Last Thursday, I attended the fifth installment of Ignite Baltimore, an event designed to get people excited about creating positive change in Baltimore.
And yet, somehow, the experience had the exact opposite effect on me… and this got me thinking about HOW we talk about the things we most care about, and why we might want to change our approach.
How an Allegedly Inspirational Event Turned Me Into a Loathsome Beast
Ignite is billed as a rapid-fire salon of ideas, in which a dozen speakers talk for 5 minutes (and 20 Power Point slides) about a subject they’re passionate about. For the most part, the presentations on this night were somewhat insightful, occasionally incoherent, but mostly harmless.
And then something happened that I’m still trying to process, because it altered my perception of reality.
15-year old environmental activist Hannah Freedman took the stage and delivered an eloquent, well-rehearsed, mildly convincing argument for the importance of youth activism. I was impressed by her chutzpah, and I was clapping at all the times when I was supposed to be clapping.
And then I noticed the body language of the couple in front of me.
Slumped. Stoic. Slightly pained. They looked as though they wanted to be anywhere but here, and they projected a stark resentment of everything Hannah — and, by extension, Ignite itself — stood for.
This momentarily irritated me, and I thought about reveling in my ethical superiority for being able to appreciate something as fundamentally galvanizing as youth activism.
But then I tried something different: I adopted (what I presumed was) this couple’s point of view.
I sat there, slumped and indifferent, to see how it would feel to resent a teenager for having the temerity to care about her own future.
I found it alarmingly easy to do.
In fact, the only more alarming part was how hard it was to shake that point of view.
When Hannah concluded her speech with something like, “Because we are the future, and you can either complain about it or you can help us,” I almost shouted something at the stage, Joe Wilson style. That’s when my girlfriend realized she’d have to psychologically restrain me for the rest of the event.
All night long, I found myself unable to resume my traditional worldview. Anytime someone took the stage, I implicitly rejected their claims as false because they didn’t jibe with my newly-adopted values of capitalism and protectionism.
I started to hate the arts, the government and people in general.
I refused to smile or applaud. My girlfriend Ann and our friend Maya, seated on either side of me, went from being annoyed at my behavior to being angry at my obviously negative judgment of the event, concerned that I might ruin it for someone else.
Even Dave Troy, who’s well-known as a tireless cheerleader for Baltimore’s future (and who was sitting directly in front of me) moved a few seats away. Granted, that could have been due to any reason, but I can’t help but feel that my aural negativity drove him to seek shelter.
My Newfound Hatred, in a Nutshell
My visceral reaction to the night can be summed up by a recap of the presentations.
Of the 13 talks delivered:
- 4 of them either directly or indirectly urged attendees to fund the arts
- 2 of them urged adults to take children seriously
- 1 of them urged attendees to donate to Haiti
- 1 of them urged attendees to donate used cell phones to Africa
- 1 of them urged the creation of a federal Department of Peace
- and 1 of them explained how Wolverine embodies the American ideal
As a social liberal and fiscal conservative, I would normally have appreciated the pluck of the presentations, even if I would have doubted their ability to make a damn bit of difference.
But on this particular night, thanks to my newly aggravated and seat-slumped soul mates, I left the auditorium irate at the audacity of the speakers. Namely:
- If the arts are so important, why can’t they MAKE MONEY without begging me for it?
- If MORE government is the solution to anything, I’ll eat my hat.
- If dying Haitians and Africans need help, why don’t they just GET JOBS?
- If kids are our future, why can’t they prove their merit without COMPLAINING?
In short: stop telling me why I should care about your problems; SHOW ME WHY IT’S RELEVANT TO ME.
BE RESPONSIBLE.
PROVE THAT YOU’RE DOING YOUR BEST, and maybe I’ll feel like your cause is worth my time / effort / resources. (But, honestly, probably not, because I work hard for my money and I’ll never warm to the idea of you begging me for a handout.)
Nonetheless, MEAN SOMETHING to me, and maybe I’ll care.
(And for fuck’s sake, Wolverine is Canadian.)
So… About Last Night…
Needless to say, I woke up feeling “normal” again on Friday, but it still took me a few more days to wrap my head around why I was so upset on Thursday. And I think it boils down to the following:
- I cannot believe how easily I adopted a POV I normally reject as inhumanely self-centered.
- That kind of ingrained resistance to change is addictive.
- Hating everything didn’t make me feel better about myself, but the alternative didn’t make any sense either. Thus, I was trapped in an illogical whirlpool of loathing.
All of which made me realize that liberals will never be able to convince the conservatives of the world that liberal ideas are valid because conservatives and liberals don’t even see the same reality.
If two sides can’t agree on the facts, their shared needs and the benefits of the most likely outcomes, there’s no hope for “bipartisanship,” much less a civil discussion of what we as a country (or a city) need in order to prosper (or even survive).
So, as a way to make up for the karma I likely burned during my Thursday night shitstorm, here’s my morning-after pitch on how we (usual) liberals can better bridge the gap between what we think matters and what everyone else thinks is important.
3 Ways to Keep the Haters From Dismissing Your Worthless Ideas
1. Stop treating the arts like a helpless, valueless charity. The arts have been around for as long as we’ve been civilized. But to hear modern arts professionals explain it, the arts will shrivel and die unless bleeding heart patrons (and our own tax dollars) can keep them on life support.
If the arts aren’t at least partially self-sufficient, no amount of hand-wringing will convince the people holding the purse strings that they’re worth supporting.
Here’s a secret: no one wants to invest in something that doesn’t believe it can survive under its own power. People are funny; once a charity or an artist proves it can keep itself alive no matter what, we’re more inclined to support it with our own donations because it respects itself.
Begging? Never sexy. And if you believe that opera, theatre, live music and visual arts are sexy and life-affirming, you need to start by affirming your own will to live.
2. Kids: Stop Talking Down to Your Parents.
Listen, I know we live in a fucked-up culture where the opinions of 14 year-olds are more highly-prized than the opinions of 65 year-olds because those 14 year-olds have access to more disposable income than the Medicare generation does. But just because we who market products to children tell kids that we value their opinions, that doesn’t mean we really do. At least, not beyond the ways in which their opinions can be exploited to make us rich.
If you’re under the age of 22 and you want to change the world, be my guest. The world could use a good sprucing-up. But you won’t get there by admonishing the adults for ignoring you, because the fact is, adults ignore everything, including their own consciences and common sense.
Revel in your youth. Then do something. We like to say “actions speak louder than words” because, like most cliches, this one is always true.
3. Lead by example.
One of the best presentations of the night, even despite my hate-induced stupor, was delivered by Ellen Worthing. It was about “bushwacking,” the art of (literally) going off the beaten path to discover something all your own. In Worthing’s case, she detailed her frequent excursions into the bowels of Maryland, aided by her GPS unit and a suspicion that something more interesting was “out there.” And she was usually right.
Ellen’s presentation filled the audience with admiration for her rugged individualism. She tacked on an obligatory “follow your own path” generalism in her last slide, as a way of making her presentation about “us” instead of just her, but it was unnecessary; by showing us what she was capable of, she ignited more inspiration in her 500 listeners than anyone else did all night.
And, best of all, she didn’t ask anyone for money.
In Conclusion…
I’m sure Ignite Baltimore got a lot of people talking, which is the whole point. (Technically, the whole point should be getting people to take action, but that’s a little too optimistic for a $5 event with a cash bar.)
And maybe the ideas people absorbed that night will get them moving. Maybe some old cell phones will get donated to medical workers in Africa. Maybe a few more people will pay for a night at the opera, or will venture out to an art event they might otherwise have ignored.
But if we really want to ignite Baltimore and get people moving in a positive direction, what we need are more people who lead by example and fewer people trying to guilt the public into a handout.
Because the only thing more addictive than doubting the relevance of everything is being inspired by seeing someone else exceed our own pessimistic expectations.
* If you’ve ever seen an episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, you know what I’m talking about: anytime Will Smith’s friend (and real-life DJ) Jazzy Jeff says or does something inappropriate, Uncle Phil bum-rushes him out of the house, limbs flailing.
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Tags: America, art, audience, baltimore, bullshit, common sense, events, honesty, inspiration, language, perception, personal, politics, pop culture, Sociology
10 years ago this month, I landed my first post-college job that didn’t involve retail.
In March of 2000, a Pittsburgh company called Multimedia Training Systems (which is still in business as I type this) was looking to hire someone who had experience with video production and animation. As the lone graduate from The Art Institute of Pittsburgh’s Computer Animation & Multimedia program who also happened to take numerous video electives, I might have been the only semi-qualified applicant for the job within a 30 mile radius.
I was hired.
Although I would leave MTS five years later to forge my own way as a freelancer, the lessons I learned during that half-decade, both good and bad, have stuck with me. Now, as our global economy has prompted everyone to reconsider what’s really important at work, some of those lessons are worth revisiting.
1. Time management is the most important skill they never teach you in college.
Every project you ever work on will be made more complex by the byzantine communication and time management skills of everyone involved. And since humans express themselves poorly as a rule, you’ll always need more time to fix those miscommunicated errors than you’d ever expect.
2. Double the deadline.
If you can get something done in a week, tell the client (or your boss) it’ll be done in two. Then strive to meet your original deadline. That way, when something else comes up — and it always does — you’ll still be able to meet your declared deadline without feeling like you’ve been overstretched.
3. Next to cash flow, employee morale is king.
When employees enjoy their work, bond with their colleagues and feel comfortable in their workspace, they’re capable of producing amazing (or at least competent) work. If not, distractions and resentments can make a seemingly innocuous work environment feel oppressive.
Find ways to make sure your employees are happy, healthy and engaged; everything else (besides payroll) is a byproduct of a positive workplace culture.
4. Bonuses don’t make up for general misery (but they do help).
When business is swift, communication is clear and morale is high, bonuses are the icing on the cake of goodwill.
When business is hectic, communication is fractured and morale is unspeakably bad, bonuses are a last-ditch measure to keep the crew from jumping ship.
Either way, bonuses are appreciated — but, paradoxically, they’re appreciated more when they mean less.
5. Organize every project as though someone else will have to finish it.
Because when someone else does have to take over one of your projects, they don’t want to spend the first half of their day decoding your labyrinthine organizational structure.
At MTS, we had a general procedure to follow for most video projects, with preferred conventions for naming files and organizing them within folders and sub-folders. That way, even if various employees had to access the same files from different computers, there’d be no confusion as to which files belonged to which projects.
6. Your sales and marketing team shouldn’t be doing anything else.
MTS is a small company. I was hired as their fifth employee; they’ve never chosen to grow beyond ten full-time employees and a handful of part-time contractors.
As such, everybody works on more than just what their job description entails. Our office manager wound up doing (and still does) everything from accounts receivable and booking employee travel to shipping packages and designing the labels for the DVDs.
But sales and marketing is the lifeblood of any company, and when our marketing VP was spending the bulk of his time filming video, that meant no one else was focusing on selling and marketing the very products we were producing. Was it necessary at the time? Sure. But in hindsight, if there was one office I wouldn’t want to distract from its core duties, it would be the people responsible for making sure someone wanted to pay us.
7. Backup clearly and constantly.
When an MTS project was completed, we’d back off all related files — finished video, audio, graphics, documents, etc. — on DVD. We’d also keep a tape backup of each finished video, in case the DVDs got scratched (or in case someone needed a tape-to-tape transfer ASAP).
But while we were producing videos, we’d save our projects relentlessly. Our office was in a borough that was notorious for power outages due to thunderstorms, and it only took a new employee one fried project to learn the lesson of paranoid auto-saving. (Bonus points if you saved multiple versions of a file at once, just in case one of them became corrupted.)
8. Meetings only matter if someone’s listening.
Every once in awhile, upper management at MTS would have an executive meeting, and the outcome would almost always be the same: someone would want to change the way we did something, and someone else would explain why we couldn’t.
Maybe it was money, or time, or equipment, logic or politics. Whatever the case, change happened at a glacial pace at MTS, in part because the people responsible for making and implementing the changes were the very same people who were already stretched too thin by maintaining the status quo. There was rarely any room to implement new procedures on a trial basis because, honestly, who had time for trial and error when the next deadline was a heartbeat away?
The solution? If anybody did want to make the case for a new way of doing things, they had to implement that change on their own, privately, and then present their own results as proof that their idea could be adopted successfully. Either that, or proposals would have to be made that no one else could reject — and that approach always leaves somebody feeling marginalized.
9. Upgrading equipment isn’t always the wisest expenditure.
Nerds will always geek out over new toys, and bosses will always ask the age-old question:
“Do we need this?”
Bosses aren’t necessarily hoping you’ll say “no,” because bosses are usually more worried about what something’s capable of than what it costs. But they’re not interested in tech specs; they’re interested in how this $4,000 investment can net them $20,000 in business.
If you made every decision about new expenditures the same way a small, hungry company has to consider those same decisions, you’d buy only the new toys that your clients need you to have in order to fulfill their desires. And you’d keep a lot of vintage equipment alive much longer than it has any reason to exist, simply because you can.
10. Your clients are always people first and revenue streams second.
MTS had a habit of bending over backwards for its clients — sometimes admirably, and sometimes unnecessarily. But because the field we specialized in — safety training for the steel industry — was such a close-knit niche, it was in MTS’s best interests to monopolize the medium because losing our foothold could have resulted in a domino effect of dropped accounts.
Instead, MTS developed a reputation for going above and beyond the call of duty. And while that might have cost us money (and sanity) in the short run, it also created business relationships that remained fruitful even when the steel industry was reeling from consolidation and global downsizing.
I doubt that would have happened if we were simply seen as a line item on someone’s budget — or if everybody else was just a line item on ours.
Seeing the World Through Blue-Collared Glasses
Like anyone at any job, I had my ups and downs at MTS. But I also had the opportunity to see things, go places and meet people that I never would have thought to notice otherwise: real, hard-working, down-to-earth and kind-hearted people, whose fortunes were tied to a once-vital industry that everybody believes is now past its prime.
And as a native Pennsylvanian in a globalized world, that kind of underdog, blue-collar mentality is an asset I’d never trade.
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Tags: Business, common sense, personal, Pittsburgh, Sociology, video
