Sharing Our Innovation Journey with Bloomberg Harvard Cohort 9
Kate Parmelee, Sabrina McLeod and Nikki Zheng from the SII Office, along with Tom Salvador from Public Works, had the privilege of presenting to Bloomberg Harvard Cohort 9: Innovation Track – Opening Day to more than 100 participants and 17 cities. They reflected on their experience as members of Cohort 7, sharing key lessons learned and the impact the program has had on our community.
A central focus of the presentation was the ethnographic interviewing and ideation work done in partnership with our residents. By centering the voices of our community and truly listening— guided by the simple but powerful phrase,“ tell me more”— we were able to uncover meaningful insights that shaped our innovation efforts.
Since completing the program, our team has:
• Implemented resident-informed prototypes
• Launched Naturally PSL: Green Spaces and Places
• Earned the All-America City Award, recognizing the deep community engagement and collaborative innovation that emerged from this work
These accomplishments were only possible thanks to the dedication, creativity and heart of our incredible team.
We’ re grateful for the kind words from Felix Ferrandis of the Centre for Public Impact:
" We appreciate your flexibility for our first ' PSL Pivot ', but more importantly, we are tremendously grateful that you took the time to share about your experience as part of the track and beyond and did so in such a dynamic and fun fashion – what I ' m now learning is just the PSL style! We ' ve said this before but I will say it again: we ' re so proud to have been a part of your team ' s journey and cannot wait to hear all that you will tackle next."
We’ re proud to carry this momentum forward and continue building a city shaped by the voices of those who call it home.
HIGH-PERFORMING GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION
PSL
ON THE
PULSE www. CityofPSL. com
45