How To Unleash Your Inner Nonprofit Ninja Artist

photo by Gabriele Hengeveld

Of course you are an artist

Is this you?

“Me, an painter?  Oh, I can’t draw a straight line!”

“Me, a musician?  I sang in the high school chorus.”

“Me, an artist?  Gee, I would really like to write poetry.”

There are a lot of you out there who like art, seeing movies, going to museums, listening to music.  You are art lovers, you are arts curious.  You are the most important person in the art world.

I am sure that many of you have a creative demon lurking in the depths of your soul who whispers things like, “Hey, you should be singing cabaret.”  It knows that there is an inner artist within you that is longing to emerge.

You have a unique story to tell.  And a perspective that is yours alone.  I equate story with art in this instance because I believe true expression of the soul is the art of telling a story in all of its endless and glorious creative forms.

My inner artist has recently picked up her head and howled, “You never pay attention to me!  I want out!”

This is very bad for balance in your life and for your skin.  Of course, I had no choice but to stand back and release the hounds.  I am hard at work in my atelier honing my nonprofit ninja marketing skills.  High on creative juices and caloric deficit.  What’s not to love?  Here is more good stuff about being a creative communicator by Kivi Leroux Miller, someone I admire greatly for her ability to help others creatively market their story.

In a recent post by Beth Kanter, she captures key points about creative integration of technology and content in a conversation with Emmett D. Carson, Ph.D., CEO and President of Silicon Valley Community Foundation.  The two takeaways for me were:  leading with the heart and making a challenge a solution, not the problem.  Here’s an excerpt:

He discussed the topic of regional philanthropy and giving.    He urged people in the room to lead with the heart, not the head.   He said that the heart wants to know the stories, not the statistics and jargon.   Collect the anecdotes and then follow up with the numbers.   He also talked about the lost opportunity for continued donor engagement.  “Once we get that first check, we say – oh, we’ve got them.  Put them on the donor  list.   The only time we reach out to them is when we ask them for money.”   His advice was to schedule “heart time.”  – That is meet with your donors and engage with them — share a story that isn’t linked to an ask.  What terrific advice for social media strategies too.

It is all about engagement.  And story, whatever form it takes – is what connects people to each other.

Here are some of my Ninja Notes:

Lead with your heart

My mother, who is 86, is performing in a tango recital on Friday and simply expects me and the rest of her world to be there clicking castenets in adoration, thank you very much.  She loves to talk about her dance class, her friends she dances with, the new steps she is learning.  She beams at people who say, “How wonderful!  I would love to do that.”  Then she will shoot them a pointed look and ask,  ”So, why you aren’t you?”

I never say that to her.  I know better.

It is better to be bold and do something that raises people’s eyebrows than to incur my mother’s wrath with a lame dilettantish excuse.  It is the distinct characteristic of a nonprofit ninja artist spirit to do the bold and the unexpected.  Not only will it give you the pleasure of doing something you have secretly wanted to do for a long time, you will earn admiration and encouragement from those around you.

Make the challenge the solution, not the problem

I love writing but like many things in life, writing doesn’t always love me.  Writer’s block is my daily demon.  The specter of the blank screen is eclipsed only by the blank look in my eyes.  This is not good ninja ness.  I just made that word up, be bold, remember?

How I overcame this was to look at my inner stash of superpowers and find one that I could wield as a saber and boldly go where no nonprofit ninja has gone before:

Voila! My iPad stylus.

I sketch when I am stuck for words.  In addition to blogging at conferences, meetings and other gatherings of brilliant creative people, I always capture drawings that can help me share what I have learned.  Thanks to my Sktechbook Pro app on my iPad, I can easily dash off quick sketches, embed them in my posts and share them with all of you.

Here are a few of my recent ones from a piece about how to live artfully.

Take heart and take your inner nonprofit ninja artist out into the world.   If you run into naysayers, do what my mother does.  Toss your head and say in a withering tone, “I am having the time of my life changing the world.  Are you?”

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If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

What Mick Jagger Can Teach You About Hiring Staff

photo by wnick87

When I was in music school, a girl I knew auditioned to be a back up singer for the Rolling Stones world tour.  She was an opera student and dreamed about being on the stage of La Scala.

She came back from the audition and I could tell that she was shocked and upset.

Voice?  She had a set of pipes that were golden.

Presence?  Magnetic.

Talent?  Over the top chops.

So, why didn’t she get the job?

When she could finally speak without astonishment, she said what separated the mezzos from the mediocre was something totally unexpected.  It was something Mick Jagger had said:

“All of you are here because you all got what it takes – talent, voice, looks.  But if you ain’t fun on the bus, you ain’t going.”

I hope she is having better luck at La Scala.

How does that bit of wisdom help you hire better staff?

Let’s look at the metaphor.

You have a prospective candidate who, on paper, has everything you are looking for.  That is what I call the “talent and looks quotient”.

In the interview, you have the chance to talk to the person and get a sense of their personality, their thinking, how they deal with challenge or failure.

You should also ask if they like chocolate.

Or cooking.  Or surfing.  What makes their eyes light up?  This is what I call their “fun on the bus” quotient.

One of Seth’s bosses goes one step further:  he will go out to dinner with the prospective candidate.  If they have a pleasant time, great.  If not, forget it.   This is someone you will be spending a lot of time with.  You have to get along and work well as a team.  If you can assemble a group of talented, hardworking, vision focused people that enjoy being together, why not?  Especially on a tour bus.

A job posting appeared about a year ago for two positions that had just opened at Union Square Ventures.  Here is the blog post with the job descriptions. What I loved about it was that they clearly described what life “on the bus” would be like and that they are know for their work culture.

“Perhaps most importantly, the successful candidates for these positions will be “net native”. They will use web services in their personal and professional lives. They will ideally have an intuitive feel for what works and what doesn’t on the web. We assume that they will have a web presence, whether that is a profile on a social network site, a photo stream, an academic paper on social media, a blog or tumblelog, a lead role in an open source project, a reputation on Stack Exchange, or a spot on the leader board in Mafia Wars.”

Here is a comment:

Judah 1 year ago in reply to albert

Here’s what you do

1. Know who you need

You are a rock star.  Of course you are going to look for top notch talent and for a person who loves what they do.  Is it someone who is good at managing, problem solving, keeping it together, etc?  What is the specific skill set you need for your team?  Remember, you can hone skills.  You cannot teach passion.  Look for that.

2. Know your environment

Are you a small office?  A unit within a larger organization?  A single person operation?  A friend of mine who ran a large theater company used to call the hiring process “staging”.  He said he would rather “stage” the work around the talent, meaning the staff.  How do you see your work environment and who are the best people you can get for your “stage”?

I hire people for a small nonprofit arts council.  Seth hires similar kinds of people for a large nonprofit social service agency.  Two different environments but almost identical hiring filters.  We both know what strengths, or what archetype we are so we can hire people with the strengths we lack.  Successful candidates need to project their particular superpowers so they can find the perfect batcave.  Read more about what Pam Slim says about this here.

3. Know what you value

This is really a question about you and what kind of team you need around you.  Not necessarily to fill in the gaps, but who can creatively contribute to your success – and to your fun quotient.  A good question to ask yourself is, “Do I look forward to seeing these people in the morning?”  If the answer is yes, you are going to have a fabulous day.  If the answer is maybe, go out and pick up a box of good Italian biscotti and a box of Joe for everyone.  Show them you care.  If the answer is no, they are draining the good positive energy you need to be excellent in what you need to do.

OK people, listen up.  Let’s get this party started.  Time to rock your house.

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

How To Turn Your Meltdown Into Muscle

photo by muscle[spell]bound

What are you doing about yourself?

Having one of those days?  Feeling not fabulous, physically and mentally?  Don’t you just hate when that happens?

These meltdown days occur more often than I like and boy, is it easy to let myself wallow in self pity grazing and all forms of inertia.   You know what I am talking about.

I am hiding behind this cold spring.  Actually relieved that it is still chilly outside so that I can still waddle around in long sleeved layers and not have to angst about my arms in a tank top for a good couple of weeks.  This is the ostrich in me talking.  You know that I know that we all know that the season of sleevelessness is not far and we will have to face it.

Well, what am I going to do about this meltdown marathon?  What are you going to do about it?

You could lose weight, fall in love, take static trapeze classes and immerse yourself in other fascinating and cool activities that actually tone your body and give you killer conversation props at any dinner party.

“My biceps?  Oh, those!  I get them from my silk rope workout, you know, like Cirque du Soleil.”

My nutritionist actually takes these upper arm enhancing classes and so many times I have to restrain myself from bouncing quarters off his arms.  Which brings me to another aggravating weight loss fact:  how women lose weight and how men lose weight are completely different ways through the same universe.  Seth can eat gallons of Cheezits and slip into his slim cut jeans the next day.  You can’t imagine what that would do to me.

Try laughing

A sense of humor goes a long way.  Maybe it does something chemical so that you aren’t so snack focused after a good belly laugh.

Here’s a funny video of a normal guy racing an athlete to give you something to chuckle at.

Here’s what I do

I confess.  I love to eat but what I really love is muscle.  Once I started to build muscle through my running and free weight exercises,  I found myself craving food less.

So, this is my To Do list:

• Exercise.  A lot.
• Stay away from  foods that I love but don’t love me.  Like dairy, wheat and caffeine.
• Pop lots of pills.  29 a day including all kinds of vitamins and supplements.  (Full disclosure:  I am under an endocrinologist’s care for hypothyroidism and have been advised to take these)
• Drown myself in water.  At least 8 glasses a day.
• Laugh every day.

What do you do?

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

Top Ten Memory Tricks for Executive Directors

photo by fosscoti

Why is this important

I once observed Hillary Clinton present a speech at an elementary school in Queens.  The principal made opening remarks, followed by a short speech by a student and a summary of a project by a teaching artist.  When Hillary got up to speak, she had no notes in her hand.  She kept her eyes forward, making you feel she was speaking directly to you and as she spoke, she quoted the principal, the student and the teaching artist, weaving in what they had just spoken about into her speech.   What she did was make her speech everyone’s speech.

Very impressive.

How did she do that?

She paid attention.  A lot of it.  And I am willing to bet she used some simple techniques that helped her to remember the details she felt were important.  I have put together a list of my top ten memory tricks that I use to do what Hillary did, to remember all the things I need to, to keep track of my wallet, keys and phone, to  memorize 32 Beethoven sonatas.

Here’s my top ten memory tricks:

1. Repeat a person’s name

There couldn’t be a simpler way to remember a face and a name than to repeat the person’s name immediately after being introduced.  And if it is an unusual name, or kind of long and unexpected like mine, this is the best time to say, 

“How nice to meet you (difficult to pronounce name).  Am I saying it correctly?  (Repeat the name).”

2. Rephrase what you have just heard

This is a the same little trick only you are repeating a fact or something someone has said.

“I can’t believe that (fact you just heard)!  Do you think that (fact you just heard) is true?”

3. Remember chunks of information

It is easier to group stuff to remember.  Try memorizing a random string of 10 numbers and you may have some difficulty.  Try thinking of  10 numbers as if they were a phone number, in familiar groups that are easier to remember:

17185551212 is easier to remember if you break it up like this:  1 718 555 1212

4. Re introduce yourself

OK, this is really a way to recapture a person’s name you have probably met a few times before but just cannot remember their name.  It is also a really nice way to help someone remember your name.

“Oh, so nice to see you, I’m Hoong Yee Lee Krakauer.  Tell me your name again?”

5. Recognize patterns

Is there someone in your life who always arrives late to everything?  The old wisdom here is to remember that and to tell that person the meeting is actually an hour earlier.  The idea is to see these repetitive patterns and to remember what to do.

6. Reject useless data

Edit down to the essence of what you need to remember.  Develop a ruthless sense of what you really need to know and do not allow your mind to be clogged up with anything else.  Hey, that’s what Google is for.

7. Replay an event

To remember a sequence of events, imagine that you can press a rewind button and recreate what just happened.  If you can instant replay the scenario, you have a better chance of remembering it.

8. Recreate using templates

It is so much easier to remember things in structures like templates.  I like using templates to create budgets, spreadsheets, outlines etc., to help me recall large pictures of information.

9. Release unnecessary information

A psychologist named Zeigarnik noticed how waiters in a Viennese restaurant let their memories evaporate once the order has been filled.  Sherlock Holmes did the same thing.  He immediately purged his mind of anything he felt was of no use or interest to him to make room in his memory for what was important.

10. Relax

Your memory is a mental muscle in your body.  Like the rest of you, it needs to rest in order for it to continue functioning well.  Close your eyes and close down.

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

Where is Your Batcave?

This post first appeared on the Queens Council on the Arts blog

my desk at the Writers Room

Are you an urban ninja?

If you live in a jungle, you will need to know where to find food and shelter.  If you spend time underwater, it is helpful to know where the coral reefs are.  No matter what world you are a citizen of, your survival depends on your knowledge of the environment and, more importantly, how to navigate it.

I am a writing machine.  I may appear to be a slightly flustered nonprofit executive director en route to another meeting but no! – do not be fooled by my facade.  Its my way of gathering material.

And what I need in my environment is a place to write.  Enter the Writers Room, an urban writing colony on Broadway and that is a picture of the desk where some of my best writing emerges.

Feel like taking a coffee break?  Slip into the kitchen and sip your brew while talking a little shop with other writers.  How about a nap?  There are several large inviting recliners and a couch where you can relax by a large window with a great view of the city.

This is one of my secret gardens of bliss in New York City.  If you are a writer who needs a place to write, check out the Writers Room.

Katherine’s field office

Meet before you pitch

If you have a merry-go-round of meetings like I often do, here’s another way to get off the ride and regroup.  This is the time Katherine, my consultant extraordinaire, and I spend a lot of time sitting with legislators doing a one two punch round of funding request pitches.  Clearly, we needed a bull pen of some kind to get our game together.  Katherine found this little place on the corner of Chambers Street and Broadway tucked in the back of a Starbucks.  It is great place to get it together.

This is a city with a lot going on all the time.  If you are part of it, you will need to stop the pinball with your flippers every so often and halt the game, take a deep breath, take in the moment -

- and then let the game resume.  When you are ready.

You need places like these.

photo by Leandro

Where is your batcave?

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?