When they discover Myers-Briggs personality types, many people are transfixed by the dichotomy between “extraverts” and “introverts.” This may be because this is the easiest and most in-you-face concept.
That was my own experience, when I first learned that I am an ENTP personality type.
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator has four factors, each of which has two possible values. Knowing these values can allow us to understand what our biases and inclinations are when it comes to our personaties, as well as those of others. This is useful in the workplace (and, in fact, in any situation where it’s all about how people get along: families, civic efforts, etc.).
 "Equal Opportunity Employment" by Flickr user pasukaru76 It’s especially useful to know (or be able to identify through observation) others’ types, because that can help you get along with them better and — as a leader — can help you create balanced teams that are the most effective. It helps to have lots of different types around.
Here’s a quick breakdown:
- Extravert / Introvert — Where you get your energy
- INtuitive / Sensing — How you take in information about your world
- Feeling / Thinking — How you like to make decisions
- Judging / Perceiving — How you organize your world
One’s Myers-Briggs type is not destiny. It is more a description of what your “default” or preferred way of handling things is.
Each of the factors is important in its own right. But, in the workplace, I have found the last letter-pair in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to be particularly important. This is P vs. J — “Perceiving” vs. “Judging.”
Peceivers And Judgers
Many people misunderstand this factor, because of the pejorative sense the word “judging” conveys — they hear “judgmental,” which people see as negative. But it has nothing to do with that. This factor describes how a person organizes their world.
A P is always scanning for new information and prefers to defer making decisions until absolutely necessary. A J, on the other hand, is always on the lookout for decisions already made, and prefers to make a decision and move on whenever possible. For a P, decisions are contingent and new ideas can reopen decisions that had already been made. To a J, decisions are only reopened in extreme circumstances.
In the workplace, J’s tend to get on P’s nerves, who see them as overly uptight. Meanwhile, P’s tend to absolutely infuriate J’s, whe often regard them as unstable and mercurial.
Seth Godin’s recent article on hunters and farmers can be seen as a description of P’s (hunters) and J’s (farmers).
Tips For P Leaders
Lots of nonprofit leaders, in my experience, are P’s. I’m one myself. Over the years I have learned a few pointers in getting along and thriving.
Advice for leaders who are P’s:
- Remember what others are hearing. Remember the J’s around you are looking for and actively cataloging commitments made. So, when you muse about things, talk through alternatives, and suggest you might be rethinking this or that initiative — others may be hearing definite plans. This can cause anxiety and misunderstandings.
- Find a safe sounding board. As a P, you need to find someone to bounce ideas off of. It might be safest to look for someone outside your organization to talk to.
- Play to people’s strengths. J’s are incredibly good at identifying the commitments people make — who promised to do what by when. They are the best people to have taking notes at a staff meeting, they are in their element driving complex projects with intricate deadlines, and in ensuring that policies are adhered to. Do you need solid and consistent performance, day-in, day-out? Get a J on the job.
- Be clear when you’re just talking. Make sure you let people know that sometimes you are raising ideas without any decisions attached — and that you will definitively say when you do make a decision. It is important for others around you (especially J’s) to be able to know what is stable and what is fluid.
- Careful you don’t get distracted! If you work with many other P’s, it’s easy to get sidetracked. P’s are distracted by shiny objects and, get a few of them together in one room, it’ll be one new initiative after another! That’s great, but . . . older initiatives may tend to fall by the wayside. As a leader, make sure there are enough J’s around to keep things on track.
That last point, about getting sidetracked, cannot be overemphasized.
The Distracted Organization
In my experience and observation, it is very easy for an entire organization to take on P characteristics if there are too many P’s in senior leadership without any J balance. And, for whatever the reason (we can speculate all we want) it seems like there are a lot of P people throughout the nonprofit sector.
Furthermore, people often (not always) tend to gravitate to folks like them. So, a leader can end up surrounding themselves with people they like, but who do not necessarily complement or balance their skill sets.
So, many organizations can themselves become mercurial, easily distracted by shiny objects and new ideas. I can remember returning from a meeting with one organization. The meeting lasted three hours and we never even touched the agenda. “That is a totally P organization,” I told my colleagues. (I even wrote a memo about it for others, for their use in working with the organization.)
Knowing this, knowing the potential for distractedness (the downside of the P factor), it is important to work against that and actively seek out people who are different from you. This is of course true in an inclusionary sense (gender, ethnicity, orientation, background, and so forth) but it is also true in a personality type sense.
What Are P’s Good For?
Are P’s a terrible thing? Distracted, mercurial, flighty . . . they sound like a nightmare in the workplace!
Speaking as a P, certainly not. P’s can drive a lot of energy, creativity, and out-of-the-box breakthroughs (these are not solely the province of P’s, don’t get me wrong).
If you need a stalled project accelerated, put a P on the job. If you have a high-energy and time-limited task (like prepping for an important meeting or event), a P can really shine. Because of their omnivorous approach to things, a P can be great in a generalist troubleshooter position and (balanced with a good J as a partner) can be a great manager.
In a future post, I may outline my thoughts about some of the other Myers-Briggs factors and how they relate to leadership. Please note, though, that this is just based on my experience and I am not an expert on personality types. I’ve just thought a lot about them and try to use them in my day-to-day life.
What’s your type? How has that impacted how you get your work done?
Yesterday Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, in response to a question at a congressional hearing, suggested that Toyota owners ought to avoid driving their cars.
 MotorShow 2007: Toyota Rav4 by Flickr user Gaspa Specifically, he said: “My advice is, if anybody owns one of these vehicles, stop driving it, take it to the Toyota dealer because they believe they have the fix for it.”
The result was widespread pandemonium and criticism across the Internet. In a hyper-connected age, the episode raises some good points.
(Note that I am not talking about the new issue regarding the Prius braking system; this particular episode revolved around the accelerator issues for other vehicles.)
Certainly, it’s reasonable advice to tell someone to quit driving their car, too, but did the head of transportation for the nation have to say that? Toyota has a valid argument that this unfairly kicks them while they are already down. Why not, they might respond, just tell folks to go to the dealer, and omit the whole get-it-off-the-road part? In fact, they responded Toyota responded with a straightforward “they are too safe.”
And, LaHood quickly retracted his statement and said it was an “obvious misstatement.” But I think he may be overreacting to his initial overreaction. LaHood faced an honest dilemma: what to say? There is no perfect answer. My colleague Rush Kidder would point out that he faced a right-vs.right ethical dilemma.
On the one hand, LaHood needs to take a measured stance, not provoke pandemonium, and weigh his words carefully. But, on the other hand, as the chief transportation safety officer of the country, LaHood has an equally strong obligation to place safety first and if that means a company is upset then so be it.
The fact that one clause in one sentence bounced around the Internet so quickly adds intensity to the fundamental dilemma that any leader faces when faced with the need to advise citizens on what to do in difficult times.
The Dilemma Of Evaluation
On a smaller scale, yet no less intense sometimes, foundation and nonprofit leaders face similar dilemmas. We live and work in a world where evaluation and impact measurements are the rage. Grant seekers are under pressure to show potential funders that their programs actually do what is hoped and that they have a decent bang for the buck.
Funders, at the same time, are under pressure from their boards and from economic forces to ensure that they are spending their money wisely.
What this means is that the independent sector has become evaluation-happy. And, this places philanthropic leaders at a crossroads. They are learning a great deal about what works — and what does not work. The question is: What to do with negative reports?
On the one hand, it’s important to share information about effectiveness so that people don’t waste their time and money. And, certainly in the case of absolute failures that’s a no-brainer. But most evaluations are more nuanced and it is not entirely clear if an initiative absolutely failed or whether it just didn’t work as well as it could have.
Given that, and on the other hand, what right does a foundation leader have to spread around such ambiguous information, when such evaluations might dissuade other funders from donating and so hurt the organization in question? So there is a strong moral argument behind not sharing evaluation information. But this leaves possibly ineffective initiatives potentially running indefinitely. Because new funders need to start at square one with their own studies.
Resistance to evaluation is as natural an urge as any — who wants to examine their own possible failures? But there is also the broader question about what use is made of evaluation data. There is no simple answer to this, and I am not about to offer one here.
I will suggest that one thing that is needed is for individual leaders to be more willing to face their own fears. It is not a calamity if a charitable effort is not very effective.
Once, some time ago, I was asked to perform a self-evaluation on a fairly large initiative. The results of the study would, in part, determine if our grant would be renewed. It turned out that the evidence suggested our hard work was tilting against too strong a headwind. It’s effectiveness was questionable, especially on the expansive level we were considering.
My report was met with consternation from my organization as well as from our funder. It threw a monkey wrench into things. We recalibrated and ended up doing something different (and arguably more effective, though that too had ambiguous results). Not the end of the world. But — in the moment — all of us involved had a great deal of fear. Our reputations, our livelihoods, our organizations were at stake.
Still, expressing honesty takes a culture that supports it. While easily said, this can be a hard thing in practice.
My latest article on my blog at the Washington Times Communities, Public Square Today, is now live:
Keeping Track Of The Other Unemployed
Yesterday, the government released data by metropolitan region on unemployment. That got me thinking about one of my pet peeves with unemployment data.
That number that gets reported? It dramatically understates the problem.
The official unemployment rate is the number of people actively looking for work. That number does not include so-called “discouraged workers” (people who could work but who have given up), people who are working part time because that’s all they can find, and more. In fact, here is the official list of all the unemployed and underemployed that the official figure does not take into account:
Marginally attached workers are persons who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the recent past. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, have given a job-market related reason for not currently looking for a job. Persons employed part time for economic reasons are those who want and are available for full-time work but have had to settle for a part-time schedule.
I have long known this but have not looked closely at the actual numbers, simply filed it away as a curiosity. But today I was curious: How has the American underutilized workforce been doing over the past year? I took a look at the data from November 2008 through December 2009.
Here is the official unemployment rate, month by month, for the past year or so, compared what I think of as the actual unemployment rate (which includes all those folks described above):
 (Click for full size) In November 2008, the official unemployment rate was 6.9%, and the actual rate was almost double that, 12.8%. In December 2009 it was 10% with an actual rate of 17.3%.
More than one in six Americans are out of work or are working part time because they can’t find anything else.
I understand that ral economists might quibble with my terminology, “actual” unemployment. I am not trying to win a Nobel Prize here, just look at the actual experience of real people as opposed to the press releases. I am also not pointing fingers at any administration. The recession started on George W. Bush’s watch, and continues under Barack Obama’s. It appears to be beyond both of them.
I was also curious about the “other unemployed” people. This is the group that tugs most at my heart strings. Has this gap been widening? It is hard to visualize from the bar charts so I made a new chart:
 (Click for full size) The number of “other unemployed” has been growing slowly but steadily over the last year. In November 2008 it was 5.9% and we ended 2009 at 7.3%.
In fact, while the government just focuses on the “official unemployment” rate, they make the whole set of numbers available. News organizations would provide a better snapshot of America by reporting the larger number. So, in my view, our nation’s unemployment rate stands at an incredible 17.3%.
Let’s not forget these folks.
—–
(Note, the charts are by me, based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For those who are curious, the current recession began officially in December 2007, when the official unemployment rate was 5.0% and the actual rate was 8.8%.)
Some readers know how deeply I care and am energized by the modern Abolitionist movement across the world. There are more slaves now than there ever were at any time in human history. Human trafficking is tied with arms dealing for the second-most lucrative illicit business (after drugs). It is a $32 billion industry worldwide. More than two million children are sold into the sex trade every year.
 Image from 25x4 What is slavery? Here is a succinct definition from Kevin Bales, who founded Free The Slaves:
Slavery is one person controlling another person using violence or the threat of violence, exploiting them economically and paying them nothing.
We often see terms like “slave like conditions”, or see the word slavery mixed in with paid child labor, sweatshops or similar forms of labor abuses. It is a mistake to confuse slavery with labor exploitation or other labor crimes. If the victim is paid or can get away it is not slavery.
In modern day slavery, human beings are literally bought and sold as property on an international market, for amounts ranging from $80 to $5000 or more. They have no control over their lives or their children’s lives: where they live, what work they do (usually dirty, degrading or dangerous), their sexuality, or their health. Being enslaved is extremely hazardous to human life and health – for example 25% of child slaves in India do not make it to adulthood, and another 22% are permanently disabled.
My friend Sarah Symons is the founder of The Emancipation Network, which works to get people out of slavery by helping them find ways to support themselves (and to help them in the transition from bondage to freedom). Sarah is on one of her periodic trips to India to help with some of her organization’s partner agencies and the schools they support.
She writes, in part:
Today we visited 10 of our school sponsored kids who have been placed in Ram Krishna Mission Boarding School. It was absolutely amazing! The kids looked so good, so happy and healthy and clean, that I almost did not recognize them. These girls, aged 6-13, were all born into the Kidderpore red light community of Calcutta. Their mothers were trafficked as young girls into brothels, and are still working the streets, kept captive now by a complete lack of other options, and by the extreme stigma hanging like a cloud over the whole district.
When the children lived at home, they shared a tiny room in the brothel with their mothers – it was a dangerous situation in the extreme, as there is always the risk that a client would tire of the mother and reach for her young daughter instead. Our partner agency Apne Aap, which runs a prevention program in Kidderpore, eventually took these 10 girls into the night shelter because they were at especially high risk or had already been exploited. The Emancipation Network began paying for their schooling three years ago and this past spring, they were enrolled in the Boarding School. . . .
The red light area is a scary place for a child to grow up. There was never enough food, clothing, supervision or attention and these kids had to become self-sufficient at a very early age. Seeing their mothers hurt and exploited on a nightly basis was the hardest part. Without intervention, girls growing up in red light areas almost always end up in forced prostitution themselves. . . .
Education is a surefire way to end the cycle of intergenerational slavery. Educating girls is the fastest way to transform a society from within.
(The full article, which is stirring, is available here.)
There are two ways to support The Emancipation Network. One is to directly sponsor children so more can be lifted out of slavery. The Emancipation Network pays for their schooling in boarding schools like the one Sarah describes in her blog post.
Another way is to purchase items at the Made By Survivors store. This shop contains products made by freed slaves and the proceeds directly support abolitionist efforts. There is some very cool stuff here.
Thank you to my friend Sarah and everyone else who works so hard to free people. Your actions both inspire and shame me. I should — we all should — do more.
My latest article on my blog at the Washington Times Communities, Public Square Today, is now live:
Obama Administration Falls Short On Civic Participation
On the morning of President Obama’s first State of the Union address, I published a rather dispirited prediction for the talk. One commenter asked me:
I am very downhearted at how casually people dismiss the possibility of our government doing much good. I definitely agree that the structures don’t feel like they are working.
I am cautiously reassured at how many of these points the president touched on. Not to exaggerate the point, but it almost felt like a speech that was consciously designed not to be the kind that inspires the skepticism you express here.
Any second thoughts?
Now that the dust is settling, I thought it might be worthwhile to look less at the state of the Union address itself, but at the state of the administration. As most readers know, my main focus is on civic participation and I look at government through that lens. In other words, one of the major problems I see in politics in America is that most people see no place for themselves in it. Under these conditions, government and politics is not about how we solve our problems together; it is how they provide us the services we need.
 From The White House This is anathema to the fundamental notion of self-governance.
One reason candidate Obama gave such hope to many is that they sensed in his rhetoric and biography that his bias is towards collaboration and participation when it comes community problem solving.
Indeed, on his first full day in office, President Obama famously signed a striking executive order on openness and transparency in government. In this message, he says that government “should be transparent, . . . participatory, [and] . . . collaborative.”
What Progress On Participation?
So far, however, it appears that the vastly greater share of energy has been spent on the “transparency” piece. This has been well-spent energy (although there’s a far piece to go in implementing the Obama transparency mandates).
But there are two other legs of the stool — participation and collaboration — where progress is lacking. An example of this is health care reform. This would have been a terrific area to actively, and authentically, reach out to people from all walks of life and craft what the proposals ought to look like. Instead, the political class developed its proposals and sold them to the public using fake town halls.
My friend Peter Levine has written a very thoughtful critique on the administration’s progress in the areas of participation and collaboration. He says, in part:
The agenda so far has been strong on service and transparency, but almost entirely missing participation or collaboration–equal pillars in the original executive order. Service does not necessarily build civic skills or address fundamental problems; besides, even an expanded AmeriCorps offers no role to most people. “Transparency” means feeding information to organized interest groups, reporters, and a few independent citizens who have deep interests and skills in particular areas.
These forms of civic engagement are not nearly “edgy” enough; there is no fight in them. People are angry, in America–from the Tea Partiers to MoveOn. When citizens try to solve serious social problems, they identify enemies. They do not just hold hands and serve together; they strike back at those whom they perceive as threats. If “active citizenship” reduces to non-controversial “service,” it will completely lose touch with the legitimate anger of the American people.
I agree with Peter’s critique, which is far better supported than this brief excerpt can do justice to. (So read it.)
Where Does Participation Go?
One critique of the civic participation movement is that it is all about talk and no action. This is a valid concern. Conversations on the community level can’t go nowhere; they need to connect to real changes.
Another friend of mine, Lars Hasselblad Torres, has put it this way, in a comment on Peter Levine’s piece: “We need to push through the veneer of ‘discussion’ as a good and reasonable outcome to policy implementation.” He’s right. He goes on:
I’d also like to see work up front, setting the policy agenda. The State of the Union is one such focusing opportunity. Instead of lecturing (possibly humiliating, alienating) Republicans, how about building truly post-partisan mechanisms?
At the same time, I applaud the work happening in the Office of Science and Technology Policy to engage the public participation community in framing up priorities for agency reform. Its a great start; now we need teeth.
So far, I agree: the focus has been on data and on internet-based outreach. This is insufficient, as both are far too subject to intermediaries and manipulation. Direct participation that takes the conversation into communities, states and regions is needed.
I agree with Lars, too. And this, in the end, is my critique of the State Of The Union address. The language has shifted from “we” to “me.” No longer are ordinary people being called on to work together — instead, the solutions come from moves made by the administration or by Congress.
The State Of The Union Falls Short
While there were excellent moments of humility in the address, and a laudable restraint when it comes to trotting out Main Street people as emblems of various things, the focus was all on government as doing things for the American people.
This is fine on one level. However, Obama has expressly portrayed himself as a different kind of political leader. Many of the markers that have led us to believe that this is the case, appear to have fallen by the wayside.
In a May 2007 speech, according to Peter, Obama said:
“[W]hen politics gets local, when the person talking to you is your neighbor standing on your front porch, things change.” In that speech, he called for dialogues in every community on Iraq, health care, and climate change.
The call for neighbor to talk to neighbor about important issues of the day appears to be withering under the heat of actual governance.
Instead, we hear this, on jobs:
Now, the House has passed a jobs bill that includes some of these steps [a jobs bill]. As the first order of business this year, I urge the Senate to do the same, and I know they will. They will. People are out of work. They’re hurting. They need our help. And I want a jobs bill on my desk without delay.
On financial reform:
Now, the House has already passed financial reform with many of these changes. And the lobbyists are trying to kill it. But we cannot let them win this fight. And if the bill that ends up on my desk does not meet the test of real reform, I will send it back until we get it right. We’ve got to get it right.
On climate change legislation:
I am grateful to the House for passing such a bill last year. And this year I’m eager to help advance the bipartisan effort in the Senate.
On education:
When we renew the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, we will work with Congress to expand these reforms to all 50 states. Still, in this economy, a high school diploma no longer guarantees a good job. That’s why I urge the Senate to follow the House and pass a bill that will revitalize our community colleges, which are a career pathway to the children of so many working families.
On health care reform:
[T]this is a complex issue, and the longer it was debated, the more skeptical people became. I take my share of the blame for not explaining it more clearly to the American people. And I know that with all the lobbying and horse-trading, the process left most Americans wondering, ”What’s in it for me?” . . .
[A]s temperatures cool, I want everyone to take another look at the plan we’ve proposed. There’s a reason why many doctors, nurses and health care experts who know our system best consider this approach a vast improvement over the status quo. But if anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors and stop insurance company abuses, let me know. Let me know. Let me know. I’m eager to see it.
Here’s what I ask Congress, though: Don’t walk away from reform. Not now. Not when we are so close. Let us find a way to come together and finish the job for the American people. Let’s get it done. Let’s get it done.
(The bold is added by me for emphasis.)
On all these issues, the picture painted is of a political class doing things for Americans. Obama faults himself for not “explaining” health care properly. But mostly, he calls on Congress to act in the ways he wants them to. (And harshly at that.)
Republicans complain that they are not treated as colleagues by the majority Democrats. They’re right. Meanwhile, Democrats say the Republicans have just become the party of “no.” They’re right too. Obama, for his part, chides Congress for arguing too much.
Ordinary people are left out of this troika. They have no role. This is my chief disappointment with the last year. I see little concrete action taken to invite ordinary people back into politics in any meaningful way.
 Photo By Marc Johnson I’m in the middle of a four-day bipartisan candidate training program that is put on by the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia. As far as I know, this program is unique. It is relentlessly bipartisan, for one thing. More important, though, is that it is entirely ethics-based. I was one of the people who helped design the program in the late 1990’s (when I worked at The Institute for Global Ethics) and I have been involved ever since.
The concept is simple: We take the very best political professionals in Virginia and ask them to come to the program and address their specialty. Over the course of four days, candidates learn everything from how to develop a campaign plan to fundraising, polling, direct mail, crisis communications, how to deal with media, image, and more.
But the difference is that we wrap this in a strong emphasis on ethics. The program begins with a half-day session on campaign ethics (which I lead), and then after every few sessions, we bring the candidates together in small groups to debrief what they have been hearing. It’s been my experience that many first-time candidates become increasingly anxious about just what it takes to run a winning campaign. Being able to air potential dilemmas and think them through in a retreat atmosphere is invaluable and allows them to make better decisions later.
This work really allows me to bring together everything that I learned while working in government and politics, then at the Institute for Global Ethics, and later at The Harwood Institute For Public Innovation. It’s all about how to win, but win while running a race you can be proud of.
And, just in case you might be thinking that this is some nice foundation-funded program that teaches candidates how to be nice losers, nothing could be further from the truth. Candidates apply to be a part of it and pay to be there. Over the years, 300 candidates have gone through the program. 100 are currently in office. I’ll take those odds.
I am grateful for my friends at the Sorensen Institute who continue mounting this program for allowing me to be a part of it.
 "Alarm Clock 3" by Flickr user alancleaver_2000 According to Doug Ward’s excellent OpenGovBlog, the first deadline under President Obama’s “Open Government Directive” has come and gone with 26 agencies failing to meet the Directive’s requirements. Here’s what Obama is requiring: “Within 45 days, each agency shall identify and publish online in an open format at least three high-value data sets and register those data sets via Data.gov. These must be data sets not previously available online or in a downloadable format.” The deadline was January 22.
What’s more, in many cases what counts as “meeting the requirements” is just lame. One agency took data that had been available in PDF form and posting it as an Excel spreadsheet with headers. Another agency reposted data that had been available since 2004, just labeling it with a more specific timeframe.
The Sunlight Foundation, which focuses on this issue relentlessly (and well), has written a piece recapping what they are seeing so far as they sift through the data. Their take:
As a first step toward making agency data available in more accessible formats for sophisticated users, the open government directive is so far somewhat successful–plenty of data sets that had been available only as PDFs, or had to be pulled down by scraping Web sites, are now there for the taking (we’ll have better counts of this later in the week). But new data sets are not predominant: the major agencies covered by the directive released 58 data sets, of which, by our count, 16 were previously unavailable in some format online.
That sounds like progress, I suppose . . . but a long way to go before we have real “transparency.”
My latest article on my blog at the Washington Times Communities, Public Square Today, is now live:
State Of The Union: In Name Only
Tonight, Barack Obama delivers his very first State Of The Union message to Congress. As is the custom with newly-inaugurated presidents, President Obama did speak to Congress last year, but that is not considered an official “State Of The Union.” The Constitution requires the President to make a report on how things are going “from time to time.”
 Chart by Brad Rourke (click for full size) As I thought about it, I found myself wishing that President Obama might take the tack Jimmy Carter took in in his last days in office in 1981 and mail it in — literally. It was a written report that year. In fact, while our first two presidents gave speeches, for a hundred years beginning with Thomas Jefferson the State Of The Union was a written report ranging from about 2,000 to about 24,000 words (Lincoln’s averaged 6,800 words). Woodrow Wilson ended that practice and ushered in the modern era of giving speeches.
I still think the first State Of The Union was probably the best. We don’t know how long it lasted, but we know that it was the shortest State Of The Union on record: George Washington’s first such address was just 1,089 words. I’ve written memos longer!
As I reflected on the fact that a speech would be inevitable, I then found myself hoping President Obama might take a page from Richard Nixon’s playbook and give a very short speech. Nixon gave a speech of just 28:30 in 1972. (The next year he sent a written report.)
But in the television era, we are by and large stuck with speeches that average about 48 minutes — long enough to take up an hour programming block, but short enough to allow time for pundit reactions. President Obama’s speech last year was right on the money in that respect, at 51:44.
For a political junkie, I have always felt guilty around State Of The Union time. I feel alienated from my fellow politics-watchers. Because I dread these speeches. It seems too short to say anything of value, too long to inspire, too worked-over to offer me anything new.
The state of the union is strong, I will hear. There will be shout-outs to “ordinary” people in the audience — a practice that has long since jumped the shark. There may even be a new initiative or two announced — perhaps a surprise.
But I know what the state of the union is, as does everyone from Skid Row to Main Street to Wall Street. Things are tough. There is little will from Washington to make the changes that we need. Political leaders are out of touch with the concerns of Americans.
A good friend told me earlier that he was despairing that our political institutions could do anything anymore. This is the true state of the union: It sometimes feels a union in name only.
Yes, there are glimmers of hope. Each time I dare, though, my hopes are dashed. It’s not that my favored policies aren’t getting enacted, or that people I disagree with are in power. That’s just window dressing.
It’s that the structures aren’t working. We used to look to politics as the forum in which we solve the problems that arise when people live together and try to self-govern. Now we view politics as the problem and we try as best we can to live a life where we never encounter people unlike us.
Maybe I will hear something from this year’s address that lifts me.
But more likely, I will get over my funk. I will pull up my socks and get on with life, doing the work that must be done in our community irrespective of what messages drip down from the District of Columbia. That, after all, is the story of America.
In the end, when pushed up against the wall, we get to work. But just now, before the dawn, it’s quite dark.
My latest article on my blog at the Washington Times Communities, Public Square Today, is now live:
Donate Services To A Candidate?
A good friend asks:
In your experience, are most services used by local candidates donated? A candidate for the . . . State House, whose staffer attended my recent social networking class, asked me today if I could provide free services. . . . I know that this candidate is getting some services for free. For example, a large and expensive web design company is donating her website. I would like to see this [person] elected, but I’m not in the position to spend a lot of time on a volunteer job. Reduced cost, yes, but free, no. I know I could make a case that my services are necessary to her and worth the money, but there is no use making the point if campaigns for State Houses are normally run completely by donations and volunteers. Any thoughts about this?
This is the dance that all campaigns (even national ones) play. Political campaigns are inherently time-limited and relentlessly focused on one thing: winning. Any money spent that does not have a clear and direct impact on votes is avoided at all costs.
 "Donations" by Flickr user freakapotimus So, campaigns know they need to pay for media time, there is no way around that. They know they need to pay for mailings. Everything else is fair game — staff time, phones, office space, Website (as you note), and social networking consulting services.
However, just because the campaign would like services donated does not mean that you have to provide them gratis. It is up to each individual person. Any free consulting work is a contribution in kind to the campaign (and would need to be valued and reported as such). So, not only is the campaign asking you to work for free, but they are also asking you for a donation.
And so, what is “normal” is not the issue here. The issue is: Do you want to make this campaign contribution?
People make campaign contributions for a lot of reasons. Some do it because they really want a person elected. Others do it because they want to be noticed later, if that person is elected. Some do it to feel closer to power. And, some companies donate their goods or services in part to market them to others, or in hopes that they will be retained on an official basis once the candidate wins.
Whatever your own decision, just make sure you follow all the relevant campaign finance rules for your state.
 Farfalle With Chicken In Dijon Cream Sauce Here’s a dish that sounds like it might be complicated but is really, really easy to make. Lots of times I will want to make a cream sauce for pasta, but I get sort of tired of the usual. This has a slight tang to it and it’s tasty.
Here’s what you need:
- 1lb Farfalle pasta (or penne)
- 1 Onion
- 1.5lb boneless, skinless Chicken Breasts
- 3/4c Heavy Whipping Cream
- 3T Butter
- 1T Dijon mustard
- 3T Rice Vinegar (or white wine)
- 1.4c grated Parmesan cheese
- Extra-virgin olive oil
- Kosher salt
- Pepper
If you use your time wisely while the pasta water is coming to a boil, you can get it all done pretty quickly. The trick is to get ready while the water is boilng, and then do everything at once. Here’s how to make it.
Get ready:
- Start the salted pasta water boiling
- Cut chicken into bite-sized pieces, each about the size of a small walnut. Season aggressively with salt and pepper
- Dice onion (use this onion slicing method)
- When the pasta water is at a rolling boil, heat a saucepan over medium high heat. When it is hot, add olive oil to coat the bottom, and let the oil heat until it shimmers. Toss in about 2TB of butter and let it melt.
Up to this point you can take it easy. But now that the oil is ready, it’s go time! Tell everyone you’ll be eating in about 15 minutes.
Go:
- Add the chicken pieces to the hot saucepan. There’s a trick to this! Use tongs to place them one at a time, quickly, so that they are covering the bottom of the saucepan. They should be sizzling. Start the timer so you know how long the chicken is cooking.
- Add pasta to the pasta water
- Let the chicken pieces sit. DO NOT check them! After four minutes, try turning one over with tongs. If it turns easy and is browned on one side, then you can turn the rest. If not, wait one more minute and turn them all. Do this quickly so they are all pretty much turned at the same time.
- Meanwhile, be mindful of the pasta water! When it’s boiling, start a timer for 11 minutes. (This will prbably be about halfway through the chicken part, but it depends on various factors.)
- Let the chicken cook for one minute on the second side. Remove them and set them aside in a bowl.
- Drain the saucepan of oil and turn the heat to medium
- Add 1TB of butter and the onions. Salt the onions so they will break down. Let them soften for 2 minutes. Add the 1T of Dijon mustard and mix it around for 1 minute.
- Deglaze the pan with the rice vinegar or white wine. Just a little bit! Scrape up all the bits and let the liquid boil a bit.
- Pour in the heavy whipping cream and let it come to a boil so it starts to reduce. (Stir it!) Add in a handful of Parmesan cheese, and lots of pepper.
- Once it has reduced, lower heat to low and add the chicken (and whatever juices have drained into the bowl). Let it warm for one minute.
- Drain pasta, pour into saucepan, and then turn that out into a large pasta bowl for serving.
- Mix the pasta a bit so it is covered with the sauce (but don’t bury the chicken pieces, which should stay at the top when you flip the saucepan). Top with pepper and Paremsan cheese.
Enjoy! This is tasty with some Italian country bread.
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