In this 3:25 video, teacher Joanna Hayes shares the value of history through images and the music of Coldplay. She presents it on the first day of her social studies class.
Author Archives: Max van Balgooy
Grease the Gears of Your Next Meeting
We are in meetings regularly but how many of them are productive? The minutes grind by slowly as the group argues over what it’s supposed to be doing and everyone is anxious to get back to their desks. A couple weeks later, you repeat the same meeting because no one remembers what was decided or who was responsible. I’ve been there hundreds of times but it improved about fifteen years ago when I began following the principles in How to Make Meetings Work by Michael Doyle and David Strauss (1993). It introduced me to the value of agendas, the decision-making process, and the important role of a facilitator. The facilitator is a neutral third party whose sole purpose is to manage the meeting process and ensure it is productive. He or she doesn’t make decisions but helps the group discuss issues collegially to arrive at decisions thoughtfully. The facilitator makes meetings easier, putting grease on the gears that would otherwise grind and bind. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you are probably serve as a facilitator from time to time.
Over the years I’ve become increasingly aware of the importance of facilitation, especially as organizations move from a top-down, command-and-control form of management to Continue reading
Webinar: Better Board Governance
Stanford Social Innovation Review, a quarterly journal devoted to informing and inspiring leaders of social change, is hosting a free hour-long webinar on improving board performance on Wednesday, May 21, 2014 at 2 pm Eastern/11 am Pacific. This webinar is for non-profit board members, executive directors, and managers/staff who work with board members—anyone who seeks to create an organization with consistently effective governance in order to radically increase impact for its community and visitors. Thanks to the support of the Henry R. Kravis Prize in Leadership, this webinar is free but advance registration is required.
In this webinar you will learn the nine attributes of effective nonprofit board governance and be able to make significant improvements in your organization’s board. Join Kim Starkey Jonker and William F. Meehan III as they expand on their recent Stanford Social Innovation Review article, “A Better Board Will Make You Better.” They will discuss the difficulties of achieving consistently effective governance and provide actionable suggestions for overcoming these challenges. Kathy Spahn, recipient of the 2014 Henry R. Kravis Prize in Leadership, will join Jonker and Meehan to discuss Helen Keller International’s governance experiences and provide real-world examples about what works.
Video: Sheriff Andy Griffith Explains American History
This 5:16 excerpt from the “Andy Griffith Show” has the Sheriff convincing the neighborhood boys to study history. Terribly inaccurate but remember, this is just a fictional tv show.
The Future of Leadership: A Perspective from Business Workforce Trainers
What’s the future of leadership look like? Five leaders in the field of business workforce training and development shared their perspectives at a session at the 2014 ASTD conference yesterday (and just renamed itself the Association for Talent Development). In the conversation, Debbie Blanchard (Ken Blanchard Companies), James Kirkpatrick (Kirkpatrick Partners), Halley Bock (Fierce, Inc.) and Tacy Byham (Development Dimensions International) discussed their experiences and observations as consultants who work with companies around the world. The session was presented in a question-and-answer format, but I’ve synthesized and distilled their responses to highlight key ideas.
1. Leadership is not a “soft skill”; it is an intentional practice to improve organizational performance and profitability. You cannot thrust people into leadership to see if they can swim, instead it has to be initiated, conducted, and practiced intentionally.
2. Leadership has moved from a hierarchical, single command-and-control structure to Continue reading
What’s the ROI of Your Historic Site?
Jack Phillips (right) discussing ROI at ASTD 2014.
Foundations and donors are increasingly questioning the impact of their funds at museums and historic sites, a trend that’s growing as well in business according to Jack Phillips and James Kirkpatrick at a session at the ASTD conference yesterday. After the recent recession, they’ve found that CEOs are increasingly asking about the return on investment (ROI) of every program and activity, including employee training and education. Although training claims to be an essential contributor to business productivity and performance, it hasn’t been adequately measured or evaluated, and thus can’t prove their value. That surprised me because I thought that was a struggle only for museums and historic sites. We seem to be continually fighting to prove our worth and other than economic impact, haven’t been able to show why we matter in our communities. It looks like we’re not alone.
Phillips and Kirkpatrick are the leaders in the field of measuring performance in business and developed frameworks that “define the levels at which programs are evaluated and how data are captured at different times from different sources.” Although they disagree on whether the framework should have four or five levels, they both agree that Continue reading
Getting the Big Picture of Training
This week I’m attending the annual conference of the American Society of Training and Development (ASTD) in Washington, DC, the “world’s largest professional association dedicated to the training and development field.” There must be thousands of people attending from all over the world and hundreds of educational sessions on training technology, meeting facilitation, staff management, career development, learning measurement, science of learning, and leadership development. As someone who specializes in interpretation and education at museums and historic sites, it puts my work in a global perspective and I quickly realized that while business spends more than $160 billion (yes, billion) annually on workforce learning to maximize their return on investment, non-profit organizations do very little in this area. Thankfully, many of our professional associations provide this essential service.
Although I won’t be able to share everything I learn at the conference this week, I’ll try to share some highlights. Yesterday Ruth Clark, author of Evidence-Based Training Methods, discussed some of the misconceptions around learning styles, a framework that Continue reading
Video: David McCullough’s 5 Lessons Every High School Student Show Know
In this 5:17 video, author David McCullough shares the five most important ideas high school students should learn before graduating (and it’s not memorizing dates and quotations). This was recorded by CSPAN at the 2011 National Book Festival.
Can the Exploratorium Help Us Explore History?
Last week I visited the Exploratorium in its new home on Pier 15 in San Francisco. If you haven’t veen there, it’ll seem like a science center but you’ll quickly discover it’s really a place about learning, especially through direct experiences with art, tinkering, and phenomena (yep, that’s how they describe it). It’s an incredibly active place (almost to the point of overwhelming) that seems to effectively engage its visitors, so I continually watch to see if any of their exhibits or ideas can be applied to historic sites or history museums. During my latest visit, I found two exhibits that with a mild tweak could be really be innovative for interpreting history.
1. Question Bridge: Black Males. This temporary exhibit is, “comprised of many individuals asking and answering questions about the experience of black men in modern America.” Inside the small dark room are Continue reading
Video: 2014 NCPH Conference Recap
The Institute of Oral History at the University of Texas at El Paso just produced a 2:49 video covering the 2014 annual conference of the National Council Public History in Monterey, California. Using video from the conference and Monterey along with interviews, it highlights the value of the conference. This was created by Karina Arroyo and Jesus Genaro Limon, who I believe are students at UTEP. Perhaps your site could create something like this for your events or conferences with the help of a local college or university.
Engaging Places 