Embarassing Social Messages

This post reports on unintendedly embarrassing social messages, illuminated by Kay Ryan, Poet Laureate, and Virginia Heffernan, NYTimes, The Medium Commentator.

I realized this week that my social network sent notice of my birthday to distant acquaintances, casual friends, clients, and business colleagues. Mortifying.

A reading by the Poet Laureate Kay Ryan on Tuesday provided solace.

Connections

Connections lie in wait--
something that in
the ordinary line of offenses
makes offense more great.
They entrap, they solicit
under false pretenses,
they premeditate.
They tie one of
your shoelaces
to one of a stranger,
they tie strings to purses
and snatch as
you lean down, eager

for a little something gratis.

And last month, Virginia Heffernan’s piece in the NYTimes took a new, for me, slant on the whole idea of being connected, an excerpt below

Only the poor — defined broadly as those without better options — are obsessed with their connections. Anyone with a strong soul or a fat wallet turns his ringer off for good and cultivates private gardens that keep the hectic Web far away. The man of leisure, Sterling suggested, savors solitude, or intimacy with friends, presumably surrounded by books and film and paintings and wine and vinyl — original things that stay where they are and cannot be copied and corrupted and shot around the globe with a few clicks of a keyboard.

Let Them Eat Tweets: NYTimes Magazine,
Virginia Heffernan, Sunday, 04/19/2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/magazine/19wwln-medium-t.html?_r=1

And I learned that May 22, 2009 – the date in question -- is the release date for the movie Night at the Museum II: Battle at the Smithsonian. The first in this series was so, so bad in every way. However, I was thinking that we could all take ourselves out for some pre-summer-silly/stupid in honor of my birthday and our love of museums. And in praise of museum guards, who never get the props they deserve. http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi2131100441/

Please don't send an cyper-card to celebrate my milestone, but if you want to share ways to disconnect or to control your cyber life (I am not doing email in the morning), feel free to post them here.

WW II Lookout Tower

Today, with brisk wind and billowing clouds threatening rain, Will Lowe and I join Michael Zuckerman http://www.capemanmac.org/ for a tour of the brilliantly restored and just opened World War II Lookout Tower. This stark and beautiful six story concrete structure – the last of it’s kind in New Jersey, introduced by simple, effective didactics, evokes the fear and courage of the Greatest Generation and tells the story of a now all but forgotten chapter of America’s early involvement in WWII. Towers such as these and massive bunkers hidden throughout the Jersey coastline protected strategic industrial centers – such as the Philadelphia Shipyards -- along the Delaware River and bay.

The project has been supported by a strong partnership:
http://www.capemaymac.org/uploadedFiles/Media_-_News/fire_control_tower_press_release_2007.pdf

Everyone associated with the project should, in my opinion, take enormous pride this accomplishment.

Being strategic in volatile times

One of the responsibilities of leaders and managers is to pay attention to the strategic challenges and opportunities facing their organizations. This is a difficult enough task in normal times; it becomes particularly challenging in the volatile times in which we find ourselves today. There is so much noise being generated by people trying to make sense of emerging developments that it can become almost impossible to see the forest from the trees.

So how is a manager to attend to this responsibility? One way is to engage in the continual practice of strategic thinking and action. This involves the process of scanning the horizon, identifying and making sense of emerging opportunities and challenges, and considering what appropriate responses the organization might make to what is going.

In working recently with a client on their strategic agenda, I was helped by the way that John Bryson frames Strategic Issues. He defines these as “… a fundamental policy question or challenge affecting an organization’s mandates, mission, and values; product or service level and mix; clients, users, or payers; or costs, financing, structure, or management.” (Bryson Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations p.30)

What is helpful in this definition is that strategic issues are only relevant to the extent that they impact on core aspects of the organization's purpose, life, and work. By using the lens of Strategic Issues, you can focus on what is truly important to the organization. With the attention focused on issues rather than solutions, you can open up your options for what you might do. Of course, there is a tension created when you are facing issues and don't have a clear resolution in sight, but Bryson believes that this tension is actually useful as it prompts organizational members to engage in discussion and debate that can lead to organizational change.

You are freed up from being concerned about situations where there is nothing that you can do, and you can direct your energy to the things that you can influence. Strategic thinking should have an action orientation, and so you help the organization focus on what it can do to address strategic issues it faces.

While there is an obvious strategic issue facing most organizations in the current economic and financial crisis, it is important that we not allow ourselves to be diverted from consideration of other, equally consequential, issues that may affect the mission and operations of our organizations. One tool I have found helpful over the years is the STEEPLE framework – its usefulness lies in its wide vision of analysis, and a reminder to consider each one of its component parts.

Some starting questions to explore:

* Social:
Organizational and social issues, including competition/cooperation, capacity, management commitment, beneficiary engagement, conflicts, etc.
* Technology:
Cost, availability, supply-times, replacement periods, maintenance, electricity, software, infrastructure, training, support, etc.
* Economic:
Economic and Financial status and trends; inflation, cash flow management, financial management systems, procurement, etc.
* Environmental:
Weather patterns and fluctuations, seasonal changes, natural disasters, etc.
* Political:
Elections, parliamentary processes, policy and legislative processes, cabinet changes, etc.
* Legal:
Legislative and Governance environment, development of new laws, enforcement of laws, illegal/corrupt practices, penalties, etc.
* Ethical:
Ethical behavior of stakeholders (including staff, suppliers, beneficiaries); adhering to ethical standards of behavior, etc.

Using this tool to consider and assess the likelihood of a variety of factors, you can then apply the Strategic Issues lens to focus on just those key issues that have the potential to impact on the purpose, products and services, stakeholders, and economic base of the organization.

Our website contains a number of tools and other resources to help you deepen your capacity for strategic thinking and action

Inspired to Make Trouble

Inspired To Get In Trouble

John Lewis http://johnlewis.house.gov inspired over 300 advocates this morning, prior to visiting their representatives in the U.S. Congress in the first Museum Advocacy Day. Yesterday, we were schooled in the fine art of advocacy by Washington’s best, led by AAM’s own Gail Ravnitzky Silberglied.

The clear message, laid out on AAM’s website http://www.speakupformuseums.org is increased funds for and reauthorization of IMLS, museums as educators and economic engines. Delegates were also encouraged to ask their senators why they voted the way they did on the Coburn amendment to the federal stimulus package.

This amendment, which excluded museums from competing for stimulus funds, passed the senate 72 to 23, stunning the museum community and raising a nationwide response. The amendment changed in conference but aquarium and zoos are still prohibited from competing for these funds.

John Lewis’ penetrating gaze and inspiring words reminded us that 535 people come daily to the U.S. Capitol to create a more perfect union and to strive toward democratic ideals. We in museums, he insisted, have an obligation, a mission and a mandate, to make our work enlightening, to uplift, and to get in the way of injustice for the nation’s citizens and for generations to come.

For my part, I'm hangin' with the Pennsylvania delegation (my home state) and with folks from the District. Today is a banner day for us in DC as the Senate votes on giving the citizens of the District of Columbia an actual vote in the House of Representatives. Washingtion is almost too exciting these days!

AAM deserves a big helping of thanks for their work to make this happen for us today. My dream is that someday we'll need to rent the convention center for our advocacy training. Can you imagine what we could do if we had 4000 adament museum people, many of them board members, on the Hill, speaking on behalf of the cultural infrastructure in this country?

Generation O, 13ers, and the Convergence of Museum Talent

Who imagined when we launched the Convergence of Museum Talent www.qm2museums.org/convergence in 2006 to illuminate the rising leadership transition that a 13er would become the president elect? Born in 1961, Mr. Obama is known to the demographers as a cusper: an individual who bridges generations. Not only has he shown us a new way to look at race in this county, he has brought us together into a new demographic: Generation O. As Heather Havrilesky said last month on Salon, A leader has emerged allowing Gen Xers to finally understand the Boomers’ earnest, self-important prattle http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/11/07/havrilesky/print.html

Mr. Obama’s election requires us to begin a search for another way of being. As his email to supporters said on the evening of his election victory …this all happened because of you…we made history…stand by… In the ensuing weeks we’ve seen that the Presidential Transition Team has rapidly positioned itself to engage many of us in the process, keeping expectations real. It’s not going to be easy but we will prevail is the message.

The 13ers/Gen Xers are taking over now, as they should. Specifically, in the museum world, the Emerging Museum Professionals group has been institutionalized at AAM, as we hoped http://www.aam-us.org/getinvolved/emp/index.cfm

As for the “official” Convergence 13ers, Paul Orselli has become the program chair of MAAM’s Creating Exhibitions, Kim Fortney is now MAAM’s President, Amy Lewis Hofland produced Texas Collects Asia - a very big deal! Sean Ferns’ exhibitions on drug use in America traveled widely, while Wayne LeBar and his colleagues reopened the Liberty Science Center to international acclaim – these are just a few successes from the Convergence group.

We all need to again thank Dan McCollister and the good folks at the McCollisters Transportation Group. Their financial support allowed us to profile at the AAM meeting in 2006 and support Jessie Newburn to build our website www.qm2museums.org/convergence and provide strategic thinking throughout the project. Greg Stevens provided public relations throughout and George Jacobs gave us space in Museum Design which was a great bonus, too. We had sessions at AAM, MAAM, and VAM, and a plenary at the Pennsylvania Federation so thanks to all those association leaders for seeing the value in the topic.

Just What is a 13er?

“13er” is the term coined by William Strauss and Neil Howe in Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584 to 2069, to describe the generation of Americans born between 1961 and 1981. This generation is the thirteenth generation since the founding of our country.

Nonprofit Lessons from the Campaigns

Nonprofits are in a good position to learn from the outreach and fundraising experiments set in motion in this campaign. Regardless of your political leanings, you have to give credit to one particular campaign for developing innovative approaches to raising money and building relationships. In a recent meeting of the Qm2 development directors’ roundtable there was considerable interest in some emerging methods for on-line fundraising and donor engagement.

On-line fundraising may sound one-sided and impersonal, but the Obama campaign has used strategies employed at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) and earlier in Hillary Clinton’s campaign to connect to voters in ways that are personal and that could prove long-lasting. One of the simplest innovations is the use of a comment box for on-line contributions.

Penn has used the effectively in the form of a pop-up box that surfaces as soon as an on-line gift is made. It asks the donor why they made the gift. Higher education is one segment of the social sector that knows the importance of discovering a donor’s intentions and interests. The very act of presenting this option sends the message that there is an interest in what the donor thinks and feels. Nonprofits can then link donor comments their giving history. They can use these insights to focus on shared values and turn that into targeted special interest appeals and messages.

For museums of all sizes, understanding donor motivation and what philanthropists at all levels admire about an institution is invaluable. The information can be turned into donor-focused snapshots or full length articles for publication in newsletters, magazines, as well as background material for future solicitations. The compelling stories of why donors make gifts is also useful in motivating staff and trustees. It helps the orgnaization grasp all of the way your mission driven work is perceived.

Another instrument used by the Obama campaign is the instant matching gift. Make an on-line contribution and you will be notified in short order that your gift has been matched by a named individual—not a nameless company or special interest group, but an individual donor just like you. Donors are then invited to do the same--match someone else’s contribution. When they sign on to become a matching donor, they feel good that their gift has been matched, and then they are offered the opportunity to do the same for another donor. A cycle of giving is initiated that seems to be part of a disciplined approach to fundraising that is groundbreaking. And this all happens within minutes. The technique builds momentum.
The campaign website also offers a variety of opportunities to get involved –some without leaving your home. You can participate in a phone bank from your own home by simply, download a list, using the on-line instructions and wedging in calls when it is convenient for you.

The use of You-Tube by the general public to create independent testimonials for the candidate is another vehicle for communicating all the things that the candidate wants people to know without the expense or hype of campaign advertisements. Testimonials from your board chair and your CEO may not strike someone as objective, but there may be other volunteers and amateur videographers who would consider featuring your museum on You-Tube. This is another way of getting messages across and conveying value.

Along with these high tech approaches are the bloggers that are hard at work for their candidates…and reaching countless citizens of all ages. These are just some of the fundraising gems from this campaign season. They have been effective in expanding visibility and making connections that matter, and they could be useful to museums and other nonprofits. Qm2 would like to hear from you about your innovative approaches to the fundraising process.

What's on your mind these days?

I’ve been doing a lot of listening lately.

In August I interviewed community bankers in places like Lancaster and Hershey, PA. They spoke with passion about customer service, enduring relationships, and opportunity. Values before profits.

I spent much of last week’s AASLH meeting in Rochester, NY, asking museum colleagues about their challenges and frustrations. And I got an earful. Which is what I had hoped for after agreeing to share a booth with Dale Jones, a Qm2 colleague whose work involves helping museums and sites make connections with their visitors.

Here’s a sampling of what I heard from the directors, educators, board members, interpreters, site managers, and CEOs who stopped by our booth:

My biggest challenge is...

• Trying to get a dysfunctional board to develop a plan
• A CEO who just doesn’t get it
• Engaging the board, especially in fundraising
• An inherited staff
• Dealing with the “founder’s syndrome”
• Getting return visitation from local, non-members
• A community that doesn’t know what a treasure they have in their own backyard
• Money

I wake up in a cold sweat at night...

• Afraid that the project I’ve been trying to get going just won’t happen
• Wondering how I can overcome the attitude “We’ve never done it that way.”
• Thinking about my dysfunctional board—micromanagers who lack commitment
• Worried about our poor/non-existent marketing and promotion
• Feeling anguish over the closing of historic sites in the future
• Because we’re undercapitalized

So, what’s keeping you up at night these days? And, more importantly, what are doing about it?