Deputy of Strategic Advancement, CMAP
Will you join us in shaping our region's future?
Your closing slide, on the Nivan stage
Yes. Burnham planned for a city he would never live in. Here are five ways to ask this room to do the same.
One | At Nivan 2027, Chicago
The Century Plan Duel
Creative Duel is one of Nivan's four signature formats. Two people take opposite sides of a single provocation, live, in front of a room of senior leaders. No panel consensus, no hedging.
The Century Plan is built on questions the region has not settled yet. A duel is the right instrument for exactly that kind of question, because it puts the disagreement in the open instead of smoothing it over, and it does so in front of the people building the technologies the plan has to account for.
You moderate
You frame the question, press both sides, and close by saying what you heard and where it goes in the plan. You never have to take a position, which keeps CMAP in the convener's chair.
You choose the duelists
Two people from your network, one on each side of the question. Nobody knows this region's voices better than you, and an argument only works if both sides can genuinely hold their ground.
Three propositions, from CMAP's own published work
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Power vs. Growth
Do we welcome electricity intensive industry now and build the grid to catch up?
vs.
Or does growth wait for what the grid can already carry?
From Erin Aleman's August 2026 commentary for Crain's Forum on powering the next century of growth.
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Data vs. Resources
Are water and clean power the advantage we trade to win data infrastructure?
vs.
Or a public trust we set terms on before we sell any of it?
From CMAP's Great Lakes and water systems work, alongside the grid commentary.
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Trust vs. Technology
Can technology rebuild public trust in institutions?
vs.
Or is technology what broke it, with no tool able to repair that?
From your own slide on deteriorating public trust, and the question of how we combat insularity and grow optimism.
After the duel, every person in the room writes a Message to the Future, a note to whoever solves these problems next. Nivan collects them and hands the record to CMAP. A room of senior technology, product and design leaders, on the record, saying what they believe the region needs. Yours to use in the plan.
Two | At Nivan 2027, Chicago
A space held for CMAP
Nivan will hold floor space in the main circulation area of the flagship for a Century Plan presence. Prominent, unavoidable, and in front of the room all day.
What occupies that space is open. It could be a three panel exhibit like the one above, a table with your team behind it, or something we shape together. The offer here is the space and the audience walking past it, not a prescription for what fills it.
Three | An invitation
Join the Nivan Advisory Circle
Nivan is building a small circle of regional voices who help decide what the platform argues about and who it puts on stage. We would like you to be one of them.
One conversation a month, an hour at most. What questions matter, who should be in the room, and what the region actually needs from a gathering like this.
- One hour a month, virtual, scheduled around you
- An advisory voice on themes, questions and speakers
- Recognition only if you want it. Nothing appears anywhere unless you ask for it
- No fee, no equity, no commitment to sponsor anything
- You can step away at any point
The value to Nivan is your judgment, not your title on a webpage.
Four | An invitation to extend
Erin Aleman at Nivan
An invitation to the Executive Director of CMAP
We would like to invite Erin Aleman to Nivan, as a guest of the platform. No fee to attend, no obligation to speak, and a seat in a room of senior technology, product and design leaders thinking about the same fifty year horizon her plan is built on. If she would like the stage, it is hers.
We would rather this arrive through you than land cold in her inbox. Say the word and the invitation follows in writing, however you would like it framed.
Five | In three weeks
Come to Creative Duel Chicago
Before any of the above, come and watch the format work. You are already on the guest list.
Thursday, September 24
Generalist vs. Specialist
Build Fast vs. Build Right
Duel over Dinner
Your seat is held
Two questions, two sides, dinner in between. It is the same format the Century Plan Duel would use, at a smaller scale, and the fastest way to judge whether it deserves a Century Plan question. Come as a guest, say nothing, and decide afterwards.
What CMAP gets
- A contested Century Plan question argued in public, in a format your process does not currently have.
- A written record of what senior technology, product and design leaders believe the region needs.
- A Century Plan presence in the main space at the Nivan 2027 flagship, in front of the room all day.
- Access to a group that is hard for any agency to convene, with 95 or more organizations represented at the last Nivan.