Correspondence

John Pickering - 18 Aug., 1998 - Improving organizational efficiency

Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1998 19:10:41 -0400
To: "Kevin Skeeters" <kwskee0@hotmail.com>
From: pick@pick.uga.edu (John Pickering)
Subject: DLIA -- Improving organizational efficiency
Cc: bogartg01@ten-nash.ten.k12.tn.us, QBoyd@aol.com, wfharris@utk.edu,
        Johnson.2@osu.edu, tkiernan@npca.org, mlane@ukans.edu,
        lowe@opie.bgsu.edu, terry@smokiesnha.org,
        grsm_friends_of_grsm_np@nps.gov, jmorse@clemson.edu, pick@pick.uga.edu,
        sriecher@utk.edu, msharkey@southey.ca.uky.edu, lockard@pick.uga.edu,
        pswhite@unc.edu, mjwillia@tricon.net, Joe_Abrell@nps.gov,
        Karen_Ballentine@nps.gov, coyle@wpoff.wcu.edu, Phil_Francis@nps.gov,
        keith_langdon@nps.gov, chuck_parker@nbs.gov,
        GRSM_Superintendent@nps.gov, ruppere@clemson.edu,
        becky_nichols@nps.gov, Dana_Soehn@nps.gov, gladys_cotter@usgs.gov,
        John_Mosseso@usgs.gov, whallwac@sas.upenn.edu, djanzen@sas.upenn.edu,
        bmclucas@bios.biosci.uga.edu, mivie@montana.edu,
        colwell@uconnvm.uconn.edu, young.steve@epamail.epa.gov,
        albert.meier@wku.edu, dl@www.discoverlife.org

Area de Conservacion de Guanacaste
Costa Rica

16 August, 1998

Kevin Skeeters
Acting Executive Director
Discover Life in America

Kevin,

Thanks for your criticism and suggestions below.  Don't worry about
apologizing to me about any criticism.  I've a very thick skin and
appreciate criticism, especially in the form of useful suggestions, as they
give me additional insight and help me to improve what I can do.  In short,
you're in bounds and scoring points.  Well done.

Some thoughts.  We're going into the next higher gear and are under
pressure to produce now.  We must disseminate the ATBI brochures, develop a
science plan, and plan the December meeting venue & agenda, for example.
While we all struggle with these and other important tasks, we must also
develop our organization's capacity to do more and do it efficiently.  The
Board members, ATBI teams, GSMNP folks, teachers, and you and I are just
starting to work together as an integrated team.  Much of our effort should
be focused on building our organization's structure and its capacity to
produce, rather than on immediate production per se.  It may seem like we
should put out all our fires immediately, but some are not as urgent or as
important as building our organization's structure, capacity, lines of
communication, clear delegation of responsibility, and trust.  In short, I
hope that we can all take the heat from criticism as we put an efficent and
dedicated organization together, plan, produce, and eventually reach our
collective goals.

From my view and I presume yours, our most critical needs are (1)
organizational decisions of who is to do what and (2) better communication
of information.  Much of the justified criticism that we are receiving is
because people are not communicating with all the correct individuals,
because they do not have all the information that they need to function
well, or because we have yet to clearly decide and delegate what needs to
be done.  In short, we must communicate, share decision making, and involve
more folks in getting the job done.

Several obvious problems include
(1) your frustration at getting postal addresses to mail out the brochures,
(2) some taxonomists feeling that they are being left out of decision
making and planning,
(3) the concern by Frank Harris and others about the lack of scientific
direction and a detailed written action plan,
(4) our lack of minutes and reports from several meetings,
(5) the slights to Eric Hoberg and others who have not yet received the
full thanks and attention that they deserve,
(6) the flood of my emails that remain seemingly rudely unanswered,
(7) the need to get databasing funded and back on track.
The consequences of these problems are annoyance, frustration, criticism,
inefficiency, etc.  For example, Frank's suggestion that we check out NBII
and ITIS is a great one.  Unfortunately, our communication is so poor that
Frank is unaware that we endorsed ITIS at our April database meeting.
Oops.  One more thing to fix.  Sorry Frank.  Sorry folks.

On the positive side, we already have a very dedicated, enthusiastic,
creative team that is capable of solving these problems and moving on to
plan and accomplish the ATBI and our broader mission.  On a very limited
budget, we are accomplishing things through the sweat equity and generosity
of those who believe in our scientific and educational vision.  The role of
our leaders is to better coordinate this energy.

Our Web site and associated database can serve as the focal point for
collecting and disseminating the information that we need to better
coordinate our activities.  In addition to giving everyone the ability to
input and search our participant database, this site should disseminate our
meetings' minutes and reports, action plans, organizational structure,
mission statements, team memberships, etc.  Ultimately, we will set it up
so that participants can contribute to the many pages that we will build
concerning the flora and fauna of the Smokies, information produced by the
ATBI, and classroom lesson plans.

I encourage everyone to email a copy of organizational correspondence such
as this to dl@www.discoverlife.org so that Bryan McLucas can put it on the
Web site (linked to Who's Involved and then to Correspondence).  Thus, our
actions and decision making process will be more visible to all.  Such open
access should help democratize our planning process and encourage more
individuals to become involved with it.

Yes.  We should do any or all of your suggestions, except (4).  I don't
want to replace you or your function with someone at Georgia.  Your
position needs to be where the action is -- near the Park, Friends, NHA,
and local communities where we draw our greatest strength and will do much
of the work.  When I return from Costa Rica on 22 August, I will work with
Bryan and you to make our database access meet your needs.  In the mean
time please further consider and prioritize your office's anticipated
future database needs.  We should work toward the goal of you having access
to help manage the Web site and database from the Friend's office in
Sevierville.  Dana Soehn and you should plan to come to UGA for some Web
and database training.  She too needs the develop the same capacity in the
Park as you will use in Sevierville.

Finally, some thoughts that we should disseminate to others:

(1) We need to assure people that we are aware of the problems that I've
stated above and will work toward solving them.  We seek their help in
identifying others.  Everyone should be encouraged to communicate their
concerns to me and to you of how we can improve what we are doing.

(2)  Everyone must realize that currently we have a limited capacity to
solve problems and move forward.  We should encourage people to start
participating more actively and to help plan, add to the Web site, fund
raise, and contribute in other ways.  It is one thing to criticize things
that are wrong or that are not getting done.  It is another to recommend
practical, cost-effective solutions that we may wish to consider.  And, it
is even a larger contribution to get involved and become an active
participant in getting things fixed.  Based on my recent flood of emails,
I'm very encouraged that this process is starting in earnest and that many
people are willing to give a considerable amount of their time to the ATBI
and our educational goals.

We need to urge everyone to take the initiative and start organizing and
contibuting to the organization's development and productivity.  For
example, we need to urge our existing team coordinators to contribute the
names of their team members, develop draft mission statements for their
teams, and recommend courses of actions that their team and our Board can
consider, develop, and integrate with those of other teams.  Also, everyone
should be made aware that we have 20,000 ATBI brochures and need help
distributing them.

I very much believe in a grass-roots, community approach to getting the
ATBI accomplished and our educational goals reached.  Everyone should
understand that our organization's "brain" is now in place and as an
organization we're now ready to start considering their recommendations of
what to do and how to do it..  As these recommendations materialize, we
should put them on the Web for everyone to take into consideration.

(3) Below you considered how you can technically manage our personnel
database.  My intension is that participants manage their own data entery.
We cannot identify the expertise that we need for the ATBI if we don't have
such information on potential participants.  We cannot communicate with
participants and include them in the planning process if we lack their
email address, postal address, phone numbers, etc.  Please, starting with
our Board members, urge everyone who hasn't already done so to go to
www.discoverlife.org, link to Get Involved, and enter their information.
Please also encourage our coordinators to get their team members to do the
same.

(4) Finally, everyone should stop sending email attachments.  They often do
not work, are frustrating, and hinder communication.  As a policy, I feel
that we should all communicate with email's that only include regular ASCII
text.  If you have text in a word processor file that you wish to include
in a message, take the time to copy the text out of your word processor and
paste it into the email as regular text.  Also, don't send information as
both text and as an attachment.  This duplication doubles transmission time
and is inconsiderate to those with slow communication equipment.   For
example, the 92 street addresses you sent me as an attachment were
scrambled.  Please resend them to dl@www.discoverlife.org in text format.

I hope that this letter helps draw our organization together and start
building the trust that we need to succeed.  Everyone should circulate it
as widely as they see fit.  In this regard, please send Mike Sharkey an
updated list of the email addresses of the taxonomy coordinators so that he
can forward it to them.  Also, please forward it directly to Eric Hoberg as
I do not have access to his email address from where I am in Costa Rica.

Thanks again for your help and input.

Cheers,
Pick

__________________________________________________________________
John Pickering
Institute of Ecology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602-2602
Office: 706-542-1115    FAX: 706-542-3344   Messages: 706-542-3379
Laboratory:  706-542-1388                       Home: 706-353-7076
e-mail: pick@pick.uga.edu       Web site: http://dial.pick.uga.edu
__________________________________________________________________

>From: "Kevin Skeeters" <kwskee0@hotmail.com>
>To: pick@pick.uga.edu
>Subject: mailing and database
>Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1998 14:49:31 PDT
>
>Pick,
>I have some concerns about how this particular mailing was handled.
>Now, I will get this mailing out as we have planned.  But for future
>purposes, I or whoever is serving in my capacity needs to be able to
>obtain such data more efficiently.  I have obtianed 92 street addresses
>via email over two week period since I started requesting the addresses
>from Bryan.  I know you and he are busy, and you should not have to
>shoot everyone in the organization data whenever they need it.  I think,
>this falls under my job description.  I know enough about computers to
>maintain and dessiminate the data for the people involved in DLIA or to
>be taught to  handle the database.  I know you have reasons for keeping
>it at Georgia and that is fine.  But that does not change the fact that
>I need some kind of direct access from here.  To that point, I have some
>questions/possible solutions to offer:
>
>1) Could I access it through the web page?
>2) Could someone download the data into a file on a periodic basis to
>update the data used by the person in my position?
>3)Is there any way, I could connect to your system from here and get all
>current data or certain pieces?
>4) hire someone at uga to primarily handle the database and its
>utilization (possibly replacing me)?
>
>I'll do whatever it takes to make it easier on everyone.  To me it comes
>down to two points.  First, it is like having a filing cabinet with
>vital information, but I can't open it.  Second, do we want the kind of
>organization that takes 2 to 3 weeks to get a small mailing out.  I
>don't think so.
>
>I apologize in advance if I have stepped out of bounds, and I would like
>to stay on in some capacity while continuing my studies.  But my concern
>here is for this organization and its ability to carry out its worth
>while purpose.  Let me know what you think?
>
>Thank you,
>
>Kevin
>
>My updated file is attached, and I sent a copy to Brian and asked how he
>would prefer we get it on the web page.  And As far as the mailing goes.
>The packages are ready to go, all I need is a signature on the cover
>letter from Mary when she returns from vacation.

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