Ladybug Confessions and the Conditions for Good Behavior

A few months ago I opened up the Seattle Times to see an amazing aerial photograph of “The Wallybug.” The Wallybug, a large street painting of a ladybug in Seattle’s Wallingford neighborhood, was my first real community organizing and placemaking project, completed right after I finished graduate school on the street where I lived.

The Wallybug was also the first intersection painting in Seattle, a tactical urbanism method borrowed from Portland Oregon that is now officially sanctioned by the City Department of Transportation.

As with most of my community-based landscape architecture work, the goal of this project focused on the process more than the final product. Sure, the Wallybug looks cool, but it was really about getting neighbors to know each other by working towards a common goal.

By that measure, it was a resounding success. I have since moved away, but after 15 years it still prompts an annual neighborhood block party and repainting.  When I talk with my old neighbor friends about the project, they credit the Wallybug as a genesis for meeting each other and coalescing their sense of community. 

Who wouldn’t love a brightly colored community-painted ladybug on the street?

As it turns out, there are a few.

The Wallybug was also the first intersection painting in Seattle, a tactical urbanism tactic borrowed from Portland Oregon that is now officially sanctioned by the City Department of Transportation.

As with most of my community-based landscape architecture work, the goal of this project focused on the process more than the final product. Sure, the Wallybug looks cool, but it was really about getting neighbors to know each other by working towards a common goal.

By that measure, it was a resounding success. I have since moved away, but after 15 years it still prompts an annual neighborhood block party and repainting.  When I talk with my old neighbor friends about the project, they credit the Wallybug as a genesis for meeting each other and coalescing their sense of community. 

Who wouldn’t love a brightly colored community-painted ladybug on the street?

As it turns out, there are a few.

THE TALE OF TWO NEIGHBORS AND ONE ONLINE FORUM

It is a complicated story (people are complicated!), but it involves one neighbor who opposed the Wallybug from the onset and another that slowly turned against it. Their underlying motivations and fears differed, but over time their resentment and opposition to the Wallybug blossomed into an uncomfortable and polarizing tension amongst the neighbors.

After years of reconciliation attempts, the situation became distressing enough that pro-Wallybug neighbors decided to stop repainting the street mural every year. In their view the Wallybug had done its job – creating a community – and the tension it was now fostering was not worth keeping it repainted. They chose peace and reconciliation, an admirable decision.

The Wallybug had done its job – creating a community – and the tension it was now fostering was not worth keeping it repainted.

However, despite this olive branch, every time something appeared on-line about the Wallybug one of the two anti-Wallybug neighbors would write in the comment section lengthy diatribes about how awful the Wallybug was, how terrible their neighbors were, and how this brightly colored creature ruined the neighborhood.

One evening I got fed-up. I had a fair amount of ownership and pride wrapped up in the Wallybug, and I was tired of seeing it repeatedly trashed in public forums. I knew first-hand that the negative portrayal of the neighbors and the project was false and misconstrued.

So I fired back an anonymous and critical comment on an online forum. It prompted a fiery response. Then other neighbors jumped-in with their comments. And then the whole thing quickly headed downhill with increasing vindictiveness and vitriol. You know, the typical trajectory for online comments.

It was ugly and awful, and I regretted all of it. I vowed that I would never do that again.

CREATING THE CONDITIONS FOR GOOD BEHAVIOR

I took away from this experience two things.

First, a personal ground-rule: If you are up late at night writing anything emotional, whatever the situation, sleep on it first! Your morning-self’s perspective will help you more skillfully navigate your conversation and keep you from doing something you will regret later.

Second, and more importantly: The nature of online forums is antithetical to respectful and constructive dialogue, and is the opposite of what we strive for in good engagement practice.

Let’s step back a moment. We all have within us the emotional capability to engage in a wide range of behavior, from saintly to subversive. I know for myself that under certain conditions I can be impatient, critical, and rude. I also know that I can be generous, tolerant, and kind.  

We all have within us the emotional capability to engage in a wide range of behavior, from saintly to subversive.

When folks participate in a public process, they bring this full range of potential behavior.

This is why well-run community engagement minimizes the variables that goad us to behave poorly, and instead sets expectations and cultivates conditions for us to be our best selves. 

In an online forum, people can say negative things that they would never say if they were looking you in the eye. There is none of the accountability that comes from being face-to-face with someone. And accountability is one of the most important things that reinforces good behavior. 

People just behave better when others are looking at them. Don’t you? Humans are just wired that way!
Consequently, successful community meetings or events essentially seek to replicate the accountability of face-to-face dialogue.

Successful community meetings or events essentially seek to replicate the accountability of face-to-face dialogue.

For example, we always arrange a community meeting room in a U-shape so people can see each other as they are speaking and listening. Yes, even a room with 100 people in it. 

We also ensure that participants are fed, we are clear about our purpose and goals, and we finish on time. We also ask folks to agree to a set of Ground Rules for behavior.

These are simple things, but it’s amazing how often they are overlooked.

What techniques do you use to help people bring their best selves to their community?

By the way, a couple of years ago both of the anti-Wallybug neighbors moved away and the neighborhood has started repainting the Wallybug again. 

And I still have enough PTSD from that foray into online commentary that I don’t ever read the online comments!