This was a terrific week! Sunday's Empty Bowls Dinner set new records and raised over $45,000 to help Just Harvest and Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank fight hunger. It's a real pleasure to emcee this event every year. Rikki and I saw alot of old and new friends and enjoyed the day.
Tuesday include by monthly Trustee meeting at Manchester Academic Charter School (MACS), an organization I grow more fond of every day. This is an incredible school with teachers, administrators, parents and children working together to create excellence. This is not to take anything away from other schools we work with -- including traditional public schools, parochial schools, private schools and home schools. It's simply still new to me to be on a school board and very rewarding to see how the pieces come together. I also spent some time with MACS this morning helping them prepare for a pageant on Black History that will run this coming Tuesday. We're providing the microphones, music, and speakers.
Wednesday night, we attended a meeting about the Charm Bracelet project, a vision to link North Side community assets -- such as the Aviary, Warhol, Carnegie Library, schools, etc. -- to create a more cohesive district for youth and families. This meeting included teachers from most of the schools that are so close to our studios -- MACS, Manchester Elementary, Martin Luther King, Jr., Elementary, Allegheny Traditional Academy and a few others. This was an inspiring evening of brainstorming. Coincidentally, we also set up a meeting with the staff at ATA for next week to evaluate how we can work more closely together.
On Thursday, we headed out to Miller African Centered Academy for another session with our after school radio class. We also spent quite a bit of time on Thursday (and today) preparing for tomorrow's Pittsburgh Center for the Arts remote.
And...we have The Bugler in final layout (finally), received a number of new cables and other small pieces of gear that have been "missing links" in our various kits, and received a very generous donation from a major equipment supplier.
I'm sure I'm leaving a few things out ;). But it's wonderful to have had such a happy and rewarding week!
I hope we'll see you at tomorrow's remote from Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Fifth and Shady Avenues, 9 to noon, www.pittsburgharts.org for details.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
A Visit to Lincoln Elementary School...
Today began with some additional work on the Bugler, return of a number of phone calls, and some more financial-related work. Rikki spent alot of time straightening the office, which seems to be a never-ending task. We also recorded David Jaye's "Jazzin' Around", a program airing on WNJR and via Podcast that we provide assistance on.
We ended the day with a trip to Lincoln-Lemington (where a tragic fire claimed the life of a 6-year old boy last night) for a scheduled workshop at Lincoln Elementary School. The boy was a kindergartner there and, while not one of our "workshop kids", we felt a profound sense of loss. We've grown very attached to and comfortable with the kids at Lincoln (and our other EWS schools) and this family and community loss made us stop to be thankful for our own health and safety as well as for the opportunities we have been given to work to improve the lives of children.
We used a new tool during today's workshop -- a portable multitrack recorder. It exceeded our already high expectations and helped the kids learn new things, express themselves, and have a carefree afternoon.
We ended the day with a trip to Lincoln-Lemington (where a tragic fire claimed the life of a 6-year old boy last night) for a scheduled workshop at Lincoln Elementary School. The boy was a kindergartner there and, while not one of our "workshop kids", we felt a profound sense of loss. We've grown very attached to and comfortable with the kids at Lincoln (and our other EWS schools) and this family and community loss made us stop to be thankful for our own health and safety as well as for the opportunities we have been given to work to improve the lives of children.
We used a new tool during today's workshop -- a portable multitrack recorder. It exceeded our already high expectations and helped the kids learn new things, express themselves, and have a carefree afternoon.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Happy to Be Back Online
It's been hard for me to post over the past few weeks. In part, I've been overwhelmed with the number of emails and notes about Bill. I'll be sharing some more memories of him in this blog as it becomes appropriate. As I've said on the air, via email, and possibly to you personally, Bill's family is very appreciative of the outpouring of love and memories.
This morning at 9 a.m., I had the pleasure of working with BBC World Service. They contacted us from London last week to see if we could provide local support for interviewing Cynthia Cryder (a Carnegie Mellon grad student) about her work correlating buying patterns with moods. It was fun to work with the BBC and I was very proud that we took the time to build facilities at SLB that meet international standards. Cynthia's work is fascinating, too; you can read more about it at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=898080.
After this session was over, I turned to finalizing the next edition of The Bugler. I feel very strongly about our printed newsletter. Adults and kids enjoy the news and puzzles and it helps document our history. I get the opportunity to see people "using" The Bugler at the Children's Museum, too. There's nothing like watching a family solve the puzzles together while eating lunch in the museum cafe' or taking a break in the lobby.
I also made arrangements to send some of our wireless equipment out for servicing, take care of some financial data, and continue evaluation of a new benefits plan we hope to implement for SLB employees later this year.
I have some pretty well-developed feelings about employee relations after having worked as an editor, engineer, project manager and program manager for 25 years. One basic principle I hold is that most everyone *wants* to do a good job and for their work to matter. In my opinion, many employers do not realize this and unwittingly undermine the performance of their staff through micromanagement or outright re-doing of the work. Years ago, I worked for a very bright man who, unfortunately, had the habit of re-writing reports given to him for final review rather than provide general feedback or coaching. While in the office together one Sunday, he lamented to me that the reports that came to him for review kept getting worse and worse. My response to him was "Do you think people are even trying anymore, knowing that you're simply going to re-do it?". The fact is that his staff wanted to do a good job, but he had given them reason to lose hope, let alone even try anymore. As a result, when possible, I've always tried hard to encourage people to accomplish their work their way -- and independently -- with coaching rather than explicit directions.
I also think that it makes sense to hire people rather than "job descriptions", especially in a small entrepreneurial organization. For SLB, finding someone who "gets" what we do and who has the heart, mind and temperament for our work and atmosphere is far more important that finding someone that simply meets a skills checklist. We can always teach skills if a few are absent. But we stand little chances for success -- for us or the employee -- if we think we can change a person's temperament or basic sense of values. This is not to say that our temperament is "right" and another's is "wrong". It's just important that our sense of values and proportion are compatible.
We also look for unique fringe benefits. While exciting and rewarding, work in the nonprofit sector can be grueling. We try to compensate as best we can, but we also try to provide accommodations that work for those we hire. Some people prefer to work early in the morning, others later in the day. Some are happiest working over a long stretch (when they're "hot") and taking a few days for a break afterwards. At SLB, we have some unique demands -- being available Saturdays for example. The very least we can do is accommodate the unique needs of others, too.
I guess I'm thinking about these things as we look through our benefits and because this is expected to be another strong year of growth for SLB. Creating employment as we grow -- good employment -- is something we've been proud of and I'm hoping we'll continue.
The rest of this long day will be spent responding to emails (I'm getting behind again) and learning about a new multitrack mixer we acquired for in-school workshops (the huge manual is sitting beside me).
This morning at 9 a.m., I had the pleasure of working with BBC World Service. They contacted us from London last week to see if we could provide local support for interviewing Cynthia Cryder (a Carnegie Mellon grad student) about her work correlating buying patterns with moods. It was fun to work with the BBC and I was very proud that we took the time to build facilities at SLB that meet international standards. Cynthia's work is fascinating, too; you can read more about it at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=898080.
After this session was over, I turned to finalizing the next edition of The Bugler. I feel very strongly about our printed newsletter. Adults and kids enjoy the news and puzzles and it helps document our history. I get the opportunity to see people "using" The Bugler at the Children's Museum, too. There's nothing like watching a family solve the puzzles together while eating lunch in the museum cafe' or taking a break in the lobby.
I also made arrangements to send some of our wireless equipment out for servicing, take care of some financial data, and continue evaluation of a new benefits plan we hope to implement for SLB employees later this year.
I have some pretty well-developed feelings about employee relations after having worked as an editor, engineer, project manager and program manager for 25 years. One basic principle I hold is that most everyone *wants* to do a good job and for their work to matter. In my opinion, many employers do not realize this and unwittingly undermine the performance of their staff through micromanagement or outright re-doing of the work. Years ago, I worked for a very bright man who, unfortunately, had the habit of re-writing reports given to him for final review rather than provide general feedback or coaching. While in the office together one Sunday, he lamented to me that the reports that came to him for review kept getting worse and worse. My response to him was "Do you think people are even trying anymore, knowing that you're simply going to re-do it?". The fact is that his staff wanted to do a good job, but he had given them reason to lose hope, let alone even try anymore. As a result, when possible, I've always tried hard to encourage people to accomplish their work their way -- and independently -- with coaching rather than explicit directions.
I also think that it makes sense to hire people rather than "job descriptions", especially in a small entrepreneurial organization. For SLB, finding someone who "gets" what we do and who has the heart, mind and temperament for our work and atmosphere is far more important that finding someone that simply meets a skills checklist. We can always teach skills if a few are absent. But we stand little chances for success -- for us or the employee -- if we think we can change a person's temperament or basic sense of values. This is not to say that our temperament is "right" and another's is "wrong". It's just important that our sense of values and proportion are compatible.
We also look for unique fringe benefits. While exciting and rewarding, work in the nonprofit sector can be grueling. We try to compensate as best we can, but we also try to provide accommodations that work for those we hire. Some people prefer to work early in the morning, others later in the day. Some are happiest working over a long stretch (when they're "hot") and taking a few days for a break afterwards. At SLB, we have some unique demands -- being available Saturdays for example. The very least we can do is accommodate the unique needs of others, too.
I guess I'm thinking about these things as we look through our benefits and because this is expected to be another strong year of growth for SLB. Creating employment as we grow -- good employment -- is something we've been proud of and I'm hoping we'll continue.
The rest of this long day will be spent responding to emails (I'm getting behind again) and learning about a new multitrack mixer we acquired for in-school workshops (the huge manual is sitting beside me).
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