Leadership Ann Arbor, Day 2

I'm back home in Ann Arbor after attending the Leadership Ann Arbor Retreat. As I mentioned before, this retreat is all about learning to be a leader in the community. Yesterday was about being a leader within a group. Today was about leading as a group.

To that end we were placed in a group of six or seven. Pictured to the right are four of our six: Mike Williams of the Gerald Alcock Company, me (the "Webmaster"), Shannon Brown of the Ann Arbor Radio Group, and Tom Manning-Beavin of the Washtenaw Affordable Housing Corporation. Behind the camera was Karen Lancaster of the City of Ann Arbor. Our last member, Jennifer Cornell of Eiler Communications, had to leave early. I'll geta picture of her and Karen up here sooner or later.

Since the groups were chosen largely at random, our first task was to take a look at the members and the skills we each brought to the table. To be honest, I'm working with some very skilled people. As a group we are fairly well-balanced. Where some of us had weaknesses, there is someone else to take up the slack. An auspicious beginning for our group -- the "Avengers" (oh, did I mention that we had to come up with our own name?).

At the request of the Leadership Ann Arbor staff, several local non-profit organizations had submitted descriptions of problems that they were experiencing. Each of the groups was given a different one of these issues to work on. Our group is to help the local Boy Scouts of America Council. We were given two hours to come up with a strategic plan which we then presented to the rest of the class. Actually, I was elected to present it (darn my radio announcer's voice anyway!). Now we have to work on our plan and, in December, we will present it to the Boy Scouts.

I feel like I've been thrown in the deep end. I guess I 'd better start learning how to swim!

Leadership Ann Arbor, Day 1

What an amazing day!

We're up here at the beautiful Crystal Mountain Resort for the first day of the Leadership Ann Arbor retreat. Our goal for today was to discover what qualities go into being a successful community leader and, further, what qualities we possessed as a leader.

Our facilitator, Terry McGinn, put us through a number of exercises (and some gentle good humor) to help us understand ourselves better. In the process, of course, we got to know the people around us and to help each other along wherever possible. Oh, there was a bit of good-natured teasing and quite a bit of laughter, but, all-in-all, it was an exciting chance for self-discovery in a friendly and supportive environment (or, at least, no one actually told me that I was hopeless as a leader and should just ask for my money back). Terry really deserves serious kudos for herding us and helping us to keep focused on the goals for the day.

Despite the fun we were having, by the end of the day, a group of us decided we needed to get out to go on a short hike around the grounds of Crystal Mountain. It was a great opportunity to chat more and see the gorgeous Fall colors of northern lower Michigan. Of course, it might also have been another leadership test as we were only given one map. I think we must have succeeded as we all made it safely back to the lodge in time for dinner.

As Terry said just before we broke for the day, today we worked on leadership within our group. Tomorrow, on the other hand, we are going to work on leadership as a group. I'll let you know what happens!

So, what has been your best experience at a business conference or seminar?

Bright-eyed and Bushy-tailed

I was up bright and early this morning to attend the Ann Arbor Chamber's "Morning Edition" gathering. This is a monthly event held at Weber's Inn on the west side of "A-squared". I'm an Ambassador for the Chamber, which means I got to get there especially early (6:30am) to help set up. I don't mind telling you that, being a programmer at heart, usually the only time I'm up that early is when I haven't gone to bed yet.

I had the best time!

It's funny, but that shared experience of being up so early in the morning led to a real feeling of camaraderie amongst those of us who were setting up for the hordes to follow. I've only been in the Ambassador Corps for a few months now, but I can already tell that I have entered into a special group of people who really know how to work cheerfully as a team.

The other cool thing about being there early was that I got a chance to chat with some of the early guests and really get to know them. I ran into Dr. Joseph Koob, author, lecturer, and founder and president of DifficultPeople.org. He speciallizes in helping people in all walks of life deal with difficult people, whether they be client, co-worker, or boss. Now I know that most of you don't have any difficult people in your life, but, just in case, you might want to go check out his site. He also told me that some of his books will be soon coming out in trade paperback. Look out for those!

Anyway, if all goes as planned, tomorrow I'll report on the first day of my retreat for the Leadership Ann Arbor course that I'm taking this year. Stay tuned!

So, who have you met recently who made you want to talk about them?

I'm Back! TLA Tutorial: CMS

As many of you know, I've been a bit busy lately, finishing up a big project for Community Housing Network. CHN is a great group with which to work. As with most folks at charitable and non-profit organizations, they bring an excitement and passion to everything they do which is a breath of freash air in our sometimes cynical and business-as-usual world. In this case, we performed a massive overhaul on their website. Amongst other things, including a more intuitive look and feel, we added a content management system (CMS) to the site.

What's a CMS, you ask? Well, essentially it provides a framework full of tools and features which allows a website owner to update her own site more easily without having to know anything about HTML, how to upload files to their server, or how to create and maintain a search index for the site. There are a number of different packages out there, some commercial, some open source. The one I used was called "Drupal".

I know your eyes just glazed over, so let's just say that, once set up, it allows even the rankest beginner to have and maintain a website which has cool features such as searching, discussion forums, individual user logins, online glossaries of terms, and even advanced features such as online surveys -- all within a consistent look and feel. If this sounds intriguing to you, you might want to ask your current webmaster whether it is something to consider.

So, what features would you love to have on your website?

Above and Beyond, Southern Style

First of all, I want to thank everyone who sent me a message wishing me a happy birthday. I do appreciate it and, don't worry, I am past my annual case of melancholy. Hey, I figure I'm a pretty cheerful guy the rest of the year, so that makes me about 99.7% cheerful. How many can say that?

Anyway, on to my story. Over the Labor Day weekend, Lisa, her sister, JoAnn, my sister, Rebecca, and I all went down to Atlanta to go to the DragonCon Science Fiction Convention. "Hello, my name is Greg and I'm a nerd." As if you didn't guess that from my "Web Master" post. My nefarious plan is to bring others into the fold.

We stayed in the lovely Marriott Marquis, one of the convention hotels. A beautiful place, but beyond that, a place of exemplary service. Of course, everyone was polite and performed their duties as expected. One individual, though, a member of the housekeeping staff named Azalea went above and beyond. On Friday night, one of our number came down with a nasty case of food poisoning. Came the day on Saturday and she just wanted to sleep, not that I could blame her. When Azalea heard of our situation, she told us to go ahead and enjoy the convention. She took it upon herself to check in on our fallen comrade and even went down to the kitchen to get her some nice bland crackers. Of course, we stopped by periodically, too, but knowing Azalea was up there looking after things made our worries much easier to bear and allowed us to enjoy the events of the day.

If you are ever in the Atlanta area, I highly recommend the Marriott Marquis. The people who work there live up to the beautiful surroundings. Tell them Greg sent you. It won't get you any discount or anything, but you might enjoy the momentary look of confusion on their faces. ;-)

I'll keep asking: What above and beyond service have you had recently?