Let's go sell the world some neckties!

Jeremy Cogan (MA '10) gave a rousing speech at the School of Public Affairs Commencement ceremony today in which he recounted his experience with a Beijing clothing vendor whose persistence and openness to criticism provide some valuable lessons to those of us who are embarking on our careers. The shopkeeper, after hearing Jeremy's comment about her ugly ties, heeded the complaint, replaced the ties with some that were more to his liking, and ended up convincing him to buy some of them after all. The anecdote is humorous and a bit silly, but Jeremy uses it to make some excellent points...

That shopkeeper was a lot like the planner I’d like to be: passionately convinced in the value of my planning knowledge yet not so overconfident as to turn my back on input. When we share our alternatives to an ugly streetscape, a hideous number of parking spaces, or a dreadfully incomplete environmental document, we will be challenged to convince others to see what we can identify so easily now. We have to listen to our communities. We have to be open to changing our plans or policies or designs. We can provide clients intelligent and reasoned responses to their concerns. And at the end of the day, we will strive to achieve our sales pitch – whether that be selling parking reductions, or selling development plans – or maybe we should just get into the necktie business.

Yet whatever it is that we choose to do, the more pressing concern is how soon we do it. Friends have asked me, “Where do you see your career winding up in 30 years or so?” A quick answer is not so easy. Sure, there is much that I’d like to accomplish… And if we were to ask that question of all the graduates in this room, its quite phenomenal to consider the collective leadership that we will all achieve within such a time frame… yet 30 years is far too long to mold the world into what we would like it to be.

If we live in a city that attempts to compress 30 years of projects into just 10 years of planning and implementation, why can’t we do the same with our personal goals? Let’s look for ways to speed up the progress we intend to make.  Let’s find loopholes, make allies, and discover new tactics that allow us to achieve more in an economy that provides us far less. 

And let’s ensure that the acceleration of our professional pursuits runs parallel to our society’s progress. That means refusing to accept laws in neighboring states that blatantly discriminate. That means ensuring a quality public education is treated not as a privilege, but as a right. And it means that all of the graduates in this room – regardless of their department – must dedicate effort and commit support towards those initiatives or political campaigns that fight for the improved social services, policies, and urban environments that we so clearly envision after 2 years of study.

Full text available here.