Photos

Snapped with my cell phone camera toward the end of the program. I believe that's Dave Ross up on stage!

Thank you to everyone who joined us yesterday for our 2010 Anniversary Gala program. We could not do what we do without your support! As it has only been one day, we're still quite involved in post-gala business - but we look foward to sharing more of our favorite moments (and better pictures!) from the program. Look for our e-news next week, where we'll announce our amount fundraised. For now, here are a few links:

• Our Twitter feed from the program
• Crosscut.com: Seattle and the Two-Body Problem
• TechFlash: Madrona's Greg Gottesman Rides to Cheezburger's Defense
• TechFlash: Mark Emmert's Parting Advice on Fueling the Innovation Economy
• TVW: Full video is available now!
• The Prosperity Blog: The Two Body Problem
• Northwest Asian Weekly: Blog: Dr. Matsuoka, a genius and a mom

If you saw any press we missed, please share it with us in the comments. If you attended - what was your favorite part?

Mayor Michael McGinn's first Ask the Mayor is tonight at 7:00 p.m. Seattle Channel's press release reminds us: "Nearing his 100-day mark, McGinn will take live questions from Seattle Channel viewers on any topic."

HOW IT WORKS: Ask the Mayor is a call-in show. If you're watching tonight at 7:00 p.m., you can call 206-684-8821. if you prefer to submit your question in advance, you have two choices: the above phone number will prerecord your question any time before 7:00 p.m., or you can submit it via email.

And of course, if your question isn't answered tonight, there's still the chance to see Mayor McGinn, along with Bellevue Mayor Don Davidson and King County Executive Dow Constantine at CityClub's Annual Meeting - "A Conversation with Regional Leaders" - on Wednesday, March 31. It's a luncheon, but if your focus is more on content and less on food, don't forget the coffee&dessert only option, which is only $18 for the general public (cheaper for CityClub members!). Online registration, despite what our website may have tried to tell you yesterday, is 100% live, so register today!

Moderator Bob Watt (Board Chair, The Seattle Foundation; Vice Chair, Thrive by Five Washington) asked a question about funding, citing the recent court decision stating that the state isn't living up to it's constitutional obligation to fully fund education. He asked what, if anything, our panelists thought would result from it.

Scott Oki, Founder and Chairman, Oki Developments, Inc.:
"I actually don't think we need any more money, I simply think we are misspending the money we already have... The United States employs more non-teachers than teachers on the public school payroll... If we shifted the labor base of our public school system away from central bureaucrats and put those resources in the classroom, we could probably actually do something... If we had the will... to simply put a cap; you can only spend 8% on overhead - the rest of the money has to go into the classroom. I bet you we would have plenty of money to hire more teachers, to pay them more money... We are simply misspending the existing $11 billion this state spends every year."

Lisa Macfarlane, Director of External Affairs, League of Education Voters, responds:
"I disagree significantly with this... I would be the first to say it's not all about money. We need resources and we need reform and if you add those two together then you will get results...  I don't care which measure you pick, we are the bottom of the barrel... It's untenable if you want to provide all children, all children in this state with a quality education opportunity... To pretend that we have enough resources today is wrong. School districts have been making cuts. We're cutting down to the bone and it's hurting kids and it's hurting staff morale... It's an economic development issue. We're not going to, as a country or as a state, recover our economy and give our kids the jobs we need and they deserve if we don't invest in our public schools."

Last week, we tweeted about Seattle Public Library's Citywide Conversations - SPL's process of getting input from the public regarding their strategic planning process. Our director, Diane, just returned from the first of these scheduled conversations, where she snapped this cell phone photo:

As the Library puts it, "These 'open houses' at five libraries are designed to have participants 'think big' and use their creativity in considering new models, services and potentially new roles for the Library."

From Diane's description, there's no big presentation and no large facilitated conversation. Instead, there are large post-it pads placed around the room, and attendees are given smaller post-its or stickers to place on ideas of their choice. This is a really great, "non-confrontational" way to get ideas - nobody has to stand up to a microphone and speak to the whole audience, they can just express their approval, or disapproval, through a sticky note on a notepad.

Although there are no more scheduled for the Central Library, you can attend a Citywide Conversation at the following branches:

Last Friday, CityClub closed down the office and held a day long board and staff retreat. As a framework for our discussion, we purchased several copies of Jim Collins' Good to Great and the Social Sectors: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great.

Jim Collins describes something he calls the Hedgehog Concept. Briefly, Collins describes the concept on his website: "The essence of a Hedgehog Concept is to attain piercing clarity about how to produce the best long-term results, and then exercising the relentless discipline to say, "No thank you" to opportunities that fail the hedgehog test. When we examined the Hedgehog Concepts of the good-to-great companies, we found they reflected deep understanding of three intersecting circles: 1) what you are deeply passionate about, 2) what you can be the best in the world at, and 3) what best drives your economic engine."

With these three things in mind, the board and staff of CityClub carried forth into discussion about what we want to do in the future, and how it fits with the Hedgehog Concept. As you can see, we broke up the hard thinking with a little fun: wind-up hedgehogs that spin and do backflips! (We were surprised at how difficult it was to obtain toy hedgehogs! Even the worldly toy folk at Archie McPhee had to ask us to repeat ourselves when we asked after something along this line.)

What do you think about the Hedgehog Concept? Can you see it being useful in your own life and work?