“Brilliant” is the first word that comes to mind. Especially after watching it three times.

The tune is catchy, but the brilliance isn’t the music or the video. It’s the bold move of PBS and The Fred Rogers Company to reach out to a different–and younger–audience with Mister Rogers’ message in a new and unique way. In an era where large, older nonprofit brands don’t have the courage to change in order to remain relevant in the minds of the younger generations, these two organizations lead by example.

The fact is, audiences change. Even though the mission of an organization may remain largely the same over time, if consideration isn’t given to how the organization’s message is best delivered to new audiences, the message will fail to connect. Many older nonprofit organizations are so steeped in tradition; all they want talk about–even to their new audiences–is how things are done to achieve the mission goals. They forget to educate their audience about why the mission exists in the first place.

Fred Rogers never forgot to explain the why. He knew that in order for a message to be heard and understood, it had to be delivered in a way that connected with its audience–old and new. Parents need to see the value in the message, but that same message must connect with the kids. Today’s younger parents may not connect with Fred Rogers the way we Baby Boomers do, but they know his name. Yet, their children have likely had little exposure to Mister Rogers’ message, his sneakers, or that trademark sweater.

I’m willing to bet that this changed today.

Tonight, as they begin their bedtime routine, I imagine thousands of Gen X and Gen Y parents calling their young children around the computer, playing this video, and head-bobbing along as they watch their toddlers gleefully dance to Garden of Your Mind.

Mister Rogers, who died in 2003, would surely approve.

“Do you ever imagine things? Did you ever grow anything in the garden of your mind?”

mister rogers remixed for a new generation | David Harkins

the happiness manifesto | David Harkins

No additional words are necessary.

my personal tribute to steve jobs | David Harkins

I’d like to offer you some unsolicited advice about this next stage of your life. I’m not so old as to assume that I am wise, but I’m pretty experienced in the ups and downs of what lies ahead for you.  Maybe you can learn a thing or two from my insights that will give you a few advantages as you head out into this crazy world.

Laugh. Find the humor in life. If you can’t, laugh at yourself. Laugh at your own jokes. Just laugh. Your heart will be a lot lighter and that’s something you’re really going to need as thorough out your life. Carrying a heavy heart will wear you out eventually. Trust me on this.

Get out of your own head. The more time you spend with an inward focus, the faster you’ll turn on yourself.  That’s not going to be a good thing.

You’re about to encounter a world that doesn’t really care all that much about who you are, who you know or what kind of degree you may have just earned. It’s no longer about you. It’s about what you can do for others—at work, at home, or even for the strangers you encounter—that will give your life the most meaning and purpose.  If you’ve already figured this out, you’re miles ahead of most people your age.

Get a job. Unless you’re extraordinarily lucky, you’re probably not going to get a job that has anything to do with what you’ve just spent the last four years studying in college. Take any job. You need experience. Experience is what will make you valuable to an employer. The college degree just says you might have learned how to think things through.

If you’re graduating high school and college is not in your immediate plans, learn a trade. No matter what anyone tells you, not everyone has the maturity or is cut out for the rigors of another four years of schooling. The world probably needs more plumbers, electricians, and barbers, than accountants and lawyers.  Frankly, it’s kind of hard to take care of business if there’s no power in your office or your toilets won’t flush.

Whichever path you choose, remember that the first job is just a job. It’s not always the start of a career. A career is not something you plan, really. It’s something you look back on and realize you’ve had.

Figure out your strengths. Or at least figure out your weaknesses.   Gravitate to what you do well, but still learn how to do the things you dislike or that you suck at doing.  You’ll have to do a lot of things in life that you don’t like to do, or don’t do well; knowing how to do these things, especially if you do them with a smile, will make your life so much easier.

Do what you love. You may not always make a lot of money, but you’ll be much happier.  Don’t wait until you are 50 to do this; it will no longer be the “passion of youth,” instead it will be seen as a “mid-life crisis.” The outcome is about the same either way, though if wait until later, you’ll have more responsibilities to juggle and face a lot more eye-rolling from your friends and family as you find your new way.

Oh, and if somewhere along the way you discover that your avocation and your vocation turn out to be the same thing, you’ve hit the jackpot. Grab it and don’t let go. Ever.

Don’t fret over what other people think of how you chose to live life. They’re either jealous or judgmental.  Either way, don’t let their thoughts get in the way of your happiness. Live for yourself and be happy.

Be somebody’s hero. It’s not hard, really. Always try to be helpful to others and strive to do the “right thing”—whatever that “right thing” might be in a given situation. This is all that is required of you to make a difference in the lives of others. Do it.

Show gratitude. I know you think you can do everything yourself. You can’t. You need the help of others to get through life. Remember to thank them for their help—whether you ask for that help or not.  Expressing gratitude not only shows them that you appreciate their contribution to your life; it makes you feel much better about yourself. You’ll be surprised at how much it will help your self-confidence and your ability to turn a negative outlook into a positive one.

Tell the people you love that you love them. At least daily, but work saying it more frequently. They need to hear it often, and specifically when they don’t want to hear it or think they deserve it the least.

When the actions and attitudes of those you love disappoint you, remember that your love must be unconditional.  It is especially important that you demonstrate your love in such difficult times with both words and deeds. They need to know it is their actions and attitudes that you dislike and this has no bearing whatsoever on the love you have for them as a person.

Continue to learn throughout life, but remember to teach a little, too. There will be some people who come into your life to teach you something and there will be those who come to learn something from you.  Be open to the new people who come into your life. They have come for reasons you may not yet understand.

Recharge before you break down. Introverts draw energy from being alone. Extroverts draw energy from being with others.  Obviously, either is fine as long as it gives you the energy you need and helps you to relax.  Learn what works for you and make time to do it regularly. Take care of yourself and your personal needs. Make recharging a priority.

Take care of the little things. Doing so will help prevent little annoyances from turning into huge headaches and help provide the proper environment for those little opportunities to eventually bear fruit.

Forgive other people. The word “forgive” is such a small word, yet requires so much of your energy to make actionable. Give it all the energy it requires.  Life’s too short to do otherwise. Carrying around anger and resentment is all about you and does nothing to the other person. It only makes you bitter. There’s enough bitterness in the world without your contribution.

Apologize. You’re not always going to be right. You’re going to say hurtful things in the heat of an argument.  Recognize when you’re wrong and apologize. It goes hand-in-hand with that forgiveness thing I just mentioned.

“Black and white” is an artificial concept. Everyone’s “black and white” is different.  People fabricate it in an attempt to force the world into a box that makes sense for them. Keep in mind that the world is full of color and a lot of that color is grey.  See it. Understand it. Know that you will need to accept it in your life. Just don’t live too much of your time there because you need a lot of color in life; black and white, not so much.

History is important. It helps you understand who you are today.  Yet, it only defines you and keeps you from who you want to become if you choose to let it.

Always move the ball forward. The only way to score in football or soccer is to keep the ball moving down the field toward the goal. Life’s like this, too.  Keep your eye on the goal and keep moving forward.  Anything else keeps you from achieving your goals.

Don’t have a “Plan B.” A “Plan A” is all you need. You can alter the plan as necessary, but you shouldn’t change your goal.  “Plan B” is a completely new direction. It’s a fallback position when the path to Plan A might become a little overwhelming or for some other reason unattainable.  You don’t need it.  It’s too easy for Plan B to become Plan Z and all you’ve done each time is scale-back your goals, or worse still, just quit trying to achieve them.

Quitting only makes one thing easier. That one thing is, quitting. Don’t be a quitter. If you don’t like what you’ve committed to doing or it’s not what you signed up for, stick it out anyway.  You don’t have to do it a second time, but take whatever you start to completion; however, “completion” is defined.

Your span of control is two-square-feet. Your attitude, actions and intentions are all that you can control. Everything else in your life is controlled by someone else’s attitude, action, or intention.  Exercise great control over the two-square-feet of territory in which you stand; you’re the supreme ruler and high commander of your turf. While you may be able to occupy someone else’s turf for a while, rest assured there will always be an uprising and you will be forced back to your own kingdom. Sometimes those revolutions are pretty bloody. Why risk it?

Assume the best intentions. People are inherently good. Circumstances and situations can cause people to do bad things. Sometimes it’s a lack of character, although often it’s simply that they didn’t think through their actions carefully enough.  Learn how to tell the difference and give people the benefit of the doubt. Don’t let a lifetime of good be overshadowed by one or two poor decisions for a friend, or someone you love.

Test your fears. Conquer them if you can, but definitely test them. It will give you the self-confidence that you will need in life. Fear is the only thing that will keep you from experiencing the world and achieving great things.  Remember, you can do anything you aspire to do once you push your fears aside.

Change is good. As a human being, you need to experience new people, places, and things to broaden who you are and how you think about your place and purpose in the world. Remember this: change is never bad. Change is just something different than what you’re doing now or what you want to do. Don’t let your fear of the unknown—the root of your desire not to change—prevent you from achieving your life goals. (See: “Test your fears” above).

The 12 Points of the Scout Law are a pretty good guide for living life. These twelve words pack a lot of power as a guide for living meaningful life. In fact, they pretty much sum up a lot of the advice I’ve just given you. Twelve words are probably going to be a lot easier for you to remember, though; I recommend memorizing them.

Trustworthy. Loyal. Helpful. Friendly. Courteous. Kind. Obedient. Cheerful. Thrifty. Brave. Clean. Reverent.

Believe in a higher power. Personally, I believe in God; but, not in an old man with a long white beard who lives above the clouds.  Regardless of what organized religion may tell you, who or what your higher power is, whether God, “The Universe,” life energy, or Mother Earth, probably doesn’t matter all that much.  The important thing is that you understand there’s something bigger than yourself out there and it plays some part in our daily lives.

You can see this power at work every day if you’ll keep your mind open to the possibilities. Just remember not to belittle it. I doubt this higher power cares if you get a parking space closer to the front of the grocery store.

God speaks through life’s coincidences. There will be times in your life when situations, ideas and opportunities present themselves repeatedly. All too often, they are like little whispers in our ears that you will chose to tune-out for whatever reason. If you keep tuning-out or blowing off those whispers and they keep coming back in a different form, you just might want to start listening a little more closely to what those whispers are telling you. Chances are you’re being called to the next step in your life journey.  Keep your mind open to the possibilities, tune-in to the whispers, and you’ll always find yourself right where you need to be in life.

You are not now, who you will become. Everything you experience, everything you do, and everyone you meet will touch your life and somehow shape who you are as a person.  Because you’re always experiencing, meeting and doing, you’re always learning and growing as a person. As long as you remain open to this kind of growth, whoever you think you are today is not who you will become tomorrow, the day after, next year or even thirty-years from now.

Above all else, don’t let yourself be defined by the present. Take in everything. Reflect on it carefully. Then, be open and honest enough to transform yourself into be the person you’re meant to become.

Oh yeah, and remember to laugh. It pretty much cures everything that ails you.

Good luck out there. I’m always around if you need me.

-Dave

(If you like this and want to share with others, please feel free to do so. Please remember to credit me and tag me if you do and link back to this website.)

open letter to graduating seniors | David Harkins

If you think about it, intention, action and reaction is only about 1/4 of a brand’s value. The customer controls the remaining 3/4 of the brand’s value based on their perceptions of how the company delivers, whether it be product quality, service and fit with the customer’s needs, values and expectations.

Company’s influence their brand value through interactions. Customer’s control brand value.

If you got up this morning believing your company is in control of its brand, your year is already off to a rocky start.

The good news is it’s only January 3. You still have a few days to make changes.

Will you make them?

you cannot control your brand | David Harkins

If you look closely the list you’ll see that The Philanthropy 400 is made up of a diverse group of organizations, although most are older and more established nonprofits.  Those on the list this year include a number of colleges and universities, health charities, hospitals, foundations, youth organizations, media, religious groups, wildlife and environmental groups to name a few.  Some on the list had significant increases in giving last year, others had significant decreases.  I expected that the diversity of the groups within the listing would create for some variances, but I was curious to know if any one category saw larger than average increases or decreases.

The report does not provide an analysis by category, so I added a “category type” to each organization on the list and performed some analysis of my own using data I pulled November 30, 2010[1].

Breaking the organizations into the categories below, here’s what I found using the data to compare the change in private giving in 2009 over 2008:

The greatest overall giving gains were in the Education, Health/Medical (Research/Other), Foundations/Trusts and Children, Youth & Family categories.  The greatest overall declines in giving were in the Health/Medical (Hospital), Outdoor and Environment, and Humanitarian (non food).

Within each of the categories there could also be significant variances. For example, within the Military category support for veterans organizations (DAV and PVA) showed decline, while support for active troops (USO) showed improvement. This made sense to me in the case of the Military category given our current military actions, but variations in other categories it made less sense.

I would agree that this data suggests directional trends in some categories of nonprofits, specific causes, and perhaps for some individual organizations, although I’m not convinced that giving overall giving is down as reported by The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

The data provided in this report is merely a snapshot.  Many on the list have different fiscal years and the data is updated on www.philanthropy.com as new data is provided.  In fact, my review of the November 30, 2010 data for example, suggested that overall giving was up 5% over the previous year, while the October written report from The Chronicle of Philanthropyy indicated an 11% decline as mentioned earlier. In addition, no consideration seems to have been given to specific events within the life of an individual organization that might have triggered larger than usual donations within the year, such as a milestone anniversary.

As with all research, we could manipulate the data to support whatever giving position we chose to take on the nonprofit sector as a whole.  The reality is there’s a deeper problem that’s not yet being fully addressed by our Nation’s largest nonprofit organizations: Our culture and our demographics are rapidly evolving and most of these organizations are not keeping pace with the evolution.

In fact, most have spent years cultivating the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boomers, but haven’t put much effort into reaching Generation X or Generation Y.  Of those that have put forth an effort to reach the younger generations, the majority have used the same approaches that have proven successful for the older audiences.  Unfortunately, just because it has worked, does not mean it will continue to work. These cultural and demographic changes have created a whole new set of needs, values and expectation of younger donors that are not aligned with those needs, values and expectations of the older donors.  Moreover, the speed of change is too great.

Speed and change are the two things most nonprofit organizations fail to do well.

The misalignment of these needs, values and expectations means that the message and the mission of many organizations is no longer connecting in a meaningful way with new generations of prospective donors. Without the connection, there’s no love for the organization or for its mission.

This lack of a mission connection is the underlying reason, not the economy, for the decline in giving to majority of The Philanthropy 400, and for a good number of nonprofits and educational institutions that didn’t make the list.

The question now is this: If you think your organization has a mission connection problem, what are you going to do about it?

[1] The Chronicle of Philanthropy updates their online data regularly.

Photo Credit:Connection by craig.letourneau.photography

nonprofits have a mission connection problem | David Harkins

When change begins to occur it often doesn’t register on our radar. We choose to ignore it because the impact or “noise” level in our lives is low, but change is in progress, nonetheless.  As the noise level increases, so does our level of discomfort.

We complain that change isn’t needed, though change occurs anyway. So, we plead for an exception to change, only to sulk when the exception doesn’t come. Finally, we begin to accept that we cannot stop change.

We realize that we have little control over change. But, tomorrow we’ll repeat the process with some other change in our lives as if we learned nothing about change yesterday.

What a waste of time and energy.

We cannot control change. All we can control is the speed at which we adopt change.

Change happens. Stop wasting time ignoring, complaining, pleading and sulking.

Accept the inevitable. Change. Because, it’s really the only thing we can do.

The change adoption curve | David Harkins

For those of who aren’t familiar with the service, paper.li organizes my links shared on Twitter and Facebook into newspaper-style format.  I can simply aggregate the tweets of those I follow, aggregate the tweets on a specific hashtag or aggregate the tweets from one of my lists. I can also set the frequency for “newspaper publication” at daily, weekly or monthly.

Paper.li pulls information from the tweets I send, although most of the content comes from the people on Twitter in order to round out the “news” for the day.  Currently, there are no controls to fine-tune or otherwise tailor the content. I don’t get to choose whose content goes into the paper, nor do I get to filter it in anyway aside from the hashtag or list options I mentioned earlier.

The service uses an algorithm to identify and highlight important or newsworthy content; however, I’m clueless as to how it chooses content and the folks at paper.li are mum on the topic. It’s pretty uncanny in its ability to identify the “news” I would find of interest, so I suspect the algorithm includes some combination of the content in the tweets I share and the content I personally tweet, along with the topic generally tweeted by those I follow.

I’ve created several “papers” with paper.li and I visit each of my papers every morning and scan the tweets from the last 24-hours, much like I would scan the articles in my morning newspaper. Often I find information of interest that I might have missed the day before, so I find it useful to keep on top the news of interest to me. There are also a couple of my papers that I share via a daily tweet to my list.

The promotions of my daily papers are what raise the shackles of some on Twitter.  Apparently, they don’t see the value in my sharing of “my news” and rarely, if ever, look at my paper.  I suppose ignoring a paper built on my interests is a valid argument for most, especially since they can create their own paper at paper.li that’s tailored to their interests.  Those who follow me on Twitter likely have similar interests to me, so it’s a nice way for me to share with them the content they may also have missed—which may be different from their paper considering they’re likely to follow somewhat different people than I follow.

I must confess that I only occasionally read the newspapers of others. The papers that I do read are those that have a very narrow focus. Such papers are built from lists that someone has taken the time and made the effort compile and are made up of consistently interesting people who regularly share or talk about information that’s relevant to me. If you’ve ever tried to build a Twitter list like this you’ll understand why it’s a lot less trouble to read someone else’s paper if your interests are similar.

I’ve been fine-tuning the lists I use for my promoted papers, but the absence of a little more granularity of content control makes my papers less useful than they could be for my followers.  I’m thankful for the 100 or so new followers I’ve gained since promoting my papers, though. Most have similar interests and many have engaged me in great conversations, both online and offline.

Still, there are a few small things that paper.li could do to give me a little more control and better target my content, which would make my papers more useful to me and possibly for others. For example, paper.li might offer features to:

• Filter content by keywords and/or hashtags. I’ve found the best way to drive relevant content is by using a list. But, not everything a person on a list tweets is relevant to the topic of the paper. I don’t believe the algorithm considers the paper name, so my “Trademark Licensing” paper might also include stuff that doesn’t have anything to do with trademark licensing.  If I could filter content so that tweets were excluded if they didn’t have specific key words and/or hashtags, the paper would be more relevant and focused by topic.

• Suspend publication if there’s no relevant information in the stream based on filters. On weekends, for example, one of my papers contains little, if any information relevant to the topic of the paper—it’s driven by a list not a hashtag.  On one recent weekend day the only content within this paper was one my tweets, which included a sole picture of  the Charlie Brown Christmas tree I have in my office.

• Provide Keyword filtering would be better than hashtags. As much value as hashtags can have in selecting content, there are no hashtag standards.  People don’t always use the same hashtags for content that could be relevant to the paper.  Paper.li might also allow me to change the name of a hashtag-driven paper would be a bonus. A paper called, “#trademarklicensing Daily” isn’t going gain much of following, especially if it misses relevant information that is tagged with #trademark or #licensing, but not #trademarklicensing.

• Add a disclaimer or  establish a standard disclaimer for everyone. There are still a number of people who don’t understand the product and are surprised to be mentioned from time to time. They think it’s something I’m consciously doing and it takes a bit of explaining as to how paper.li works—including how to stop the mentions. Until I can gain better control of the content, I’d like to add a disclaimer at the top of the paper explaining that I have little control over the paper’s content. Alternatively, paper.li could add this disclaimer for every paper for every user.

Yes, I like paper.li. Or at least I like what it has the potential to become with just a few minor additions.

What about you? What would make paper.li a good fit for you?

How I would improve paper.li | David Harkins

making your mission matter again | David Harkins

Yes, I am coming out.

In a manner of speaking.

I am straight person coming out in support of the freedom of  lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals to love whomever they may chose, and to live life without discrimination and persecution of any kind.

I was raised to be tolerant and have endeavored to be so throughout my life, although I have admittedly been uncomfortable at times when around my LBGT friends.  I don’t know why and would not dream of trying to explain such feelings when there’s no rational basis for their existence.  I will tell you though, that I’ve finally outgrown the discomfort.

We live in a different world than the one in which I grew up.  Our culture is more open and accepting now.  Today’s young adults learned as children–our children–that “everyone gets a trophy just for showing up.” While some may complain about their lack of ambition as a result of the way they were raised, I believe today’s young adults are perhaps the most tolerant generation in history, and their acceptance of everyone’s differences is beginning to influence their parents and grandparents.

Even so, many of my friends still cannot step forward and express their love for someone of the same gender, let alone marry this person in most states. While it appears we have made some progress, there remain far too many people in America who care more about what consenting adults do behind closed-doors than about the contribution these same adults make to our society.

As for me, I am not interested in the bedroom behavior of anyone I know–regardless of their sexual preferences.  It just doesn’t matter to me.  How about you? Would you seriously want someone to know the intimate details of your closed-door encounters?  The exhibitionists aside; I wouldn’t think so. I think you’d rather be judged on your contribution to our world and not on who you choose to love or your sexual desires.

If you are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, know there are people–even those you may not know–who love you and care about you as a human being regardless of whether you’re  ”in or out.”  It makes no difference to us if you choose to step out today, or any day.  If you do decide that today is, “the day,” I applaud you.  I do hope, though, that you will consider your current circumstances.  As you already know, there are still too many homophobic people and institutions whose intolerance will work against you once you express yourself.  Please remember that your own safety is more important than taking a stand today.

For everyone else; grow up, already.

We’re all human. Regardless of our race, ethnicity, or sexual preference, we’re more alike than we are different.  We all deserve to love and to be loved.

It seems to me that life, and love, are hard enough without all the hatred. Take a close look at your own life; I’m sure you will agree.

Then, maybe you, too, will decide its time to come out.

Isn’t it about time we all came out? | David Harkins