My son is black.  And 18.  He likes Skittles and drinks ice tea.  Sometimes he wears a sweatshirt with a hood.  Sometimes he goes fishing, studies his college textbooks, skateboards, and talks about the meaning of life, of right and wrong, of his love for his friends and family and concern for what is wrong or unjust in the world.

He looks like Trayvon Martin.  A boy.  Not a saint.  Not a threat to life.

I don’t care about Geraldo Rivera.  It should surprise no one that he said something inflammatory.  He is an attention seeker and he is insignificant.  Same for Newt Gingrich … a court jester at best.

The murder of Trayvon Martin has thrown a light on two big problems.

One problem.  Our country, a civil society of democracy and law, has state laws that permit one person to seek out a kill another person, as long as the killer feels threatened by the victim.   Think about it.  If someone follows and harasses you, you will likely communicate with your voice and body language something threatening.  That is natural.  That is instinct.  Civil society requires both parties to back down and let a civil police force and judicial system settle the matter.  It is in our constitution.  It is in the essence of America that conflicts and acts against others are settled by agreement of the involved, or by our peers in a system of checks and balances, laws, juries and judges.   Our constitution prohibits vigilantism.  Florida permits it.  Jesus and Moses forbid us from killing our neighbor.  Florida permits it.  Florida is not a civil state.  Over 20 other states permit it.  Those states are not civil.  This can lead to chaos and anarchy.  So called “stand your ground” laws threaten the fabric of any peaceful and law-abiding society.  They are un-American and need to be overturned.  All of them.

Second problem.  We have stereotyped young black men out of our educational system, out of our economic system and out of our employment system.  This will hurt us all.  We have created a culture where young black men are perceived as threatening. Suspicious.  Up to no good.  Even if they are just walking down the street.  With candy.

We are all guilty here.  We are all responsible for our culture and its beliefs.  We have not insisted that local news stations acknowledge this problem and consider it when they broadcast over our public airwaves.  We have not refused to buy music from rappers who promote this stereotype for their own profit, and we have not  changed the channel when our radio stations play those songs.  We have not protested loud enough when Hollywood releases movie after movie where young black men are portrayed as threatening or suspicious.  We have not raised the bar for young men surrounded by gang life and expected them to do better.

Hitler’s propaganda campaign against Jews has been eclipsed by the American media onslaught on young black men.  And like our counterparts in 1930s and 1940s Germany, we will be responsible for the results if we don’t insist it stop.  Now!

Our country has great inequities.  They run many directions for many historical reasons.  Young black men are at the bottom of most disparity scales.  In spite of educational, economic and employment challenges, the majority of young black men are not criminals.  Our problem is we act like they are.  That will hurt all of us.  Ask George Zimmerman if his life is better now than before he killed Trayvon Martin.  His answer is ours.

If we continue to allow uncivilized laws and permit propaganda promoting stereotypes, we will stop being the America of the Dream, the America of the Constitution, the America of Hope and Brighter Futures.  We will become chaos.

I am white.  My son is black. I love my country so I will not be silent anymore.

*Increasing the Welcome Factor – how well does a community welcome and embrace all types of people

* Aesthetics – how nice does the community look

* Social Opportunities – how strong and plentiful are the opportunities to bump into and associate with other people

These are the three most common and powerful drivers of “community attachment.”  Community attachment is how good we feel about where we live.  Sounds like warm and fuzzyies?  Like frosting on the cake?  Like luxury over basics?

Not really.  It turns out that economic productivity is dramatically influenced by community attachment.  Gallup first learned this in their study of corporations, organizations and schools.  The more people liked and felt good about and were engaged with their company, organization or school, the higher their performance.  In companies that translated to higher profits.  In schools that translated into higher test scores.  Directly.

In cities and towns, whether Aberdeen, South Dakota or Miami, Florida, the consistently strongest drivers of community attachment were welcoming, aesthetics and social opportunities.

Check it out:http://vimeo.com/16755796

So local officials and community organizations can influence their economy be increasing community attachment.  This appears to be best done by improving the welcoming environment, creating abundant positive social opportunities and paying attention to arts, streetscapes, parks and other physical amenities.

This is a wonderful story about a community health worker and how she did in two weeks what six years of therapy and hospital treatment did not do.

All those hospital visits, oxygen tanks, the X-rays, the MRIs, the CAT scans — the Veterans Administration picked up the tab for all of it….Within two weeks [of meeting Mary, community health worker], Joe started going to a community senior center that Mary introduced him to. A month later he was teaching classes there — one in drums, the other in computers. Those two weeks did what six years of therapy and no-smoking programs and nicotine patches couldn’t do.

 

The average cost of a hospital admission in around $10,000. Joe was going monthly.  For six years.  This cost the Veteran’s Administration, and the federal government/taxpayers, nearly 3/4 of a million dollars.  IF the community health worker is paid a generous $50,000 a year, her two weeks with Joe would have only cost around $2,000.

If Joe had been introduced to the community health worker after the first year, the savings would have been  $600,000, or a return on investment of 300:1 !!!

Medicare spends $17 BILLION a year on hospital “cycling” – chronic readmissons.  Yet we know that all healing has a social component and the need for hospital readmission can be significantly reduced by connecting people to a community – not to receive cheaper services, but to make friends, contribute skills and talents, and become full members of a community.

Until now there has been no incentive for hospitals to do this.  They are paid to keep beds full and procedures abundant.  The new health care law will start to fine hospitals for excessive readmits.  But why wait until hospitals have to pay fines to start saving money and increasing health with the use of social capital in the form of community health workers?

This may sound like a “soft solution” or “kumbayah” talk, but a 300:1 financial savings is very, very real.

2. Look for skills, not names.

3. Involvement by degrees. Provide more than “one size fits all” opportunities for folks to engage with your work.

4. Appeal to personal interests and passions. I you can connect what you are doing to what people already care deeply about, then you don’t have to worry about incentives, motivation, apathy and all the other excuses for why we don’t have more volunteers.

5.Use “wide-angle lens” when thinking about how people can contribute and participate.  Don’t limit people’s participation to your ‘list of needs.’  Start with what they have to offer or what they WANT to do.

6. Define the task, define the role.  If I completely understand what I am doing and what it is accomplishing, it is easier for me to say yes.

7. Use current volunteers to recruit new volunteers.  Most of us spend our time in activities we were invited to do or attend by someone we know and trust.  Nonprofit organizations and community  projects have no better public relations machine than their volunteers.

8. Use time well – run good meetings, don’t make people wait around, be ready for them, finish early.

9. Recognition: titles, team names, public appreciation and highlighting particular gifts.

10. Market your accomplishments!  Make sure the community knows what you did, how you did it and how to get involved with future accomplishments.

11.    [fill in the blank]  What have you seen or experienced as effective ways to recruit and new volunteers?

In my meeting I tired of doodling. I’m not artistic and only have about four shapes I can draw..  So, bored and with no end in sight, I decided to start a list of things that were making the meeting last so much longer than necessary.  I published the first four last November – http://www.pacificcommunitysolutions.com/blog/.

You should go back and read my amazing insights into these four techniques for making meetings last longer, but to summarize, they are:

1. Make sure no money or resources are at risk.
2. Eliminate accountability.
3. Make sure everyone has access to their email and mobile devices.
4. DO NOT define the meeting’s desired outcomes at the beginning of the meeting.

For those who mastered these techniques yet, like Dilbert, have returned to your desk and had to do actual work, here is the long awaited second installment:

5. Squash creativity.  This is advanced stuff.  Obviously focused creativity is efficient and productive.  Steve Jobs and Google proved it.  So to make a meeting stretch out beyond its usefulness, make sure there is no place on the agenda for the group to brainstorm, offer new ideas or create solutions.  When there is no obvious place for participants to contribute their ideas, they will find a way to get them into the discussion.  This will take the meeting off agenda multiple times and extend its length.

6. Use the phrase “this is something we should discuss at some point.”  This works to create more meeting time in several ways.  Right away it splits the group into three parts: those who want to discuss this now, those who are relieved this was postponed, and those who don’t care.  Mathematically, the utterance of this phrase creates six (6) different directions the meeting can go!  AND, as a bonus, it gives every participant a topic for which to call a future meeting!  Extend the length of the current meeting and create the need for another meeting all with one phrase!  Brilliant!

7. Finally, add a meeting outcome or goal at the end of the meeting, and call a follow up meeting to accomplish that goal.  This works a bit like #6…it creates a time warp in the meeting by simultaneously creating space for people to talk about the subject now, but not have to move toward resolution or decision-making until later.  Since everyone knows that the decisions will be made another day, they don’t have to limit their expressed thoughts to those that are constructive or move the group towards a decision.  By adding this outcome at the end of the meeting and indicating that the decisions will be made at a follow up meeting, you ensure that the discussion will not focused, but rather include every thought participants have on the matter.  This will certainly extend the time you have with your colleagues.

That’s all for now, I have a meeting to get to.

1. Make sure no money or resources are at risk.  Fill the meeting with people not directly effected by the outcome.  They will be willing to talk forever.  One way to ensure this time stretching device works is to call a meeting of people who have no direct connection to the topic/problem/opportunity/issue.  This will maximize the tendency to talk about what other people should do.  That will at least double your time. Hint: If you are hearing the phrase “they should” in every second or third comment, you are on the right track!

2. Eliminate accountability.  Make sure no one outside the meeting will get a report on on the decisions or outcomes of the meeting.  This technique is a double bonus.  People will take tangents much easier AND you can have multiple meetings about the same subject!

3. Make sure everyone has access to their email and mobile devices.  This way they don’t have any incentive to make the meeting efficient for the group because they have made it effiecient for themselves.  If your participants are able to answer emails, text their spouse and watch videos of their kids’ soccer games, then they will stay a long time.  This eliminates pressure from participants to make decisions and conclude the meeting.

4.DO NOT define the meeting’s desired outcomes at the beginning of the meeting.  This is a rookie mistake. It is so tempting to put it right there on the top of the agenda.   If everyone knows what is supposed to happen, they are more likely to stay on track and move to resolution.  If the desired outcome is not clear, then the discussion can go so many directions.  More directions, more time.

This concludes the first installment of Making Meetings Last Longer.  Come back for the next installment where we will introduce the advanced technique of using a defined outcome to create MORE meetings and learn how to squash creativity while using it to lengthen your meetings.

In the meantime, please, consider this an online meeting and take a bunch of time to post your favorite meeting extending ideas.

This is a limiting assumption.  While funding is important and often essential, when we only look at possibility through the funding lens, we will see much less than what is truly possible. My 25 years of experience in community work says that looking at funding first actually limits what we can accomplish. Funding is a limiting lens because it forces us to only consider the gifts, talents and assets that can be purchased,  In most places, this often creates a tendency to look outside the community for the gifts, talents and assets that we want inside our community.

By looking at funding last, we are forced to look within ourselves, our neighbors and our community to discover what assets we have and can mobilize to create desired change and improvements.

The Falling Rock Cafe and Bookstore is a sandwich/coffee shop/ice cream place
with a bookstore and community space attached.  The owners have put in tables
where groups as large as 15 can gather and meet.  They also have several picnic
tables and other places where smaller impromptu groups can strike up
conversations.  The Falling Rock serves up coffee and treats and sells books,
but they also create space for and welcome community.  The results are amazing.
By simply creating space and providing basic hospitality, the Cafe has created
a spot for many groups and asset based networks to meet and plan activities and
projects.  This has created connections across groups that otherwise would never
have discovered their mutual interests.

How did a coffee shop become a hub of community connections?  It seems to be
the little things that matter.  Furniture placements and a welcoming environment
certainly provide a great start!  I don’t think a saw a “NO” sign anywhere.  Of
course the proprieters would prefer if people who use the space buy some
goodies, but it is not a requirement.  They probably are required by health code
to insist that each of us wear a shirt and shoes when we come in, but that is
not the first thing they tell you when you approach the door. In fact, the Cafe
staff are more part of the background music to the main stage of neighbors and
tourists interacting and sharing observations about the news, weather or
coffee.

When you walk in the first thing you notice are the mugs.  Coffee mugs.  All
over the walls.  Anybody can pay $25 a year to be a member of the mug club – you
get your own Falling Rock logo mug, your own peg to hang it on, and coffee for
1/2 price all year.  A good deal?  Yes.  Is that why people buy it?  No way.
They buy it because it gives them something that is theirs each time they walk
in.  AND, that something hangs among their neighbors mugs as well as those
bought by regular visitors to the area.  There are 2,000 people in town and 300
mugs on the walls of The Falling Rock Cafe and Bookstore.  Each one with a
neatly printed name under it.  It is YOUR mug.

The mugs make a beautiful sight that says “there is a community here” as soon
as you walk in.  But if you stand there for 5 minutes you realize something else
is going on.  There are slips of paper in some of the mugs.  It turns out that
these slips of paper are articles from newspapers or magazines that one member
thought would be of interest to another.  Others are notes from one to another.
The owner tells me the customers invented this practice and call it “cup mail.”
My curiosity was too much, and I could not think of any federal penalties
associated with tampering with cup mail,….so I peeked.   “Jenny will be in
town this weekend.  Stop by!”, “Fred wants to go out on the lake when he gets
back, wanna fish?”,  “Are you helping at the Farmer’s market this week?  Call
me.”

The second thing I noticed was an abberation.  One cup had a newspaper
article taped to the outside instead of rolled up on the inside.  It was an
obituary.  I asked the owner about it.  Turns out that the obituary was for the
owner of the mug and her family asked to keep it there in her memory.

“What about the hat?”  There was a mug on the top row of one wall mostly
covered by a stocking cap with some momento pins in it.  “That was El’s hat.  He passed away last year and his wife  keeps the mug membership.  He wore
that hat everyday.”

People are so connected by their mugs and associations made in this cafe that
they stick around after they are gone!

From cup mail to book clubs to the local art’s association’s planning for the
summer art fair, the Falling Rock Cafe and Bookstore is cooking up community as
well as coffee and cupcakes.  And it is doing it by creating space and
hospitality, not through programming or pontification. In other words it is
facilitating the community’s efforts to create their own connections and
networks.