On Taxonomies.

In response to thoughtful Lucy Berhnold's new buzzword taxonomy I left a long comment:

I'm wary of rigid taxonomies, and hopeful that this actually isn't the next trend.

While taxonomies may help drive Open APIs like Civic Actions--and indeed underlie many piles of information-- what's much more interesting to me is the idea that shared language allows for 1. understanding and 2. remixing. "Shared language" as in, for example, when we use the word "organization" we indicate that we mean U.S. based 501(c)3.

My issue with the application of the word taxonomy in the context you suggest is that a rigid mapping of relationships between individual stuffs is not always so great. Linking an address to a zipcode is sometimes entirely different from linking a funder to a grantee. Locking complex, organic entities into a rigid relationship can limit us in unexpected ways. Forcing taxonomic order amongst dynamic entities or issues is a powerful thing. Use it wisely.

On United Flight 1184

[Image via friend Daniel Terdiman, News.com...read his whole awesome article.]

On United Flight 1184, spread couchily across 35 G and H, the Rockies are reflected in my quite reflective screen. It’s usually only me layered over whatever doc I’m working on, but this morning it’s all wing and mountains. Working looking at my constant reflection is hard on my eyes, and completely odd. Nothing like looking at your face 10 hours a day to ground you in the fact that you’re getting older.

It’s been one week since I returned from SXSW Interactive, and today I’m headed to NTC in New Orleans. I’m leaving spring in San Francisco, and not thrilled about it.

Conferences are crucibles of interaction though, and the past two weeks have been intense and creative. I expect this week will be no different.

Jane McGonigal’s keynote has been on my mind. Her superhero qualities (above) are mooshing with my interest in SuperHero Camp this summer. Tantek and I had a fascinating exchange about programs for change, and started to talk about how to build them, how they replicate, and how to understand people. The Leslie and I have springlishly committed to each other that we will explore a new idea, for reals. Obama gave a speech I was grateful to hear, and among other hopes, I hope he stayed up all night to write it himself. [Here we wobble and drift, through clouds over snowy peaks. And the mountains end and it’s a sea of houses on the plain.]

If I sit with my hips all the way back in the seat, regally postured, I’m always the tallest person on the plane. The view from 30,001 feet.

Soundtrack: Shuffle…Gillian Welch/ Miss Ohio, Elliot Smith/ Miss Misery, Aimee Mann/ Wise Up, Mountain Goats /The Mess Inside, The Beatles/ I’m Looking Through You.

Remembering.

Smitten by a smart blog post today, on a lesson I'll likely be learning for the rest of my life. Ask for help when you need it, and give it as much as you can.

A rash of friends have been getting their hearts broken lately, and I'm finally healing from the most exhausting work I've ever done. Expressing gratitude has helped lots...even my birthday invites were included thank you notes. If I could write a letter to spring, I'd do that too.

Read it all: Lessons to remember.

Y told me about some difficult times she has had ~ about that low point that many (only a few?) of us reach when we have been dragged down by doubt ~ in ourselves and in others. For some, that point means forgetting all the great things about yourself. So many of us have done things to try to feel better about ourselves and/or numb the pain ~ some sleep around, some drink, some run away, many of us bury ourselves in work so we're not distracted by the emotions we don't know what to do with ~ some of us write about it so we don't have to live it. We all do something about it, for better or worse. Y did something about it, too.

One day she sent an email to some friends and family and, I say through sheer courage, she says through sheer need to survive, she asked them all simply, "Tell me something good about myself; I need to hear it."

Good job sheltering the hope, Y.

Roots.

Several years ago, Jon Strange sent me a link to an article (a link, unfortunately, now dead). The article transcribed an interview of Eduardo Galeano by David Barsamian, since published in Louder than Bombs. Communications between the Jon and I are rare and deep. I take things he sends my way seriously.

In it there were two phrases that have stuck with me permanently. I hadn't realized how permanently until I unearthed the battered copy of the interview while unpacking. Sitting at my newly located kitchen table this morning I re-read the article.

Estamos muy mal hechos, pero no estamos terminados.
We are very badly made, but we are not finished.
At the time I was deep in sadness, and found hope in the idea that I was not finished with the making of myself, nor were those around me. Hope and forgiveness and compassion in one sentence. Since reading this article I've paid more attention to compassion, to understanding and being loving towards the people around me.

The other phrase, "abrigar esperanzas, to shelter hope" has had an even more direct impact. It has come to define how I think of myself. I am a hope shelterer. It is my job, it is my role in my community, and I take it as my first obligation to friends and family. Eduardo says more about hope.

"Hope needs to be abrigada, protected. She's fragile and a little delicate, but she's alive. I have friends who say 'I'm entirely hopeless, I don't believe in anything.' But you go on living. How is it? I hope I never lose hope, but if that day comes and I'm sure that I have nothing to expect, nothing to believe in, and that the human condition is doomed to stupidity and crime, then I hope I will be honest enough to kill myself. Of course, I know the human condition is at once horrible and marvelous."

It is good to be reminded of these two catalysts for my direction for the past three years. This wasn't a new direction, but focusing points, touchstones for daily action. I'm grateful today the marvelous and horrible human condition, and for having friends who know me so well. Thanks, Jon.

Ask.

The first of the 2007 mottoes is in effect.

Ask what people need.

It's my job to do this and then translate it into an action plan, and execute the plan. It's also the foundation of community organizing, a set of trainings that I refer to often. This year I'll focus extra hard on the important bit of asking and not assuming. Offer help when you see it's needed, and don't forget to always ask, "What do you need? How can I help?"

Under consideration.

I'm working through potential mottos for 2007. (While trying simultaneously to distill what 2006's might have been. Or could have been. I'm not considering what it _should_ have been.)

My friend Laura (Laura-of-the-hard-jobs, I call her) differentiates between life mottos and annual mottos. I admire this, and she's the inspiration for the mottoization of 2007. I usually think of myself as having figured out my values in the way back. On a daily basis, I think of myself as refining the application of those values. I usually think that my values don't/ haven't changed. My perception of the constancy of my, uh, Value Palette is primarily based on 1. My firm your work-is-the-greatest-part-of-your-life-so-choose-well policy, 2. My ongoing focus on loving kindness, and 3. My firm policy of supporting other people in the sheltering of their hope. I suspect an inventory of my values is due to flesh out fuzzier parts, or more accurately to bring clarity and focus to what I'm already doing.

Potential 2007 mottos under consideration:

*Give as much as you can.
Bringing a focus to what I'm giving, to whom, and if I'm giving enough. Or too much. Redefining give and much and can. Intention.

*(Motto TBD)
Working towards things vs. contentment with what you have. Striving discontentedly vs. settling into (for?) contentment. Working on big, hard things vs. reveling in the joy of the everyday. A Nobel prize vs. sunlight on eyelids.

San Francisco

A guy asks a guy how he likes living in New York:
"It's great," he said. "Everybody's insane with loneliness, but that's OK. After a while you realize that's part of the edge."

I was hit with a paradox. I wanted to be in New York, I wanted to be "part of the edge", but I didn't want to be "insane with loneliness". Was one necessary in order to have the other? Was it a price worth paying? To this day, I still have no answer.

A couple of months later (July, '98) I drew this, sitting on a barstool. Thinking back to that conversation with Mark, suddenly I had a realization: The simple truth about New York is that people don't go there to give. They go there to take, or at least, to get. If you feel like giving, good for you, somewhere an angel is smiling yada yada yada, just don't expect other people to follow your example. And if you're feeling lonely, at least now you now know why. http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/000729.html (dooooown to Fanelli's)

Right. So San Francisco is not like that, not for me. My business contacts are friends. My parties have invite lists of 100+ because I actually _like_ that many people...and those are just the ones I really like. Life is good, and San Francisco is fantastic.

Not so bad at all.

Wow. A whirlwind two weeks in Rachelland. This weekend: Finch Mob gatherings in the gallery, the basement/performance space and the tippity tip of the Panhandle. Saw many yummy people: Dicky, Leslie, Scott Polly, Eddie, Rebecca Charlie Pouneh, Travelin, Bex, Marcus. Also on Sautrday, Chicken's puppet benefit. (After a total crash...slept 20 hours Saturday.) And Ladytron Friday. And before that the BRAF benefit, Flip Your Lid.

Before that it gets fuzzy...there was the Makers Faire weekend, the Catfish/Earthquake Party, Hale's amazing easter brunch where I got to re-meet Andy Tannehil, and buckets of good work getting done: fundraising for the ScrapHouse documentary (headed to air on National Geographic), working on ScrapEden for BRAF, wrapping up things for CUE and meetings with Mayumi.

I'm so happy to be working with so many people doing good work.

Looking forward to the NetSquared conference.

Fuel for change, finally at hand

I drink strong black tea all day long. My new office is far far from the kitchen, at the distant end of a room lovingly referred to as the bowling alley. Problem.

After several weeks of tea-less hell, I remembered my English grandmother's solution: the electric teakettle. Walgreens across the street was out (and icky), thrift stores turned up nothing, and there was little chance of getting me out of the city and into a department store.

Ebay to the rescue. In a fit of tea-needing, I bid on four lovelies and (oops) won them all. This one leaked, which broke my heart a little because I loved the tattoo-like bird design AND whistling bird lid. This chrome deco one is filled with vinegar, working off years of mineral build up. This one remains untested, because the fourth, my Whistle While You Wait kettle is so very dreamy. I am dizzy with mid-century ceramic bliss. It boils, it whistles, it's ever so speedy.

Vintage electric teakettles=highly recommended. And likely also dangerous, with hit and miss vintage wiring. Yay. 

Emergencies

I recently joined the emergency tutor list at 826 Valencia. They needed people they can call when tutors flake, I suppose. Or get sick...it is the month of fever. I also requested that they allow me to add them to my I-Have-An-Emergency-Need-to-Tutor list...now I can tutor after school whenever I really really need to help a kid with their homework or I'll d.i.e.

Yay!

Yesterday afternoon I helped out a fourth grader. On an emergency basis, apparently. The emergency had several components: fractions, a biography of Abe Lincoln, and a worksheet about tricky words (some homonyms, some just dead fake). All emergencies were successfully diffused, and then I got a little help from my tutoree looking for ideas for a crazy costume.

All is well in the world.

Good things coming

I'm excited this week about the CUE Conference coming up in Palm Springs. I've been working with Computer Using Educators since fall, helping with member and corporate relations. It's a California-wide professional membership org for K-20 educators...educators that are gung-ho for technology. At the annual conference, topics range from video editing to podcasting to free classroom resources. A ton of planning and work goes into it, and back at CUE headquarters (hidden within WestEd's Oakland offices) Marisol and Danielle are moving so quickly at the office that they may burst into flames any time now.

Lots of new exhibitors this year, and warm welcomes to many who are returning. I can't wait to meet them all, after months of phone and email conversations. It has been refreshing to interact with so many businesspeople who 'get' CUE.

Even more exciting, member registrations have flooded in and we're expecting more registrations on-site. Check out where people are coming from on this nifty map. I've been smitten with the whole CUE org for months now and I'm excited to learn more about what members want, because they're doing great work and I want to help!

Upcoming.org listing

technorati tags: cue, cue2006, edtech, educational technology, k-12, cueconference, computer using educators

earning

After whirlwind of slide-making, Susan Vowell and I presented for two hours on Earned Revenue Strategy at the AICPA gathering of NFP financial executives. I 'met' Susan by phone on Wednesday afternoon, and by Friday at 8am we were killing a room of nonprofit CFOs.

In the incoming revenue stream at a nonprofit, earned revenue is distinct from contributed revenue. Earned revenue, essentially, comes from selling things or services--as opposed to contributed revenue which is composed of donations. As the market has become increasingly competitive, some types of revenue have switched teams. Memberships and corporate sponsorships have essentially transitioned from (mostly) being philanthropic contributed revenues to (mostly) being earned revenue exchanges.

Most of what I do as a consultant is earned revenue strategy. I'll be back soon with presentation highlights, and what we learned from participants.

Happy Thanksgiving weekend.

technorati tags: earnedrevenue, earnedrevenuestrategy, AICPA, trefethen, susanvowell, nonprofit, strategicplanning,

Hope Shelterer, Geek?

I thought I hated math and statistics. Then I encoutered Anand Desai. I thought I hated business. And then I met Andrew Taylor, and the swell work of Greg Dees. Sometimes, a new wonky-ness catches me by surprise. Thanks to NetSquared, I might finally become a geek too.

What Anand, Andrew and Greg all showed me were loving (human!) connections between disciplines/tools that I viewed as soul-less and actually helping people. I'd been stocking my toolkit for years with obvious things like consensus building, community organizing, translating between gestalts, and non-defensive communication. Bluntly, the girly parts of working for change. The smooshy stuff: philosophy, dialogue.

I've been on a kick now for a while (a kick I'm going full force on with my consulting business) that strategic mission-based business decisions, backed by smart market research
(SMBBDSMR) have greater potential for world-saving than most other things I've encountered.

Ah ha. My old girly methods of working for change were eventually discouraged because of scale. They need person-to-person interaction and are limited because of that. (Not that being scale-limited is a bad thing necessarily, see: all that stuff we did in Houston.) SMBBDSMR is also (initially) limited by scale, but it was interesting to me because it added sustainability. The old girly stuff I worked on was plagued by burn out. Death by burnout wasn't surprising, it takes an outstanding amount of emotional toughness to keep working for change when you can't see or measure your impact. Adding measures of impact with SMBBDSMR felt (and still feels) good.

But! Yes! Having attended the recent NetSquared Net Tuesday I'm insane for a new tool: geeks who want to save the world. Scale plus measures plus person-to-person. And sustainable (if we pretend that, you know, electricity and manufacturing computers is sustainable). I've got all sorts of world saving plots, and even more colleagues with better world saving plots. Web 2.0, I will use you for my own hope sheltering, world saving ends.

I'm off to become a geek to world saver translator. Blargh...another language for my translating toolkit.

technorati tags: net2, netsquared, andrewtaylor, gregdees, artfulmanager, smbbdsmr, hopeshelterer, flock, geekswhowanttosavetheworld, opensourceworlddomination

right. saving the world. check.

Wow. What a busy and rollercoasty time the past few weeks have been. I've been growing my marketing and management consultancy for the good stuff: art, culture, green, sustainable. And it suddenly grew very quickly. My consulting endeavors are paying off, tons to keep me busy and brainy. Business plans and marketing plans and market scans. Copywriting and budgeting and projected P&Ls.

Good projects I'm working with: a brilliant anti-corporation start-up (lots more later...it's thrilling), a design/fabrication firm doing LEEDs-point-worthy concrete fixtures, a seeecret club start-up, an ex-corporate designer starting a beautiful collection of office and home stuff. _And_ I get to help a really great organization getting computers into K-12 classrooms.

I'm so proud of my clients. They rule. Rarely have I had the opportunity to write Excel formulas for such good people doing such good work.

I might maybe have found my niche. I love starting things. And christ, apparently my office is in the right place.

Blogging from a childcare center was a silly idea

I'm home now, back in San Francisco. I've been back for six days now. Three days of hiding out and reeling. (Thanks to my beloved Dave for letting me hide in his closet, 'cleaning' all day Saturday.) Three days of just reeling.

Things I keep thinking about:
1. I wish I could have stayed.
The kids still needed weeks and weeks of love and tiger masks and being read books and having their stories listened to.

2. M.
M's superior coloring skills, and equally superior team coloring skills (left handed, sometimes, to make sure you could both reach your obligated vine leaves and super monkey costume elements). His breakthrough being-read-to posture: right thumb in mouth, left hand reaching up to hold your left ear tightly (sometimes pinchingly), as if you might somehow wriggle out from under him and drift away. And his utter destruction of my safe string of kid questions.

R: "What do you do before you go to bed? Have a snack? Brush your teeth? Do you take a bath at night or in the morning? Some kids say prayers before they go to sleep. Do you do that?"
M: "Yes, sometimes cereal. Yes. I take a bath at night."
And the last answer, he launches into unhesitatingly, and without introduction...
M: "Now I lay me down to sleep I pray the lord my should to keep if I should die before I wake I pray the lord my soul to take. And god bless my mommy, and my little sister and my daddy. (As an aside to me) He dead. He got shot."

M will remain tugging tightly, distraughtly, reassuringly on my earlobe for longer than expected.

I think I responded so speedily to 826's request for help because I felt so hopeless after the tsunami in Southeast Asia. We'd been to beaches there earlier in the year. The resort I wanted to advise my aunt to take her small children to, recommendable after sneaking through their exquisite pool system, turned out to be a hot news photo because of all the bodies in the exquisite pool system. The exquisite pool system was still so close in my physical memory, the almost too warmness of the water, the deep blue tiles, the thorn in my foot from beach grass, my heart beating fast at our illegitimate bar presence, the heat of walking out the front doors of the resort and skulking down the maintence road to the beach. Paradise unfurled. Not swept clean, but swept into a decaying pile at the bottom of a jungle mountain. And nothing useful to do.

What I did in Houston was small. Small in stature, small in time, small in impact.

An entire city made of paper

Just as I arrived this morning chessboards were the hot topic. Everyone wanted to play, and the kid with the board was gone. So we started making chessboards. I googled images to figure out the number of squares (8x8), and kids cut out circles for checkers (12 each). We colored like mad. A young brother and sister were almost finished when their older sister arrived to tell them they were moving on to their new house. Off they went, supplies to finish quickly combined in a spare plastic grocery bag. And they were gone.

826 was blessed and plagued by a small boy in a red shirt. He'd wheedle in between a tutor and the kids the were coloring with. He'd tear through our tables, scattering everything within reach across the polished concrete floors. He'd run into the pushbar emergency exit doors at top speed and escape out of the residential area. He'd hit, and threaten with scisors.

While all of this was going on serious urban planning was underway. Or lack of planning. Three palates of flattened cardboard boxes were being speedily transformed into a city. It wasn't clear if the tutors or the kids declared it was New Orleans, but New Orleans it was.

Fact straightening

Reliant City is transforming again. Rumor is that the Red Cross will condense refugees down to just the Astrodome by this weekend. We're flexible about setting up shop, and will follow the kids. The main exhibition space is vast: 706,000 sq ft. In SF each wing of Moscone North and South is 442,000 sq ft. Numbers of people living in the Reliant Center seem to have leveled off at about 5,000. The shelter holds 1/40th of total evacuees, but out group of volunteers is still reeling at the scale of our small piece of the pie.

Childcare seems to not be available in the Reliant Center. There is daycare in Reliant City, but it's talked about as being a fair distance away. In the Town Square, which I haven't visited yet, there are kids activities set up. Red Cross rules specify that kids under 10 must be accompanied by a parent. The day of a refugee seems to be filled with lines for shoes, lines for clothes, lines for kid supplies. Kids wander freely in a 500,000 sq ft room while parents look for housing off-site, stand in line for essential services, or escape by sleeping. Yesterday we were one of three remaining kid activity centers. The computer center is really cool. Unstaffed gaming tables rounded out the offerings.

An 826 volunteer commented the presence of our Korean Buddhist relief agency neighbors was puzzling, as there were no other religious orgs. I pointed out that the Red Cross was there (as is the YMCA). Is the Red Cross a religious org? My research indicates that, though the lovely Clara Barton may or may not have viewed nursing as a Christian calling for herself, the Red Cross is pretty damn good about keeping god out of their execution of core Christian (and humanitarian) goals. More here on the Red Cross. The Buddhist neighbors made perfect sense to me...they're usually not much for evangelizing.


Right. Facts. Coming later: facts on the Hilton Americas refugee population, conversations with radio pirates, and the kid who unhesitatingly chose brown to color in the water in his drawing.

Before the flood of school busses

Some kids are bussed out to local schools. We've cleared off piles of art stuff, and sharpened pencils are ready for homework help. The first two white refugees I've seen at the center passed by recently. I remain impressed by the kids I've worked with. Everyone has been under eleven. An emergency room doctor in from SoCal mentioned that the kids are fine. It's the teenagers that are walking wounded. One young one, hanging around in a red shirt all day long, won't talk.

Speed post...i'm temporarily relieved of hat-making duties.

I'm in the main shelter room of the Reliant Center, on the shore of a sea of beds. We're a few dozen chairs, 6 tables, 15 volunteers, and a massive pile of kid crafting supplies. I've spent the morning helping todlers cut tape, and making any costume bit the kids can think of out of construction paper. To date: yellow visor with blue number nine, a princess hat with hot dogs and red beans, green supergirl power cuffs with birds and pink stars. Kids are hungry for attention, as usual. So far, other than the odd setting, I could be in any museum activity area in the country. Maybe not any museum...the thirty-so kids I've met have all been black. In fact, I haven't seen a single kid here who wasnt black. On the volunteer sides of makeshift booths, the skin is white. The blue wristbands for refugees and the orange volunteer wristbands are barely necessary. More on wristbands and security later.

Announcements ring out over loudspeakers constantly, "Would the 109-year-old man in the wheelchair return with his family to the triage tent?" Offers of rides to Riverside, California with housing for one year, lots of disconnected families searching.

Alarmed

One cool thing about residing temporarily in a schwank hotel amongst a displaced population that, I suspect, includes teenagers is fire alarms. O, how the fire alarms get pulled. O, the amusement. O, the outcry for help, for attention. It may well be an emergency here. We can not sleep. The situation is alarming. We should all blink our bleared eyes and wonder.