My First Japan - Reminiscences of an Assistant English Teacher on Sado Island

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My first experience of Japan was a small island in the Sea of Japan called Sadogashima (Sado Island), part of Niigata Prefecture.

Sado Island at that time had several municipalities, including a city called Ryotsu, which is where I was based as an assistant English teacher (AET) in junior high schools.

Sado is by no means a wealthy part of Japan. Most of what in the late 1980s would have been a population of about 40,000 made its living from farming or fishing. There were one or two towns that were better off than others, each with their own AET, but I was employed by the Kaetsu Board of Education, not Ryotsu. Ryotsu was the main harbor on Sado, and traditionally a fishing town. It was certainly not one of the better off parts of Sado and did not employ me.

Yes, this was the late 1980s when Japan was on a high. Japan's economy was the second biggest in the world, after the US, and I recall the yen being so strong that it was about 87 yen to the USD at one stage. I also recall things like the standard drink machine price being 60 yen as opposed to about 120 yen today. Japan was on an all-time high - palpable even in out-on-a-limb Sado.

I had four good friends in Ryotsu, who had adopted me a few weeks into my stay. I was walking home from my school one evening when someone from a car parked outside my place approached me and made my acquaintance in good English. He was the local tailor, and with him in the car was a young farmer, and another shopkeeper who sold women's clothing. Another member of my new gang was the only female: a Japanese Korean woman who ran the local pachinko parlor as well as an English cram school.

My friends helped me integrate into the Ryotsu community by organizing a Wednesday evening English conversation class open to all - with, of course, me as teacher. It had a regular attendance of about 15 to 20 people. Through my group of friends I also took part in the annual Ryotsu festival once or twice, dressed up as a ballerina one time as part of the shopkeepers' part of the procession, all of them in drag.

Many weekends, the group of four and I, plus one or two others, would go out on the town, to an izakaya and karaoke afterwards. One of the regular "others" was an energetic young oddball whose favorite song was "Japanese Businessman" - a number that perfectly summed up the mood in Japan at that time. The verses of this martial-sounding ditty likened the businessman to a doughty samurai setting out to conquer the world, and the refrain was powerfully simple: "Bee-zhee-nesu mahn, bee-zhi-nesu-mahn, Jah-pah-NEEEEE-zu bee-zhee-nesu-mahn!" This guy would belt it out with heartfelt fervor and the whole of Japan behind him.

Even with the Japanese economy at its climax, Ryotsu showed no signs of any opulence, just the hard grind that had brought Japan to where it was at. I was unique (to put a gloss on it) among the four AETs on Sado for living in a bit of a dive - albeit quite a spacious one. It was one the second floor of a two-story prefab with a family next door and four people in a unit each downstairs, and there was a small hole in the wall of the entrance. The neighbors never got used to me, although the fierce little next-door girl's regular animosity did change all of a sudden to admiration in the aftermath of my abovementioned festival transformation into a pretty ballerina.

There was a car ferry to Niigata City - as there still is - that took 2 hours and 20 minutes. I'd take it once a month to the monthly Kaetsu Board of Education meeting of the AETs it employed, and about once a month to Tokyo  where I would go for R&R.

My memories of what Japan's glory days were like have mostly melted into a golden muddle that I can't distinguish now from my excitement at being in the country I'd always wanted to visit since I was in elementary school. The fact that I stayed as upbeat as ever about Japan even after the economy hit a massive rock in early 1992 suggests that the latter was a lot more significant.

25 years later, I was back on Sado. The "Nakano Mansion" I had lived in for three years was still standing, but completely boarded up. Ryotsu City was no longer. Well, it was there but it was now part of what was now Sado City, which covered the whole island, obliterating the various towns and villages that had existed at the time. Only a handful of the stores lining the main street remained in business. The friend's women's clothing shop and the other friend's pachinko parlor were gone. However, there on that same corner where I spent so many weekends being regaled about Japanese history, in a shop that hadn't changed a bit in quarter of a century, there sat my old friend the tailor (and Waseda University graduate) still there behind his counter, as energetic and sharpwitted as ever and as delighted to see me again as I him  - still in business, a true businessman, a Japanese businessman!

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Three Tips for Grappling with Insiders who are Resistant to Change

At every talk I give about The Art of Relevance, no matter the audience, there's one question I always hear. Librarians and museum directors, park managers and theater producers all want to know: how do you deal with insiders who resist change?

These insiders may be fellow staff members. Trustees. Longtime volunteers or donors. Insiders are people who feel ownership of the institution.

It's natural for insiders to want to protect the institutional status quo. They love the organization. They helped build it. They fight to preserve it.

Sometimes, insiders fear that inviting in new people for new reasons might break something. They fear that efforts for greater inclusion or relevance may destroy the institution they love. Sometimes insiders' fears of inclusive practice stem from privilege and entitlement. Other times, insiders' fears are not about inclusion but about institutional change. Many insiders want more people, and more diverse people, involved in their institutions. But that doesn't mean they are eager to assume the pain and uncertainty that comes with change.

Here are three techniques I've learned to tackle insider resistance. The first two invite insiders into the change, and the third gracefully invites them to opt out.

1. Appeal to their generosity. 

If insiders treasure the fact that the institution is "for us," invite them to share it "with them." The director of a historic house once told me about a trustee who was nervous about opening their institution to new people. As the trustee said, "this is my special place. I'm afraid it won't feel magical anymore." The director gently responded: "it's so great that you feel that this place is special. Don't you want to share that magic with others?"

Insiders may not feel generous in the face of change. They may fear for their own experience, wondering: Will I still have a job? Will I still enjoy volunteering here? Will it still be for me?

But everyone wants to be generous. Invite insiders to tap into the pride they have in the institution, their love for it, and invite them to share that love with others. Invite them to imagine that what is for us can also be for them.

2. Appeal to their bravery. 

Change is scary, and we don't always acknowledge that. Leaders of change proselytize about how great the change is and how exciting and fun the journey will be. But it's not all fun. To insiders, the path is uncertain, the leader of the pack is unreasonably cheery, and no one wants to talk about the dangers along the way. The fear is real. Uncertain insiders feel it--and they may also feel judged for experiencing or expressing it.

Instead of distancing insiders as fearful resistors, celebrate their bravery. Change is courageous work. Thank them for being brave in the face of an uncertain future. Thank them for casting their lot with you and the change.

Insiders may not feel brave in the face of change. But it's an attribute we all want to exhibit, especially when things get tough. If you can invite insiders to see themselves as courageous, they may embody it, helping tackle the change instead of feeling run over by it.

3. Bless and release. 

If you can't make it work together, you have to let each other go. In my second year as a change-making executive director, I struggled with a major donor who constantly called me to complain about how I was screwing up the joint. I would explain what we were doing to invite new people into the museum, she would explain why this wasn't what a museum should do, and we would both hang up frustrated. I couldn't make her happy, nor her me, no matter what we tried. I didn't know what to do.

Then Cookie Ruiz, CEO of Ballet Austin, taught me the phrase "bless and release." As Cookie pointed out, any major donor should feel great about an organization she supports. And I should feel supported by those who fund my organization. If we respected each other (which we did), we should stop fighting. We should be willing to bless and release our troubled relationship.

If an insider is truly unhappy, if they feel that they can't do their best work nor make their best contributions at the institution, release yourself and them from the pain. Tell them, "I have heard your concerns about this change. I respect you, and we disagree. We are moving forward with this change. I understand that doesn't work for you. We appreciate all your contributions here past and present. I truly hope that you find a place where you can feel valued as a contributor."

Life is too short to spend all your time negotiating unhappiness. Thank them for their contributions, bless their feelings of dissatisfaction, and then release them--and yourself--from your toxic relationship. You'll all feel a lot lighter, and you'll have more energy to put into making a difference. Like Socrates said, "the secret to change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new."


What other tips do you have for working with insiders who are resistant to change?

If you are reading this via email and would like to share a comment or question, you can join the conversation here.

Japan News This Week 30 October 2016

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In Japan, More Women Fight to Use Their Own Surnames
New York Times

Halloween attraction angers Japan doll makers
BBC

Japan pleads with whaling watchdog to allow 'cultural' hunts
Guardian

Japan�s population declines in 2015 for first time since 1920
Japan Times

From the 2.26 Incident to the Atomic Bombs: Haiku During the Asia-Pacific War
Japan Focus

Last Week's Japan News on the JapanVisitor blog

Statistics

Global Gender Gap Results, 2016

1. Iceland
2. Finland
3. Norway
4. Sweden
5. Rwanda
6. Ireland
7. Philippines
8. Slovenia
9. New Zealand
10. Nicaragua

45. USA

111. Japan

116. South Korea

145. Yemen

Source: Global Gender Gap

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Quick Hit: Art of Relevance Video, Podcast, and a Google Hangout this week

I've been traveling a lot recently, exploring the ideas behind The Art of Relevance with colleagues around the US. Here are two artifacts of my travels... and an opportunity to join in on a virtual/real life meetup this Wednesday.

VIDEO - THE ART OF RELEVANCE

Want to join the conversation about The Art of Relevance but can't make it to a book event? The Minnesota Historical Society made a video of my recent talk there. The video is well-produced, including subtitles and the Q&A. I talk for the first 30 minutes, and then we're doing Q&A in the second half. Check it out.

AUDIO - PRATFALLS PODCAST

Immediately after leaving the Minnesota Historical Society, I sat down with Levi Weinhagen as a guest on his Pratfalls podcast. Levi is an excellent interviewer, and he got me talking about lots of things I don't usually talk about: living off the grid, finding my path, learning from my parents, being a mom and museum director, dreaming of being a ninja warrior. It's an hour interview, and if you enjoy it, I strongly recommend checking out Levi's other episodes interviewing creative people about how they approach their work.

HANGOUT - MUSEUMHIVE

This Wednesday, I'm participating in an experimental Museumhive event. It combines a real life meetup (in Boston) with a virtual Google hangout. I'll be joining in via hangout to talk about distributed museums with Brad Larson, Ed Rodley, Paul Orselli, and lots of Boston area colleagues. You can participate virtually, or if you are in the Boston area, register (for free) to be there in person.

Enjoy the media, get connected, go outside!

What Does a Great Distributed Digital Museum Experience Look Like?

Museum technology nerds: this post is for you.

I've been thinking recently about distributed content experiences--ways for people to interact with museum content (art, history, science, etc.) as they make their way through the world outside the museum. There are a zillion apps for making your own tours, podcasts, maps, or QR code-infested games... but none of them are great.

Distributed mobile content experiences seem to suffer from two basic problems:

1. Underwhelming entry points. It's extremely hard to get people to download a new app. Where and when does an institution ask you to do so? At the museum? At the historic site? While walking down the street? The impulse to download an app is driven by curiosity or an urgent perceived need. While museums may cultivate curiosity, they rarely offer sufficiently clear, urgent use cases to encourage you to go through the drudgery of downloading an app.  
2. Unlikely reentry points. Once you download an app, are you really going to remember to (re)open it to find an interesting historical fact tagged to your geolocation? Are you going to use it to scan for public art near you? Most of these apps seem so niche, so useless for anything other than accessing semi-interesting content in a clunky interface, that they end up languishing in the Siberian outback of your phone.

In contrast, successful distributed projects seem to have one of two characteristics:

1. Compelling and/or versatile mobile experience. What do we use our phones for most? Communicating, playing, exploring. Quality content experiences tend to piggyback on massive social media platforms apps that are already well-used (i.e. facebook) or create very compelling whole worlds unto themselves (i.e. Pokemon Go). 
2. Prominent real world presence. One of the simplest, effective distributed projects I've seen recently is Walk [Your City]. It's a system for creating signs, zip-tied to existing traffic/lightpoles, that direct people to points of interest, special experiences, and surprising encounters. Some cities use them for straightforward wayfinding, but in many towns, the signs have a whimsical or poetic nature. It's amazing how much impact simple signs can have. I'd choose repeated physical presence over a fancy digital interface any day.

Thinking about these two characteristics, here are some highly speculative ideas and questions:

• What is the most effective way to have lots of physical presence in the built environment? Working with cities and public property involves a lot of regulation (though if you can push through the red tape, a lot of potential impact). It's often easier to make deals with private property owners than to lobby the government for use of public space/sidewalks/streets. Projects like Little Free Library and the Peace Pole Project work this way; individuals choose to build them on their own land. How can we activate movements for people to participate in producing and sharing content on the land they already control?
• What's the cheapest advertising money can buy? I generally assume nonprofits can't afford to compete in the advertising world, but there's so much advertising in our visual landscape, some of it in very odd (and affordable) forms. Could you give out free coasters at bars? Make beautiful bike racks? Provide your local coffee shop with thousands of sleeves for paper cups? Is there a distributed layer to life (in the form of advertising) that is hackable for good?
• How can we creatively hack into mobile apps that lots of people already use? Of course you can create content for podcasts, twitter, instagram, etc. But what about apps where you don't have to build a whole media presence? What about creating geo-fenced Snapchat filters connecting people to art nearby, or making Tindr profiles for historical figures in the area? Are there other ways to piggyback on popular apps for content experiences?
• Who's going to build the killer app for distributed learning experiences? Part of me feels like learning is just so low on people's priority lists that distributed museum experiences will always be niche... but then I think of the huge success of online learning platforms like Khan's Academy. I wonder if we just need one (or a few) powerhouse app to take the lead on facilitating quality distributed learning/augmented reality experiences. I think it's possible an institution could do this... but only if it was more focused on building an industry-wide solution than building something custom for their own museum or historic site.

I know that there are very smart people working on these problems. Who's tackling them? What are some of the most interesting approaches underway?

If you are reading this via email and would like to share a comment or question, you can join the conversation here. 

And a note to readers in the Boston area: I'll be participating in a MuseumHive real world / Google hangout on these topics (and others) on October 26. Register today.

Temple Contemporary and the Puzzle of Sharing Powerful Processes

The first thing I noticed about Temple Contemporary were the chairs. Desk chairs and theater seats, sleek modsters and dilapidated stuffed things, a motley crew lined up on hooks around the room. They were charming, but puzzling. Looking closer, I saw that each seat had its own handwritten label, telling the story of the Philadelphia cultural institution from which it originated. The chairs were cast-off art, reclaimed as art, available for people to take off the hooks and use. They were there for artist talks. They were there for project brainstorming. They were there for chair races.

What kind of an art institution is this? That's what I found myself wondering again and again in the too-short hour I spent with the director of Temple Contemporary, Rob Blackson. Temple Contemporary makes strange objects and gorgeous documentation. It encourages process-driven performances and art projects. It is unfinished, unassuming, and whimsical, and at the same time, deadly serious. It takes the kind of risks that a university art gallery should take. It opens up new conversations about the work of art in our communities.

Temple Contemporary�s mission is to creatively re-imagine the social function of art through questions of local relevance and international significance. They live their mission, working in questions and projects rather than exhibitions and programs. Every other year, they convene TUPAC, a group of 35 outside advisors, including teens, college students, Temple University professors, artists, philanthropists, and community leaders. TUPAC advisors come together for one meeting, each bringing a question of local relevance and international significance--a question they don't know the answer to. The advisors share their questions, vote on the ones that they think have the most power, and set the direction of Temple Contemporary.

For example, right now, Temple Contemporary's offices are packed floor to ceiling with broken musical instruments from classrooms across the city of Philadelphia. One of TUPAC's current questions is about the state of art education. In Philadelphia, the budget for arts education has been slashed to pieces. The cuts were so deep that school music rooms are full of unplayable instruments. There's no money to fix them. And so, sparked by TUPAC's big question, Temple Contemporary decided to collect these silenced instruments - 1,500 in all - and commission a Symphony for a Broken Orchestra by a famous composer, David Lang. After the symphony premieres in 2017, Temple Contemporary will have all the instruments restored and will return them to their schools, new repair kits tucked inside the cases.

I left Temple Contemporary energized and inspired by their work. The work that Temple Contemporary is doing with their community is radical and impressive. Temple Contemporary is truly community-led. There is no formula. The community drives the question. The question drives the work. And the work takes the form or forms to which it is best suited. This makes Temple Contemporary excel at responsive, relevant projects. But it also makes their "front-end" experience incoherent. As a visitor, I'm not sure what I left with. My positive experience was 95% rooted in the tour that Rob Blackson gave me. Without him as my guide, all I had was fragments. A bunch of chairs hanging on the wall. Some students folding clothes. Empty pegboards. Half a car attached to the ceiling. Artsy journals. I saw slices of something interesting, but I had no idea how to piece them together.

I would never have learned about the Symphony for a Broken Orchestra if I hadn't been invited into the back office. I would never have known that TUPAC exists, who they are, or what they do. I wouldn't have drunk from the cup made from Pennsylvania oil field shale or read the book about the funeral they held for a row house. I would have walked in, puzzled at the white box's mysteries, and walked out.

This problem isn't unique to Temple Contemporary. It's a challenge in all process-driven work. Often the most powerful community work lives behind the scenes, in the brainstorming and prototyping and trying things out. The same is true of much artwork--the juice is often in the work's development, which dies a little bit when the work is "done." But that juice is fickle. It is powerful when you can experience it directly. It loses its flavor--or is completely imperceptible--when people don't understand what they are drinking.

How do we resolve this? The standard answer is to let the process stay behind the curtain and the product live onstage. Give people the exhibition but not the debates about content development. Give people the symphony but not the stacks of patient, injured cellos. This approach is straightforward. Leave the process to the collaborators and give the product to the audience. But there are two big problems with this approach:

1. It's easy to get caught in the hamster wheel of delivering products to audiences. You start systematizing to deliver a program every week, an exhibition every quarter. You promise your audience quality and you hone your process to deliver it. You don't have time to convene the community. You don't have flexibility to imagine whether their questions are better answered with a symphony or a storybook. You don't have space to take the instruments. You can't open yourself fully to the possibilities. 
2. It denies audiences the powerful opportunity to tap into the process. In most of these kinds of projects, the number of collaborators is finite. The collaborators themselves are often hand-selected or nominated. Visitors can't walk off the street with their own big question and join the scrum. While that's sensible, it's also limiting. How could Temple Contemporary (or any institution) invite each person who walks in the door into the biggest, meatiest work currently underway?

How can we invite people into the processes that drive our most powerful work?

I don't have the answers. I'm curious if you do--and what big questions this sparks for you.

If you are reading this via email and would like to share a comment or question, you can join the conversation here. 

Coming to Your Town, The Art of Relevance in Hand

Co-pilot sadly not attending these events.

One of the basic criteria for relevance has to do with effort. The more effort it takes to attain an experience, the less relevant it will feel--even if you know it will be meaningful. When your favorite band comes to town, you'll buy a ticket and go to the show. But you probably won't be in the audience when they perform thousands of miles away.

Maybe you've been feeling this way about coming to an event related to The Art of Relevance. You'd like to participate, but it would have taken too much effort to attend the summer book launch events in Edinburgh and Santa Cruz. Fortunately, I'm hitting the road this fall, and I hope to be able to discuss this book with you at a time and place that hits your sweet spot in the effort/meaning calculus.

All the 2016 book events are here (and frequently updated). But here's a quick list of the conferences, public events and workshops where I'll be appearing in the next few months. I'd love to meet you there.

PUBLIC EVENTS TO WHICH ALL ARE INVITED

• September 28, 2016: St. Paul, MN at the Minnesota History Center, 8-10am - Free! Register Now
• September 30, 2016: Philadelphia, PA at the Barnes Foundation, 3:30-5pm - Free! Register Now
• October 2, 2016: Brooklyn, NY for a workshop and book signing in partnership with Museum Hack, 11am-12:30pm - Ticketed! Register Now
• October 18, 2016: Chicago, IL at Navy Pier, 3:30-5:30pm - Free! Registration info TBA
• October 19, 2016: Denver, CO at the Ellie Kaulkins Studio Loft for NAMP Regional Workshop, 3-5pm - Free! Registration info TBA
• October 20, 2016: San Francisco, CA at University of San Francisco, 5-8pm - Free! Register Now

CONFERENCES WHERE I WILL BE KEYNOTING

• September 26, 2016: Sacramento, CA for the Confluence CFTA conference
• September 29, 2016: Duluth, MN at the Minnesota Library Association conference
• September 30, 2016: Philadelphia, PA at the National Council of Arts Administrators conference
• October 18, 2016: Chicago, IL for the Illinois Library Association conference
• October 20, 2016: Denver, CO for the Mountain Plains Library Association/Colorado Association of Libraries joint conference
• November 5, 2016: San Francisco, CA for the International Conference of Independent Libraries & Mechanics� Institutes
• November 11, 2016: Austin, TX for the National Arts Marketing Project pre-conference
• November 17, 2016: Houston, TX for the National Trust for Historic Preservation conference

I'd like to pick up a public event in Austin and/or Houston around those November conferences--if you are a motivated Texan with a venue and a dream, let me know. See you on the road!