It’s not exactly the best of times for The Great State of New York right now. The financial crisis has hit the state hard and one of the “solutions” for coming up with some extra cash is to make all New Yorkers get rid of their perfectly acceptable license plates and re-register for a higher plate fee and get new plates.

Today the DMV released the new plate design. Some people have noted that it’s “retro” and seem to like it. I’m among the many voices, however, who think they’re hideous.

I also view this as a missed opportunity. How cool would it have been for New York State (the stodgy DMV, no less) to crowdsource the design of its new plate and have people vote on a new design? They could have accepted submissions for a few weeks, eliminated designs that were too complicated, whittled it down to five or 10 choices and had residents vote for the new plate, or used a voting/ranking system for all the submissions (like myStarbucks idea). They could have had a handful of out-of-work graphic artists each submit a design and profiled each person.

The result would probably be the same (some people would like the new design and some would hate it), but it would have been a way to get people engaged in the process and make the whole idea of having to buck up for new plates a little more palatable (only a little).

Organizations often have to make changes that are difficult or unpopular. Making sure stakeholders feel invested and involved in the process is one way to make the rebellion ever-so-slightly less hostile when those changes come about.

Update Nov. 16:
The Buffalo News is reporting that the state has thrown in the towel on this new license plate plan. Though likely, not because of this post. ;-)