and how to act on climate as a policy maker.

From our Bike Talk podcast conversation , on her decision to buy/use an eCargoBike:

“But I have to say, I mean, when I decided that I wanted to go the e-cargo bike route, it took me many months to plan out whether or not I thought I could actually do it because I still need to show up to constituent meetings not looking like a mess. I still need to get off of my bike and walk into press conferences camera ready. And so, it did take a little bit of planning. But once I figured that what I needed to get done, it’s actually been the best change, really. I wouldn’t go back to depending on my car if I had the choice.”

And, on being so accessible to her constituents:

“But I do believe that walking the talk is a big part of gaining trust or at least not burning… not losing people’s trust, however level of trust that they start out worth believing in when it comes to politicians. I also do believe that having fewer barriers between an elected official and members of the public help with, as I said earlier, accessibility and approachability. I remember myself walking into my office one day, and I was pushing my bike. And at the time, it was actually a non-e-bike, but it was just a regular bike. And there was a security guard who came up to me and said hi. And we started talking, and the security guard was an immigrant. And he said… I remember him telling me how shocked he was that I was an elected representative for the provincial government, there walking through the building with just my helmet and my bike.”

The full, unedited, transcript is below.

***

Andrea Learned:
Today Bike Talk welcomes Bowinn Ma, a political leader in British Columbia, Canada, who represents the electoral district of North Vancouver-Lonsdale. And she serves the province as the Minister of State for Infrastructure. Bike Talk audiences may be familiar with her via her wonderful Twitter presence, where she shares photos of herself on, I believe, a tern GSD e-bike.

Bowinn Ma:
Yes [crosstalk 00:00:23]-

Andrea Learned:
… some details on that paddling around town and talking with constituents. Great to have you, and thank you for taking this time to talk with Bike Talk, Bowinn.

Bowinn Ma:
Aw, thanks so much for having me, Andrea.

Andrea Learned:
I mean, I really appreciate you taking the time. I know that this is moment in your day that you got to squeeze in. So one of the things I wanted to start with is just that the role we were talking about a little bit before we started. What is the role entail, specifically, the infrastructure role that you have?

Bowinn Ma:
Yeah, for sure. So an MLA is a member of the legislative assembly. So we’re representatives of our constituency at the provincial level of politics here in B.C. And I serve the community known as North Vancouver-Lonsdale, which is a constituency of about 60,000 people. But my role as Minister of State for Infrastructure falls under the ministry of transportation and infrastructure. So I serve on Premier John Horgan’s executive council as a member of the governing body. But I also work with the Minister of Transportation. That’s Rob Fleming. And the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure is the minister that I work with. And the kinds of work that I do to support him in his work is the delivery of transportation infrastructure. So we’re talking… we’ve got quite a few major projects on the go here in British Columbia. We’re extending our SkyTrain line, the [inaudible 00:01:54] into a subway underneath Broadway in Vancouver.

Bowinn Ma:
We are building out another SkyTrain line out through the suburbs of Surrey into the City of Langley. That’s known as the Surrey Langley SkyTrain Station. We’ve also got replacement projects for major vehicle infrastructure as well. So, for instance, the George Massey crossing that connects Delta and Ladner with Richmond. And then we’ve also got Highway one, which is the Trans-Canada Highway upon which about $65 billion worth of goods travels every single year. That’s a major, major highway corridor for us. And right now, outside of the Metro Vancouver area, it’s going through what we call the Fraser Valley. It’s two lanes in each direction, which I know from the perspective of your American listeners will sound like a very small highway indeed, but it’s very important highway for us. So we’re doing some improvements there as well.

Andrea Learned:
Yeah. That sounds like a very small highway, but it’s nice to… I mean, your improvements won’t be that you’re adding lanes, will it?

Bowinn Ma:
So we are actually currently increasing capacity, but we’re doing it in [inaudible 00:03:16]. And so far, the capacity that we’re increasing along that line is for HOV bus transit and transit priority. And on top of that, we’re leveraging that project because that’s a major, major investment and there’s a lot of time and money being spent on it. We are also taking the opportunity to expand cycling infrastructure as well because a lot of these highways they bisect communities.

Bowinn Ma:
And so, even though it’s a relatively small highway from the perspective of your American listeners, it’s still a very dangerous crossing for people who are trying to get from one side of the community to the other, especially if they’re not in the vehicle. And so we’re taking the opportunity to upgrade interchanges, provide separated bike lanes and multi-use pathways. And generally, enable these projects to support communities in all of the ways that people travel and people don’t just travel by car.

Andrea Learned:
Wonderful. As somebody who lives in Seattle and can actually come visit your city fairly often, I already love riding my bike around the city. But also just, it’s wonderful to hear that you’re really tending to that in how you’re improving. Was it route one, you said? Route one.

Bowinn Ma:
Yeah. So it’s known as Highway one.

Andrea Learned:
Okay. Great.

Bowinn Ma:
And I have to say, I mean, we didn’t always do this. My government, my political party, it has been in government since 2017. But in general, the province of B.C’s so-called ministry of highways didn’t always consider public transit and cycling as part of the work that they were meant to support. That is a relatively new forward-thinking approach that we’re taking that also takes into perspective land-use planning as well.

Andrea Learned:
Wonderful. Well, hopefully, we might get into a little bit more of that, or please share whenever that’s kind of inserted into any of the questions I’m asking you, but that’s fantastic. And it is always surprising that it’s been so recent that the country or [inaudible 00:05:18] the government started to think in that way. I mean, it’s just amazing that we’re so late in the game, and I feel like you’re ahead of a lot of US cities, so that’s wonderful to hear.

Andrea Learned:
So one of the reasons I really wanted to interview you is I have been following you on Twitter for a long time, and I’m in my Bikes4Climate work, always looking for political leaders who peddle their talk. And so I wanted to ask you just sort of that foundations. How did you come to start using a bike or e-bike for transportation in your own adult life? And when did that begin to be maybe, and you can correct me if I’m wrong, part of the political brand you present in your work?

Bowinn Ma:
Well, I would say that I used to commute by bike a lot before I became an MLA. I used to cycle from my home to my work. I used to work out as an engineer out at the airport, and I would bike out there quite frequently. And I used an old Peugeot road bike that I had purchased for $125 back when I was in university, very, very aggressive stance on the road bike. I’m totally prone, can hardly shoulder check and so forth. But when I became an MLA, the demands of the job really changed the way that I needed, or I thought that I needed to travel. Especially as a younger woman, I get judged by my appearance a lot. And so it meant that I needed to wear heels, wear way more makeup than I ever wore before.

Bowinn Ma:
Dress in ways that my previous job managing construction projects didn’t require me to address. And all of that made cycling as a way to move around much more difficult, but at the same time, because of the work that I was doing around transportation and my approach to transportation is very much that we need to look at this holistically. That it has to be multimodal. That land-use planning, where you’re building childcare close to schools and schools close to homes and putting homes close to jobs that pay enough for people to actually live close to where they work. That’s the real solution around resolving congestion and our transportation challenges. It’s not these 50-kilometer commute and building 30 lane highways in order to get people along their 50-kilometer commutes because they can’t afford to live close to where they work.

Bowinn Ma:
That’s not the solution. The solution is compact, complete communities. And on top of that, the reason why that needs to be the solution moving forward is not just about livability and not only about affordability because people spend so much money getting to and from work when they live far from where they work. But it’s also about climate change because the emissions that we generate from transportation here in British Columbia account for well over a third of all the GHG emissions that our province is responsible for. And we are a province that is blessed with tons of hydroelectricity, tons of renewable energy. So it’s a ton of GHG emissions that come from transportation.

Bowinn Ma:
And so, I realized at some point that I was no longer comfortable driving around in my gas vehicle all of the time. And me and my partner live in a community that isn’t really known for its… Well, actually, let me step back. The North Shore of Vancouver is generally seen as this very sprawled, much more affluent place. But the city where I serve has generally a lower income. It’s also a much more dense municipality. But people don’t think of the north shore as that. So I think I’m losing track of my own phrase here, but [crosstalk 00:09:04]-

Andrea Learned:
That’s…

Bowinn Ma:
Sorry about that.

Andrea Learned:
… all very interesting, but I was just sort of saying, how did the bike sort of become your brand? And then maybe you were going to talk about how you got back into biking. But an e-bike, I don’t know.

Bowinn Ma:
Yeah, well, so that’s basically where I headed to. What I realized was that with all the talk that I was talking about, active transportation and using public transit, I was no longer comfortable depending on my gas vehicle all of the time. And I felt like if I wanted to be able to advocate for all this, I would also need to demonstrate that this could be done. And so my partner and I traded our two gas vehicles or one electric vehicle, which he’s the primary driver of, and I purchased a cargo e-bike, and that’s a very long way to explain how I ended up there.

Bowinn Ma:
But I have to say, I mean, when I decided that I wanted to go the e-cargo bike route, it took me many months to plan out whether or not I thought I could actually do it because I still need to show up to constituent meetings not looking like a mess. I still need to get off of my bike and walk into press conferences camera ready. And so, it did take a little bit of planning. But once I figured that what I needed to get done, it’s actually been the best change, really. I wouldn’t go back to depending on my car if I had the choice.

Andrea Learned:
I love what you’re saying for a couple reasons. One, because I’ve been riding an e-bike for a couple years now, and I didn’t realize that riding my, I call it acoustic bike. I wasn’t even going as… using a bike as much as I could. So then I got the e-bike, and I was like, “Okay, I can use it for much more.” But then I just recently also had to get rid of my 24-year-old gas car. And I was just kind of forced in a way to think about the EVie.

Andrea Learned:
And now that I have an EVie and an e-bike, I swear, I’m not as hesitant to even go visit friends across town. I just didn’t know that that was sort of weighing on me. It’s really interesting, and that’s something that’s so wonderful about you and your reflection on Twitter, et cetera, is once you know your values and you really delve into them, you just live them.

Andrea Learned:
And to your point, once you make a decision to move to an e-cargo bike or an e-bike, you just start, and you run into the things that are going to be problems, and you figure it out. And then you just get better and better with how you’re doing all the things you need to do by e-bike. So I love that. That’s a wonderful story, and it just [inaudible 00:11:31] a wonderful example. And also to your point, which I really want to emphasize is that you are demonstrating, right, what is possible for your constituents.

Andrea Learned:
And I think that’s huge. You’re peddling your talk in a way, right. So thank you for that. So I love the image I saw of you on Twitter, moving your campaign signs around North Vancouver via your e-cargo bike. Do you remember those? So what are some of your more memorable interactions with constituents who may have been surprised or interested in your mode of transportation? Do you have any stories like that?

Bowinn Ma:
Yeah. I mean, so for those listeners who don’t know, on my e-cargo bike, a volunteer made me a wooden crate, which I attached to the back of my bike, and it’s there as a fixture. And I put signs on it saying, “Bowinn Ma, MLA North Vancouver-Lonsdale,” so that people can see that I am going around in the constituency. And there were a few things that surprised me about doing this. One was how much more visible it made me rather in comparison to traveling around in my own steel cage on four wheels.

Bowinn Ma:
And the other thing was how willing people were to wave and say hi to me as I passed by. And that was really quite lovely because I think that… I mean, I remember the time before I became an MLA, and it can be very easy… It’s very easy for members of the public to feel very disconnected from their elected officials. And being able to see me pass them by on the street with nothing but air between my face and theirs actually made a huge difference to how approachable I appeared to a lot of people, which I really valued.

Bowinn Ma:
And I remember once I was riding down in the bike lane along quite a busy road. It was a painted bike lane. And somebody in a vehicle rolled down the window, we were stopped at a light, and he shouted out through his passenger window. And he said, “Hey, are you Bowinn Ma?” I said, “Yes, yes I am.” And he says, “Do you have a moment? I’ve been trying to reach you.” And so we headed down the block and turned into the first driveway into kind of a strip mall area.

Bowinn Ma:
We pulled aside, and we had a great conversation, and we wouldn’t have had that conversation if I wasn’t on my bike. I mean, he could have emailed me. He could have called me. Certainly, those are ways to reach me for sure. But sometimes, being right there with somebody gives them a level of access and accessibility that might not otherwise be obvious to people. So that was really quite wonderful.

Andrea Learned:
That’s an amazing story actually. I mean, that’s just the visibility, and to your point, no box between you and them. And also just, I think there are a lot of people. I know with my political leaders taking the effort to email or get in touch in some way like that is an extra effort that I think a lot of people wouldn’t do. Whereas seeing you pass by and just sort of taking that risk, that’s a incredibly lovely story. That’s wonderful to hear, Bowinn. I’m going to talk about that a lot. I think that’s so great. So given your deep kind of constituent engagement and understanding, have you gathered any insight on how potentially to move constituents, more everyday citizens towards e-bikes as transportation?

Bowinn Ma:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, first off, let me say that e-bikes are a real game-changer for active transportation. Area that I serve, the North Shore of Vancouver, is known not only for being a very rainy place but also for its mountainous terrain. And I am not confident that I would be biking around every day if I could not have support of an electric assist. And I’ll also say that while the pandemic is certainly something that I would never want to experience again, and I hope we never have another pandemic. There were some positives that came out of the last year and a half that I hope our communities hold on to. And one of those positives is the incredible embrace of active transportation over the last year and a half. Now our government spent literally hundreds of millions of dollars to keep public transit service operating at normal service levels throughout the entire pandemic.

Bowinn Ma:
Because we recognize that when you have the frequency of buses drop below little a certain point, they’re no longer viable as a way to travel. And it would be much more difficult for us to recover ridership afterwards if people have given up on public transit altogether. We also recognize public transit as a service that is important from a social-economic equity perspective as well. Some of our most dependent upon workers our most essential workers during the pandemic also happened… Also, I don’t want to say also happened as though it was an accident because I think that there are a lot of systemic issues that lead to low pay. But they were some of the lowest-paid workers in our communities, which also meant that they were more likely to be truly dependent on services like public transit. But for those who had other options, aside from public transit, they went back in their cars or they worked from home.

Bowinn Ma:
But a lot of them also went to biking as an alternative, as a safe alternative during the pandemic. In addition, we have an incredible public health officer who led our COVID-19 response. And I remember that early on in the pandemic, she said to people, she said to British Colombians, “It’s okay to go outside. It’s okay to exercise. Just keep your distance. You know what, take this opportunity to pick up an outdoor activity that is safe to do with your families. Go for bike ride.” She had encouraged everyone to go for a bike ride as a safe outdoor activity that their families could engage with. And I have to say in the weeks following her saying that the streets were just littered with cyclists and all of our multi-use pathways and our separated bike lanes here on the North Shore filled, filled with cyclists, families cycling. And I think that really broke through to a lot of families and a lot of people who might not have always been comfortable using cycling as transportation.

Bowinn Ma:
When you start by doing this casual cycling, you can absolutely start to see how you can transition it into your daily commute. And so we really want to encourage that. We’ve done it a few ways, and we do have e-bike incentives. So there’s a SCRAP-IT program that we have where you can get… I checked a few months ago. It was $1,150 towards your e-bike purchase. We also recently removed provincial sales tax on e-bikes. So that saves buyers 7% on every sale in comparison to last year. But there’s also, of course, infrastructure needs too. So our ministry, we’ve got grants open right now for municipalities to apply to in order to help upgrade their own active transportation networks.

Bowinn Ma:
But like I said earlier in the podcast, our ministry is also taking a much more deliberate approach to building in active transportation infrastructure into our major projects. So instead of just widening a highway or adding capacity, how do we do this in a way that encourages the kind of growth in communities that we want and the kinds of transportation choices that we want to see? So that may mean HOVs and transit priority lanes, but it also means walking, cycling, and rolling infrastructure as well.

Andrea Learned:
Well, I think it’s interesting. Two things, the public health officer, as you said, deliberately stated, “It’s okay.” Right. She had to give permission. She actually had to state it that way, which I think is a point that didn’t happen in a lot of other cases. And then to your point, yes, to even say, “Consider taking up a new activity.” I mean, that’s super powerful. And then also to your point, being so deliberate in making sure that active transportation is in every decision moving forward. That’s incredible.

Andrea Learned:
It’s very exciting for me to hear what you’re up to. And one of the reasons I was excited to talk with you in general. It’s just I believe that even US cities and leaders need more examples of places where they’ve been doing these little changes and seeing success, which it sounds like you’re really seeing. So that’s really, really exciting. Thank you for sharing that.

Bowinn Ma:
No problem. I do want to acknowledge, though, we’ve got a lot of work to do here in British Columbia on that.

Andrea Learned:
Okay.

Bowinn Ma:
Even though we have seen some successes, we’re not sitting back on our laurels. We know that there is immense work ahead of us in order to decarbonize our transportation system. But also to promote the kind of community building compact communities and encourage the environmentally and socially responsible modes of travel that we want all British Columbiast to see as viable choices. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.

Andrea Learned:
Yeah. Good job getting started, I guess. And getting started in a way that just sounds really smart. Fantastic. So one of the things I work on a lot is Women4Climate and looking at leadership and sort of visible leadership. And I’m wondering if, as a visible leader, and you’re visible in a lot of ways, but also through the biking around town. Have you found power in being that open about pedaling your transportation talk? And if that isn’t enough of a question, does that impact the level of trust constituents have for you as you work on infrastructure policies and such? What are you getting as a leader by being visible and in terms of trust-building?

Bowinn Ma:
Yeah, I mean, that’s a really fantastic question. I think that whether fairly or unfairly, politicians are seen as people who say, “Do as I say, and not as I do.” Right. And I don’t believe that that is true of all politicians, because I have tons of colleagues who are incredibly principled and do everything that they can possibly do in order to make sure that they are giving their communities the best possible example that they can be, right. But I mean, we can’t deny that politicians are generally not very trusted by members of the public. Anything [crosstalk 00:22:05]-

Andrea Learned:
… to say the least. Yeah.

Bowinn Ma:
Yeah, that’s right. I mean, I used to say that… so I’m currently still a registered professional engineer, and that’s the work that I did before I became an MLA. And I used to joke that I have the honor of occupying simultaneously one of the most and least trusted professions in the world.

Bowinn Ma:
But I do believe that walking the talk is a big part of gaining trust or at least not burning… not losing people’s trust, however level of trust that they start out worth believing in when it comes to politicians. I also do believe that having fewer barriers between an elected official and members of the public help with, as I said earlier, accessibility and approachability. I remember myself walking into my office one day, and I was pushing my bike. And at the time, it was actually a non-e-bike, but it was just a regular bike. And there was a security guard who came up to me and said hi. And we started talking, and the security guard was an immigrant. And he said… I remember him telling me how shocked he was that I was an elected representative for the provincial government, there walking through the building with just my helmet and my bike.

Bowinn Ma:
And he said, if you were an elected official in my country, you would be in a bulletproof car surrounded by security guards, and you would never be just walking around in public. And so, I really appreciated that I had the opportunity to break through some of the perspectives or stereotypes that this person had of what elected officials were supposed to be like. I remember having people saying like, “Wow, you’re really nice for a politician.” And-

Andrea Learned:
Wow.

Bowinn Ma:
And that wasn’t something that they expected or that, “Wow, I’ve never been able to just talk to a politician on the street before.” So, I mean, I will acknowledge that being inaccessible probably gives some other politicians different kinds of power, but it’s maybe the type of power that I’m not really interested in at all. It’s not the kind of thing that I came into this line of work to have.

Andrea Learned:
I mean, that’s very interesting. Isn’t it? It’s sort of old-fashioned versus kind of the way you as a kind of a younger leader potentially. And then also, because I’ve looked at gender differences. Sometimes I would throw it there, but we [inaudible 00:24:46] the differences of kind of older white men versus… but we don’t have to go into that.

Bowinn Ma:
For a whole other podcast.

Andrea Learned:
That’s a whole other podcast. And that’s one of the reasons I focus on Women4Climate so much is because I think women are leading the way they’re leading in empathy. They’re leading in building trust. They’re leading and building social engagement. This is why we’re having this conversation. So related to that, how do other leaders, your peers, or colleagues respond to your representation as a active transportation voice? And are you maybe influencing anybody there? Or are you getting some negative, or are fears or people kind of raising up hackles because of that? What is it like with your peers and colleagues?

Bowinn Ma:
Well, I guess they would want to note that I actually drew inspiration from a lot of my peers. So Spencer Chandra Herbert is an MLA who represents the Vancouver West End in downtown. And he has, I believe, the physically smallest constituency in all of B.C. because of how dense it is. And he’s able to walk the perimeter at 30 minutes or something. Whereas, in some of our ridings, some of our constituents, for instance, my colleague, Jen rice, who lives up in North Coast, her constituency is almost literally the size of about a quarter of B.C’s landmass because of how not densely populated that is.

Andrea Learned:
Wow.

Bowinn Ma:
So her ability to serve her constituency entirely by bike is very, very different from my ability or Spencer’s ability. I’ll also acknowledge another cyclist, David Eby. He’s the attorney general now and the Minister of Housing. And he has what he calls the mobile office.

Bowinn Ma:
And it is actually like a big cargo bike that he bikes uphill to the university and sets up on the side of the street in order to interact with community members. And what’s notable in particular about his mobile office bike setup is it is not electrically assisted.

Andrea Learned:
Oh my goodness.

Bowinn Ma:
And it’s like made of wood. I don’t know how heavy it is. I think it must be well over 150 lightweight. It’s very heavy. So he bikes that all the way up to the university and to other places in order to interact with community members. So I’m not the only one.

Andrea Learned:
You sure [inaudible 00:27:31].

Bowinn Ma:
I had to use an electric assist because I’m just not that strong of a cyclist in comparison to Eby. So I’ve got some great inspiring examples to learn from and build up on and we’re all just learning from each other and continuing to improve. And in fact, just today, another MLA, her name is Grace Lore, she serves a community in Victoria. She just also tweeted out that she is traveling by bike there as well. So I think it’s growing.

Andrea Learned:
I feel like maybe you guys should form a little club or a Twitter list or something because it’s to my point of trying to influence, to see more leaders doing this. And then it’s like, “This is the Vancouver, or this is the British Columbia group of political leaders who ride their bike or focus on…” I think that’s wonderful. Really exciting. And I’m going to look all those people up. So thank you for that. That’s great. One thing I’m wondering, is there anything that you’d say to other women political leaders about stepping out with your values and how to find or hold onto the political will to make change?

Bowinn Ma:
Oh, wow. Yes. Know why you’re doing the work that you’re doing. That’s one of the pieces of advice I always give to young people who are thinking of getting into electoral politics because it is, I was going to say, shit show, but you might have to bleep that out. I’m not sure. But it’s not a straightforward line of work to get into electoral politics. There will be lots of ups, and there will be a lot of downs. There will be moments of just brutal, annoying politics and BS to deal with. There will be disappointments. And a lot of the workaround just running a campaign can be physically and emotionally exhausting. And when you get elected, you’re often faced with decisions and choices where no way forward seems to be the actual right way forward, but you got to choose one. So these are very challenging situations to be in.

Bowinn Ma:
And I would be lying if I would say that I didn’t occasionally find myself wondering, “Why? What am I doing here? How do I go on with everything that is happening with all the challenges there are to addressing the major issues of our society like poverty and homelessness and climate change.” The grand challenge of our generation is climate change. I would be lying if I didn’t sometimes feel as though I couldn’t go on. But what really helps me continue is going back to and remembering why I started this work in the first place. Who I’m doing this work for. And if you come from a place that prioritizes your community and the people around you. That prioritizes social justice and climate action. That prioritizes outcomes that are about other people and not yourself, then you can really find the path forward.

Andrea Learned:
That’s fantastic advice. Thank you for sharing that. I will spread that widely too. There’s kind of a handful of political leaders, female political leaders, that I’m able to point to. And I’m constantly pointing to Anne Hidalgo in Paris with her amazing political run making this stuff happen. So it’s great to hear and learn and maybe share your wisdom on that. So thank you. With regard to climate, how are you feeling in terms of getting that message? Are your constituents getting the message broadly? Not having to do with active transportation, but just in general, are you feeling that you’re reaching some harder-to-reach-constituents now, given the… especially the horrible situation we’re in this summer? And do you have any insights on things that you’ve found that might convert or might connect with the harder to… the people that are kind of tending to climate denial? Have you learned anything about that in your engagement with consultants?

Bowinn Ma:
Yeah, I would say that I’m very fortunate to be serving a community that by and large does accept that climate change is real and largely believes that it is an emergency. And I would say that when it comes to our government, so for context, British Columbia currently has one of the most aggressive legislated emissions reduction targets in North America. Now meeting those targets, of course, is easier said than done. But we do have a lot of will to actually address climate change. And I would say there is a ton of political will in our communities and in the public as well to address that change. Now, the challenge that we have before us is how we transition our economy in a way that actually enables those GHG reductions. Because I do think that some of our biggest challenges when it comes to addressing climate change, they’re not technical.

Bowinn Ma:
They’re not a lack of technology. It’s not that we don’t know the kinds of things that we have to do in order to drive down emissions. It’s much more political than that. And when I say political, I’m not talking strictly about political parties and elections and governments, although that’s certainly a very big part of it. But I also mean politics from the perspective of how this impacts people on a day-to-day basis and how people interact with each other and their environment of what they believe is right or wrong. There are no universal as in terms of right and wrong. You talk to… you’re not going to have 100% agreement from your entire country about what falls into the right versus wrong category. So there are different perspectives out there, certainly. But I think, generally British Colombians, absolutely believe in climate change and want action to happen.

Bowinn Ma:
One of our more… digging down to kind of a more specific challenge that we have is that I believe even in British Columbia, we have a lot of social-economic inequality, right. And if you are a person or a family with less financial means. If you’re living day by day. If you’re worried about putting food on the table. If you’re worried about keeping a roof over your kids’ heads. It is very difficult to set those concerns aside, to think about the future. And so that’s really, I think, more the barrier that we are facing as a province. Because in the urban areas, we have a very diversified economy, and we can change things up. And there’s a lot of political will there for the kinds of change that we need. But in our rural areas, we have a lot of towns that are still dependent on that one mind, on that one fossil fuel project.

Andrea Learned:
Right.

Bowinn Ma:
On that one mill.

Andrea Learned:
Yeah.

Bowinn Ma:
Right. And that mill shuts down, and the 50 jobs go away. That’s like 50 families. And those 50 families were powering the entire local community-

Andrea Learned:
[inaudible 00:34:33].

Bowinn Ma:
… economy. Those are really difficult transitions to navigate. And so we’re doing this work trying to find ways to diversify economies in more rural areas in order to provide choices for people that don’t involve the kinds of activities we know we need to phase out, but it is challenging. Absolutely. It’s very difficult.

Andrea Learned:
Well, it’s interesting. Some of the work that I do involves food systems transition, and we talk about a just transition in food systems, right, global food systems. And one of the things that we found in that space is to really emphasize social justice, jobs, jobs, jobs, and how it isn’t going to be overnight you make this change in it. But how do you get people interested in kind of coming in and sort of maybe, for example, food systems, it would be learning to farm differently and that sort of thing. So I hear you. And I think that’s a huge issue. And I think that just transition is being applied to everything. Now it’s like, “How are we going to do this in socially just equitable way?” And so do you find that your community, that you’re able to be engaging with a lot of members from that community in order to get their input? Is that happening pretty nicely?

Bowinn Ma:
Oh, I would say that our community is way ahead of our government on this. I mean, that’s not to say that our government isn’t moving ahead on addressing climate change. But I mean that my community members are demanding more and faster, bolder, and this is great. It’s fantastic because that kind of grassroots level advocacy is just so important. I strongly believe that in order for us to move forward as a province or as a country, we need both political leadership and also advocacy at the grassroots-level as well. They’ve got to be pushing one another. And I believe that I’m extremely fortunate to have that here in North Vancouver-Lonsdale.

Andrea Learned:
Wow. Really exciting. So as we close, I just wanted to ask, are there any upcoming events or milestones or anything that’s happening that you want to plug here related to transportation and infrastructure just so we can keep our eyes on it and, or letting us know how to follow you on Twitter and things like that?

Bowinn Ma:
Oh, yeah. So you can all follow me on, let’s see Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok.

Andrea Learned:
My goodness.

Bowinn Ma:
And my name is spelled B-O-W-I-N-N. And my last name is M-A. It should be pretty easy to find me there. And in terms of what’s coming up. Well, we do have those fantastic, exciting, rapid public transit projects coming up.

Andrea Learned:
Oh, those are very exciting.

Bowinn Ma:
But we are also going to be bringing in free transit for people 12 and under province-wide. And that was shared earlier this year. And we expect that to be coming in place this fall, and we’ll provide details then.

Andrea Learned:
Oh, my goodness. That is so exciting. Wow. Well, Bowinn, thank you. I really appreciate your time today. This was so fun speaking with you, and I’m sure the audience will get a ton of insight and wonderful, good vibes about what’s happening in North Vancouver and B.C. from this conversation. Thank you so much.

Bowinn Ma:
No, thanks so much for having me.

Andrea Learned:
Really appreciate it.

Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/touringcyclist/

In 2021, I had the most amazing opportunity to host the occasional podcast episode for the BikeTalk advocacy show. I will be sharing a few quotes, with links to the full recording (and pasting in the transcripts) in blog posts as a way to archive them as resources for anyone in cities and bike advocacy or governmental leadership.

The first one I want to share is the incredible conversation I had with Victoria, B.C. Mayor Lisa Helps.

This quote early on really launched a lively discussion that gave me so much hope:

“So it’s been a real learning for all of us because I think the complete streets notion really is about the top of the street, right? It’s about the bike lanes and the benches and the crosswalks and the trees. So maybe we could call the approach we’re taking complete streets plus, because we’re looking at that underground infrastructure as well. So yeah, when we stopped talking about bikes and started talking about complete streets, I think that got people kind of more on board. But to be honest, what really got people on board and now really celebrating the bike network is that we just built it.”

And, this is *such* a clue for other mayors facing the need to “sell” bike infrastructure developments to their constituents:

“And some of the things we learned along the way is to get better and deeper at engagement. And actually, this is, I think, an interesting thing to talk about because the first two corridors, we did a pretty in-depth, detailed engagement, almost like block by block, parking spot by parking spot. The third corridor, we did the same. And then I think we maybe kind of loosened up a little too quickly on the engagement, and there were a couple of corridors that met more resistance because there wasn’t necessarily the same level of engagement. So then the corridor after that, we did tons of engagement, like just probably way too much. And those were the sections that were approved unanimously.”

If more North American Mayors got a bit more bold, just imagine.

Here’s the BikeTalk Soundcloud link. Below is the full transcript (shout out to the amazing REV service!) for those who want to study up, which I highly recommend.

***

Andrea Learned:
Bike Talk is here again, and I’m Andrea Learned, a climate-influence strategist and Bikes4Climate tag founder and fanatical user. And I am so excited today to talk with Mayor Lisa Helps, who I will be calling Lisa through this, because I’m a very informal person from Michigan, and I asked her permission, just so everyone listening knows. And I appreciate that. So welcome, Mayor Helps, Lisa.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
Thank you. Yeah, a pleasure to be here. Thanks for the invite.

Andrea Learned:
I really appreciate your time. I have studied up by looking at a couple of your fairly recent video presentations, and so we’ll just dive right in, because I know we’re both really busy probably, especially you. So what I want to do is just start talking about the Go Victoria Mobility Future Plan, that I first saw a video of you talking about it a couple years ago. And I’m just curious how it came about and how it’s going, and I’ll have some other questions on that.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
Sure. So yeah, Go Victoria: Our Mobility Future was a work in progress earlier in this term, and so we’re about… We’re the third year into a four-year term, and really to grapple with everything that every other city is grappling with. What does the future of mobility look like in cities? How are people going to use vehicles? Is everyone going to own their vehicle? How’s curb space going to be used with Uber and DoorDash and all those things? How do people want to get around that’s going to allow them to get around in a way that’s most life giving and most healthy? So it’s really reprioritizing public space in Victoria through a mobility perspective for the next 30 to 40 years. So really, it came about as a future-focused exercise so that we would be designing the future and not responding by default.

Andrea Learned:
Oh, wow! Who would have… I mean, that’s just such a brilliant idea that I just don’t ever hear spoken about much: designing for the future that you want. I really appreciate that. And the idea of reprioritizing public space. I sometimes feel that people who live in cities don’t realize that they actually… There could be a way that they themselves as human beings walking around and biking around could be prioritized. So that’s great. How is it going so far? How has the city responded and the constituents?

Mayor Lisa Helps:
Well, there have been a number of initiatives, everything from offering free public transit to kids 18 and under. So that was a big one.

Andrea Learned:
Yay!

Mayor Lisa Helps:
We committed to doing it, and we did it. And then actually, interestingly, the provincial government has made transit free for kids 12 and under. So we’re still 18 and under, and we just said this is… Because, again, that’s really… That’s literally our mobility future. If we get kids on the bus now, they’re going to be lifelong transit riders. So that was a pretty easy first or second deliverable. And of course, we’re working with the transit authority here in the region to expand access to transit, increase rapid-transit options, and so that’s going well. RapidBus launched probably about two or three months ago to make it easier for people to get from downtown out into the suburbs. And again, it’s a work in progress, but that’s been good.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
And then kind of our signature project, which is what we have direct control over as a city, is our bike network. We started it in 2016, and by the end of 2022, we’ll be finished with the first 32 kilometers. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but Victoria’s a very compact city. Our city itself is only 20 square kilometers. We’re a small city in the core of a large region. So the bike network, All Ages and Abilities bike network is so exciting. And every time a corridor opens, we see more people on bikes and more people getting excited about the network.

Andrea Learned:
Oh my gosh, yes. I’ve visited Victoria a couple times, and I can tell you that just getting there by ferry, stopping, and then figuring out how to find a bike and going is… It’s heaven. It’s such a wonderful city. So I’m really excited to get back and experience it now with that.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
It’ll be transformed. If you haven’t been here in a few years, it really… Bike lanes are so simple, but it’s transformational infrastructure. And of course, we’re not just talking about painting lines on the road. That’s what’s been done for a long time. We’re talking about separated, safe infrastructure. So we’re seeing so many kids downtown, like five and six-year-olds riding their bikes right into the downtown, alongside big cars and trucks and buses, except they’re in their own lane. So yeah, it’s quite… So those are some of the early successes. There’s a lot more to do.

Andrea Learned:
Yeah. Oh my gosh, seeing kids downtown, that is just so exciting. One of the things that I sort of focus on in my work is the idea of climate influence, and so a lot of what I’m thinking is what you’ve learned, what you’ve experienced, how you’ve nudged maybe early naysayers or lawmakers in your area that you’re working with to get to this point to make this decision. I’m sure it’s been a challenge, and so I’m wondering if you have any insights as to things that worked in terms of sort of nudging folks along to go with this.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
Do you mean specifically the bike network or the plan more generally or-

Andrea Learned:
Well, that’s a good question. The bike network is of most interest to me, but I will tell you something. I’ve talked with a political or a lawmaker from the Pittsburgh area before, and he said that there was something about talking about complete streets and not talking about infrastructure that got more people along. That was one thing I was kind of curious if you found the same. So I’m interested in bike infrastructure, but what I’m really interested in is moving the needle on all of this stuff, because I know bike infrastructure will come along.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
Yeah, absolutely. No, that’s a great question. I think we made a mistake at the beginning of the project when we called the whole project Biketoria.

Andrea Learned:
Yes. Thank you. It’s great to know.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
Yeah. Yeah. And I think it was… I can’t remember. I wrote an op-ed, an opinion piece for our local newspaper. I believe it might have been at the beginning of 2019 or, sorry, 2017, so some years ago, and asked everyone to make a New Year’s resolution to never say Biketoria again.

Andrea Learned:
I love it.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
And we just simply now call it our bike network. And to the Pittsburgh lawmaker’s point, we’ve taken a complete streets approach. And that’s really interesting because it’s not just that we’re planting trees and putting in benches, but we’re also looking at our underground infrastructure, our storm-water infrastructure, our pipes, all of those things. So each corridor, before we do anything on top, we say, “What needs to be done underground?” And if it’s not needing to be done for the next three to four years, we bump it up and do it now, so that we’re not putting bike lanes in now and then in three to four years tearing them up to create a construction site to put that underground infrastructure in.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
So it’s been a real learning for all of us because I think the complete streets notion really is about the top of the street, right? It’s about the bike lanes and the benches and the crosswalks and the trees. So maybe we could call the approach we’re taking complete streets plus, because we’re looking at that underground infrastructure as well. So yeah, when we stopped talking about bikes and started talking about complete streets, I think that got people kind of more on board. But to be honest, what really got people on board and now really celebrating the bike network is that we just built it. And there was some kind of conversation early on that we should just do one corridor or two corridors and see how it goes. Well, we know that that’s not going to go very well because it’s just like running electricity to a house. If you only put the wires 80% of the way there, you’re not going to be able to turn on your light, right? That concept of minimum grid.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
So we pushed ahead, and we knew that we needed to do proof of concept. And so our first two routes were east-west. And then when we put the first north-south connector in, we saw more people on bikes. And then we just, at the end of the summer, finished the second north-south connector that runs kind of all the way from the ocean all the way to the edge of our municipality. And again, that’s transformational. So it was difficult from a political point of view, but absolutely. So the way to bring people along is just keep going even when it feels difficult.

Andrea Learned:
I mean, that is just the key. If I just tweet that out a bazillion times, maybe some people will learn from that. I mean, that’s wonderful to know. And I also feel like that’s kind of the approach, though I haven’t spoken with her, of Anne Hidalgo in Paris, right?

Mayor Lisa Helps:
Yeah.

Andrea Learned:
She’s the one, right? She’s the mayor that everyone’s pointing to internationally, and I’m just like, “There’ve got to be some mayors in North America that have political will,” which is one of the reasons I really wanted to talk to you.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
Yeah. It really has taken political will, and at the beginning of the project… There are nine people on my council. At the beginning of the project, the first corridor was nine in favor. The second corridor was maybe seven in favor. The third corridor was maybe six in favor. And you always need at least five to pass. And then now we just approved, in one fell swoop, the remainder of the network: nine in favor, zero opposed. And it’s because why? The public loves the network.

Andrea Learned:
I mean, that is incredible. One other question that I want to ask you about that is I was just on an eBike demo bike ride in Portland, Oregon, with some of their lawmakers. And it was really interesting. I’m wondering if your council have all taken a ride on a bike or an eBike. Are they aware of the experience of it themselves, or did you get them on the bikes as part of kind of moving them forward with this?

Mayor Lisa Helps:
That’s a really interesting question. I would say three of us out of the nine are bike riders as our primary mode of transportation, but the others drive cars, and the bike network has made it better for them too. So that’s how… We haven’t forced everyone onto a bicycle to go for a ride, but now when they’re driving on a downtown street or in a neighborhood, they either have the road to themselves because all the bikes have moved over to the bike corridor or there’s that safe, separated. So it’s been really interesting to hear car drivers say this is actually better for them as well. So, yeah, that’s kind of been our council’s perspective.

Andrea Learned:
That’s incredible, Lisa. One of the things I’m always saying in my Bikes4Climate work is there is no downside even if you want to-

Mayor Lisa Helps:
Yeah, there is no downside.

Andrea Learned:
… even if you want to keep driving your car. And usually, I mean, in my very cynical perspective, it’s older people that just are really kind of afraid of change and then driving around downtown in Seattle. There is no downside. If you get more people on bikes, there’s more room for you to be the traffic congestion you would like to be.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
Yeah, well, or and there’s… Victoria has a number of residents who are older and also… I mean, but a lot of them are actually getting out onto eBikes. And there’s also considerations of people who have disabilities and can’t use bikes for whatever reason. So yeah, it really… I think people are starting to see the win-win of the bike network for everybody, whether you ride bikes, whether you take transit or walk or drive your car.

Andrea Learned:
That’s amazing. And you just mentioned, kind of as an aside there, that people are more interested now with the eBikes. So is that… I mean, the availability of eBikes is getting more people of all ages and abilities going. Yes? You’re seeing that?

Mayor Lisa Helps:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I don’t have hard data, but anecdotally there’s at least one bike store in town… This is probably enough of a fact to be able to share. One bike store in town where 50% of their sales are eBikes. But what I’m hearing anecdotally from seniors, who just stop me on the street, is that they say, “I haven’t ridden a bike in years, and I bought an eBike, and I’m so excited,” because they can get out of their car. They can be… And eBikes are easy. I bought one too, right? It’s really… To me, that’s one of… I think we said it, but we didn’t mean it. Or we said it, but we didn’t know how true it would be, rather. Of course, we meant it, that when we were building the network, it wasn’t for your typical spandex-wearing cyclist. It was for the people who are not on bikes: the kids, the seniors, people who might be more tentative, women.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
So what we’re seeing, and again, we do bike counts, but we don’t do who’s riding, because how do you count that? But again, anecdotally, way more people who wouldn’t be out there who are now out there, and eBikes are part of it, and I think the network itself is part of it.

Andrea Learned:
Oh, that is fantastic to hear. And to your point, I really agree the people that are forwarding or the people that are bike advocates, if you will, tend to be the hardcore people. Well, like me, I’ve been riding for almost 30 years now in cities and stuff. And everyone thinks that it’s just our little cause. And it’s like, “No, no, no, you don’t understand. If we do this, you will ride.” I can-

Mayor Lisa Helps:
Yeah.

Andrea Learned:
And to hear that that’s actually coming true in Victoria is fantastic.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
Yeah.

Andrea Learned:
So God, this is wonderful. Congrats.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
Yeah, it’s really exciting. And I think it really has taken a community effort because as people… I mean, and certainly our staff. I mean I was biking in the other day, and I ran into one of our staff also on his bike, and I was like, “How’s it going?” He’s like, “We’re deep into implementation,” because I’m like, “Okay, our decision’s made.” And he was like, “Yeah, but we’ve got to…” So it’s like we’ve got an amazing staff team.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
And some of the things we learned along the way is to get better and deeper at engagement. And actually, this is, I think, an interesting thing to talk about because the first two corridors, we did a pretty in-depth, detailed engagement, almost like block by block, parking spot by parking spot. The third corridor, we did the same. And then I think we maybe kind of loosened up a little too quickly on the engagement, and there were a couple of corridors that met more resistance because there wasn’t necessarily the same level of engagement. So then the corridor after that, we did tons of engagement, like just probably way too much. And those were the sections that were approved unanimously.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
But I think we do need to, not just for Victoria, but for other cities, if building bike lanes is going to be just like putting up stop signs, putting up red lights, putting up all the things that you expect to see in a built-out city, we’ve got to kind of normalize it and in the next phase not do so much engagement, because we don’t ask the public, “Do you want a stop sign here?” We don’t ask the public, “Do you want a traffic light here?” These are now normal pieces of city infrastructure. And I think we’ll be able to build more corridors more quickly if we don’t need to do all the engagement, because it just becomes normalized city infrastructure. I don’t know how close we are to that yet, but we’ll see over the next couple years.

Andrea Learned:
That is a really interesting point. It would not have even occurred to me, but that makes so much sense, by continuing to ask these questions. And the other thing is, do you find that the citizens or the people that are using the bike infrastructure are kind of helping you sell it all along the way? So the buzz and sort of the appreciation is something that you just go, “Well, hey, did you check out so-and-so just said…” It would seem like you don’t have to tell the story as much anymore because riders are.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
Yeah, exactly. I mean, that was, for me, a real tipping point. I clip out all the newspaper articles that are of relevance, and they’re on my whiteboard, and I could dig through it to find it. But anyways, I think it was… But I really lost track of all time and all seasons because of COVID, but-

Andrea Learned:
Yeah.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
What month is it now? So probably early or maybe end of the summer, there was a fantastic front-page news story about how much everybody likes the bike lanes, how much everyone makes the… And it was something like, “Bike lanes mean I have no more fear.” That was the headline, something like that. So that was a tipping point. We no longer need to be the storytellers, and the media and the community are now the storytellers.

Andrea Learned:
And that is incredible. Wow! It’s so fun to talk to you because this is exactly what I want to share with other cities and make sure people hear, so thank you.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
Yeah.

Andrea Learned:
One of the things related to that, having watched your recent APBP, and I don’t even know what that stands for, so you can tell us, presentation was your emphasis on that you’re encouraging the good stuff. I want to hear more about what encouraging the good stuff means in this plan of yours or this approach.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
Sure. Yeah. And that comment was in reference to Go Victoria more generally, not just the bikes. But it’s really building on all the things that people want to have in their life. They want to have easy connections to the places they love, right? Who doesn’t want to be able to get to their favorite brunch place or their kids’ daycare easily, safely, and affordably? So that’s one thing. Making it easy for people to move around, that’s one of the focusing-on-the-good-stuff principles.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
The other is people in Victoria, but obviously in other places, we are very sustainably minded and very worried about the future of the planet. And again, the good stuff that comes along with thinking about future mobility means that you are, just by doing things that are kind of common sense and sensible, you’re helping the planet, right? Whether it’s that you’re taking transit instead of your car, whether you’re joining a car-share co-op, and we’ve just recently had a… We’ve got two car-share co-ops now in, or two car-sharing companies in Victoria now. And again, this is anecdotal evidence, but the one that just opened in August, they’re just doing such good business. So that’s another kind of encouraging or building on the good stuff or encouraging the good stuff. Cars are really expensive. If you don’t have to own one, you’re going to have more money in your pocket, and that’s a good thing.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
And then the other kind of focusing on the good stuff is really about health and wellness. There have been studies that have been done that you could probably cite, or I could, about the lower levels of heart conditions, less emergency room visits, and not just from biking, but from the ability to move around cities in a way that’s also going to get your heart rate up or also… And we found that taking that focusing-on-the-good-stuff and almost joy-based approach is much more enticing for people, because who doesn’t want that in their life, right? Who doesn’t want to have more money in their pocket? Who doesn’t want to be able to make it easier to get their kid to daycare? Who doesn’t want to make it easier to be healthy? So we’re really like, that’s kind of been the approach.

Andrea Learned:
Oh, I love it. And one thing that you did bring up is this idea of climate. And something I’ve been wondering is, as you’re approaching this and sort of making these changes, and I’m not exactly sure how Anne Hidalgo did it in Paris either, but even talking about climate. You and I both live in cities that would seem to be fairly aware of climate action, et cetera, and the need for this. But I don’t know politically if you talk about how great this is going to be for the climate at the front end of this, but you just know it’s going to come through at the other end, and people will be happy that it’s happening. So I’m wondering, with your approach, was climate a selling point of getting going on this, or were you kind of softer on that and then picked up on it as the people picked up on it themselves later?

Mayor Lisa Helps:
That’s a really interesting question. We adopted a climate leadership plan in 2018, so probably about a year before we adopted Go Victoria. And in the climate plan, 40% of our emissions in the city come from transportation. And one of the climate goals is that by 2030, 85%… Sorry. I can’t remember if it’s 75% or 85%. By 2030, either 75% or 85% of people will be using walking, cycling, or taking transit as their main mode of transportation. And that alone will reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 18%.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
That wasn’t what we went running out to the public with when we were doing Go Victoria, but we already had set those targets in Go Victoria. So in some ways… Sorry, set those targets in the climate leadership plan. And then Go Victoria was one of the first deliverables of the how. How are we going to reduce our transportation emissions? So I would say that Go Victoria is nested under our climate leadership plan, but we weren’t waving the climate-change flag. We were waving the, “Hey, look how easy it’s going to be to get safely into the downtown.” And now as the network’s building out into neighborhoods, you can go… I have a friend who lives in Saanich, which is a neighboring municipality. I can get all the way from my house to her house, probably about five or six kilometers apart, by only going on road without protection for probably maybe about 100 or 200 meters.

Andrea Learned:
Wow!

Mayor Lisa Helps:
And that was not possible five years ago. So that’s a feature for people. And of course, I’m saving greenhouse gas emissions, but that’s not what… Even like I’m a very, obviously, climate-friendly mayor, but I don’t think, “Hmm, I’m going to save greenhouse gas emissions when I go to Tracy’s house for brunch.” I’m like, “Oh my goodness, I can get there safely and comfortably.” So I think that’s been… And the climate benefit comes.

Andrea Learned:
That is so… I mean, I am such a firm believer of that. And I have to say that this joy, joy-based approach or sort of the joy-inducing versus the climate… One of the things that I think, because it’s in my work, it’s sort of the approach that I take, is you do all this stuff. You get people on bikes, and at the tail end, maybe like a year from now, you go, “Hasn’t that eBike been fun? Haven’t you been getting places faster? Don’t you love not having to deal with parking, whatever?” And then at the very end you go, “You know what? You actually, by what you were doing, saved this much carbon emissions.” People’s eyes will pop, and then they’ll be like, “I’m so in.”

Andrea Learned:
I don’t think people realize how great it is to feel good about not doing those emissions, not contributing to emissions. And they’re not going to believe it’s a selling point, but a year in, they’re going to be really proud of themselves. And as a community, I think you can elevate that and go, “Did you guys know that since we’ve done this, boom?” Anyway, kudos. More and more kudos to you, Lisa. This is amazing.

Andrea Learned:
Did you have any resistance to getting… As you were getting council people to sign onto it or whatever, was there any specific example where you knew that maybe a couple of them might be harder sells and you had some sort of strategy for getting them? Or did you just allow the process to sort of show those people that this was… I’m just kind of curious for other political leaders and city leaders if there are any tips about trying to start to convince or persuade the people that are not quite there yet.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
It’s a really good question. I think it depends on each council and how… I mean, it’s very political. I’m not a very good politician because I’m actually… I hadn’t been concerned about getting re-elected, and I did. I got reelected with a much stronger margin than I was originally, and that was after the bike network. So there are two ways to answer the question. One is if councils are really focused on the next four years, then I think it is important to take the time to build support in the community so that… because councils listen to the community… to build support in the community so that there’s not so much community resistance, which makes it easier to vote yes. So my advice would be spend the time to do the work in the community.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
But on the other hand, if you have a council, and huge credit goes to my council, where there are enough votes to move ahead sure about what the future looks like, irrespective of people kicking and screaming now, I would say it’s… Of course, we still need to do the work with the community and explain this network, and these parking spots will be lost and this and that. But it’s political courage that’s carried us through. It’s that we never… And I might have had to take a different approach if I got worried about going below five votes, but I never did. And I knew that there were enough councilors on board who could…

Mayor Lisa Helps:
And it’s really difficult as an elected official to just say, “I hear you. I understand you don’t like this right now. But my job as an elected official is not just to take care of right now. It’s to care of the future.” So I guess the advice I would give is assess the nature of your council. See how much political courage there is. If there’s a high enough quotient of political courage, forge ahead, and people will come along. If there’s not, you’re probably going to need to take a bit more time. But we don’t have time. I mean, we really need to hit net zero by 2050, so I don’t know how much time we have to talk about this.

Andrea Learned:
Well, so this is… I mean, you’re making lots of points that I make too. It’s just, I think, the political will and this political courage. That’s why I’m asking you these questions. People aren’t finding it and leveraging and even thinking about it that way. And I think there’s another point to your saying that you aren’t really a politician, right? If the people that are in politics to really make a difference can just let go of whether they want to be re-elected and really help with the city and with regard to climate change, this is just me not caring about being a mayor or whatever, I feel like your vibe and sort of your… Things will change enough that you just sort of move forward with that political courage. It’s almost like, again, Anne Hidalgo being mayor, and now what’s she saying? She’s going to maybe run for President.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
Yeah, that’s right.

Andrea Learned:
And it’s just like-

Mayor Lisa Helps:
I’ve heard that too.

Andrea Learned:
And I wonder if four, some six years ago, she was like, “I’m not really a politician.” And then it’s just like as you feel the momentum because people are responding to your not being a politician, there’s something to it.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
Yeah. No, I think that’s a really interesting point. I think the bike network, the first corridor was built in 2016, the second in 2017. And then we’ve been accelerating since then. But again, I can’t remember all of it. And again, the world pre-COVID just seems like-

Andrea Learned:
A long time ago.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
But we were under construction of the first north-south corridor during the… either during or just right before the last election campaign. So I was elected in 2014, ran again in 2018. And really, I remember my campaign volunteers going down the Fort Street bike lane. There was bike parking embedded over, and they’d made these little flyers that hooked on really well to people’s gear. But yeah, it was so great. So when I was originally elected before the bike network started, I had 38% of the popular vote, and I won by 89 votes. And when I was re-elected in 2018, I had 43% of the popular vote and was elected by a margin of 3,700 votes.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
So to me, that’s just a sign that if you do what is actually the right thing in your heart and the right thing for the future, most practical people will respect that. They might not like it, or they might not even be able to see all the whys of doing it, but… And I don’t mean wise, W-I-S-E. I mean, like all the reasons why. So I think that says something about at least what people want in Victoria. I think that they want a leader and a council, a mayor and a council who are going to take care of the future as well as taking care of the present.

Andrea Learned:
Yeah, that is wonderful. And it’s sort of another point, and it’s kind of all related to what we’ve already been discussing, is from your, I think, your APBP thing was the idea that you would be bold and collaborate. So what surprised you that worked with the new ways you were able to build collaboration around this plan, if there’s anything that we haven’t quite talked about yet?

Mayor Lisa Helps:
Sure. Yeah. When we started, as I said, we did really, really detailed consultation on the first few corridors, and these are like high-traffic downtown streets, multi-residential buildings, businesses, parking, commercial loading zones, accessibility parking spots. Really, it was almost… It was kind of block-by-block, meter-by-meter engagement. Our staff would go into this coffee shop and say, “Okay, what do you need outside? How many?” And that was good and really worked.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
And then I think as we got out into the neighborhoods, maybe we thought, because there weren’t so many different uses competing, that we didn’t necessarily need to do the same block-by-block approach, and I think that we did get some pushback on that. And then as I said, in the third round, the most recent round, a number of corridors, we took a really… Like, we flyered every household along the corridor and invited them to meetings, and I think that’s really important to do. And I think we kind of ebbed and flowed in terms of our collaboration and engagement. And that’s been really important for the first 32 kilometers, but I would stress that, just going back to the point about traffic lights and stop signs, if we’re going to have sustainable cities with healthy people living in them, bike infrastructure, separated, safe bike infrastructure needs to be considered just as all other traffic measures, and we can’t continue at the depth and level of consultation.

Andrea Learned:
Another thing that you really speak to quite a bit that I wanted to make sure that I asked you a question about is the diversity and equity, and just getting this accessibility to this safe infrastructure. And I guess we’re really still speaking very much about bike infrastructure, but the diversity and equity related to this and what you found. Yeah, I mean, just has this been different than other things that you’ve done in the city and being able to tap and make sure that more people really get in on this?

Mayor Lisa Helps:
Well, bikes are cheap compared to a car or… There’s that alone. If we create a safe infrastructure for people, then they don’t have to spend so much money. So that means if you’re a lower income person, you’ve got better access to the city, or if you’re a kid, you’ve got better access to the city. We’ve been quite deliberate about the how of building out our corridors and the network itself. It’s really meant to connect people to each other and to the services they need. So all of our community centers that are city owned but community run, most of them have childcare, and so we wanted to make sure that there were safe, accessible ways for parents to get their kids to childcare.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
The very first corridor we built goes right past the city’s biggest and most notable homeless shelter. I remember a very moving conversation with the manager of Our Place Society, and he said, “I just wanted to say thank you for putting the first corridor here because our clients are usually the ones who are an afterthought. And to have the bike corridor go right past their front door means that they can get to and access services.” So there are those kinds of approaches as well. We’re actually in the process right now of adopting an equity framework, so not only bikes, but all projects will be looked at through that lens. So I think there’s still more work to do, but certainly it was a bit of an influence.

Andrea Learned:
Wow! That is such a great story. Let’s see. So we are winding up a little bit. Related to the Bikes4Climate work that I’m doing, one question I would ask you is how do you suggest your peer mayors across North America, how can they set the stage or warm relationships to make things like this happen themselves and to help get these changes started knowing, as you’ve said, that even the immediate results will perpetuate, kind of self-perpetuate the continued support and good decision-making? So do you have any other suggestions that we didn’t talk about for other mayors across North America in kind of getting this rolling?

Mayor Lisa Helps:
Yeah. Well, I think just to emphasize a couple of things that I’ve already said. One is embedding a bike network in a larger plan. So our climate leadership plan is the overarching document, and the bike network is going to help us substantially achieve a goal that we’ve already all agreed to. So that’s key. The second, as we’ve already spent quite a bit of time talking about, is emphasize the joy. Take a joy-based approach. How is this going to make everyone’s quality of life better there, and again even for drivers? So I think not like we should have bike lanes because bike lanes are the right thing to do. No one wants to hear that anything is the right thing to do. People hate that. What they want to hear is how is this going to make my life better? And I would say that’s the approach.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
And the third piece that we haven’t touched on is make sure that there are staff champions. The woman who has really overseen this whole project, Sarah Webb, is amazing. She is just… If you ever want to do a follow-up interview with her, she-

Andrea Learned:
I do. I do.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
Okay, perfect. [inaudible 00:30:42]. Yeah, she’s awesome. And she’s been… So yeah, for mayors, we can have all the good ideas that we want, but unless there are staff champions who aren’t… The worst thing would be like, “Okay, I guess we have to go build bike lanes.” But she’s like, “All right, let’s go get those lanes built.” She’s a force to be reckoned with.

Andrea Learned:
That’s amazing. Well, I think that’s a wonderful place to stop. The one thing that I’ll ask you at the end is do you have any announcements or reports or anything coming up or related or around COP26 that we should look out for or that I can help you emphasize moving forward? Are there any kind of pieces coming up in the next couple months that are part of this that we can all help amplify maybe?

Mayor Lisa Helps:
I will let you know. When would you need that for the show going live? Because we are… We’re doing a few things around COP26. The UK Consul General is coming. So I’ve got a meeting with staff, I think, maybe even this Friday afternoon to get briefed, so…

Andrea Learned:
Great. Well, you can let me know whenever. If I get it by the time this come comes out, I’ll include it with the notes. But no matter what, I will emphasize it via my own Twitter account and my Bikes4Climate and all the climate-influence stuff that I do. So I will get the word out there. So I need it no matter what. And if I can, I’ll attach it to the show notes for this.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
Okay, perfect.

Andrea Learned:
So that’s it. And I will say thank you so much, Lisa. This has been amazing, and I’m looking forward to posting it. I will also get a transcript and write probably a blog post that goes with it and make sure that you get both of those eventually.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
Awesome.

Andrea Learned:
Yeah, I guess probably in the next two to three weeks. So thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
Yeah, you’re welcome. Yeah, me too. Yeah, great conversation, and thanks very much. And I’ll look forward to getting the notes and listening to the podcast.

Andrea Learned:
Sounds good. Bye. Take care.

Mayor Lisa Helps:
Okay. Yeah, you too. Bye.

Photo by Noah Buscher on Unsplash

One of the reasons so few corporate, nonprofit and government leaders use Twitter well may be that they just don’t *see* themselves there. In other words, the folks they consider influencers in their own spheres don’t have a presence there, so why should they bother? That’s my point exactly. You may well be the leader who can step into this role and become the chief curator for your sector. It’s likely yours for the taking.

I’ve described in previous posts why this matters and why you should seriously consider Twitter, if you are at all aiming to be a leader/influencer in work that moves the climate action needle. In this piece, I aim to describe a few leaders on Twitter who model my claims. These people may not be in your exact niche, but they represent a similar space and are offering clues to how you can jump into this powerful social engagement world and still be you.

See Yourself With Climate Influence

Three leaders* I’ve been following for years are worth a look, as examples of how and why to be on the Twitter platform. As I advise my clients: follow those people who you’d like to one day be seen among (corporate leaders, academics, media), whose work is aspirational and whose communities you see as a learning tool.

1. Female federal government leader: Even when she’s had accounts that were managed by her public sector teams, this leader has also long had a personal Twitter account and actively engaged there. She’s been human and positive, and is closing in on 200K followers. When trolls have done their thing around big news topics she was involved in, she’s been known to take a break. Now, post official roles, she has continued to leverage the huge social capital (which was political capital back in her government days) towards new climate-influencing projects and she is continuing to build her own leadership platform in that space. Her followers, and the media, are very aware of her expertise and main causes (because she’s worn them on her sleeve from the beginning).
2. Male nonprofit founder: This man was very smart from the beginning of founding his nonprofit, because he immediately owned his leadership platform space. His organization has done a great job with Twitter, but he has built extra powerful personal social capital via his own, authentic, profile. To be certain, he has fewer than 2K followers, but if you take a look at them, they are extremely high value for his industry, and that is the key. He also started writing regular posts for a range of publications (and leaders need to do that as individuals, not as their organization). The fact that he has a personal social media following makes him a very attractive candidate for OpEd writing , podcast guesting and more. (His own followers will help the publication amplify his posts).
3. Male corporate CEO: I do not know his Twitter origin story, but he has long developed his personal account, which currently has 1 million followers. He’s been written up in Harvard Business Review as a key leader involved in social activism, and his Twitter handle is key to that. He doesn’t have to retweet all that his corporation does, because he seems to understand that the people who follow him are following a person who is a leader more than they care about corporate news. When his corporation gains visibility at climate events (like COPs), it has that much extra influence “bang” because his name is tagged, he is being interviewed, he is on stage, and he is perhaps tweeting about his presence/the news item. There has been little downside for this very influential CEO in being on Twitter for years.

Activate The Universal Benefits Of Twitter

In all cases, by being on Twitter, these people are easy for journalists to observe and see as future sources. They are also continually building the social capital case for why they make great speakers, podcast guests etc. They’ve got existing, high value followers (even if just in their particular sector, and even if that number is a few thousand) that conferences or publications can leverage for their own social media promotion when they cover or cite the leader. They’ve made space to build trust and resilient relationships way before a crisis moment occurs. They own their voice and have boldly stepped up. They’ve built thicker skin and smart strategies about how to handle trolls. No matter what, they see the incredible reputation management and influencer marketing benefits in their Twitter presence, and realize they have to continue to be authentic. As such, they (likely) mainly manage the account themselves.

I could go on. The point is these leaders have realized that there is incredible strategic upside to being on Twitter, and it certainly looks like they’ve managed to get comfortable and use it as a positive, “rising tide lifts all boats” tool. There’s no room for gratuitous self promotion.

It is worth noting that Twitter, like U.S. society, tends to be a very white, privileged space. These particular examples reflect that. It’s also worth noting that the leadership-focused consultants who are experts in other platforms will have different approaches. I’m just here to tell you that, in my six years of advising on just this topic, the way these three leaders engage on Twitter – each in their own unique way – can be seen as best practices.

Commit To Being A Visible Leader

So, here’s the call: be a visible leader. Be the curator and amplifier of all of sector news, insights and research that *move* us toward climate-acting progress. Emphasize positivity and “naming and faming” over negativity and “naming and shaming” (though I, admittedly and occasionally, get into that when it comes to politics, big oil and big ag climate news).

Consumer-facing climate action advocacy has not worked as well or as fast as would have been necessary to avoid our dire situation. In this time of flat-out climate emergency, leaders have the opportunity, and, it could be argued, the responsibility, to build intentional climate influence. Twitter awaits.

***

*The leaders are Catherine McKenna, Brian Kateman and Marc Benioff. I chose to write about them in ways where you might more likely see yourself, rather than naming them up front. No matter how broadly influential, these are all real people doing this Twitter thing well.

Editorial note: Lest you think I hype the potential for building/growing #ClimateInfluence, the Onalytica influencer marketing platform does incredible research that backs me up. See this recent analysis of global technology brand employee online presence and influence, and a lot of their other recent reports on #ESG influencers and more. )

(First published on LinkedIn, December 22, 2021.)

(Photo credit: https://flickr.com/photos/drb62/ )

Over the years, my clients have hired me mainly for the different lens I bring to strategic leadership communications and my years of building networks in the climate action space. It tends to be the unexpected media relations boosts, however, that hook them into my approach. This dire climate emergency – and milestone events like COP26 – require that many more leaders develop into better media resources. (It’s on you, not them.)

And, yes, media relationship building is a longer game. But, building a trusted level of leader-to-journalist engagement is effective, can garner quick ROI, and helps bridge a range of industry sectors with climate action. The “art” of social capital  is that it develops around the edges of, while also amplifying, traditional PR.

Non-traditional Is My Middle Name

The usual approach to anything has never been my interest. I have long tended to focus on what graphic designers call the negative space. Writing a book on marketing to women in the early aughts didn’t come from wanting to help companies sell more products to women (too obvious), but from wanting to understand how/why women (aka very important consumers) made the decisions they did. From there, I realized that anything consumer-facing was nowhere near as interesting for change as leadership-focused influence building in the climate space especially (another negative space, where few others tend to tread).

Enter Twitter.

Since getting on the platform in 2008, with a broad focus on corporate sustainability and climate action, I’ve again been drawn to where I saw a void: social capital. All of the usual blog posts, audio content and speaking gigs, for example, are fine, but that work reaches no one without well developed audience engagement.

Cue the “if a tree falls in a forest” metaphor, because without social capital, it’ll be true: no one cares, especially media.  What can be done?

Think Media In Social Media

My approach here is again unconventional. I would never advise a client to pitch a journalist in the usual ways. Instead, I take into account how a journalist likely might come across interesting people, build loose relationships and ultimately leverage those folks as sources. Then, I think about the situation any reporter may be in, like if they’d ever need last minute information or a quote. I also evaluate whether a client is easy to find and message. What is the client’s existing presence (in terms of links, blog posts, interviews, etc) online? Is it likely the climate journalists who are covering the client’s particular sector have ever heard of this leader before? Is the leader in some way an information curator who helps bridge their sector with a key climate solution? Is the leader good at doing all of this, finally, *without any expectations or hidden agenda*?

In all cases, being on Twitter serves. In this purpose, no other social platform compares.

To be most effective, leaders should mainly strive to influence the influencers. And, being on Twitter as a continual, calm, non-pitching, at-the-ready, journalist’s resource is pure gold. By quietly building relationships, acknowledging great writing and generally adding real value to the discussion, the social capital groundwork is laid. 

Let’s use the plant-based space as an example. Say you are an entrepreneur, CEO or investor, hoping to be seen for your leadership by your targeted influencer segment, including media. You are – of course – behind a great product or body of work, but the fact that you want to be seen leading an entire sector with your bigger thinking needs to be clear. Building relationships, not chasing one-off brand mention wins in copy/pasted press release coverage, is how it’s done. That’s when you’ll end up being the key quote in likely the exact sort of piece you’d dreamed of, however long that took to come to pass.

For climate action-related work especially, journalists would likely hope to understand the range of ways the plant-based sector might align with global, sustainable food systems change. Imagine helping even one of them to explore an otherwise under-reported piece of the COP26 agriculture story. You were right there for them, largely due to a Twitter connection.

The Box Is Made of Fog (So Just Step Out)

As a leader in a climate change-impacting space, let’s acknowledge that it *is* your fault if you’ve kept thinking traditionally about what constitutes good media coverage or how to measure that. If you step *out* of that (darned) box, you see that few are introducing the bigger picture leadership angles and there’s now a neon sign calling on you to do it. 

You have to be bold, and you have to have social capital at-the-ready.

To become this needed credible, trusted resource (and source) for the climate change-focused media, be prepared and be visible. Heading into COP26, there will surely be a lack of value-adding leadership voices on Twitter, so it is now your call. Develop social capital for climate influence, or leave it up to chance. 

As Greta Thunberg said in a recent Covering Climate interview:

“In such an emergency as we are in right now, everyone needs to take their moral responsibility, at least I think so, and use whatever power they have, whatever platform they have, to try to influence and push in the right direction, to make a change,…”

We’re in a climate moment, folks. If you’ve been thinking that your Twitter platform is not worth developing, let COP26 preparation be your mind-changer. 

From the real-time, rapid changes and behind the scenes finagling of decision-makers, to the unbelievable number of organizations and leaders wanting to be seen on stage or in media coverage, COP26 social engagement is about leader-to-leader signaling. Are you ready to do your influencer part? Would there be value in not wasting time on that platform this time around?

Here’s a call to action: You’ve got a few weeks. You actually *can* make a difference if you more intentionally approach this platform.

I’ve been behind the scenes building climate-focused leadership platforms (for NGOs and corporate clients), using Twitter as a key tool, since COP21. I’ve developed Twitter handles with high value followers and no affiliated website from week one. I’ve helped organizations who didn’t know the corporate sustainability space well, or understand how to align with global climate stories, dig right in and make their climate announcements ring. I’ve helped get clients on the radar of key media with just 30 days before a milestone event. (See my LinkedIn recommendations.)

It’s very rewarding and very doable, but it’s not something that can be templated. It takes a few customized tips that speak specifically to things like how you should manage your “pinned tweet” for most impact, how to use hashtags that bridge your organization to *the* news topics, and how more intentional quote tweeting can earn you extra thanks and appreciative follows (among many more). 

How on earth can YOUR tweeting get seen in the frantic COP26 streams? I have simple strategies.

I never saw it coming, but Twitter naturally aligns with my particular reading, monitoring, journalist-appreciating, cheering on and community-engaging predilections.  If even a handful more leaders or organizations leverage this awareness-raising power tool in this dire climate moment, the impact would be significant.

Beware: Twitter is *not* the same as all of your other social platforms, so, my top, perhaps counterintuitive, tip is: don’t waste time on Twitter at all if you can’t tend it with strategic intention.

Or, you can get help. That’s why I’m here – to jumpstart the smart Twitter advantage that leaders, corporations and nonprofit communications, partner development  professionals can take along with them to the virtual climate action dais.  

To be clear: this is not about rapidly gaining bazillions of followers just because. This is about you thinking “in a dream world, we’d be able to informally DM with this journalist, that academic, or that potential partner” and aiming for it. It’s about warming connections because you know you’ll have reason to activate them for all the climate events to come (and they’ll only get more dire).

To influence climate discussions we have to build and amplify our own climate influence (before we need it).

Let’s do this. Even at this late date, you’d likely highly value a bit more expertise in your approach.

A 30-minute coaching session, right now, will energize, guide and jumpstart your smarter use of this tool for leader-to-leader and media relationships in ways you can put to use immediately.  Find a spot on my coaching calendar here: https://calendly.com/andrea-climateinfluence/30-minute-climate-influence-cop26-twitter-coaching-session 

What we put on our plates does matter. (Photo credit: Lisa from Pexels)

June 7, 2021 update: I spoke with Arturo Jose Garcia recently about the potential for plant-based investors and influencers to more intentionally (and loudly) share about the climate action values alignment. Here’s the link (anyone can listen to this audio/no need to have a Fireside account). Build social capital now. There are so many ways to leverage it for the cause.

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I’ve started using the #PlantBased4Climate tag on Twitter and LinkedIn because there seems to be a void (or fear?) in communications and messaging around the topic.  Those of us forwarding this choice, specifically driven by climate concerns, have not done a great job bridging the two – and that will be SO key in this climate emergency.

A solution does, indeed, sit on our plates. Helping more people see why they should choose plant-based eating CAN help the momentum and social norming needed to influence political will in global food systems discussions, if we do it right.

• There are stories of city mayors and other political leaders (Cory Booker!) who have moved to a plant-based diet, but too many have not yet “outed” themselves. (Let’s help them!)
• There is research that shows that consumers actually ARE nudged a bit by seeing meat’s carbon emissions when those numbers are put in front of them.
• There is (plentiful) data that TELLS the story, available (and not being leveraged broadly enough) via PlantBasedData and OurWorldInData.org 
• There are “conversion stories” of surprising validators just waiting, patiently, to be better used in this time of crisis.

I could go on, but just wanted to start the discussion.  I’ll be curating a stream of #PlantBased4Climate information, news, and leaders to follow, via my Twitter and LinkedIn accounts (as I’ve done for years with my #Bikes4Climate work).

Join me. Use the tag. Connect the plant-based dots to climate more boldly. There is huge opportunity.  Contact me if your team could use strategic advising around it.