David Letterman on his Late Show television program introduced a segment that was sponsored by the Nissan Juke. The audience roared with laughter. Turns out that the car model actually exists. Dave spent the next four minutes trying to save the sponsor by talking about the vehicle’s features. It was a very public reminder that the messenger matters.
What if you simplified your focus. One theme for the day, week or even year. Explore, ignite, engage, empower, learn, love, separate, evolve, energize, demand, relax, or decide.
What theme did you select? Humor yourself for a second and make a decision. Capture it and place it front and center. Can you affix a few key phrases or images to your theme? Once you decide and move away from all other options you are committed.
So much of our time can be spent planning that it is easy to fore-go making any real decisions. Take action. Answering one big question for your enterprise often yields far greater results than the most detailed strategic plan that preserves the status quo.
When you create opportunities for ideas and people to collide, powerful results emerge. Many causes invest significant amounts of time trying to buffer the collision of tribes and ideology. But who is to say that the collision will not become a confluence. The point of intersection may be turbulent, murky, and turbid but eventually both streams of thought and action may find their way forward, flowing in a united direction.
Pixar designed a building to encourage these force collisions. What if your cause accelerated these encounters? How might it transform your community and its perceptions?
Michel Martin on NPR’s Tell Me More program discussing President Obama’s address to the business community introduced one of the guests as the owner of two nonprofit businesses. I gave me pause, can one ‘own’ a nonprofit?
The concept of owning a nonprofit is like laying claim to the sun. One cannot posses the enterprise and it does a disservice in my mind to assign ownership to a cause established to serve the public trust. By conferring dominion to a single individual we take the greatness out of the entity. None of us are able to own a nonprofit. It exists to meet a need that has a qualifying public benefit. The concept for a social sector cause may originate with a founder but by incorporating as a nonprofit, the founder is conveying their idea to the public. It is the ultimate gift. If they wished to retain ownership then a for-profit structure provides far greater protection of competitive advantage and proprietary information. If the social sector wishes to fully realize the magnitude of its influence and reach, it must be done by recognizing its dependency on others and not by building fortresses on the highest hills. Seth Godin found a far more eloquent way to express our need for inter-connectedness and building community in his blog post today.
We are all experts now, having watched the Super Bowl and rated the commercials. Given a national platform, what spot would your cause run?
Here are some award wining examples:
United Way: “Because Hope Matters” Featuring Marc Broussard from Vidox on Vimeo.
Attending a board meeting for an independent school today, I was struck by the realization that we had not only accomplished some of our strategic initiatives but had surged off the scale. Incredible momentum. How had we done this? The Head of School has been telling the school’s story for years and expressing a vision that far exceeded the scope of the plan. He was dreaming big but not focusing on the details. He could tell his audience why the project was important. At the right moment a confluence of circumstances such as budgeting (a reduction in building costs), momentum (very motivated donors), and talent (board members with immense experience as project managers) produced an oppening to realize an even greater dream. Equally important was the attribute of trust. The Board and Head of School trusted that the vision was revolutionary and essential.
The Head of School has been telling the school’s story, creating a following of those who were ready to invest in taking the dream across the matrix and into reality.
How big is your enterprise’s dream and who is sharing the vision?
What-if-concepts 
