Category Archives: not-for-profit

Marketing Rules Part 2

A politician’s editorial team does a sloppy job and leaves an important word out of a sentence, leaving a non sequitar where a powerful statement was intended, to wit:

We’re not going to our call for action.

The reader, if she even notices, is left wondering why issue a call to action if you’re not going yourself.  (see previous post for context of this flub)

But that was clearly a typo and not really an example of what I’m talking about– the supremacy of marketing in modern society and how crucial skillful marketing is for the survival of any enterprise that aspires to reach the public.  

I intend to give an example of my own marketing attempt below, but meantime, no less an authority on the subject than the famous Seth Godin, putting the dilemma of a person with a promising idea and a distaste for advertising, in an illuminating perspective:

“When I grow up…”

No kid sets out to make Doritos commercials. No one grows up saying, “I want to go into marketing.”

More than ever, though, folks grow up saying, “I want to change the world.” More than ever, that means telling stories, changing minds and building a tribe.

You know, marketing.

At least if you want it to be.

Seth Godin is a guru to those who would push through to the next level of success in any number of areas, his expertise is in marketing.   He loves it and he’s a master of it.  You can read his pithy, minimalist take here.

As for me, I have come to realize that my idea for a program to change the world for a few kids, and a few adults, will never flourish among the people I know.   The people I know are cool, and fine, but virtually none of them can relate directly to being in a room full of noisy kids inventing and creating clunky animated sequences.  It simply doesn’t excite them, they don’t get it, they are not the tribe to embrace and sustain it.  So, like Godin says, I need to find the tribe that loves this stuff.   To do that, short punchy pitches.

Answer the question in a way that turns on a light for those who care to see what they’ve asked about.  

Why animation?   You can read a long account on this blahg.  Or, this, still too-long marketing pitch:

Animation lets children’s play come alive on the screen.  It integrates drawing, writing, singing, speaking, painting, reading, whimsy, music, photography and computer skills.  It requires a skilled team, everyone doing their part.   Animation depends on free play and also focused attention to detail.   Animation leads to the integrated mastery of every art involved and a world of imaginative possibilities.   The workshop is a place of discovery and community building.

Perhaps most importantly, animation is like an acrobat’s work:  it can only happen in a room where everyone is relaxed, and ready, supporting and helping out as much as possible.

That said, it behooves us to show the mark how it works in practice:

Wehearyou.net’s animation workshop is portable and gets to work instantly.  With only an electrical outlet, a couple of tables and a room full of children ages 7-11, any room is turned into a beehive of child-run creativity within the first five or ten minutes.   While children watch a sixty second animated demo on a laptop computer, the camera stand is set up and an array of art supplies is laid out.  If there are no questions, and there seldom are, the children hop into the making of animation like a bunch of ducklings making for the pond.  A few minutes later they can watch the first results of their animations.  At the end of the session, if desired, their animation can be posted to the internet and shared with everyone in the world.

God bless.

Why animation?

Animation is great because it integrates so many creative and technical fields and what you can do with it is limited only by your imagination.  The best animation takes a team, everyone doing their part as perfectly as possible.

Animation involves the precise coordination of many moving parts: good ideas, the drawing, clay or other objects that will carry out the ideas, an unmoving camera that frames and focuses on the well-lit action below, a steady hand, the smooth transfer of the frames (stills) to the computer, a skilled editor to bring out the best in the frames, a good soundtrack to make it all dance.

It takes free play and also concentration and focus.  Without great attention to detail, the resulting animation will be unwatchable.  It takes precision to keep everything the camera sees registered for the illusion of movement.  It takes patience and mastery to make the adjustments necessary to correct mistakes.   In the midst of a buzzing beehive of children busy having fun, coordination, focus and teamwork are required to make good animation.

Picture the greatest drawing in the world, and the most skillful editor in the world. Then picture all the frames of these great drawings are dark, because not properly lit. Or fuzzy, because nobody took the time to focus.  Or badly framed, because somebody was too excited about shooting something to carefully line things up.  The great drawings are ruined, all the skill of the best editor in the world won’t be able to turn those frames into watchable animation.

Got to shoot the whole thing over again, carefully.   There is an art to it, and various skills to be mastered.   And it takes a team, everybody doing their part, and doing it well, and helping each other along the way.   

That’s why animation.

(Thanks, Maxine, for an excellent question)

you can see the original post here

The Burnout Scale

Feeling burnt out lately as I try to somehow advance my exciting, innovative program alone. Trying to revive my spirits to continue rolling the child-run animation workshop hoop down the road, cheerfully, winningly, I search the internet for advice and inspiration.   Here is some I found last night:

4. Identify the specific causes of your burnout.

The Maslach Burnout Inventory identifies six areas leading to burnout:

  • Workload (too much work, not enough resources)
  • Control (micromanagement, lack of influence, accountability without power)
  • Reward (not enough pay, appreciation, or satisfaction)
  • Community (isolation, conflict, disrespect)
  • Fairness (discrimination, favoritism)
  • Values (ethical conflicts, meaningless tasks)

After identifying the source, name it out loud. Brainstorm with someone you trust about how to specifically change this aspect of your work life.

My father’s 17 years older first cousin Eli, a very tough old bird, complained of the side effects of his fentonyl patch.   Eli’s children, who approached the prickly old man with caution, did not tell him he was wearing the pain patch because he had inoperable cancer.  His doctors were instructed not to tell him either.   He started wearing it only a few weeks before he died, when the doctors he went to couldn’t prevent or explain the excruciating pain he was in.  I only found out he had cancer once he was dead from it.

But it was the side effects he grumbled about on the phone that day.  “I got dry mouth, constipation, acid stomach, you name it….” he muttered.   When I arrived he had me read the list out loud to him

“cramps,”  

“yop!”

“sleeplessness?”

“yop!”

“fatigue?”

“yop!”

“irritability?”

“what the fuck do you think?!”

“yop.”

I thought of this as I began to take the good advice offered in the post about how to combat burn-out.  That there is nobody I can really talk to very much about it is another problem carrying out that excellent advice.  But I did read most of the list aloud.

Undaunted, I searched further:

2. Tell people about it. 

Share your vision with anyone who will listen. Sharing your idea will keep you motivated as you get reconnected to your goals with each conversation. More importantly, you will be amazed by how much others want to support you in your endeavors and are willing to connect you to the right people.

Yes, actually, I have been amazed by how much others have been willing to connect me to the right people.  The only problem, so far, is that nobody I know has ever met any of the right people for my program.  A small, temporary setback, no doubt.

3. Don’t do it alone.

The number one cause of  feeling overwhelmed is trying to do it all alone, and being overwhelmed creates fear. Hire a coach or join a meet-up for support. Ask people for help, seek out partnership, and build a team.

Excellent advice!  I’ve been trying to build a team for a year now, and so far, like the US Army, it is an army of one.   I don’t want to sound sour, but the people I’ve paid, who seemed to have such a good time playing with the kids, gone.  The volunteers I’ve had, so enamoured of the creative beehive of child animators I’d assembled, gone.   Got to keep building, I guess, searching for the right partners!

4. Fail.

Waiting for the ‘right time’ keeps you in perpetual procrastination. You will make mistakes. But this forces us to be creative, often landing us in better places. Welcome failure as an opportunity for growth.

Yes, this is perhaps the best advice of all.  I am going to welcome the failure to form a team and find people to brainstorm with and learn from my mistakes — as soon as I am able to figure out what they were.   Perhaps it takes a team to brainstorm why it is that a friendly person with a great program that kids love can’t figure out how to build a team to brainstorm and solve that puzzle.

Oh, well, back to work.

Fan Mail from A Troll

(Pardon the formatting, wordpress is having some fun with me)
Got this email about a month back:
I saw  your site and was filled with wonder. Do you need an event planner and fundraiser? As I am both I also have experience with volunteers. I currently work with homeless families as well as homeless individuals suffering with the HIV virus.

I would love to work with you as your are doing amazing things with small ones!

Sincerely,

Ed Snowden

Although I felt like somebody might be sadistically playing with me, sending exactly the kind of email I’ve been waiting for, signed with a famous and controversial name, I wrote:
Thanks for your kind words.  We could certainly use an event planner and fundraiser.  Where are you located, Ed? 
Then these two: 
On Sun, Aug 4, 2013 at 1:59 PM, Ed Snowden  wrote:
Hi  I am in NYC.
Thanks for getting back to me.
All the best,
Ed Snowden
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 2:06 PM, Ed Snowden wrote:
Hi I am in NYC.

Thanks for getting back to me.

All the best,

Ed Snowden

A few days later I took another step into the troll’s trap:
The coincidence of your name being the same as the young man’s who revealed the NSA data-harvesting and surveillance program has given some at our organization pause.  I’ve been told this coincidence has to be some kind of prank by a friend, a misguided attempt to poke a little fun at an organization with a successful program that is currently hanging on by a thread.

 
I prefer to think that you are experienced in event planning and fundraising and have some kind of links you can send showing some of your work.  If you send me some samples of your work I will be glad to have a look at them.
Troll:
 
Never mind. This has been my name for eons I am named for my dad and grand dad  and the fact that it bothers you means I should keep looking for work, I am an excellent fund raiser and event planner but I have no time for what my grandmum would call “foolishness” I wish you well.  
Still acting with characteristic (and foolish) good faith, I wrote:
No offense intended, Ed, though clearly it seems to have been taken.  I didn’t say the coincidence of your name bothered me, in fact, I think the other ES did a brave and important thing.  I merely passed on a concern and asked you for some examples of your work.  If you read the second paragraph you will see my hope, and good faith, expressed quite clearly.  
To which the troll replied:
Thank you for your response. I am not offended merely annoyed. 
I think your program sounds amazing but I think I should keep looking for an organization that will allow me to make a difference as that is what is most important to me!
 NYC is a big town with oodles of places that need skilled volunteer and event managers so I shall keep looking.    Again thank you for your kind reply.

(Ms.) Ed Snowden 

As I am out of kind replies, and the (Ms.) before its name would make me hesitate to offer a well-intended bitch slap, I leave this up here, for whatever grotesque value it may have to someone.

Whole Brain Teaching

I came across a remarkable video yesterday, a clip that troubles my already troubled mind.   It is a good thing that people are looking for innovative ways to engage and teach children, but take a look at THIS VIDEO and see if you have any concerns with what’s going on in this third grade classroom.

I’ve cued it up to 3:41, just before the enthusiastic and charismatic young teacher, a rising superstar in the WBT firmament, lays out the rules of Whole Brain Teaching.  They are as follows:

Follow directions quickly;

Raise your hand for permission to speak;

Raise your hand for permission to leave your seat;

Make smart choices;

Keep your dear teacher happy.

Turn to your partner and say “that was awesome!”  and the eight year-olds chant in cadence “That was awesome!!!”  And got a point for their enthusiasm and quick obedience.  With enough points, and few enough demerits, they will earn an extra sixty seconds of recess.

Nothing wrong with these rules, I suppose, but…. watch the video.

Meantime, there is a head to be banged on a wall, in that same child-like cadence.

Creativity

You may not consider creativity very important, but think of a world without it.  No music, comedy, repartee, great food, no movies, books or even articles, no television worth watching, no mischief, nothing worth laughing at, no cause for that deep cry that is lurking always.

Creativity is mandated by educational bureaucrats nowadays as a possible remedy for the torpor of failing school children poised to leave schools in record numbers.  We now hear terms like “critical thinking”, “higher order thinking” and “problem-solving” bandied by these dead souls.  All of these involve creativity– you have to imagine possibilities that are not in front of you and then imagine where those possibilities will lead.

The kind of creativity I love involves a certain amount of spontaneity.  It is play.  John Cleese captures a great deal about the conditions necessary for it here.  The five factors he talks about are:  place, time, time, confidence and humor.   If you are too serious your fingers are stiff, you will not play fluidly unless you surrender to the joyfulness of playing.  Singers often smile as they sing, it helps to relax the face and vocal chords.

For young children, who are naturally creative when given the slightest chance to be,  I’ve reduced the formula to this:

Have fun and help each other.

You can’t have fun if people are bothering you.  Don’t bother anyone.  If you can’t help, don’t hurt.

When it’s time to be quiet, be quiet for a minute or two.

Cleese locates the creativity, you need a space to do it.  How about a room filled with art materials and a camera stand to shoot frames?  With a recorder to make soundtracks and a computer to assemble the animations.

Cleese discusses the importance of a time set aside, a time with a beginning and an end, ideally about two hours later.   He points out that it takes up to a half hour to leave the pressures of life outside and begin to play.  With luck you will play 90 minutes or so.  Then play must end, as play always does, because it doesn’t feel like play forever.   This is exactly what happens in the animation workshop.  For ninety minutes the kids have all the time in the world.

The other aspect of time is patience, taking your time, having a block of time you can use for play or to dream up ideas for play.  You cannot be creative while watching the clock, just like you can’t productively meditate keeping an eye on time.  You have to let things develop in their time, comfortable with not much happening sometimes.  Asked what she liked best about the workshop, the Idea Girl said “it gives you plenty of time”.    

Confidence is necessary, because if you think you can’t dance, or sing, or draw, or animate, you probably won’t be able to.   What gives a person confidence?  Another one smiling and giving a thumbs up when the idea is presented.   What takes away confidence?  A logical asshole positing failure as a real possibility at every stage of an undertaking.  There is no shortage of such superior, logical creativity underminers.  They believe they are speaking the truth and this gives them license to piss on things they have no insight into.

The last part, humor, well, what can we say about that poop?  A laff clears the mind, and it can come from many places.  I try not to laugh as I picture the horror on the seven year-old’s face, and it is kind of disgusting, in a way, but the favorite moment of a prolific young animator?   “That time I farted in Max’s face,” and I nod, with the faintest smile, and try not to chuckle at the recollection of it.   This is called sound pedagogy.

IMG_8312

The best laid plans

I had an assistant who is a performance artist.   A bright young man who graduated from a prestigious art school, I’d pinned some hopes on him going forward.  I was hoping he’d help me bring the program to the next stage, help me expand to new venues, possibly run a workshop himself.

It disappointed me that he never replied to any of the short emails I sent him.   I’d send him a promo, or a pitch, and there would be silence.  He worked well in the workshop, and I paid him $40 for what looked like a good time, and towards future work together.

I thought to take him aside at the last session and hit him with a quick hypothetical:

You’re doing a show, and several friends are in the house, and at the end there is no applause, only silence.  Afterwards you ask your friends why they didn’t applaud and they say, impatiently “we all know how talented you are, the show was great, why do you need our validation?”

I thought it would be a good way to make him hip to the sorrow of that persistent silence.

He had the last word, though; he never showed up for the final session.  Nor did I get so much as a tweet from him.

I guess he really wasn’t the guy I was looking for.

Insight

You do not usually get it looking to the subjectivity within.  It comes from without– sometimes you get the comment from a knowledgeable stranger that turns a light on in a dim corner.

“Oh, that’s a great idea,” says the stranger, “but I had no idea of it from your messaging.”

Good to know, you think, it’s called messaging.  And back to the drawing board to make it clearer still.

How Do you form a team?

I’ve been puzzling over how to take an idea, made real now in a NYC public school over the course of 36 weeks, and turn it into an idea worth discussing, an idea people would be happy to kick in some money to see flourish in the world.

The short version of the idea:  give primary school children the chance to play and work together, teach each other skills they’ve mastered, show the results of this in animations they produce and score.  The adults in the room keep track of time, support and admire the ideas and products, lend a hand with some technical detail the children may ask for help with.  Once in a while the adults also corral a kid who is going out of control, calm the hopped up little bugger down.  But for the most part, it’s a buzzing beehive run by the kids themselves.

I picture it functioning best in the worst schools in the city.  I’ve already seen great positive changes in several of the 14 kids who participated in the first sustained workshop.   A class clown who was disorganized, sloppy, had a dozen unfocused ideas a week evolved into a focused, ingenious animator.  She was very proud of herself, and I was too.   When I asked her the most important thing she’d learned in the workshop she said “work together.”  I gave a little yip of approval which she humorously imitated, making it even more ridiculous.   A boy who was quite egotistical and a bit of a bully became one of the most helpful and interactive kids in the group.   I imagine the transformations in “at risk” kids will be even more dramatic.

Children in most schools, particularly  in poor neighborhoods, are rarely given any autonomy outside of choosing a red or purple crayon to color in the crude outlines of some shoddily photocopied drawing, a turkey at Thanksgiving, a crudely drawn Martin Luther King Jr.’s suit during Black History Month.  The photocopy machines in slum schools always produce worn out, grey sheets, since teachers pump out work sheets by the thousands every day until the machines give out completely.  Toner is expensive and so rarely replaced until the images are almost invisible on the pages.   Creativity in those schools is considered a luxury these poor kids can’t afford.

If I would shame the well-to-do enough to fund this program I need to expand it to a number of schools.   I need a team.  How do you form a team?  Asking for volunteers has not been a sustainable strategy, when people do you a favor you must be grateful, no matter how small the favor is.   It seems to me that my assistants, the people I would groom to replace me in a room once the program is up and running, should be paid generously, at least twice minimum wage.  So I do.  But so far, I can’t help but notice a mercenary aspect to their participation.  The hours they’re paid for they work fine.  And that work, I point out, is mainly interacting with kids who are doing interesting, funny artistic projects.  Nice work if you can get it.   Unpaid hours?  I thought you said you were paying us.

If the organization had $25,000 in the bank right now, it would be less of a problem.  I will have to raise a sum like that, 1/3 cajoled out of well-to-do people I know, the rest raised from a public whose passion must be aroused by the excellent little documentary I have to make to promote the program.  I need contributions from people I know so that strangers will see the needle on the crowd-funding meter ticking constantly up in the beginning, so they will know this program has support, is gathering momentum, is an idea worth making a tax-deductible contribution to.

But how do you form a team?  Volunteers and interns must be idealists motivated by passion for the project.   Paid people must be paid, which takes money.  How do you form a goddamned team?  And if you don’t answer this question the potential of this innovative program is another bit of unmonetized good idea friends may talk about at my memorial service, lamenting briefly that for all my talent and good ideas, I never figured out how to make a living.