A short, strange trip

So this is it for SPJihad/SPJackass. I accomplished a lot, if you consider alienating hard-working staffers and irking a hard-working president as accomplishments.

Of course, my goal wasn't to squander my ever-so-slight good will in SPJ. I thought I stuck to the issues, and I don't believe I made any personal attacks. Still, if I hurt anyone's feelings, I'm sorry. Certainly not my intention.

I just wanted to start a discussion about how we discuss things — which I only decided to do after nothing else got that going. So here's how it went...

• Since this was an inside-SPJ blog, I didn't expect much readership. But according to Google Analytics, 152 unique visitors clicked here a total of 680 times. That's way more than I expected.

• My personal highlight was offending a wonderful SPJer. Alabama Pro's Jenn Rowell decided to run for Region 3 director after reading some of these posts. I met Rowell this weekend, and I'm impressed. Region 3 is where I live, and Darcie Lunsford was a great RD. When Lunsford ran for treasurer and no one wanted to replace her, I declared. But when Jenn stepped up, she instantly had the votes to land the gig — which probably says as much about her viability as my liability. If this stupid blog did nothing else than recruit a killer RD, then it was worth all the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments.

• Whether by coincidence or influence, President Dave Aeikens launched a social networking group for board members shortly after I started this blog. It's still a work in progress, and Rowell has some good ideas for improving upon it. Hope that happens.

• If nothing else, this blog was a conversation-starter among SPJers I don't usually chat with. Some objected to a specific post or to the entire concept. Some supported my mission but abhorred this "blunt instrument" (a droll and perhaps apt description from a longtime SPJer). A handful told me simply, "Go for it." And a few insisted that this is the way SPJ has always operated — even if they don't like it anymore than I do.

That last argument seems the lamest. This is a volunteer organization, and except for the staff, it costs us money to be an SPJer. So why work tirelessly to be vaguely dissatisfied?

In the past few weeks, I've gotten a tiny-pink-spoon-at-
Baskin-Robbins taste of what good communication can deliver. After almost two years of failed and stalled efforts, the board tweaked the annual reporting procedure and changed the way chapters are ranked — with promises of more improvements to come.

The debate at last Thursday's board meeting was polite and productive, and the vote was quick and unanimous. Why? Because of RD Jeremy Steele.

Steele crafted his proposal with Lunsford and then consulted with other board members and concerned SPJers. Two weeks before the convention, he emailed his proposal and even included a long dissension from a couple of chapter leaders. Steele also raised the issues on the aforementioned board social networking site.

One week before the convention, Steele led a conference call of his fellow RDs. I dialed in and listened as objections were raise and noted and changes were proposed and supported. On the morning of the convention, one hour before the board meeting began, the regional directors met and hashed out a compromise.

Now look at the other way of doing business: The Executive Committee meets, decides something amongst themselves, and tells the rest of the board and SPJ how it's gonna be. That may seem like it saves time, and it does — on the front end. But when the inevitable backlash comes, then the EC members invest many more hours replying to angry emails and phone calls.

Thus endeth my twisted little blog. See you in the funny papers.

MONDAY: Nothing. This is it.

Committee pity

Because I'm an SPJ geek, I stop by as many convention meetings as I can. That includes the committees. I missed the Friday morning meetings because I was presenting a session. But that afternoon and this morning, I visited nine of them. Here's what I learned...

• Most committee members in attendance were female. The Freelance Committee was entirely older women, while the Generation J Committee was entirely younger women. Which was fine, because they're all dedicated SPJers. But where are the guys? This is the second year in a row that the president and past president are middle-aged white dudes who have committees dominated by women. I can't wait for Hagit Limor to assume her presidency, because I'm curious if that'll alter SPJ's leadership culture.

• The Public Outreach Committee is supposed to market SPJ but has no budget to do so. I've attended the POC's annual convention meeting twice now, and if any committee needs a few bucks to accomplish its mission, it's this one. Other committees can leverage SPJ staff and volunteers to accomplish their goals, but by definition, the POC is supposed go beyond that. And you can't do that effectively with guerrilla marketing alone.

• When I walked into the Diversity Committee meeting, incoming president Kevin Smith was explaining why some of the committee's programming ideas were rejected. I'm not sure the details here, but the first words I heard were from one member who said she was irked because no one told her why those ideas were rejected — a common refrain I hear in this otherwise wonderful organization of professional communicators. Smith did a fine job explaining it all, and the DC members were nodding in agreement. But it would've been nice if this spelled out as a matter of policy. You can't treat volunteers like a pro freelancer — with a formatted rejection letter.

SUNDAY: The end of the jackass.

No hype to believe

One oft-regurgitated theme of this blog has been SPJ's poor marketing skills. Fact is, we do a crappy job publicizing all the good jobs we do. For proof, all you had to do was attend this morning's national board meeting...

• During a wide-ranging discussion about how to rank chapters — which range from one to four stars — some of us asked what benefits a four-star chapter gets, anyway. One of the answers was discounted convention registrations — up to 35 percent off. That's very cool. So how do chapters find out about this? They have to ask. A lot of us board members didn't know this perk existed. Even treasurer candidate Darcie Lunsford, one of the most respected Executive Committee members, admitted she didn't know. She's from my chapter, South Florida, and we've always paid full registration. So it begs the question: How are you supposed to know to ask?

• A the end of our three-hour meeting, outgoing president Dave Aeikens reminded board members to read the "committee reports" at the very back of our agenda packets. I'm not sure if anyone did so, but I perused those reports over lunch. Damned impressive stuff. I didn't know the Ethics Committee gets 1-2 calls per week to its Ethics Hotline, with intriguing questions like, "Is it a conflict for a sports reporter to participate in a betting pool that involves a team he might cover?" I didn't know that PRSA asked for the Ethics Committee's input on video news releases. And that's just one committee. We should be pimping this stuff hard to our members in Leads and to potential members on our website.

• The search for a new executive director to replace Terry Harper is apparently going great. Soon-to-be-president-elect Hagit Limor said 180 candidates applied, and more than 20 are exceptional. It might behoove the board to tell its membership that the search to replace Harper is already a success. There are more than a few folks who are worried, precisely because Harper was so damn good at his job. (SPJ was almost broke when he took over, and when he died, he left us with sufficient reserves to weather this recession.) Hagit and her committee should be boasting about the thorough job they're doing, so membership can rest easy.

And before anyone gives me crap for discussing SPJ's business on this blog, let it be known that the Working Press had a reporter there. So everything I've revealed here was said in front of a student journalist with an open reporter's pad.

FRIDAY: Who's attending what.