There were at least five sessions about house museums this year at the annual American Association for State and Local History meeting in Rochester. Unlike the past four meetings where I have presented, I thought these sessions were more helpful, by giving people real ideas and solutions. Perhaps there just was less whining?
I organized a panel called "Innovations in Governmental Owners of Historic House Museums." This was a panel of three experts: Mary Kopco, the executive director of the Historic Adams House in Deadwood South Dakota; Lucy Strackhouse, executive director of the Fairmount Park Historic Preservation Trust in Philadelphia Pennsylvania and Theresa Stuhlman, park preservation director with the Fairmount Park Commission also in Philadelphia.
Mary and Lucy spoke about projects that were highlighted as case studies in New Solutions for House Museums. Theresa spoke about Loudon and the deaccessioning project funded by the Living Legacy Project of the Heritage Philadelphia Project, on which I consulted. Each of their stories were inspiring, because every one overcame serious obstacles to create a better future for their historic houses. I was so pleased to have them all on a panel together.
I attended another session at the conference about "Creating Your Own Path," meant to showcase how three New England historic houses decided to not take the house museum path, and create community driven organizations that use the historic site differently. Ken Turino, community engagement and exhibitions director at Historic New England was the moderator and chair of this session. He was kind enough to acknowledge and show a slide of my book during his remarks.
There were other sessions about house museums on Friday which I could not attend, as I was in Calgary by then.
I met many people whom I have only corresponded with, or met at other conferences including Laura Roberts, Rhonda Newton, Candace Matalic, Anne Ackerson, Jay Vogt, Jim Vaughan, Max van Balgooy, Linda Norris, Wendy Frankin, Charlie Lyle, Mary Alexander, Tama Harnick, John and Anita Durel, Cindy Boyer, Ken Shefsiek, Bethany Hawkins, Bob Beatty, David Donath, Viki Sand, Donna Neary, Renee Epps, Jeanne Watson and Ken Turino among others. AltaMira Press was there, selling books--hopefully some of mine!
Monday, September 15, 2008
Back from International Downtown Association annual conference in Calgary Canada
This past weekend I spoke with Stephanie Redman at the International Downtown Association annual meeting which was held in Calgary Alberta Canada. This gathering, of about 700 people, was held in the downtown convention center in the midst of a booming and essentially new city in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies.
Our session "Strategic Planning for Small BIDs" was standing room only, which was delightful given that there were about 5 concurrent sessions going at once. We spoke on Saturday morning, and had about 70 people. To our surprise, the vast majority of our session attendees were Canadians, hailing from cities from 50,000 to 100,000 population. Like many small downtown organizations, they had small staffs, the vast majority had under 3, and a good contingent had just one staff member.
This was a sophisticated audience made up of folks who had already done some kind of strategic planning, but wanted more depth. You cannot give people a blueprint for an intensive planning exercise in 75 minutes, but we tried. The questions throughout were insightful and keen.
After our session we wandered around the exhibitor hall, and caught up with Jennifer Rose--AKA Downtown Diva--who was there selling her highly regarded Main Streets Database. We saw other people we knew including Mac Nichols, a former NMSC staffer and now a partner at ERA and Cindy Philo from the Old City BID in Philadelphia (who came to our session).
We are now thinking that we should include this session as part of our Advanced Organization Academy offerings, geared to help growing downtowns advance to the next level. If you want to know more about the six half day workshops in the Advanced Organization Academy line up, that we will be doing for Kansas, Wyoming and Baltimore Main Streets this Fall, contact me for a brochure and more information.
Our session "Strategic Planning for Small BIDs" was standing room only, which was delightful given that there were about 5 concurrent sessions going at once. We spoke on Saturday morning, and had about 70 people. To our surprise, the vast majority of our session attendees were Canadians, hailing from cities from 50,000 to 100,000 population. Like many small downtown organizations, they had small staffs, the vast majority had under 3, and a good contingent had just one staff member.
This was a sophisticated audience made up of folks who had already done some kind of strategic planning, but wanted more depth. You cannot give people a blueprint for an intensive planning exercise in 75 minutes, but we tried. The questions throughout were insightful and keen.
After our session we wandered around the exhibitor hall, and caught up with Jennifer Rose--AKA Downtown Diva--who was there selling her highly regarded Main Streets Database. We saw other people we knew including Mac Nichols, a former NMSC staffer and now a partner at ERA and Cindy Philo from the Old City BID in Philadelphia (who came to our session).
We are now thinking that we should include this session as part of our Advanced Organization Academy offerings, geared to help growing downtowns advance to the next level. If you want to know more about the six half day workshops in the Advanced Organization Academy line up, that we will be doing for Kansas, Wyoming and Baltimore Main Streets this Fall, contact me for a brochure and more information.
What I'm Reading: A Sense of Urgency by John Kotter
Throughout my career I have read other books by John Kotter, most notably Leading Change, while attending the Fels Center of Government at the University of Penn while getting my MPA degree in 1994.
Kotter is a Harvard Business School professor who has written about leadership and change for years. This summer, I came across Kotter's 2006 book Our Ice Burg is Melting after reading about it in the New York Times. That book, a fable, uses the same decision making process outlined in the 1994 Leading Change book. I found Our Iceburg is Melting to be very accessible and made it plain that Kotter's 8 step methodology really had merit.
For the last three years I have been working with historic house museums that are being forced, because of the changing economy, demographic shifts and fundraising realities, to make fundamental changes. Some are failing, and others are being forced to think differently about their mission. Some are considering new uses or users for their site.
But in each group I profiled in my case studies in by 2007 book New Solution for House Museums I came across the same problem: how do you create urgency in complacent organizations?
Kotter's new book is called A Sense of Urgency, and is a perfect distillation of of this knotty problem. No change happens anywhere without someone deciding "we have to change NOW." But how do you get complacent people to change? Kotter's book answers that question and provides examples from his consulting practice.
I found this book helpful even for nonprofit organizations. Having worked with countless boards of directors who fear change because of the impact the change could have on their own perception of their status in the community, this book provided good clear answers.
My favorite part of the book was how to deal with the "No Nos," those people who actively (and passively) try to thwart change of any kind. You know who these people are--they could be lovely board members or cantankerous staff members. Any idea that involves change (particularly change that affects them) just seems to get buried, thwarted or dismissed by these people. No Nos are very effective in stamping down the new.
Kotter provides examples of techniques that work, and those that do not, so that readers can confront these naysayers immediately and repeatedly, so the change agenda does not get derailed. While this is a business book, and some of Kotter's techniques just won't work on nonprofit volunteers (for example--transfer the No No to Hong Kong), there are enough ideas that are worthy trying. Effective leaders I have had the privilege to watch over the years, instinctively know how to deal with NoNos, but for the rest of us, Kotter has worth while suggestions.
Read Our Ice burg is Melting first, and if you are intrigued, then go back to Leading Change, and then buy the new book A Sense of Urgency. That is how I read these.
I am so convinced that this change methodology works for house museums, that I have radically reworked my talks about a change methodology for house museums. I overlay the material I have already developed and discussed in my book, (such as committee formation, information needed, and role of stakeholders) on top of Kotter's 8 step change process. This longer workshop gives house museum directors and board members a clear and unvarnished view about what the change process is like for the long haul.
I did a half day workshop for the Association of Indiana Museums on August 24th on it (to rave reviews) and will again conduct a two and a half hour workshop for the Preservation North Carolina annual conference on October 7th in Greensboro NC.
Read the books.
If you want to know more about these workshops for house museums considering change, please contact me.
Kotter is a Harvard Business School professor who has written about leadership and change for years. This summer, I came across Kotter's 2006 book Our Ice Burg is Melting after reading about it in the New York Times. That book, a fable, uses the same decision making process outlined in the 1994 Leading Change book. I found Our Iceburg is Melting to be very accessible and made it plain that Kotter's 8 step methodology really had merit.
For the last three years I have been working with historic house museums that are being forced, because of the changing economy, demographic shifts and fundraising realities, to make fundamental changes. Some are failing, and others are being forced to think differently about their mission. Some are considering new uses or users for their site.
But in each group I profiled in my case studies in by 2007 book New Solution for House Museums I came across the same problem: how do you create urgency in complacent organizations?
Kotter's new book is called A Sense of Urgency, and is a perfect distillation of of this knotty problem. No change happens anywhere without someone deciding "we have to change NOW." But how do you get complacent people to change? Kotter's book answers that question and provides examples from his consulting practice.
I found this book helpful even for nonprofit organizations. Having worked with countless boards of directors who fear change because of the impact the change could have on their own perception of their status in the community, this book provided good clear answers.
My favorite part of the book was how to deal with the "No Nos," those people who actively (and passively) try to thwart change of any kind. You know who these people are--they could be lovely board members or cantankerous staff members. Any idea that involves change (particularly change that affects them) just seems to get buried, thwarted or dismissed by these people. No Nos are very effective in stamping down the new.
Kotter provides examples of techniques that work, and those that do not, so that readers can confront these naysayers immediately and repeatedly, so the change agenda does not get derailed. While this is a business book, and some of Kotter's techniques just won't work on nonprofit volunteers (for example--transfer the No No to Hong Kong), there are enough ideas that are worthy trying. Effective leaders I have had the privilege to watch over the years, instinctively know how to deal with NoNos, but for the rest of us, Kotter has worth while suggestions.
Read Our Ice burg is Melting first, and if you are intrigued, then go back to Leading Change, and then buy the new book A Sense of Urgency. That is how I read these.
I am so convinced that this change methodology works for house museums, that I have radically reworked my talks about a change methodology for house museums. I overlay the material I have already developed and discussed in my book, (such as committee formation, information needed, and role of stakeholders) on top of Kotter's 8 step change process. This longer workshop gives house museum directors and board members a clear and unvarnished view about what the change process is like for the long haul.
I did a half day workshop for the Association of Indiana Museums on August 24th on it (to rave reviews) and will again conduct a two and a half hour workshop for the Preservation North Carolina annual conference on October 7th in Greensboro NC.
Read the books.
If you want to know more about these workshops for house museums considering change, please contact me.
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