Sprawled Out: The Search for Community in the American Suburb: Welcome to the Machine, and bring your GI Joe (part 1)

My career in volunteer civic service as an Economic Development Commissioner for the city of Franklin, Wisconsin began with a rare (perhaps unprecedented) joint meeting with the Finance Committee this past Thursday, thus the seating in city hall's Common Council Chambers was a jumble of persons around a table and at the elevated dais. Though everyone had a nameplate in front of them -- including me, the new guy, though my name was laser-printed on a paper insert as opposed to a more permanent plastic plate everyone else had -- I spent much of the preamble part of the meeting discerning who was EC and who was FC; seating order was mixed.

The hybrid nature of the meeting, combined with the fact that we had only an hour before the room would be needed for the scheduled Plan Commission meeting, meant that I was able to introduce myself to the persons in my immediate vicinity, but to most of those assembled there I was merely a New Guy - - that much was clear, because I had, after all, the only white nameplate.

As noted here in an earlier post, my target was a seat on the Plan Commission as that is where my interest and expertise lay. I'd heard this: Sensing a potential problem getting the council votes needed to confirm my nomination to that commission (a notion that intrigues me, obviously: two aldermen propose me for the seat; I know at least one more that should have no problem voting yea; Mayor Taylor, who nominated me, breaks the any potential tie ala Pete Kosovich's situation - - 4-3 gets me seated), Mayor Taylor proposed the Economic Development Commission instead.

I'm no prima donna; I took the appointment. And, yes, I will watch very closely to see who fills the still-vacant Plan Commission seat.

I did my homework before the meeting and got the volunteer fact sheets for everyone on the Economic Development Commission. There are 12 members, 2 of which are aldermen with whom I have some passing acquaintance (Steve Olson and the chairperson, Ken Skowronski). As for the citizen commissioners (I've had a conversation with commissioner Jon Zawacki, but have otherwise had no previous contact the the other commissioners), it is a very talented group, to say the least. Given the professional profiles of the persons serving on the Commission, you really get the idea that this is an assemblage you could gather around a table and have answers and informed opinions at your fingertips.

I am not an MBA or a management school graduate. I've spent my career in the creative realm, and for the last 15 years I've been self-employed. A great deal of what I do has to do with "parachuting" into an established organization and taking a fresh look at their marketing and/or branding situation and saying, "Why not do this?" Almost invariably, I'm given a dozen or so reasons why it can't work. And then, in the best cases, we do it anyway. When it's over, everyone decides that it was "destined" to happen.

Perhaps this is my role on the Commission.

About 10 years ago a wrote a book about Hasbro and the creation of the GI Joe action figure. We take for granted today the fact that action figures are a toy (and licensing) staple, but in 1962 the idea of a boy playing with what is basically a doll was outlandish. And that's not to mention the complexities of creating a human-like body that can attain and hold poses, tooling the tiny weapons, sewing miniature clothing, etc. There were about 78 very good reasons that the tiny Hassenfeld Bros. Toy Company could not - and should not - have created and marketed "America's Movable Man of Action." But they did it, and it made them the corporate giant they are today.

And I'm inexorably tied to GI Joe because of something I conceived a decade ago called the GI Joe Masterpiece Edition. My idea was simple: After meeting the former Hasbro VP who developed the original GI Joe toy, I proposed that we tell the story of the creation of the world's first action figure as an oral history, and package the book with a reproduction of the original fully articulated GI Joe toy.

But there were enormous obstacles, and we were told over and over by expert after expert the various reasons my idea would never fly. No one had ever published a book-collectible combination before; "can't be done." The original tooling for the insanely complicated GI Joe body (which Hasbro saw no value in) was long gone; retooling would be "impossible." The package would have to be incredibly complicated; "unshippable." You'd have to sell 50,000 units just to break even; "never happen." Hasbro would have to license their cornerstone property to an unknown entity (though I was working in partnership with the very ex-Hasbro VP who developed the original toy); "too expensive." Etc. Etc. All very sensible reasons why it could not happen.

We did it anyway. Not only that, we sold over 200,000 copies and basically invented the modern book-collectible publishing genre.

I've had pie-in-the-sky conversations with various city officials about how I would change certain aspects of commercial development in Franklin -- including specific initiatives I'd like to see -- and I've been treated to dozens of variations on the "neat-idea-but-impossible-because..." theme (often accompanied by a look of pity for my naivety). There's been no shortage of sensible reasons why we can't do this, that, or the other thing.

But what if we do it anyway?

Perhaps I'll bring a GI Joe to the Commission meeting tonight...

Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple -- that's creativity.

- Charles Mingus

Comments

"...in 1962 the idea of a boy playing with what is basically a doll was outlandish."

Or that made it sound more creative and challenging than developing a giant version of the little Army Men. http://www.thortrains.net/armymen/

Posted by: Terrence Berres | November 24, 2008 at 05:01 PM

Evidently the bugaboo was the idea that you could dress and undress the GI Joe figure la Barbie and baby dolls. Little Green Army Men (and tin soldiers) were more like anonymous masses of "guys" that you deployed - - no real relationship there.

When the "new" Real American Hero 3-3/4 GI Joes came out in the 80s, the "anonymous masses" vibe returned.

Posted by: John Michlig | November 24, 2008 at 05:14 PM