We're here in Omaha, Nebraska for the 2008 AIGA Leadership Retreat. Six board members flew to the "Gateway to the West" for three days to connect with and be inspired by other chapters across the country.
So far it has been very eye-opening. The most motivating or interesting idea we're heard from our sessions so far is:
Michael Lejeune (President): A great way to serve community is to hold a design competition for social good-present a problem to the LA community that can be solved with design like homelessness, traffic or pollution.
Ann Enkoji (Vice President): Another chapter developed a business plan for their year's event offerings in the form of a visual barometer that outlays categories of importance to their membership like socials, business matters, and more. They overlaid their year's events over the barometer to make sure they fulfill their chapter's full spectrum of needs.
Jill Finely (VP Programming): It's important to reach out to new members. We could hold a quarterly new member welcoming gathering to greet the new and renewing members.
Matthew Silverman (VP Membership): You can pay for your membership in installments.
Rachel Elnar (VP Communications): Inviting the civic leaders to share with us what's needed in LA may help us direct our efforts to help serve the community better.
Roger Dela Rosa (Creative Talent Director): A partnership with a local business school to offer small business conference would be helpful to LA creative leaders to discover opportunities within our own business environment.
Michael Lejeune (President)
Omaha blog
Omaha, Nebraska is flat, it’s true. But there was nothing flat about the level of enthusiasm the L.A. delegation touched down with at AIGA’s leadership retreat. Our visit to this friendly green flyover state was a reminder that AIGA truly is a national organization that thinks, and acts, locally. To a person, every one representing the 59 chapters represented was brimming with enthusiasm, hoping to share their own success stories and learn about those of others.
AIGA president Sean Adams and executive director Ric Grefé started us off with annual reports on the organization. I once again was inspired by the deep thinking and sophisticated advocacy that AIGA is executing on behalf of members across the country. Ric updated us on Design for Democracy, the program to reform election design and provide guidelines for improving ballots. And AIGA’s Get Out the Vote program is also muscular and timely, employing design to urge increased turnout across the country in this important election year. (He reminded the left-leading crowd that AIGA is a non-partisan group, taking meetings with both Democratic and Republican officials.)
It’s awesome when 300 or so designers and design advocates put their heads together in small groups to tackle the questions of “What is AIGA” and “Why should I join?” Our breakout sessions produced some on-point thinking that our chapter here in LA hopes to translate effectively into a solid recruiting package that will increase our membership over the next few years and build on AIGA’s “big tent” platform.
We also heard an update on AIGA China, a progressive effort to teach that country’s large population of designers, design students and design educators about the value of an ethical design practice. Working at Metro, I’m probably most excited about AIGA’s In-House initiative, led by Johnson & Johnson’s Andy Epstein. The focus over the next year will be on increasing the efforts to add in-house studio’s to our membership and at the same time crafting programs that recognize the great work of in-house designers and making a strong case for design to the business community. I see this as a major area of growth for AIGA, not just in terms of membership, but also in advocacy, so that we will all have sharper tools when we seek to secure “a place at the table” for design.
The final day of the retreat brought an incredibly effective and lively workshop with David Schachter of NYU’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. We spent the morning in a unique visioning exercise that inspired me to dream freely about where AIGA Los Angeles will be in five years. During the afternoon session, we collectively defined our individual selves using the Meyers/Briggs personality assessment, and delved deep into what these self-selections can mean to us as a board, and as we work in each of our separate careers as design evangelists. I won’t give away the details, because we hope to bring David to LA to work with our members in a future program. Suffice it to say that the session was as hilarious as it was eye-opening, and I’m certain that every single member will benefit from his counsel, both professionally and personally.
We also had a great lunch meeting with board members from Phoenix, San Diego, Orange County and San Francisco, putting our heads together to find ways to share programs and promote Left Coast design. But perhaps the most beneficial part of our time in the Cornhusker state was the daily chance for Ann, Rachel, Jill, Roger, Matthew and I to carve out quality time to dream together. We’ve got pages and pages of notes on what other chapter’s are doing to benefit their members, and we’re bubbling over with energy. We can’t wait to share our ideas with the rest of the board, and with you, our members. Four days and a couple thousand miles later, I’m filled with a renewed sense of how much potential LA holds as a national presence in design, and how many ways we can bring members old and new together to commune, learn and celebrate your work.
I’m looking forward to a couple of exciting years for AIGA Los Angeles. I hope you’ll join us on the journey.
Impressions of a Retreat
As I write this I am some 36-odd-thousand feet above the bread basket of America. It is daytime and the weather is perfect for peering out the reinforced window window and appreciating the fantastic abstract patters in the fields. This is fly-over country, as one of the members of the Nebraska AIGA chapter so astutely phrased it. Rather than the patterns being the quilt of rectangles one might imagine in this part of agricultural America, the landscape is punctuated with circles also, making a sort of giant graphic representation of morse code in greens and golds. It really is a very modern pattern, fitting with the jazz I’m listening to quite well, even if while over this country I feel like I should be listening to Buck Owens or Hank Williams or something of the like.
The view down is much different now, as compared to the flight out, when the country was blanketed by threatening, turbulence-inducing skies that would later cause the even more threatening words “Tornado Watch” to run across the bottom of my Hotel room television.
We took off from LAX, me sitting in the vicinity of a woman who felt the compulsion to smell like an old-lady brothel, making an already less-than-comfortable flight even more troublesome. Thankfully she got off the plane in the touch-down stop at Phoenix, Arizona, helping me to concentrate on the article in Fast Company talking about the heady subject of China exploiting Africa for their resource needs on the continuing leg of the flight, this time with the terminus being in Omaha.
Generally speaking, the flight to Omaha wasn’t bad, bearing in mind the major bout of turbulence about an hour out from Omaha. The flight wasn’t full, so I got the seat next to me free to put the items in my man-purse for my amusement and some precious extra space to be able to contort myself into.
We arrived in the few remaining minutes of the 28th of May. I was in the thick of that exhaustion, dessication, and exhilaration that goes with arriving at a destination after more canned air than should really be breathed. Even when checked into my hotel room, after the weathering of dirty looks for excitedly saying the “O what a city” slogan as posted at the Omaha tourist bureau kiosk, and the meeting of fellow AIGAers on the shuttle ride to the hotel, I couldn’t sleep until well into the night and after watching some silly parts of episodes of CSI: Miami.
Speaking of which, I think it is nap-time.
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It has been a bit more than 24 hours since I’ve been back in my respective time-zone, and have since been sucked into not only creating a facebook profile, but now keeping it up in the background to see who has added me. So far I have had 37 friends accept and/or add me in the 4 hours since I signed up. I need to complete writing my recollections before the little birdie flies the coop and those recollections get fuzzier than they already are from the alcohol and sleep-deprivation that a leadership retreat is known for.
I maintain that it shouldn’t be called a Retreat, but instead, should be called an Advance, since there is nothing like Retreating the whole time you are there.
So, speaking of sleep-deprivation, after marveling at the cheese of CSI, I made a concerted effort to get some shut-eye by turning off the idiot box. It turned out to be ineffective at best, and my eyes opened like I had just taken a too long to really be a power nap, nap. I somehow performed my morning neatness and straggled off downstairs to eat some breakfast, but my brain was about as scrambled as my omelette.
Despite having a case of mushy brain, I was able to function well enough to get registered, have my mug shot taken, and sign up for a lunch for the following day before taking a so-so nap to then get downstairs to meet with Ann and Roger to go get something to eat for lunch, finding a nice little cafe where I had a pretty decent spinach and feta pie and a much-needed glass of iced tea. Then back to the hotel for the beginning of the seminar proper.
The opening salvo of the seminar was fired by the MCs kickin’ it live and givin’ it up for Ric Greffé, who in turn, gave it up for El Presidente Sean Adams. They welcomed us all and spoke about what AIGA is and showed a video that will be used as an informational tool once the music is cleared. As a side note, I really hope they actually get all the tunes in the piece approved, because they are using one of my favorite New Order songs, Age of Consent in it, and I like the idea of Hooky’s bassline representing an organization I am a part of.
The first break-out session, where we had to leave the relative comfort zones of the other people in our chapter, in favor of the randomly assigned table groups, to work out a spiel to use when confronted with a person who may not know about what the AIGA is or someone who could use a bit more information to make a more informed decision about joining up and shelling out the money to be a member. “The Professional Organization for Design.” I took the words from the descriptor of the gang, and broke it down into the component parts as a tool for breaking down and organizing the thoughts, so to build a tool kit that we could all take with us so we could use it and tailor the information to the audience we are addressing. This worked to a degree, and despite my best efforts at channeling the energy of the group, we didn’t feel like our group was in a place to present our thoughts to the group as a whole, but I definitely feel like I will have a better rap about the organization, partially because of this exercise, but mainly from the whole event.
Jump to the Nomad Lounge, where we had our opening lounge and ice-breaker. The ice was crushed by the gang of people who dressed in themed outfits, ranging from “Da Bullss” Chi-towners, to the uber-creepy Michael Jackson(ville) Floridians. We did getting to know you exercises, like speed-dating, only not and drank and were merry, particularly because the drink tickets covered some very nice selections of alcohol. This was followed by what was to become the obligatory after party bar, then followed by some hanging out at a hotel room, in this case the ladies from Bean-town were the hostesses with the mostestess for a small group of people. This was where we realized that there was the Tornado watch covering almost all of Nebraska and Iowa. Thankfully no tornados got close to where we were, and I managed to get some great pictures of the incredible displays of lightening after I got back to my room, where sleep didn’t find me well that night.
Needless to say, I skipped breakfast the next morning. The next session started bright and early and started with more commentary from Ric, and was followed by a session where we talked about how to get people more involved. A bunch of great ideas were bandied about, all of which were copied into my notebook for use at later events. Let’s just say that stickers are involved, so don’t wear any really delicate clothing to the next event.
The breakout session after the general group was an informative seminar on how to work mentorship programs and other types of charity into things your chapter does. I’m looking forward towards building this into part of the upcoming board year. I think we will benefit as a group if we contribute more to our lovely Los Angeles.
Lunch. I went out to a wine bar with a group to talk about Membership ideas, where I not only ate cheese and drank wine but also learned the very important fact, that you can pay for your AIGA membership in installments! Quarterly. I think this will definitely help as a discussion point with people who have a difficult time swallowing the fees to be a member. Options are always useful when discussing membership.
I think after lunch it was nap-time during the second break-out session, and then I headed down for the all-together-now General Session where a member of AIGA, Nebraska Chapter discussed the design community in the area and how “fly-over country” has some great creative things going for it, which was rather eye-opening and well said, followed by yet more Q&A.
Then the LA gang headed off for a dinner meeting to discuss what we had learned over the course of the day over a plate of deep-fried pickles and assorted other goodies out on the patio of the Old Market section of Omaha. It was a very pleasant dinner and the food was quite good.
We had a reception to go to, and I have to say that I managed to drag the whole bus into being late, but with that embarrassing factoid entered into the record, it seemed that no one was really too worried about it and had a good time in the echoey but beautiful space in the Joslyn Art Museum with a band cranking out some pretty decent jazz. I had a lovely stroll through the galleries and was rather impressed with the collection and had a great conversation with a board member from Minnesota. I have to say that it was very pleasant taking a break from super-extrovert Matthew and taking some quiet time to have an in-depth conversation with someone. This was followed by a trip to close down a dive bar that had cheap beer and a foosball table that got quite a workout from an ever-rotating group of designers, which was, in turn, followed by a party in a room, which was shut down, so that the crowd migrated to another room and continued partying. I turned in some time around 3, I think.
No breakfast Saturday morning either. I accidentally over-slept and arrived to the General Session late but still had a productive conversation about leadership and what it means to me and my tenure as a board member. I got to pick out an image from many stuck to the walls to use as a metaphor for leadership, so I chose a picture of scuba divers swimming around a giant Manatee. I didn’t explain the metaphor very well beyond that the liquid is the AIGA because that is the medium in which events happen, but I think the real reason I picked that image, I think, was because the blue was pleasant and calm to look at, which I rather needed that morning.
During break I wolfed down some honeydew and a pastry and gabbed to a really great woman from Seattle about things, then went back into the group and listened to some success stories, and then were released for lunch, which was taken by a large group of southwest state boardies at a pub where I had a pretty tasty turkey reuben, and watched the lady from Las Vegas eat a hot dog that wasn’t a hot dog but a carrot. I had a taste, it was actually pretty good. Not a hot dog, mind you, but tasty.
Then came the all-important closing session where we were all talking about our Meyers-Briggs scores. Surprise, I’m an extrovert. It was a really fun session, actually, and it provided a whole new vocabulary to make fun of each other with. “Oh. You’re being a _____ right now aren’t you?” “That is totally a Feeling way of looking at that” and, of course the “Isn’t that interesting” that was the tool to be sarcastic about not understanding why someone would do something that “we” wouldn’t. Then the seminar was drawn to a close with some tears and some hugs and a lot of clapping.
Which, naturally, leads us to the Closing Party, since we obviously hadn’t partied enough. This was held at the zoo and thrown by the Portland Chapter with great success. There were tasty things to eat, like artisanal cheeses and jackfruit seasoned to take on the texture and taste of jerk chicken, which in my opinion was better than the actual chicken a few plates over (though you can’t ever go wrong with wasabi mayo). I continued my earlier conversation with the woman from Seattle (that sounds like the beginning of a foul limerick, doesn’t it?) and had a very nice conversation with Michael and Ann, which was followed by Michael participating in a human pyramid, which had become a bit of a theme by this point in the retreat, as encouraged by a crazy lady from Minnesota.
And since one party a night isn’t enough at AIGA retreats, a huge collection of us went to a dance club, filled it and danced on pretty much any available horizontal surface that wasn’t being taken up by people trying to order a drink. I know I had a blast at this function, dancing on sub-woofers and doing my best to rehydrate at nights-end before moving on to the next party after the bar closed. Apparently the people who ran the bar commented that that was the best night that bar ever had, for both population and enthusiasm. Lots of enthusiastic people.
That enthusiasm definitely spilled into the after-after-party that was still going strong when I bailed somewhere before three.
Then the trip home, which was decidedly less exciting than pretty much any previous part of the trip, which, really was a perfect ending to a very successful retreat for me. I definitely feel that I understand the AIGA better now, and can therefore do my job as Membership co-VP better, and look forward to doing that better job with more fun and more enthusiasm than I have up until this point.