Our Moral+Math Imperative

After years of serving disadvantaged populations, I have a personal kinship and affinity for those who are saddled with labels, written off, and/or just ignored. Maybe it's this kinship that keeps me so intrigued, inspired, and motivated with regards to the most misunderstood and mostly ignored population of men, women, and children around us.

Ginny and I attended a meeting last week that was intended to frame a productive debate about real solutions to our current chronic homeless situation. The meeting opened with typical pleasantries, highlighted by one policy wonk's valid point that we are dealing with a "moral imperative", which he promptly discounted with "but this is not about Faith", as we sat there in a Faith-based community center.

What jumped out to Ginny and me was who was not there to answer questions from neighbors about real chronic homelessness solutions.  Where were those who personally deal with the homeless on the street, not from a corporate or government desk, everyday?  Where were those who shuttle many of the same folks back and forth from jail to shelters? Where were those public servants who are forced to waste time and tax-dollars on housing, prescription drugs, and court expenses?  Where were those who preach about how we should deal with the poor and suffering almost every Sunday?

After interviewing a dozen or so stakeholders and researching chronic and transient homelessness solutions, over the last few weeks, it became obvious to me that a strong, collective group of credible champions are a must to explain this moral and fiscal imperative.  A productive movement discussion and debate demands replacing bureaucrats, academics, and developers with police chiefs, sheriffs, and taxpayer/neighborhood advocates who get the Housing First movement and can effectively communicate the "Math+Morals" stories per community. (More info linked here @ NPR.org)

Any productive movement must take on the valid concerns AND unfounded fears, alike, face-to-face with those who are concerned about to oppose homelessness solutions. No PR budget, nor ad campaign, nor faceless blogs can hit those fears head-on like real converts to the Housing First movement. Those who were won over, from the Not-In-My-BackYard side, are your finest first-responders to the rational and irrational fears of the unknown. Throw in a Sheriff that details the millions of tax-dollars already wasted every year and you have an ever stronger Housing First story. Our own Sheriff offers that the current jail time for the chronic homeless is "not fair to taxpayers and not fair to the homeless". He also offers valuable responses to the safety and security questions. Pretty simple messages and stories we have there and he delivers them well. Same for our DA, who can speak to the legal realities and cycle of failure, again, towards taxpayers and the chronic homeless. Lastly, what about our most effective and compelling moral influencers? The very ones who preach about "do unto others" are in the perfect position to lead the Golden Rule portion of the debate, when the audience and venue demand that position. In my particular corner of Faith, it would be nice to take "WWJD?" off the bumper stickers, bracelets, and other items of self-expression and put the challenging question towards really positive results. Maybe groups like Compassion Coalition and others join this challenge. Maybe, just maybe, one mega-church could invest their resources, congregational energies, and a portion of their acreage and build supportive housing on their property. Maybe, just maybe, we have a "community of care" rise up around the region, matching the moral rhetoric, and complementing the mental health service communities for real change, real homelessness solutions, and real long-term success.

The national "hands-up" model of Housing First is here for our chronic homeless. As we ramp up this effort, let's start downsizing our homeless corridors and lessen the sad dependency on homeless head-counts for our shelter's financial survival. A renewed, systematic approach to showing the very different homeless populations a better, hopeful, and proven way to a better life is here, while also showing the system abusers another path elsewhere, as well. 

Now is the time for a real taxpayer solution, a chronic homelessness solution, and/ or WWJD? solution.  Take or pick or pick them all, as you see fit.

Brad

Social media and Cause Networking

Like emerging and evolving technologies, some social media platforms are here to stay. There are too many to count and I'm just not patient enough to keep up with more than one. Never one to hold back much personal and business opinion, Facebook just fits my personality and my Blackberry Tour just fine.

My advice for anyone, any business, or any non-profit mission is to find the best fit and make the most of its critical mass. Twitter lovers swear by that "follower" platform, but I see it as more of a user portal to other platforms, unless you are a celebrity with a huge following. MySpace is a great custom-platform for those in the arts, entertainment, and more adult-oriented spaces.

Facebook is just simple, yet versatile, and offers public to private sharing of various content for those who are not able to connect as often as we did when life was far less hectic. Plus, it's now evolved into a multi-generational platform for sharing and staying connected in certain ways.

Social media platforms offer the ability to network, inform, and engage groups of current and potential interest like never before...especially in the non-profit world. Endless life-changing stories abound with most non-profits and passive websites just don't cut it anymore. Pushing those stories and other content to those who have volunteered their interest in the mission is a must today and the exponential networking potential of awareness, opportunities to serve, and fundraising potential. If you know of a non-profit out there that is in need of networking help, face-to-face, in groups, or via social media...send them my way. I'll be glad to learn more, advise, and benefit any worthwhile cause or mission.

BTW - feel free to learn more about the profession road I've traveled and personal and professional referrals @ http://www.linkedin.com/in/leadfolloworgetoutoftheway Then, let's connect via LinkedIn, if that's your thing, as well.

Brad

Cats (the arts) and dogs (business)...living together.

I know of an arts guru who has devoted decades of his professional life to our regional and national arts scenes. I'll call him Mr. Cool. There's another fellow who has dedicated his professional life to building literal steel/brick-and-mortar things. I'll call him Mr. Steel. Years ago, in a group setting, there was a business disagreement between Mr. Cool and Mr. Steel. Suffice it to say, both men let there opinions be known, which then prompted Mr. Steel to fire back at Mr. Cool something like "...you wouldn't know. You're one of those artsy types...". I'm sure that was not the exact quote, but something of that spirit motivated Mr. Cool to share the insult in other public speeches for years to come, including the one that I attended about a year or so ago.

My point is this. There are perceptive disconnects, if not serious barriers, between what we call the Arts and the Business communities. One is creative. One is serious. One cares little about P&L statements. One cares too much about the bottom line per fiscal quarter. Did I just peg one or the other with each of those tags in bold? Nope.

Art is business...and...many businesses are works of art, as well.

Click a few times and see the Research Summary compiled @ http://www.americansforthearts.org/ .

Community-engaged businesses and the creative Arts should be a perpetual marriage per community where both talents exist. Mr. Steel creates works of art in each structure he helps build. Those in each new building impact their business, other businesses, families, and our economy in ways that visual and musical artists cannot. Those in Mr. Steel's world do a great deal to raise awareness and funding for the arts community too. Mr. Cool has survived or thrived in business for a couple of decades, which cannot happen without prudent and productive business moves as economic ups and downs, artistic talents, and consumers of art come and go. Mr. Steel and Mr. Cool have success, failure, and wicked educations about our human condition in common. We just need, at least in very conservative communities, to better connect the two in minds and hearts for mutual gains.

Where to start? "...it's for the kids" is a good place. The importance of arts and artistic learning in our schools is just gaining ground in research, which must be translated well in fly-over America. Many business-minded folks still seem to think that we must focus on basics in education, testing, and old means to mediocre results, especially in southern states like ours.

On to better solutions and opportunities ahead....The Dana Foundation just compiled and delivered a heavy report last month (pdf @ www.dana.org/WorkArea/showcontent.aspx?id=23972 ) that drills down into just how a creative way of approaching kids and their learning experience is overdue in most communities around our country. Empirical data is still on its way too in many communities, even here with our own state, which has an embarrassing performance record in education. As the Dana Summit participants concluded, creative learning and methods implemented in schools lead to better engagement, greater educational satisfaction, and innovation during the most formative years....all characteristics of a better workforce and community leaders of the future ( www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/09/02/art_for_our_sake/ ).

It is obvious that our solutions for improved educational performance, a smarter workforce, and greater economic opportunities are in each community's control, as well as each state capitol, but far from the current dysfunction of our nation's capitol. Like with any new business solution in the marketplace, some states and communities are the innovators or early adopters, while many are early to late majorities and laggards. Fortunately, with the right messages and networking between our creative Business and Arts communities, each and everyone of us can push the buttons needed to get us to the former groups and out of the latter.

Think about the potential in your community and just do something to help your Mr. Steel's and Mr. Cool's get along for your community's greater good.

Have a great day,
Brad

Go Vols!...really, let's live up to the brand!

It's no stretch to assume that a considerable majority of us in Big Orange Country are more than a little disturbed, frustrated, and/or embarrassed by the last few years of poor individual decisions and systemic failures of 2 of our 3 most dominant athletic programs.

The one shining example of discipline and success is routinely delivered by our Lady Vols and Coach Summitt. It may be too easy credit her success to just her ability. Reality and facts offer that she works with and mentors the more sensible gender. There's no arguing the fact that a disproportionate ratio (93 percent) of our prison population is male ( http://www.hoover.org/research/factsonpolicy/facts/16615876.html ), which is a great indication of gender-specific, decision-making capability. Pat Summitt's skill and expertise is unmatched, but greatly complemented by individuals and groups of better judgement and real-time consideration of consequences.

Now, on to just what we CAN do for Coach Pearl, Coach post-Kiffin, and all who each man leads, coaches, and recruits.

This is a management issue, pure and not-so-simple. As with any management challenge, there are uncontrollable and controllable factors. The two glaring, uncontrollable factors here are our student-athlete's upbringing and youth experiences (tough neighborhood, single-parent challenges, etc.) and, beyond college, the moral/ethical behavior and standards set by professional athletes and other so-called role models (personal excesses, criminal behavior, guns in locker rooms, etc). We just cannot work around and change what has happened before each Coach brings a new kid to campus and we certainly cannot have everyone behave like Peyton Manning or Derrick Jeter past their most formative years.

However, on the bright Orange side, there's one huge controllable at each Coach's fingertips. Rally Volunteers, real Volunteers, like never before to transition these literal "kids from all corners" into their college and new life experiences. Let's not take the latest violation of trust and the law and just move on again. Let's live up to our teams' brand and really put "Vols" out-front in areas that are under each Coach's control.

Let's bring our athletic, academic, alumni, and professional worlds together to design, implement, and require a transitional "Volunteer Boot Camp" for every new college recruit. An effort to expand the efforts of others who are serious about this systemic responsibility around the country ( i.e. www.indiana.edu/~rcapub/v19n3/p20.html ) Indiana University and Eli Lilly may be targeting specific student populations. However, why can't we target all student athletes for transitional training, education about system-wide behavioral standards, and, most of all, assign "Real Vols" who each mentor one student athlete, who is on-call for that kid 24/7, and who helps each student athlete with their accountability, management of expectations, educational inspiration, and consideration of life after college?

Let the Coaches do just that - coach and lead each team to maximum performance and success. In addition, complement each Coach's energy and effort with "Real Vols" stepping up to build a marquis Volunteer Mentorship program that starts with an intense boot-camp, carries forward one-on-one with trained mentors, and sets the standard for others to attempt around the country. Nice headlines for UT wouldn't hurt recruiting, retention, and image, as well.

Google "college athlete mentor program" and you will find many student- or faculty-driven programs, plus alumni-networking mentor programs like the one at the University of Louisville. There are smaller mentor efforts already in-action in the UT system. However, UT has one of the most passionate, educated, and engaged alumni networks and considerable resources to make even bigger results happen....especially with thousands of us who just want our Big Orange to convert these latest, negative experiences into the most positive, long-term solutions for the benefit of generations of students, athletes, and those who are are part of their higher-education and athletic experiences.

That's some smokin' underwear!

After a nice holiday Season sabbatical, I have a few observations about our latest threat to our national psyche, the roots of more to come, a bit of research to share, and, hopefully, a stimulate of thought about what we can do moving forward.

This past decade has brought us what each seems to every ten years...tremendous innovation, creation, and acceleration of free information, content, and potential solutions. The greatest of which must be the exponential growth and reach of the most powerful communication and freedom-feeding beast ever created by many around the globe - the Internet. From Vannevar Bush's first concept to Norbert Wiener and his "cybernetics" to AI research at Dartmouth and on to many real electronic "networking" evolutions over 5+ decades...our Internet of today almost fits all of the conceptual bills of great minds who just needed technologies to catch up.

A very similar catch-up trend has occurred with users of Internet potential as well. We here in North America have more than doubled our numbers of users over the last decade and have almost 75% of our population on-line now, compared to one-third of that, overall, for the world. However, our increase is weak in comparison to the top two regions of growth - the Middle East and Africa, which experienced approx. 16- and 14-fold increases in Internet connectivity over the last decade, respectively (see www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm).

Why is this important?

Well, think about our country and other places of relative political and economic freedoms and those who would like to knock us down a notch or two...or destroy us with one virus, hacker effort, dirty bomb, or worse at a time. The gifts of communication and networking via the Internet have now offered any exporter of hate the same affordable and efficient means to destroy, as Apple has to market it's line of handheld, content solutions.


The next decade holds as many challenges as any before now, as we do our best to harness the power of the Internet for economic growth, community building, content-sharing, and expansion of free thought and democratic ideals (Iran, for example) like never before. However, it also brings the greatest downside potential from those who use this great equalizer of communication to network, train, and destroy. Cyber-terror is so much more than a bad virus taking out your hard-drive and/or email address book. It's a threat to the world that requires everyday folks, web professionals, and governments to pool their collective creativity, web ingenuity, and cyber-solutions to keep ahead of the those who now communicate and organize on-line with greater skill than those we are chasing between caves.

It is, indeed, a very connected world that forces us to take the proverbial bitter with the very, very sweet. This world just needs about one million of us for every one of them, stepping up to notice those on-line, in public places, in positions of influence, and anywhere damage can be done...and be ready to quickly alert authorities when something just does not seem right...preferably before anyone's underwear starts to smoke.

Let's get real...

Thanks to our downtown Rotary and John Bailey, plus a mutual friend in MI, I was introduced to Michael Angelo Caruso. Look him up on FB and LinkedIn. He is a natural speaker. No notes, no ppt presentation, just a natural conversationalist. This morning's seminar at our downtown Riviera Theatre was engaging and entertaining....two adjectives that are missing from most seminars.

As you can tell, if you scroll down, it's been a few weeks since I've had something blog-worthy to post. The fact that I am now involved and managing a great org of talent in interactive and "what now?" on-line marketing should be enough. However, it took meeting someone, a kindred spirit so-to-speak, to share not only the person, but just how we met.

As I've posted before...never underestimate or blow off another conversation and/or meeting. You never know just where it will lead. I first crossed paths with Michael just a few weeks ago via an invitation from a mutual friend to connect on Facebook. After a few days, I looked Michael up, saw our mutual contacts, and then clicked to "friend"...because you just never know..... Then, I received a note that he would be in our hometown for a seminar and that we should discuss our potential business connection. Fast-forward to last eve and a great conversation with friends at our Pub and then the invitation to attend his seminar this morning.

Never, never blow off any conversation that could lead you to unanticipated connections.

Michael is a sales and marketing pro. We have a lot in common there. Cannot say where this goes down the line, but I'll guarantee that we have many more conversations and mutual business interests to pursue.

Nano Networking is not just a catchy phrase...it is a daily way of connecting and making great things happen.

Have a great weekend to come,
Brad

Now is the time for those searching for great opportunities...

We certainly have had quite a year or two. Political turnover, financial firms collapsing, and one of the worst economic downturns in history...and those are just the highlights.

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We all know more than a few people in need of a boost for their business and/or a career renewal...feel free to forward anyone in your network to me and let me see what I can do for them, as we seek to fill our network of marketers all across North America.