Long-Term Audaciousness

Even though I have been following Seth Godin for nearly five years, I am still taken aback by how pertinent is daily blog posts are to the issues with which I am dealing. In today's post, "How much can I get away with?" Seth talks about the two, far competitive edges implicit in this question. Do you get away with doing as little as possible to cut costs, reduce services or charge more? Essentially, the easy route. Or do we push toward the opposite edge of doing more, being more audacious, providing better service and being greater than great? This is the tougher route, for most.

As I finish my first full week as a fledgling museum director, I am faced with this very question. After 30-plus years, the museum is doing OK. Much of the programming, exhibits, collections management and overall vision, however, has been in statis. This past Monday, I was given the charge to develop a plan, over the next couple of months, that will get the museum moving forward again. So, all week, I've been asking myself, "How much can I get away with?"

We do need to charge more for admission. We do need to trim overhead expenses a bit. We cannot, however, reduce services. And we have to do more. Can we aim for AAM accreditation? Is that too audacious for a small, academic museum? Can we replace static exhibits with hands-on, interactive educational experiences? Can we pursue a completely different business model that brings in vendors, increases professional staff, and attracts new sources of revenue? Can we raise $2 or $3 million dollars for an endowment that will take the worry out of paying the bills?

These "big" questions are scary. I have to convince not only my boss that, yes, in fact, we can do these things, but I also have to convince a handful of very influential university administrators, the community and, most of all, my staff. Hopefully, I can be practical enough to deal with the short-term fixes and naive enough to believe the long-term "audaciousness" can be realized.

In the end, I have to be encouraged and inspired by the handful of men who looked at a desolate salt dome outside Beaumont and believed they would strike oil. They didn't ask if they could get away with it. They just did it.

Oh, yes, I am looking to get away with a lot. Stay tuned....

MORE Resolutions for 2011

I'm usually not big on making New Year's resolutions. Self-improvement should be just as important a task in July as it is in January. I am good, however, at breaking resolutions because they usually involve denying myself something that I enjoy. Yes, in 2011, I could LOSE some weight. I could GIVE UP caffeine. I could swear LESS. I could QUIT smoking. (OK, that last one isn't so bad. I'm on attempt number four!)

However, in the spirit of ABUNDANCE, which I spoke about in an earlier post, I want to develop a list of resolutions that EXPAND the possibilities for health and happiness for me and others. So, here's a working list of "MORE" resolutions for 2011:

• MORE Mindfulness of the food I eat, the body I inhabit and the planet we share
• MORE Work that truly matters, both professionally and personally
• MORE Advocacy for causes about which I feel deeply
• MORE Connections with people that are real and sustainable
• MORE Explorations into big ideas and cosmic questions

I'm sure I will think of MORE resolutions in the coming days and weeks, but this is a good start. Most of all, I wish everyone in 2011 more PEACE, LOVE, FORGIVENESS and ABUNDANCE.

Happy New Year!!!

Withstanding the Tides

"Life is not an exact science, it is an art." - Samuel Butler

I came across Butler's quote last week, and it came to mind again as I watched the sublime documentary Rivers and Tides this morning. In it, viewers journey along with artist Andy Goldsworthy as he creates incredible natural sculptures using stone, wood, leaves, twigs, clay and even, sheep's wool. Through his art, Goldsworthy combines art, engineering, metaphysics, science and architecture to communicate our rootedness to the earth and how transient what those roots produce can really be.

One clip that particularly struck me was a wood sculpture - a hut? a dam? an inverted basket? - Goldsworthy constructed on the banks of a salmon hole in Nova Scotia. As intricate and meticulous as his work was, more important was what happened as the tide came in and began to strip away planks from the edges of the sculpture.

After watching this, I couldn't help but be struck by a comparison with a funeral barge floating out to sea. But, in this case, "the barge" slowly came apart through the force of the water surrounding it, except for the uppermost structure – the core – where the smallest pieces of wood were woven much tighter. I also thought about how much it was like some primitive hut set upon by the tide. In life, we each build our huts – some of wood, some of stone, some of gold – but with death, the superficial, the extraneous gets peeled away and left behind, and all we are left with is the tightly woven core – that work of art – of life – that truly mattered.

And now, we come to the end of another year. We have all been busy building ourselves, our families, our businesses, our political ideals, our educations, our dogmas, and our dreams. But did we build what truly matters? Did we strip away the unnecessary? Did we let go of the superficial? Are we, individually and together, weaving a core that will withstand the changing tides?

A Not-So-Austere Wish for 2011

Photo by Shannon Conrad.

“When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”
"The question is, said Alice, whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
"The question is, said Humpty Dumpty, which is to be master, that’s all.”

-Lewis Carroll

This week, Merriam-Webster released its Word of the Year for 2010. Amidst all of our belt-tightening during this Great Recession, it is no coincidence that the word they chose is “austerity.” Defined as “the quality or state of being austere,” “an austere act, manner, or attitude,” “an ascetic practice,” and “enforced or extreme economy,” Humpty Dumpty might be right at home with the word. Not the most pleasant set of circumstances, to be sure. Individuals, corporations and governments, alike, have all had implement some type of austerity measures in the last few years. But sometimes, as in design, austerity is a good quality. Unfortunately, in 2010, austerity, at times, moved outside of economic measures and into our public discourse. While we were watching our wallets, we also tightened our political and religious belts so tight that we nearly suffocated any reasonable dialogue. Sometimes austerity is a practical measure in the face of reality, but sometimes it just belies our deepest fears.

How about we take a seat on the couch, loosen those belts a little and see what we might be able to do to end 2011 with a more pleasant word. What might that word be? I’m no prognosticator, but in the spirit of making resolutions and predictions this time of year, or just putting forth some wishful thinking, I propose the following as a good candidate:

ABUNDANCE

an ample quantity, profusion; affluence, wealth; relative degree of plentifulness.

A good synonym for austerity, for me, “abundance” conjures up images of treasure houses filled with gold, baskets overflowing with juicy, green apples, rainforests lush with flora and fauna, pantries stocked with healthy food and a few guilty pleasures, or a bank account with enough money to pay the bills, have some fun and know that a leaking roof, a broken hot water heater or a flat tire won’t force a decision between making the repairs and feeding one’s family.

While all of these images are nice, my wish for 2011 is that we find an abundance of love, forgiveness and acceptance in our world. We have made it through the first decade of the 21st century, and I think it is time that we begin to move away from the strictures of modernism or the vagaries of post-modernism toward an understanding that we share common goals, but that the paths to those goals are many. My wish for 2011 is that we continue to recognize that there are many ways to love, that we can all readily forgives our trespassers whether the trespass occurred yesterday or centuries ago, and that we can openly accept the beautiful diversity of this world and the powerful contributions each of us can make through that diversity.

So, before we let our Humpty Dumpty fall to his irreparable fate, I hope we will choose abundance over austerity – and mean every word of it.

What would be your Word of the Year 2011? What do you wish for the New Year?

No itinerary. Just curiosity.

I have been into watching documentaries lately on Netflix. This morning, I watched a 1996 “Modern Marvels” documentary about the invention and rise of television. What struck me was the myopic determination of early television pioneers like Philo T. Farnsworth, David Sarnoff, and William S. Paley who pursued the technology with a passion. I guess that is why we still hear about them today as well as other pioneers. They realized their passion and pursued it with utmost intensity.

I thought a lot about my passion back in June before I launched this blog. I tried to imagine what I enjoy doing that no one has to tell me to do or pay me to do. Sports? Ah…no. Painting? I wish. Music? No. Fine wine? Not interested. What I found was I enjoy getting in my car, getting on the highway and taking off to discover what lies over the horizon on a good old-fashioned road trip. Most of the time, these road trips took me to historic sites, museums and small towns full of nostalgic charm.

So, I did – or at least, tried to do – what the experts said. I chose my topic – road trips to heritage sites; built my blog, monetized it, and spread the word through Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, etc., etc., etc. Now, six months into blogging about heritage sites and personal journeys, I have found that I am passionate about so much more that I can’t quite fit in to a single blog topic. I wish I could have the focus of a Vaynerchuk or a Brogan or a Stratten, but I can’t talk about just one thing. Besides, I’m not good, and definitely not an expert, at any ONE thing. My professional life has been about being a generalist – an administrative jack of all trades. I know some accounting, but I’m not an accountant. I know some graphic design principles and can manage a decent publication, but I’m not a graphic designer. I know how to teach, but I’m not a teacher. And, since up to this point, I have allowed my professional life to stand in for a personal life, me, the person, has no one great passion. I have many. That’s why I study history. A person can study the history of almost anything.

This lack of passion has led to me not updating my blog in over three months – in addition to graduate studies, a move and trying to make a career change. At one point, I thought of developing several blogs, but, in the end, decided that’s too much work – kind of like managing multiple Twitter accounts. So, from now on, there is no one direction or topic for this blog. As “The Heritage Tourist,” I’ll continue to take road trips, but I will also do some virtual traveling to discover our shared heritage that has been passed down to us through architecture, art, music, education, craft, religion, the environment, literature, film, books, design, photography, theatre, food, politics and other “big ideas.” I’ll also spout off some about what we’re leaving to the future as its heritage. Like any good road trip, there will be no itinerary, just a healthy dose of curiosity and willingness to make a U-turn and take a detour if something catches the eye.

Perhaps, in another six months, I, or someone else, will discover a pattern among my posts, and then, I can realize what that one, great passion of mine really is.

Ready? Let’s go…

Tell me if you've found your passion. What is it? How do you know?