Minneapolis to Clinton, IA

This was a fast trip. I didn't stop for much since I got a late start this morning. The good side of that is everything is relatively close to home and Bev and I can take our time checking out some cool things along the Mississippi.

One place I did stop was the National Eagle Center in Wabasha Minnesota. It is in an area of the River that stays open all winter and attracts a lot of Bald Eagles. But, my luck struck again. Yesterday was sunny and perfect for Eagle soaring (using the thermals caused by the Sun heating the ground. So they got their fill of flying and fishing. Today was cloudy--no thermals. So today, they just relaxed and digested their meals from yesterday. But I did see six eagles overhead on my way down the river. The picture is of a Golden Eagle that has a broken wing that didn't heal properly. His name is Donald.

The geography is interesting. In the upper Mississippi, the river is in a rather deep valley starting in St. Paul (in Minneapolis it is in a ravine). As you get to southeastern Minnesota, northeastern Iowa and that part of Wisconsin, it is what is called a driftless area. For some reason, during all the glacial events during the Ice Ages, this area was never covered by a glacier. No glacial drift was deposited and the tops of the bluffs were not cut off. So there are some great limestone bluffs all along the river.

Still in the snow. In fact, Southern Wisconsin along the river looks like they had huge drifts. Places higher than my car.

Time to stop. I managed to leave my laptop's power supply in Minneapolis so I'm trying to conserve battery power.

Minneapolis to New Orleans Road Trip (via the Mississippi)

I'm almost ready to start this road trip. Just a few more things on my to-do list that need to be done.

After going through some guide books and listing everything I want to do along The River, I have one problem:

• Too much to do in too little time.
  

I have to be in New Orleans for the Nonprofit Technology Conferenc next Wednesday. Leaving tomorrow morning gives me seven days to drive the about 1500 miles. That may sound like a lot of time but there is a lot to see along the way and this is definately not be a freeway trip--a lot of slow, winding roads.

One way I'm dealing with my time limitation is to cut off the two ends of the river:

• I'll be starting in Minneapolis (my home) and not from Lake Itasca (the source of the Mississippi). This will save the 200 miles from Minneapolis to Itasca (by a direct route) and 430 miles back along the (still frozen) Mississippi.
• I'm actually be skipping all of the St. Paul part of the river and start the real trip in Red Wing MN (far SE corner of the Twin Cities metro area). I figure I can drive the river road here any time.
  
• I'll be ending in New Orleans, not at Venice, LA--the town at the end of the road near the actual mouth of the Mississippi.

The plan is to get to the Quad Cites in Iowa/Illinois by tomorrow night.

I will also be twittering along the way at http://www.twitter.com//sheldonM

Canceling my newspaper subscription after over a quarter century

I've had a tradition of reading the Minneapolis newspaper --the Star Tribune (http://www.startribune.com/)--at breakfast for about 30 years. Today I canceled my subscription. There were a lot of reasons (in no particular order):

• In the last few layoffs, the paper has eliminated a number of my favorite reporters and writers.
  
• The STrib is providing even less coverage of things in the city of Minneapolis than before--and it wasn't great before. And I really don't care about the actions of the city council of a small exurban suburb.
• I can now get through the paper in about 5 minutes--that is how little usable content there is in it.
• The editorial policy seems to be controlled by market considerations, not a publishing philosophy. One example is that the the paper--the largest paper in the state--didn't endorse anyone for President or Senate before our caucuses on Super Tuesday.
• They no longer commission public opinion polls.
• The new owners killed their foundation that funded some great Minneapolis nonprofits.
  
• I'm getting my news from online sources. For local news it is primarily the Twin Cities Daily Planet (http://www.tcdailyplanet.net) and MinnPost (http://www.minnpost.com/)
• Canceling my subscription fits with the "reduce, reuse, recycle" philosophy. I'm reducing.
• The Strib is no longer worth the price.
  

The Rock Star Treatment

This blog post is, in effect, by a guest writer: Hussein Samatar, Executive Director of the African Development Center in Minneapolis. I met Hussein Samatar about three years ago when I helped the African Development Center develop a technology plan and find a database to manage all their activities.* I then got to know Hussein when we served together on the Minneapolis Library Board. Recently Hussein wrote about a trip to Scandinavia and he has agreed to allow me to re-publish it here. It includes some fascinating insights:
.........................................................................................................................
The Rock Star Treatment

As many of you know, this summer Minneapolis City Council Member Robert Lilligren and I traveled overseas to present the success of our Twin Cities community in dealing with immigration from African nations, a vexing problem from our Swedish hosts.

There and in Denmark, we made several presentations to academics, policy experts and immigrant affairs groups in a trip organized by a Swedish colleague, Dr. Benny Carlson of the ZUFI Foundation, and sponsored by the U.S. State Department. The experience solidified impressions formed during my tour of five other European cities as part of the German Marshall Memorial Fellowship program this spring.

That is, the governments of Europe have generally failed to integrate immigrants into the productive side of the economy, and African refugees represent the most demonstrable failure in this regard. Too many languish on public assistance, straining their broader acceptance by society. There’s no shortage of thoughtful solutions in Europe, only a shortage of results. Why?

There are many political and social factors contributing to the frustrating problem of integration. But, from my perspective as a naturalized American, lack of opportunity for self-determination has stifled the economic potential of Africans in even the most progressive European nations. Despite their enlightened ideals, these countries are still stuck in the view that immigration is a problem rather than an opportunity.

By contrast, Minnesota, which claims the highest percentage of African immigrants of any U.S. state—has enabled substantial economic productivity. Here, while continuing to face familiar cultural hurdles, the African diaspora has built wealth and joined society like nowhere else. While political representation remains scant, Africans are moving into the middle class, America’s political bedrock.

In Minnesota, we see good things ahead. This outlook makes Minnesota’s African community the envy of Europe. Again: how to explain this relative success? We are of course a nation of immigrants, and Minnesota is among the most educated, affluent and progressive states, so upward mobility is a historical, natural process. But this doesn’t explain everything.

In travels to Europe this year I’ve become aware of a distinguishing trait I’ll call the Rock Star Factor.

After CM Lilligren and I would speak, we would receive polite applause. But the real interest, excitement, even adulation, was invariably reserved for Nimo Farah, ADC’s program coordinator, who accompanied us on the trip. Now, for those of you unacquainted with Nimo, she is a delightful, intelligent and beautiful young woman who graduated this year from the University of Minnesota. Last year, she was an intern for ADC. Today, in Northern Europe, she is our Elvis Presley.

The academics and policy wonks we addressed, the immigrant groups we met with, the journalists who covered our tour—nobody had seen anything like her before. Educated, outgoing, conversant in business issues, and expecting to be accepted while dressed, albeit stylishly, in observance of her Muslim faith, Nimo engaged the imagination and the emotion of our European friends in a way that two middle-aged suits—a city official and a nonprofit executive—could not hope to equal.

Though composed and diplomatic throughout, Nimo embodied the youthful spirit of rock ‘n roll, an American invention that reacted to stifling social conditions with bold self-determination and obliterated countless barriers to social mobility and economic attainment.

Such barriers are high for my generation of African refugees, which has labored hard to find a footing in our adopted homelands. Nimo’s generation is the one who will climb on the back of mine to achieve the success we are only beginning to envision with meaningful clarity in the United States. Our African brothers and sisters in Europe – and those few in the European mainstream who advocate for them – have suffered for lack of such a vision.

That vision, that rock star presence, was our Nimo.

Regards,

Hussein Samatar,
Executive Director, African Development Center

*While in many ways the African Development Center is a typical Community Development Corporation that works with African Immegrents in Minnesota, it had one specialized need--a database that could handle Islamic-compliant loans.

Why do nonprofit organizations keep using Ticketmaster?

Had two recent experiences with Ticket Master. My one question is why do venues keep using a company that causes such a bad taste in the mouths of their clients?

My first experience was buying tickets for the Bruce Springsteen concert at the Xcel Center (big arena—home of the MN Wild NHL team). Went for the cheep tickets. Bought four tickets:

• Total for tickets (plus facility charge) $268.00
• Ticket Mater Convenience Charge $ 38
• Ticket Master charge for e-ticket $ 1.75
• Ticket Master Order Processing Charge $ 3.86
• Taxes $ 2.79

That equals:

• Non ticket master cost: $270.79
• Ticket master fees: $ 43.61

Ticket master added over 16 percent to the cost of the tickets. (And why is it with charging extra for an e-ticket—something that saves processing costs compared to mailing or will call.)

My second experience would have been a total rip-off.
Two $12 tickets (member rate) to a Minnesota Public Radio event at the Fitzgerald (home of the Prairie Home Companion). Choice was Ticketmaster or driving to the box office in downtown St. Paul.

For tickets tat totaled $29.00 (with facility charge) the Ticket Mater charges totaled $13.00. This would have added almost 45%.

I ended up going to the box office the next day to get the tickets and ended up three rows further back than if I had bought the tickets online

There are other options for venues:
So with other ticket services available, (Pro Ticket, used by the Guthrie Theatre is one that comes to mind) why do venues continue to use Ticket Master? You would think that venues (especially nonprofit organizations that have members how contribute money) would want to keep their customers happy and to keep costs to customers as low as possible.

Importance of good nonprofit management controls in neighborhood groups

For years Minneapolis has had very active neighborhood organizations for years. A few years ago, the city decided to support them by allowing them to administer projects funded by the city (primarily crime prevention, arts, small scale community development and housing improvement). This resulted in neighborhood groups being formed in areas that hadn't had groups in the past and groups dealing with a lot more money than in the past. All these groups did become Minnesota Nonprofit Corporations with 501.c.3 IRS status.

The problem was that the city program that was responsible for working with neighborhood groups decided to concentrate training on neighborhood organizing. Beyond making some resource material available on their website, very little emphasis was placed on basic nonprofit management and very little training was provided in basic nonprofit management issues. Management issues like financial practices and board duties just were not a priority.

So, can it be any surprise that there have been a number of neighborhood groups that have had major financial problems? The most recent case was a group where grant money that was to be used for housing programs was used to pay staff. (The grant did provide money for staff to administer the program but the organization kept using money from the grant long after the administrative line-item was used up.)

Board members have said that there was no way for the board to know this; that it was done by the Executive Director and Treasurer without board knowledge; that the board never asked for the detail that would allow them to see this problem. It appears that this problem had been going on for a number of years. Clearly, adequate audits or controls should have caught this problem quickly (it finally discovered was in an audit).

So, how much did Minneapolis save by not providing the management training. Lets assume that the training would have cost $2,000 per organization. There are 70 neighborhoods in the Minneapolis program. That totals $140,000. In the one neighborhood I've written about, the amount mis-appropriated was around $150,000. This doesn't include the organizations that have went out of existence due to major financial problems.

Capacity building is low cost insurance.

A good idea for merger/conslication/takeover

I've been through a number of mergers, consolidations and takeovers in my professional life. Below is the value statement developed for the consolidation of the Minneapolis and Hennepin County Library systems. Could be useful in public, private and nonprofit sectors:

The Library Steering Committee and the co-chairs of the nine pre-merger teams, comprised of more than 100 Hennepin County and Minneapolis Public Library employees, continue to meet and recently developed guiding values for the pre-merger planning process. These values are:

1. We are focused on the needs of the customer and are accountable to the needs of a new organization and to each other.
2. We are open to new and different ways of doing things – what worked in the past may not work in the future.
3. We are truly curious and realize that there is rarely only one way of doing things.
   
4. We will work to understand and respect the past work of both partners while channeling our creativity into this opportunity.
5. We will presume good intentions of others and, if needed, will follow-up for clarification.
6. We recognize that there will be challenges ahead that will require us to understand and respect elements of bureaucracy and politics.
7. We will use our collective sense of humor to assure we have more celebration and less commiseration.
8. We are committed to open communication amongst ourselves and with all staff while recognizing that we do have some fear and anxiety to conquer.

1. 
   

Good Engineering doesn't mean ugly

Here in Minnesota we're now starting the debate about the design of the new 35W bridge.

On one side is MN DOT and the Governor saying we need to have it done fast and that there isn't time for a great design. To quote MNDOT, "It won't be beautiful but it won't be ugly." That has to be a new standard for setting low expectations.

The other side says that good design doesn't have to take a lot more time or cost any more. That side (my side) notes that, since this bridge is planned to last 100 years we should take the time to do it right.

The standard line is that out of the three goals:

• low cost,
• beauty, and
• fast;

you can only pick two. I would argue that that isn't necessarily true.

Often, in the push to go fast or get by cheap, governments go with the plan that looks like it will be the lowest initial cost. There are three very good examples of where Minnesota picked "cheep and quick" over quality and beauty that didn't turn out. All are within a mile of each other in downtown Minneapolis.

• I remember back in high school a debate in the newspaper over the design of the 35W bridge that just fell down. People were complaining that it was ugly. That just when Minneapolis was starting to re-claim the river from industry that we didn't need a boring, industrial bridge. The response was that the money wasn't available and the the design selected was a lot cheaper.
• A few years before that, Minneapolis built a new downtown central library as a part of a downtown urban renewal project. The city kept cutting the budget. No one thought about the future of libraries. We built the last library that had closed stacks--85 percent of the books were in stacks that were only accessible to the public. The building was not flexible, few walls could be moved. The building was dark. It was ugly. Only 33 years latter, we started the process to build a new central library.
• Back in the 1980s, Minnesota built the Humphrey Metrodome. Everyone was thrilled that it cost so little to build. Problem is, it has never worked for baseball and it is the last major league park built with a fixed roof (in Minnesota where on a nice summer evening you WANT to be outside--we don't want to waste our short summer). A short 15 years later, the Twins and Vikings started demanding a new stadium that would meet their needs. We are now building a new Twins stadium, only 25 years after the dome was built.

Now a little about engineering. Quality engineering is always about doing things with elegance. Quality engineering does not mean ugly. In fact the best engineering can be beautiful. Examples of structural engineering that come to mind include the Eiffel Tower, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Minneapolis Stone Arch Bridge--all designed by engineers--not architects.

There is a great OpEd in the New York Times yesterday--One Bridge Doesn't Fit All. By David Billington (professor of structural engineering at Princeton and co-author of Power, Speed and Form: Engineers and the Making of the 20th Centruy)

I Titled this post Engineering doesn't mean Ugly. A friend just asked a related question:

Is there such a thing as ugly engineering that is not bad engineering?

Monument to Consumerism

The Minneapolis Planning Commission (I'm the Library Board representative on the Commission) -OKed monument to consumerism-4 story-air conditioned, carpeted, brick and glass self-storage bldg for stuff. Do people really buy so much stuff that they can not "stuff" it into their home? Do they really have the money to waste to store stuff that they never use?

Should Computers Forget

There was a very interesting issue on Future Tense on public radio a few months ago (just catching up with listening to my pod-casts). Should computers learn how to forget? (The May 8th entry of Future Tense at http://www.publicradio.org/columns/futuretense/2007/05/index.shtml)

To quote from Future Tense:

Harvard public policy professor Viktor Mayer-Shoenberger believes our digitally-fueled culture remembers too much for too long. He's suggesting that we learn how to forget again."

Schonberger has just published a paper called "Useful Void: The Art of Forgetting in the Age of Ubiquitous Computing."

Some very interesting issues to think about.

Gaming for workplace skills

This post doesn't have a lot of information--just about something really cool I just saw:

Just came from a presentation on a project using a game design package to help teens develop job skills. (A joint project of Science Museum of Minnesota, Hennepin County Library and Minneapolis Public Library--funded by Best Buy Children's Foundation.)

Scratch is a game design system that uses the Logo operating system. Developed and supported by MIT Media Lab, it has a Windows and Mac version, will have a Linux version and will be on the One Laptop Per Child project laptops.

Scratch lets kids use programing to" create stories, games and animations." It has a sharing website that uses the creative commons license. The discussion by kids on ownership and building on other's programs has revolved around giving credit where credit is due and attribution.

It may surprise some but seeing a room full of librarians really excited about game design software wasn't at all surprising to me.

Technology vs. Community

I was at a meeting to present the plans for the MN Planetarium project to its new owner (As part of the merger of the Minneapolis and Hennepin County Libraries, the "ownership" of the future MN Planetarium will transfer to Hennepin County).

On county commissioner suggested that there should be no large central planetarium--or even a portable planetarium but that we just provide material that can be used on computers and flat screen projection systems.

The basic idea is that with technology, everything can now be done remotely, in your own home. This seems to be ignoring some basic people issues:

• There is a basic difference between seeing something on a planetarium sized screen and on your computer screen.


• There is a difference in brining your kids to your home computer to see the Universe and brining them to a high-tech facility.

But most important, people are social animals. Group experiences can be more powerful than individual experiences (For example, with DVDs, Direct TV, HDTV, why do a lot of people still go to movie theaters, live concerts, live plays and art festivals?) Events that bring people together help to build communities. Bringing people together help to build bridges between different communities.