Just try it

I have a habit that I actually really like, even if it gets me into trouble sometimes. It's the habit of saying yes before a detailed plan has been formed. The energy of a good idea (or what I think is a good idea) plus the thrill of anticipation is sometimes more than I can resist. I love ideas and I really love anticipation. One of my favorite days of the year is day before the March Madness tournament starts. Every pick of yours is right, and it's all lying ahead waiting to happen. Just thinking about it now makes me feel energized and happy.

All of this makes working at a small organization pretty fun. There aren't a lot of obstacles between an idea and implementation. No legal department, no human resources department, no unnecessary forms, and a minimal amount of policies. Okay, yes, sometimes these things are a good thing and sometimes my "good" idea isn't so "good." But overall, a culture and organizational structure that allows for ideas to flow and implementation to happen is a culture and organization for me.

Here are some things we've tried:

Stewardship Palooza. I still can't say those words without smiling. I asked 9 organizations/projects to bring interactive exhibits to the Brower Center and encouraged them to think creatively. For an hour 80 people talked, engaged, learned, made connections and got outside of the usual Powerpoint lecture format of an event. I loved it. A big lesson for me at that Gathering was the importance of how you arrange the chairs in the room. After an hour of free play, we asked people to sit down for a facilitated conversation about what was in the room and what it means in the big picture of land stewardship. There were 80 chairs set in rows all facing forward. The energy level plummeted. Sitting like that kills enthusiasm and dialogue. Or at least it did that day.

Meetups. One of my favorite things about the Open Space Conference is that it isn't a normal conference. We don't see the attendees as empty vessels that we need to fill up with information. We don't cram technical information down their throats. Instead, it's big picture and inspirational. And for many years it was a large group of attendees sitting in rows facing forward listening to one speaker after the other talking, talking, talking. Inspirational talking, yes, but still talking at/to the audience. In May 2014 we tried something new. The speakers only had 15-20 minutes each which meant less rambling. After every three speakers, there was a break. And in the afternoon we dedicated 60 minutes to meetups. Attendees could join smaller groups to discuss a particular topic. We didn't structure them very much and we let each moderator take the lead on what each group should discuss. The feedback was mixed and there will be things we'll do differently next year. But I saw interaction and conversations and that was the goal.

Thanking our members online. The fancy word for it is social proofing, but I like to think of it as making our gratitude very publicly known. Every fall for the past 4 years we've thanked our members using some online tool. First was simple pictures on Flickr. Then it was Fotobabble. Last year we had maps that we posted on Flickr and Instagram. This year we're running #OSCQuizFridays on Twitter. With the help of a talented intern, we're profiling 5-6 members each Fridays with quiz questions to our 1,660 followers. We're tracking the analytics and we're learning a lot about how to do this as we go. It's a lot of fun.