If you read management literature, you will see discussion of the difference between "management" and "leadership". Generally the implication is that management is not enough and that organizations need leadership, but there's more to it than that as I am seeing with an organization I work with.
Management is the ability to get all the troops marching in the same direction: assigning tasks, tracking data, making sure that things get done. Operational tactics, in other words.
Leadership is more strategic, creating a vision that everyone can share. Inspiring everyone that what they are doing is meaningful and that their part of the project is important.
Management is organizing the troops into squads, telling each one where to start up the hill, tracking results and making adjustments. Leadership is convincing the troops that taking this hill is critical to victory and that their efforts and courage today will bring an end to the war.
Both are necessary. With only management, you have a force which gets halfway up the hill then hits problems and says "why are we here," a force that can't keep going when the going gets tough. With only leadership, the people are inspired, motivated, unstoppable, but disorganized and running in different directions.
Every leader has a combination of these two traits in differing amounts. The best managers, are rarely great inspiring leaders. The most charismatic of leaders rarely can provide the organization needed. That is why leadership teams are important. Many companies have a Chief Executive Officer who provides the big picture vision and a Chief Operations Officer who manages the nitty gritty. The CEO can create a grand plan which the COO can put nuts and bolts on. Thus, the people in the company both know what their day to day job is and feel that they are part of something big and important.
As often happens, people often think that their own traits are the most important. Highly organized people might think the organization's problem is a lack of organization. Visionaries might see a lack of vision. The key is to realize that the combination of all these factors create success, then to seek out the diverse skills and abilities to achieve it.
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Friday, February 27, 2015
Seeing Is Believing... But Not Knowing
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| The controversial dress. Science says it's blue, by the way. |
dresses are not, of themselves, interesting. The phenomenon of two people looking at the exact same things, seeing different facts, then vehemently insisting that they are correct and that those who disagree are wrong, is absolutely fascinating.
First, let's briefly talk about the science. Wired explains it very well in this article. Photo analysis reveals that the dress is actually Blue, but there is a mechanism in the visual cortex of the brain which filters out illumination color to allow us to see the color of an object even if the lighting is biased. The lighting of this image combined with the background, as well as the two colors on the dress cause the brain to filter the colors wrong in one direction or the other.
Now, for the more interesting aspect. A highly rational person will look at this situation and deduce that there must be a true color of the dress and that some form of analysis would reveal it. The Internet at large is mostly not populated by highly rational people. Rather, many people form an initial opinion and hold to it fiercely. When people saw the dress and saw white, they believed their eyes and assumed that those who saw blue were lying or colorblind or perhaps insane. The people who saw blue felt likewise about those who saw white.
We're talking about something that has an objective correct answer that people are arguing about. What about things that don't have such an objective answer like the Middle East, Obamacare, or abortion? If we jump to having tightly held views on something which is easily proven or disproven, what happens when we jump to tightly held views on more serious but nebulous issues?
 |
| The dress that launching a thousand memes. |
The lesson here may be like the line from Hamlet "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." The world is a complex place, and even something as seemingly simple as the color of an image may be more nuanced than at first it seems.
When you see one thing and you friend sees another, rather than argue, perhaps it is more productive to dig deeper and find out what is really going on. You never know what you might find down that rabbit hole.
Monday, February 16, 2015
Class Privilege and Non-Profit Conventions
There are certain phrases that set my teeth on edge when I hear them. "Check your privilege" is one of them. It is too often a phrase used to make me think I should feel bad for having the audacity to be born cis male, white, straight, able, etc. However, today I had to opportunity feel the need to use the phrase.
The discussion was about non-profit versus for-profit scifi/geek conventions. First, let me provide a little background for those of you who do not work on half a dozen cons a year. Many scifi cons, especially the older ones such as Arisia, Boskone, Philcon, Lunacon, and Albacon, are non-profit organizations. No one on the staff is paid in any way other than free admission and possibly free hotel rooms. The cons are generally run by a board or membership and the chair is elected each year.
For-profit cons, in spite of the name, do not tend to be major money makers. While there might be some cons out there that do make big money, they are very much the exception. All the for-profit cons I have encountered pay the very senior staff a modest sum to compensate them for their time. Many newer cons started in the last 10 years follow that structure.
I would estimate that chairing a small convention like Pi-Con probably takes about 300-600 hours to plan for a single con, and this is a smaller convention. A larger convention likely requires much more time.
I sometimes hear the attitude from people who work non-profit cons that they would never work for a "for-profit" con because they would not want to volunteer so someone else could get paid. I'm not going to address the fact that people volunteer for all kinds of money making organizations from hospitals to day cares to political organizations (but think about that for a moment). I have another point to raise.
Working poor people don't have 300-600 hours to donate to a cause. A certain level of affluence is required to have that kind of leisure time to donate. I work a middle class job, which allows me the flexibility to chair a convention on an entirely volunteer basis. However, many people do not have that option. Furthermore, there is a limit to the size and complexity of an event that one can run as an unpaid hobby. Some might use some of the larger, successful nonprofit cons as an example that staff can be found to volunteer, and that may be fine for an established con. (Although many of those old cons are shrinking and fading over time for lack of new blood to run them.)
However, what if one wants to start a new convention? It's going to take an initial investment. Either people on staff with money to put up, which requires a certain affluence, or some sort of loan, which would likely require a personal guarantee by someone running the con. To suggest that someone who wants to run a con should both take on personal risk then volunteer their time to run it seems like a very entitled attitude, given that those who tend to hold this attitude are rarely the same people willing to take the risks to start the convention.
The fact is that there are many people who want to start conventions but cannot afford to give up the kind of time it takes to start and run a con without being paid for it. In the time that they are running the event, they could be engaging in an activity which makes money, like working a job, and for most people, that's what they need to do with their time. Let us also consider that the people who do run conventions and get paid for it (1) are not getting rich in the process, and (2) are usually taking disproportionate financial risk.
So, saying that for-profit cons are somehow less than non-profit cons implies either that only people wealthy enough to have leisure time to volunteer should lead conventions or that those who are willing to lead events should be willing to sacrifice their own standard of living so that everyone else can enjoy an event. Both of these are entitled attitudes, and the first implication drips with class privilege.
If you are the sort who looks down on for-profit cons, ask yourself this: if a competent, enthusiastic, but poor person wanted to take on the task of starting a con, what do you propose they do? Should they sacrifice so you can enjoy their con? Should they take on financial risk with no opportunity of financial reward? Or might it be fair that they could collect a modest income for their hundreds of hours of work. And, given that they are willing to dedicate their energies to creating this con rather than other work which would likely be more profitable, do you think it perhaps reasonable that you could find a few hours to contribute to support their efforts?
If you volunteer in major roles at cons for no pay, consider your life circumstances that allow you to be able to do that. You may not be rich, but you at least live a comfortable enough life to have leisure time to donate to con-running.
Much as I hate to say it, before judging those conventions that pay their leadership (if they are successful, that is), take a moment to check your privilege.
The discussion was about non-profit versus for-profit scifi/geek conventions. First, let me provide a little background for those of you who do not work on half a dozen cons a year. Many scifi cons, especially the older ones such as Arisia, Boskone, Philcon, Lunacon, and Albacon, are non-profit organizations. No one on the staff is paid in any way other than free admission and possibly free hotel rooms. The cons are generally run by a board or membership and the chair is elected each year.
For-profit cons, in spite of the name, do not tend to be major money makers. While there might be some cons out there that do make big money, they are very much the exception. All the for-profit cons I have encountered pay the very senior staff a modest sum to compensate them for their time. Many newer cons started in the last 10 years follow that structure.
I would estimate that chairing a small convention like Pi-Con probably takes about 300-600 hours to plan for a single con, and this is a smaller convention. A larger convention likely requires much more time.
I sometimes hear the attitude from people who work non-profit cons that they would never work for a "for-profit" con because they would not want to volunteer so someone else could get paid. I'm not going to address the fact that people volunteer for all kinds of money making organizations from hospitals to day cares to political organizations (but think about that for a moment). I have another point to raise.
Working poor people don't have 300-600 hours to donate to a cause. A certain level of affluence is required to have that kind of leisure time to donate. I work a middle class job, which allows me the flexibility to chair a convention on an entirely volunteer basis. However, many people do not have that option. Furthermore, there is a limit to the size and complexity of an event that one can run as an unpaid hobby. Some might use some of the larger, successful nonprofit cons as an example that staff can be found to volunteer, and that may be fine for an established con. (Although many of those old cons are shrinking and fading over time for lack of new blood to run them.)
However, what if one wants to start a new convention? It's going to take an initial investment. Either people on staff with money to put up, which requires a certain affluence, or some sort of loan, which would likely require a personal guarantee by someone running the con. To suggest that someone who wants to run a con should both take on personal risk then volunteer their time to run it seems like a very entitled attitude, given that those who tend to hold this attitude are rarely the same people willing to take the risks to start the convention.
The fact is that there are many people who want to start conventions but cannot afford to give up the kind of time it takes to start and run a con without being paid for it. In the time that they are running the event, they could be engaging in an activity which makes money, like working a job, and for most people, that's what they need to do with their time. Let us also consider that the people who do run conventions and get paid for it (1) are not getting rich in the process, and (2) are usually taking disproportionate financial risk.
So, saying that for-profit cons are somehow less than non-profit cons implies either that only people wealthy enough to have leisure time to volunteer should lead conventions or that those who are willing to lead events should be willing to sacrifice their own standard of living so that everyone else can enjoy an event. Both of these are entitled attitudes, and the first implication drips with class privilege.
If you are the sort who looks down on for-profit cons, ask yourself this: if a competent, enthusiastic, but poor person wanted to take on the task of starting a con, what do you propose they do? Should they sacrifice so you can enjoy their con? Should they take on financial risk with no opportunity of financial reward? Or might it be fair that they could collect a modest income for their hundreds of hours of work. And, given that they are willing to dedicate their energies to creating this con rather than other work which would likely be more profitable, do you think it perhaps reasonable that you could find a few hours to contribute to support their efforts?
If you volunteer in major roles at cons for no pay, consider your life circumstances that allow you to be able to do that. You may not be rich, but you at least live a comfortable enough life to have leisure time to donate to con-running.
Much as I hate to say it, before judging those conventions that pay their leadership (if they are successful, that is), take a moment to check your privilege.
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
2014 In Review
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| A ConCardia Tournament at ChessieCon this fall. |
During 2013, ConCardia was growing and I felt that if only I was freed from the constraints of a car salesman's schedule, I could really make something happen with it. When I left Volkswagen last December, I decided to take advantage of Unemployment to give ConCardia the old college try. As it turns out, the market for it is very different from my initial concept. Unemployment ran out, and it became time to find regular work again. I am glad that I gave it a shot. I am back at a car dealership, and I am working as many hours as ever, but now I know that I gave ConCardia its shot. It's a fun project to run, and people enjoy it, but it will likely never provide my living.
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| My daughter gets an early start with networking, smoozing the President of the Young Professionals of Eastern Connecticut at a recent event. |
When 2014 began, I had the sensation of going down a waterslide. I had faith that things would end up in a good place, but I knew that I had precious little influence in the events to unfold. The best I could do would be to approach it with faith and love and hope for the best.
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| Inspiring baby is inspiring! |
Most importantly, I have a focus which can set all the varied threads of my life in focus: my daughter. I need a good job and good income potential so I can give her what she needs. I work to build ConCardia so we will have the means to involve her in the convention community as she grows. I seek friends and associates to be a resource for her as she grows up. This sense of focus, combined with having the resources to serve her, give me a sense of satisfaction and direction that I lacked 12 months ago.
So, here's to a happy and stable new year!
Monday, December 15, 2014
Why Kia?
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| The best selling of the Kia line is the Soul. So, you could say that in my new job, I buy and sell Souls. Bad jokes are my forte. |
In college, I once got the advice that if you find a good professor, you should take any class with them that you can, no matter the subject. The experience of learning from a good teacher is more valuable than any particular field of study. I feel that the same thing applies for managers. I got to know my current manager after meeting him at a Chamber of Commerce event. We had been talking for a couple months about my trying to get some kind of training position in the dealer group. When that fell through, he offered me a sales job here. I liked his attitude and approach, so I gave it a shot, and I'm glad I did.
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| Actually, this is our Forte. No, I never do get tired of puns, why do you ask? |
All in all, I am very pleased with my new selling home, and I look forward to having a lot of fun and helping a lot of people to solve their car needs.
Thursday, September 25, 2014
Did you say 'Ello'?
There's this new social media side called Ello out there. Well, there is the steel frame on which they will build Ello soon. Setting up a profile feels a little like moving into an apartment with plywood floors and no glass in the windows because it hasn't been installed yet.But, their heart is in the right place, and sometimes that's all it takes. The Ello team decided they were tired of being a product to be packaged and sold to advertisers by Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and the rest. So they set about making a social networking site that was built all around the social networking, not the monetization of personal data.
This leads many to say "That can't work. How can they make any money without advertising or selling data?"
Ah, yes. A social network could not possibly survive without advertising and selling personal data. That's why Live Journal went bust. No, wait. Live Journal didn't go bust. It did quite well for a number of years until the creator was offered a bunch of money to sell out, and he did, then the site drifted into obscurity.
When you create a corporate monstrosity, people will be very hesitant to share their money with it. Live Journal, while it was still being run by its creator, did not have a giant corporate feel. Because of that, people were more than happy to purchase paid accounts. This produced more than enough revenue. It was only when the new owners got greedy and started putting in ads that the site started to look tacky.
The money is out there, and for a social networking site that provides them what they want, people will pay $20 a year for premium features. And by people, I mean 1% of the people, which is probably about all they need to make it a profitable business model. At least it will work this way for as long as the idealistic creators run it, until some big investor offers them 9 figures to sell it, and they do then we are all looking for the next Live Journal. Fortunately, if history is a guide, we have 4-7 years to enjoy this new site before that happens.
Moral of the story: join Ello, post some stuff. I have invites.
P.S. Some people have expressed concerns about the security of the site. Let me try to put this in simple terms:
Posting on the Internet is public!
Don't post secrets on the Internet!
People will read them!
I don't post things online because I want them not to be seen. If I want something not to be seen, I'll keep it somewhere secret, not on a social media site.
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Dashcon: A Convention Disaster or a PR Disaster?
The more I look into this Dashcon thing, the more it seems to be a simple matter of inexperienced conrunners making a cascading series of errors. I watched the video of their ballroom fundraiser. First, let me say, that I would gladly have paid $50 to be in that audience. The energy and enthusiasm of that audience is palpable and contagious through the video. Second, lets look at what happened. All of my discussion below is based on what I have been able to piece together from what is online, since Dashcon leadership has not gotten a formal response out (a massive failure I will discuss below).
Mistake #1: Overestimated Attendance
The inexperienced organizers expected 7 times as many people as they got. This means a few things:
-They did not have the pre-reg money that they expected
-They did not have the roomnights in the hotel that they expected
When you book a hotel for a con, they expect a small token deposit upfront and the rest of the bill at the start of the con. However, often, the organizers can negotiate with the hotel to pay part of the bill upfront and part after the con. This is quite common. Unfortunately, also quite common is that a lower level person at the hotel will agree to the bill being paid later only for the higher up to overrule them at the last second and demand all the money upfront. This happened to me when I ran the first Pi-Con. Fortunately, that amount was $3000, so I put it on my credit card.
So, at this point, they had two choices, close the con or start a fundraiser. They did the later, and I applaud them for it. I watched the video of the fundraising process, and I imagine that it was a very enjoyable experience for the people in the audience. Watch the videos: they are singing, cheering, hugging. The people there had the powerful emotional experience of people supporting a winning political candidate, all condensed down into an evening. However, while they were focused on being in that room, they forgot they were running a Tumblr con, meaning that in realtime, what was happening was going to be attacked by the snarkiest, nastiest group of people ever to put words topaper screen.
Mistake #2: Not Controlling Their Online Spin
But that's not the only thing that they neglected. While they were hyperfocused on the fundraiser, they forgot that they had a con to run. This is a mistake of inexperience. The most imminent disaster will take up your attention, but the experienced con-runner remembers that while some are needed in the fundraiser room to raise the funds, other are needed elsewhere in the con to reassure the guests, panelists, and other attendees that the show will go on and they won't be screwed.
Mistake #3: Neglecting the Guests
Since most or all of the Paypal donations were refunded, it appears clear that the revenues did come over the next two days and the con would have been able to pay their paid guests and cover their rooms. However, their big guests were probably left alone and in the dark, wondering what would happen. While the big rally was going on over there, these guests were watching social media blow up with the disaster they were at. Of course, it was not, in any real sense a disaster yet, but the blogosphere loves to make a disaster and point fingers at the failures of others to make themselves feel better. So, if you are a guest reading that crap, and every person from the con who could refute it is on stage raising money or in meetings with the hotel, you get more and more nervous until you decide its time to pack up and go.
So, now one crisis, which is successfully dealt with, cascades into a second crisis of losing the key guests.
I should point out that faced with the same situation, most of the conventions I work with might have made the same mistake. Unless a con has a dedicated person whose job is to work directly with those guests, it would be very easy to neglect to keep them informed until the first crisis was dealt with. The guests are out of sight and out of mind. They are off in their hotel room preparing for the weekend. They can only contact junior staff who has probably been told not to bother senior staff until the money is raised.
Once the key guests had departed, there was the final and most damaging crisis...
Mistake #4: Neglecting Social Media
If you run a stamp collectors convention and your screw up, some people might post on their personal Facebook pages and there might be some rumble. If you run a Tumblr convention, you should expect that everything you do, good or bad, is about to be under the microscope for all to see. Rather, kaleidoscope might be more appropriate. The Internet twists everything to make it "funny". Even things that are good get turned into insulting memes. When they were forced to go begging for the $17,000 they were probably blinded by the wave of support they got, to forget that there are trolls lurking in basements across America who have never contributed anything to the world who are ready to insult and malign anything they can.
The trolls made memes of certain facts of the event, and then people who are more receptive to negative news that positive, perpetuated those memes and ideas. Of course, since most people have never run a con, they listen to the trolls who say that the surprise bill is not plausible, and the word "scam" starts floating around
The plain and simple fact is that the people who run Dashcon are young and inexperienced. They made common mistakes and mistakes that much larger and stronger cons might face. In fact, I worked with a fantastic convention this weekend that had to be saved by crowd funding in their early years due to a surprise from their venue regarding the bill. Anyone remember saveconnecticon.com? Yes, it happened after the con, not during, but the concept is the same. Dashcon just made their mistakes in front of the great lens of Tumblr.
Don't be so quick to judge unless you've started a con yourself.
Mistake #1: Overestimated Attendance
The inexperienced organizers expected 7 times as many people as they got. This means a few things:
-They did not have the pre-reg money that they expected
-They did not have the roomnights in the hotel that they expected
When you book a hotel for a con, they expect a small token deposit upfront and the rest of the bill at the start of the con. However, often, the organizers can negotiate with the hotel to pay part of the bill upfront and part after the con. This is quite common. Unfortunately, also quite common is that a lower level person at the hotel will agree to the bill being paid later only for the higher up to overrule them at the last second and demand all the money upfront. This happened to me when I ran the first Pi-Con. Fortunately, that amount was $3000, so I put it on my credit card.
So, at this point, they had two choices, close the con or start a fundraiser. They did the later, and I applaud them for it. I watched the video of the fundraising process, and I imagine that it was a very enjoyable experience for the people in the audience. Watch the videos: they are singing, cheering, hugging. The people there had the powerful emotional experience of people supporting a winning political candidate, all condensed down into an evening. However, while they were focused on being in that room, they forgot they were running a Tumblr con, meaning that in realtime, what was happening was going to be attacked by the snarkiest, nastiest group of people ever to put words to
Mistake #2: Not Controlling Their Online Spin
But that's not the only thing that they neglected. While they were hyperfocused on the fundraiser, they forgot that they had a con to run. This is a mistake of inexperience. The most imminent disaster will take up your attention, but the experienced con-runner remembers that while some are needed in the fundraiser room to raise the funds, other are needed elsewhere in the con to reassure the guests, panelists, and other attendees that the show will go on and they won't be screwed.
Mistake #3: Neglecting the Guests
Since most or all of the Paypal donations were refunded, it appears clear that the revenues did come over the next two days and the con would have been able to pay their paid guests and cover their rooms. However, their big guests were probably left alone and in the dark, wondering what would happen. While the big rally was going on over there, these guests were watching social media blow up with the disaster they were at. Of course, it was not, in any real sense a disaster yet, but the blogosphere loves to make a disaster and point fingers at the failures of others to make themselves feel better. So, if you are a guest reading that crap, and every person from the con who could refute it is on stage raising money or in meetings with the hotel, you get more and more nervous until you decide its time to pack up and go.
So, now one crisis, which is successfully dealt with, cascades into a second crisis of losing the key guests.
I should point out that faced with the same situation, most of the conventions I work with might have made the same mistake. Unless a con has a dedicated person whose job is to work directly with those guests, it would be very easy to neglect to keep them informed until the first crisis was dealt with. The guests are out of sight and out of mind. They are off in their hotel room preparing for the weekend. They can only contact junior staff who has probably been told not to bother senior staff until the money is raised.
Once the key guests had departed, there was the final and most damaging crisis...
Mistake #4: Neglecting Social Media
If you run a stamp collectors convention and your screw up, some people might post on their personal Facebook pages and there might be some rumble. If you run a Tumblr convention, you should expect that everything you do, good or bad, is about to be under the microscope for all to see. Rather, kaleidoscope might be more appropriate. The Internet twists everything to make it "funny". Even things that are good get turned into insulting memes. When they were forced to go begging for the $17,000 they were probably blinded by the wave of support they got, to forget that there are trolls lurking in basements across America who have never contributed anything to the world who are ready to insult and malign anything they can.
The trolls made memes of certain facts of the event, and then people who are more receptive to negative news that positive, perpetuated those memes and ideas. Of course, since most people have never run a con, they listen to the trolls who say that the surprise bill is not plausible, and the word "scam" starts floating around
The plain and simple fact is that the people who run Dashcon are young and inexperienced. They made common mistakes and mistakes that much larger and stronger cons might face. In fact, I worked with a fantastic convention this weekend that had to be saved by crowd funding in their early years due to a surprise from their venue regarding the bill. Anyone remember saveconnecticon.com? Yes, it happened after the con, not during, but the concept is the same. Dashcon just made their mistakes in front of the great lens of Tumblr.
Don't be so quick to judge unless you've started a con yourself.
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