The Class 26 Blog: This is a blog series about the experience and impact of Scottsdale Leadership’s core program. The program informs, inspires and empowers leaders to champion and strengthen the interests of the community.

I’m no expert, but I would guess that economic development is challenging work.  The economy is on shaky ground and there’s enormous competition from every direction for business and tax dollars.  Is economic development really a “blood sport”, as Dick Bowers, Scottsdale’s longest tenured former City Manager, recently told Scottsdale Leadership’s Class 26?  You might be surprised.  I sure was.  I mean, those economic vitality folks I’ve met working for the City of Scottsdale over the years didn’t wear gladiator outfits or look vicious in any way.

As I’ve talked to my fellow classmates over the last week, I think there’s general consensus that Economic Development Day put some things into perspective for us.  We’ve had some inspiring moments already, indeed.  Community stewardship, social services, education, youth issues, the arts… they’re all important – critical to the character of our city.  But when it comes right down to it, everything starts with economic development.  Schools, city services, streets, infrastructure, support for those in need… it all rests on our city’s ability to create sustained economic drivers to support the system.

So, what does it take to get the job done in the bloody arena of economic development?  A few things stood out!

• Economic development demands risk
• Economic development requires a “get it done attitude”
• Economic development is not a set of rules, but instead an idea and a vision

Scottsdale has some distinct advantages over other communities.  It isn’t difficult to tout our quality of life to prospective industries.  Our proximity to ASU and world class healthcare systems like Mayo Clinic and Scottsdale Healthcare make us a prime destination for a multitude of businesses. But, Scottsdale is a premier city because we take risks.  The Indian Bend Wash could have been a concrete drainage system, but instead is considered “an engineering wonder of the world” that defines our great city. To remain a leading destination for investment, we must continue to take those calculated risks in areas like the McDowell Road Corridor.  We must continue to be proactive and not reactive.

So, here are a couple of New Year’s resolutions for 2012 that I’ll be working on.

• INFECT OTHERS!  Be advocates for our community, on any level you can. An advocate for Scottsdale as a destination – a destination for tourism, investment and growth.
• GET INVOLVED!  If you think bold ideas will help mold our community to be better positioned for the future, let your voice be heard.  We certainly know what many think about a broad range of issues.  More power to them!  They go to City Council meetings, write articles to the newspaper and ensure their opinions are heard.  If you have ideas about bold initiatives, don’t stand on the sidelines.
• SHOP SCOTTSDALE!  Sound easy breezy?  It should be, but actually it takes just a bit of thought.  If you live in south Scottsdale or the Downtown area, it’s pretty easy to drift into the Pavillions or Tempe Marketplace to shop.  If you are more of a northern bird, Kierland can be enticing.  While some of these areas may have a Scottsdale mailing address, none are actually in our city.  Scottsdale depends on that revenue to maintain the unique character of our city.  This is one thing you can do today that will have an immediate impact on our community.

To sum up his presentation, Mr. Bowers fittingly quoted Mary Kay Ash.  “There are three kinds of organizations.  Those that make things happen, those that watch things happen and those who wonder what happened.”  Scottsdale must continue to be a community that makes things happen!

What are your New Year’s resolutions to make the City of Scottsdale a more sustained economic destination?

The Class 26 Blog: This is a blog series about the experience and impact of Scottsdale Leadership’s core program. The program informs, inspires and empowers leaders to champion and strengthen the interests of the community.

Our Scottsdale Leadership Day on December 9 was an inspirational change up to what we had been doing for the previous five meeting days and I found it really exhilarating. While the three portions of the day, Leadership Academy, Scottsdale Leadership Awards Luncheon, and Pay It Forward Project group time were all great, I found the Leadership Academy to be the most exciting.

The topic for the Leadership Academy was Non-Profit Board Responsibilities and Fundraising. Four panelists with extensive non-profit experience as staff and/or volunteers answered questions from the moderator (and the class) about the role of non-profit board members.

Here are some of my favorite pieces of advice from this group:

• Passion for the organization is essential. Only participate on the board of an organization that you truly care about.
• Study and be prepared for meetings. Be ready to ask questions. Know what the organization needs.
• Raising money for the organization is a must. Be prepared to know what the give or get is for that board and be prepared to follow through with the expectation.
• If you are considering joining a board, sit down with the CEO of the organization and ask pointed questions about the organization and the expectations for board members. The best organizations have board packets for potential board members with this information.
• “Fundraising is teaching the gentle art of giving.” Fundraising is people supporting people. It’s about building relationships.
• Leadership is about courage. There must be honest conversation when there is conflict on the board so that you don’t end up with nineteen other unhappy board members because of one difficult person.
• Transparency is crucial, particularly when there is a problem in the organization.
• It is the responsibility of the board chair and the CEO of the organization to make sure that the board member has a positive experience on the board.
• And, my favorite, board membership should be fun.

While we are learning about a multitude of organizations in our community that can benefit from our service as volunteers, it is also crucial that we understand what those commitments entail. I’ve served on several non-profit boards over the years, and I found this conversation both affirming and enlightening. The discussion inspired me to be a better board member. It also served as a warning to be careful about the commitments I make as I move forward with acting on what I am learning through the Scottsdale Leadership program.

I’d love to hear more about experiences that others have had on various non-profit boards, both positive and negative. What did you enjoy about board membership? What did you dislike?

Allegra Marketing & Print has awarded $15,000 in marketing and print services to twenty AZ nonprofit organizations through our FootPRINT fund! Designed to assist AZ nonprofits “leave a lasting footprint” in the community, Allegra’s FootPRINT fund supports local nonprofits by providing marketing strategy and materials. Click here for the full press release here and list of recipients.

The FootPRINT fund project has been a rich and rewarding experience for Team Allegra. We have met many new friends who work tirelessly to make the world a better place. We have also had some thoughtful discussions internally about how each of us can live a life of meaning while creating a legacy (FootPRINTS!) for the future.

One of the phrases that kept popping up was “footprints on the sands of time.” Curious about the origin of the phrase, we did a bit of research and would like to share our findings with you here. The line is actually part of the poem A Psalm of Life written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The poem is a strong call to live life to its fullest and in so doing find your own “inner hero.”
     Lives of great men remind us
     We can make our lives sublime,
     And, departing, leave behind us
     Footprints on the sands of time.
The next stanza speaks to the importance of creating a personal legacy as a means to help others:
     Footprints, that perhaps another,
     Sailing o’er life’s solemn main
     A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
     Seeing, shall take heart again.
And finally, Longfellow ends with a strong call to action:
      Let us then, be up and doing,
     With a heart for any fate;
     Still achieving, still pursuing,
     Learn to labor, and to wait.

That final call to action…to be up and doing…to be willing to work hard…to be persistent…to be patient for the results – truly resonates, does it not?  It also serves as a great message of inspiration as we work together for social profit in 2012.

Russo and Steele has partnered with the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Scottsdale for its annual Preview Charity Gala. The event will be held on Jan 18 to raise money for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Scottsdale’s “Angels for Kids, Mentors for Life” program and will feature live entertainment, a hosted bar, and appetizers from some of the valley’s top chefs and a silent auction.

Date: Wednesday, January 18
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Location:  Russo and Steele Event Site Main Tent, Mayo Blvd & Scottsdale Road
Tickets: $100

Only 750 spots are available for this exclusive event, which is open to corporate sponsors, registered bidders, and invited guests.  This extravaganza has been SOLD OUT each year. For more information or to purchase tickets visit: http://www.bgcs.org/

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 5,300 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

The Class 26 Blog: This is a blog series about the experience and impact of Scottsdale Leadership’s core program. The program informs, inspires and empowers leaders to champion and strengthen the interests of the community.

Parking lot traffic, pushing and shoving, indifferent and rude airline employees and don’t forget the crying babies make short flights seem like transatlantic treks. Thanksgiving travel can accentuate the worse in people jockeying for even the slimmest of services abandoning the old adage,” women and children first.” Unfortunately, this bad behavior has spilled over into non-Holiday occasions.

Airlines for example are creating “baby ghettos” in the back of the plane seemingly quarantining families from higher paying passengers according to a recent November Wall Street Journal report. In the search of profits amid shrinking budgets, airlines indiscriminately separate small children as young as 3 years old from parents to satisfy adult passengers.

Forgetting and neglecting youth is something not only common to air travel. During our Scottsdale Leadership Youth Issue Day, we learned that youth programs are not as strong as they once were. Early Literacy Programs, First Things First, After School Programs, Peer Teen Mentoring, Mentoring, Teen Employment Services and Teen Suicide Hotline.

All of the above youth issues were presented with passion and fervent invitations for involvement. At the end of the day, our class divided into groups with the hypothetical challenge of prioritizing how we would support each issue. This was done with surprising efficiency and consistency given we did this without any rebuttal from the respective youth issue experts.

So, the thought kept nagging me, what right do we have after only perfunctory discussion to prioritize anything? Our decisions were based on our best rationale. However, would we have decided differently with each youth subject matter expert present? Better yet, would we have decided differently if one of our own children was directly affected by one of these areas?

Eman Yarrow, Regional Director of NE Maricopa from First things First, put it best when he said that “Politicians probably do not support youth issues because youth do not vote”. To this, I would add that today’s youth are not a huge source for political campaigns either. No wonder youth programs are usually the first to go when it comes to budget cuts.

Being a father of three children, I understand that we can easily default to the airline MO of banishing youth issues to the “back of the plane” hoping they sort themselves out. I’ve learned from real life experience that putting off dealing with children issues at hand usually compound the problem later on.

So I ask, what are you willing to give and/or do to restore the support of our youth in Scottsdale for a better future? We, like the Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de Leon, probably would give anything to be able to drink from that mystical fountain that restores our youth. Yet we have forgotten how much help we needed when we were young. There is so much need. For example, volunteers, particularly male role models are needed for Big Brothers Big Sisters and Phoenix Youth At Risk. There are many more organizations that need help but only you can decide.

Are youth programs in our community vital? Why or why not ?

Join us for a behind-the-scenes tour of the Scottsdale Healthcare Military Partnership Trauma Simulation Center! Not offered to the general public, this opportunity is limited to Scottsdale Leadership Alumni and guests only and space is very limited. Register now to assure your spot!

Date: Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Time: 8:30 – 10:00 a.m.
Location: Scottsdale Healthcare, 7301 E. 4th Street
Tickets:  $25; $20 for dues-paid alumni

Purchase tickets by calling 480-627-6710 or online at www.scottsdaleleadership.org/events

Event Sponsored by:

Scottsdale Leadership honored:
Mark Eberle, Class 6, Hodges Alumni Achievement Award, presented by Prestige Cleaners
Rachel Sacco, Drinkwater Leadership Award, presented by Merrill Lynch
Merrill Lynch, Corporate Leadership Award, presented by Henkel Consumer Goods, Inc.
Melissa Conrad, Youth Leadership Award, presented by Scottsdale Active 20/30 Foundation

Pictured left to right: David Hunt, Melissa Conrad, Rachel Sacco and Mark Eberle

To view more photos from the event visit http://tiny.cc/leaderlunch12

The Class 26 Blog: This is a blog series about the experience and impact of Scottsdale Leadership’s core program. The program informs, inspires and empowers leaders to champion and strengthen the interests of the community.

Another great day at Scottsdale Leadership was spent at the Coronado High School learning about the Scottsdale Unified School district. The coordination to pack in the star-studded speaker roll and tons of information in a short time was impressive. It was great to hear from the talented administration and a couple of smart students but I would have preferred to directly hear from a teacher.

What is the special sauce that makes SUSD excel above others? We heard about how great the school system is performing in a very challenging environment. The environment sounded, well… broken. Funding challenges abound. Equalization, a finance system older than a lot of Coronado alumni, the inability to move funds from one budget bucket to another, stagnate salaries and budgets.  Surely the special sauce is not money, look how well the team performs with what they have.

What is in that special sauce? Listening to the discussion about accountability and seeing the school professionals’ challenges and perceptions of what looked to me like chaos diminished my confidence in our policy makers. Another seemingly broken, or at least faltering, system. Not only do we have three definitions of successful but those definitions are changing like the seasons in New England. How’d you like it if that were your performance evaluation environment for your job?

If money is not the silver bullet for education and our policies on standards and performance create challenges more than they enable, then what are the ingredients for that special sauce? It must be another part of the system… Perhaps it is the community? The Administration? The kids? The parents?  The teachers?

What do you think is written on that recipe card? Please respond and let me know.

The Class 26 Blog: This is a blog series about the experience and impact of Scottsdale Leadership’s core program. The program informs, inspires and empowers leaders to champion and strengthen the interests of the community.

Members of class XXVI spent a wonderful day learning about art in Scottsdale. Highlights included a tour of public art and in-depth discussion about the value of art in Scottsdale. In an economy where many people are struggling financially, is it appropriate to designate limited funds to support the arts when people have other needs that are more basic such as food, clothing and shelter?

I would argue that arts are important in any economy. I loved Mike Seiden’s opening comments when he quoted Dreiser who said, “Art is the stored honey of the soul.”  Supporting arts in Scottsdale is good for our souls and also good for our business.

Art is an important expression of who we are as a city. Why?

• The public art pieces all around the city create a special environment here that residents enjoy every day.
• The art all around us in our city is uplifting and encourages us to see our world as a place of beauty even when times might be tough for us individually.
• The art in Scottsdale goes beyond just the specific pieces created by working artists.

There have been studies showing that exposure to art (music, visual art, creative arts) creates more compassion in people and increases intellectual ability. Many class members could share examples of how participating in the arts has enriched their lives. The Vietnamese children’s art that we viewed in the Young at Art gallery at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts clearly illustrated how visual art can provide cathartic release for people and tell important stories.

In addition to the intangible benefits of supporting the arts, there are important economic reasons for supporting them in Scottsdale. The city has been marketed as a place to find world class art experiences. The Scottsdale Visitor and Convention Bureau markets Scottsdale as a place to visit and do business. We learned that arts are a critically important piece of what they do and the art scene in Scottsdale has been recognized around the world for many years. The municipal art collection in Scottsdale was started in 1967 and today is comprised of hundreds of pieces.

So, what do you think?  Is Scottsdale doing the right thing by supporting the arts?