CHAMBER VIEW
2017: Investing in Our
Capital Region
2017 has been an exciting year for the six-county Capital Region. The Wall Street Journal reported " Sacramento is California’ s Newest Real-Estate Hotspot," our airport celebrated 50 years by topping a J. D. Power list, Golden 1 Center was named the No. 1 sports venue in the U. S., and we’ ve been called the“ dark horse” in the running to be Amazon’ s second headquarters.
2017 has been an important year for us at the Metro Chamber as well:
• We’ ve helped to open more than 30 new businesses and secure nearly $ 15M in capital for local businesses via the Capital Region Small Business Development Center;
• The Metro Chamber Foundation worked closely with Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg on his Thousand Strong initiative, creating a vibrant paid internship opportunity for 220 young people;
• Hosted over 50 ribbon cuttings and 50 networking events in the Capital Region;
• Supported local nonprofits like Lilliput Families and La Familia Counseling Center through our Inspire Giving and Leadership Sacramento philanthropic services;
• Traveled to Washington D. C. for our Annual Cap-to-Cap program with a record 360 business, community and elected leaders to advocate for our region at the federal level; and
• Brought a record 135 delegates to Austin, TX for our Annual Study Mission where we explored best practices to improve the quality of life in our Capital Region.
We have a lot to look forward to in the New Year, beginning with our Annual Dinner and Business Awards on Friday, January 26, where we will announce our 2018 Study Mission location and our Inspire Giving grant recipient. We will continue the year with a full calendar of programs and events for our members, including our flagship Cap-to-Cap program happening April 14-18.
Our job is to advocate for and support our members by leading the effort to grow and retain business. We look forward to continuing to build upon our successes as a region and a chamber with you by our side in 2018.
Peter Tateishi
PRESIDENT & CEO METRO CHAMBER
Join Us( 916) 552-6800 www. metrochamber. org
• DISCOURSE
have to ask if it is costing American health care too much to move that slowly.
You advocate for bringing in people from outside the health field to ensure greater diversity of thought in the organization. How has this impacted Sutter operations?
I think it is important there is pairing between those with the knowledge, the intelligence and the pedigree of health care with those that haven’ t been overly polluted by it yet, so they’ ll come in with fresh eyes. The last hire on my team is an accomplished architect from Columbia [ University ] who also has a design MBA from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco … We paired him with our head of cardiac surgery, and it has been like sparks flying because they look at a problem through such different lenses.
Your experience is in human-centered design, which focuses on creative approaches to problem-solving. What does that mean exactly?
Human-centered design comes down to three primary fundamentals. First is empathy for the context of the opportunity or problem you are trying to solve. Then, creativity applied against that problem, and getting really broad input without being too concerned whether it’ s going to work, if it’ s cost efficient or if it’ s clinically relevant or not. And then ultimately prototyping and putting that result out into the world to see if there is something there. So, empathy for the context, radical creativity to be applied against the problem, and then simply trying the thing you come up with— those three things are human nature, but it’ s always surprised me how often we don’ t apply them.
You’ ve spoken a lot about empathy in what you do. Why is that so important to successful innovation?
Because a lot of companies just run a customer survey and then say‘ this is what they said they want so that’ s what we did.’ Empathy gets a layer deeper, not just listening to what people say but to what’ s really going on that they might not be saying... People may say they want lunch in the workplace, but that might really mean,‘ I want to be acknowledged because it feels like my whole day is being sucked up and the last thing I need to do is get in the car and go to lunch.’ So it might be about recognition as much as it is about the food. We’ re trying to understand what is ultimately going on and what we need to design for... There’ s also a big difference between empathy and sympathy. Empathizing literally means doing your best, even if you’ ve never been in that context, to put yourself in the shoes of the person you’ re ultimately designing for.
36 comstocksmag. com | December 2017