Would you believe it has been almost a year. The statistics (Stats) of the OURKITTERY web site say a lot.
Although changing culture can be challenging, there is still a feeling to some that information be it small and perhaps somewhat meaningless is not that important. The point of releasing information however small is that each piece affects each person differently. Yes there are times it should be delayed but what happens in your Town certainly should be released whenever possible. The good news is that transparency is taking root in Kittery. OURKITTERY has over 17,802 views in one year. The best ever was 668 views in one day.
As we begin a new election year, the OURKITTERY web site is one year old. I ask those who follow OURKITTERY to LIKE it on FACEBOOK and share it with your friends. Also signing up for auto email on the OURKITTERY site, automatically sends all posts right to your email mailbox and you can cancel at anytime. The more you know about Kittery, the better Kittery becomes. It is your input that shapes Kittery. Remember, it is not my Kittery but it is Our Kittery. www.ourkittery.com
If there is more OURKITTERY can do, I would like to hear from you. If you have input either positive or negative, I would like to hear it. It’s hard to change culture, but the change it is taking root. Thank you to all those who chose to make more information transparency an important change. You can email me at cdenault@comcast.net with your comments.
Also it is important to remember that it is you the citizens of Kittery who we all work for and if there are issues you would like to share, input you think Council needs or just to let us all know how we are all doing, contact us using the email links below. All elected officials can always use input from the public.
http://ourkittery.com/2014/08/how-to-contact-the-kittery-town-council-reposted/
NOTE: Remember there is an important election coming up. On November 4th, Tuesday, State, Local and other issues will require a vote. Please get out and vote. Remember every vote counts and if it was not for one vote in the last November’s election, the outcome would have been different here in Kittery. …..Whew!
Thanks for being part of OURKITTERY.
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the following was taken from an article on the web.
You can’t have trust without transparency
Posted by Carter Gibson on in Company Culture
From keeping a secret to “trust falls” there’s no shortage of ways to get people to trust you. Not all methods may be practical for a business (especially not trust falls) so here at UserVoice we’ve devised a very simple tool to be a trustworthy operation: transparency. To us, transparency means that when we make a mistake we swallow our pride and say so. If an idea isn’t viable we respectfully decline. It sounds easy right? It isn’t.
Even we aren’t always as transparent as we should be (yes, I realize the irony in being transparent about not being transparent). This isn’t because we are intentionally pulling the wool over our employees’ eyes but because, in startup culture, things move very quickly and there isn’t a lot of time to catch everyone up.
For instance, we have a new feature coming up that some of the team had been working on intensely but that other parts of the team only had a cursory knowledge of. The problem wasn’t that we didn’t believe in our team. We did. The problem was that when employees (and customers) know when something is being hidden. It doesn’t sit right.
It all goes to show that there’s no such thing as being too aware of transparency. It’s like relationships – it only works if everyone is honest with everyone else. Being honest doesn’t mean bringing things up when convenient, it means making the effort to come forward with the information. I’ll let our Head of Community, Evan Hamilton close us out: “Feeling like you’re out of the loop is one of the most frustrating things ever. Lack of transparency can create a lot of problems. Telling the truth almost always creates happy people and more functional relationships. It’s hard, but worth it.”