CONTENTS Articles The Northwest Information Economy 4 Communicating With a Laser 10 Management is a Team Sport 13 Liabilities and Respousibilities of Nonprofit Boards 18 Perspectives Citizen Diplomacy 21 Twelve Myths About World Hunger 22 Awarding Social Inventions 23 The Future of Social Services 24 Pauperization of Work in the United States 26 Community Nonprofit News 28 Businesses Challenge Rights of Nonprofits 28 San Franciso 's Ft. Mason Center 30 Managing Grants and Contracts 31 Marketing Without Madison Avenue 32 Information Technology News 33 Community Computer Center Network 33 International Informatics Conference 34 Electronic Lobbying Service 37 Housing Inventory Software 37 Local News Computer Network for Disabled 40 Laser Discs Knock on Library Door 42 Center for Urban Education News 43 Technical Assistance for Neighborhoods 45 Cable TV Senior Services Project 45 Fall/Winter 1986 Volume XII Number 4
A Message from the Director With this issue of RAIN, CUE is pleased to offer its contribution to the discussion of critical community issues. One of our primary goals is to help individuals and organizations in the Portland metropolitan area grapple with the rapid changes that affect our society, economy, and political system. CUE's board members, staff, and volunteers are engaged in a continuous scanning effort to uncover and understand the trends and community needs that will affect all of us in the coming years. RAIN is a vehicle for us to communicate with the broader public some of what we see and, we hope, to stimulate a dialogue that can lead to creative new ways of responding to the ceaseless change we all experience. CUE itself is undergoing change these days. In November, our director of the past thirteen years, Stephen V. Schneider, left CUE to pursue his own longstanding interest in the ministry. A decade ago, CUE was a small agency providing service to the religious community and offering occasional RAIN Volume XII, Number 4 Fall/Winter 1986 Editor Steve Johnson Designer Susan Applegate Interns Phyllis Manos Alan Saklofsky Andris Wollam Printing Argus Printing RAIN is published quarterly by the Center for Urban Education. RAIN subscription and editorial offices are at 1135 S.E. Salmon, Portland, OR 97214, 503-231-1285. Subscriptions arc $18 per year. Writers' guidelines are available for a SASE. RAIN is listed in the Alternative Press Index. Copyright © 1987 by the Center for Urban Education. No part may be reprinted without written permission. ISSN 0739-621x. Page 2 RAIN Fall/Winter 1986 conferences on emerging issues. Today, CUE is a community resource center: helping non-profit groups with management and technology, creating innovative social service systems for refugees and other populations, and airing controversial public issues for broad discussion and creative problemsolving. The leadership Steve has provided to CUE and the metropolitan Portland community will be deeply missed, but we look forward to hearing from him in other ways in the future. For CUE, 1987 will be a year of continued change and program innovation. With the generous help of the Fred Meyer Charitable Trust, in July we will begin a series of bi-weekly cable television shows designed to deliver social services directly to seniors in their homes. Our School of Non-profit Management schedule is being expanded to include classes in media relations and computer applications, and we will be offering direct management assistance to individual organizations for the first time this year. Oregon Community Foundation is supporting a new program to provide similar assistance directly to Portland's neighborhood associations. The community computer center will be offering expanded hours and the use of new computers in its desktop publishing service, and we look forward to offering a new database development service in the spring months. Apple Computer company has continued to provide generous support to the center, and with their help, we will be offering agencies access to a 24-hour bulletin board service this winter. CUE's refugee programs will continue to set a national standard for innovation in the delivery of integrated cash, medical, and social services, as our Refugee Early Employment Project moves into its second year. And we look forward to another year of growth for the Shared Housing project, as the problems for Portland's homeless population continue to grow, matched by the increasing need of low-income elderly to remain in their homes and receive financial or homemaking assistance. We are only able to undertake these ambitious projects with the support of individuals, foundations, and businesses in the Portland area. We have listed some of the organizations that have been particularly generous to CUE in 1986, and we look forward to expanding our support base in
the future. We are especially committed to expanding the benefits and opportunities for collaboration provided by the CUE Associates program. Associates benefit from discounts on all CUE services as well as free copies of this magazine. We look forward to working with you in addressing Portland's changing needs, and in counting you among the ranks of the CUE Associates. Enjoy this issue and please accept our best wishes for this new year! David Lansky Acting Director, Center for Urban Education We wish to thank our supporters: Apple Computer Co. Benton Foundation Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon Fred Meyer Charitable Trust Mentor Graphics Foundation M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust Northwest Area Foundation Oregon Community Foundation The CUE Associates The Portland Theater Consortium A number of corporations have also supported the computer center through donations of software: Adobe Systems, Inc. Aldus Corporation Electronic Publishing, Inc. Innovative Data Design, Inc. Living Vidotext, Inc. Lotus Development Corp. Magnum Software MicroCosmos Pinpoint Publishing Pleasant Graphic Ware Russ Systems T/Maker, Co. Telos Software Products Videx Editor's Corner In RAIN's history the focus or perspective has changed nearly as often as the weather change on a spring day in the Northwest. This is the fourth time I have been recycled as the editor of RAIN in its twelve-year history. This time the task was more arduous then usual as we needed to redesign the magazine to reflect organizational changes. The circulation of RAIN has dropped over the last few years. We have had long meetings debating its future. We almost closed the shop. But we realized the magazine was an invaluable twoway street, providing us with information to guide our programs, and providing a valuable service to our members and readers in many parts of the world. So we came up with this reincarnation of RAIN. RAIN will continue to be published as a quarterly, interspersed with occasional special publications. Every issue will have feature articles, with a balance of theoretical and practical information. There will be several standing sections, including Perspectives, which provides the large picture. Here we hope to evoke, stimulate and place local community life in a global context. Nonprofit Community News provides news and information for community nonprofit managers and workers. Information Technology explores how community organizations are using information technology, including computers, cable TV, and telecommunication systems. A local community information section will focus attention on news and information for the Portland metropolitan area and the Northwest. While spending time redesigning RAIN we have missed an issue. A special issue of RAIN on socially responsible investing will be published by the end of February to make up for this lost issue. A special thank you to Lance Scott, devoted editor of RAIN. He is now working for the Alliance for Social Change in Portland. Steve Johnson Editor Fall 1986 RAIN Page 3
THE NORTHWEST INFORMATION ECONOMY The Pacific Northwest is moving fronz a land-based econo1ny to an information-based econonzy DAVID LANSKY The Northwest was, and is, the last area of the country to be colonized by the European information culture. The great milestones of Northwest broadcast history-from Roosevelt's turn of the switch at Bonneville Dam in 1934 to the massive coverage of Mt. St. Helens in 1981-have involved the relationship between the people and the land. Even today, some of the most sophisticated computer systems in our region involve tracking natural resource indicators such as watershed levels and polar satellite images. Our information economy revolves around the land. We want to understand it, exploit it, and conserve it. The entire economy of our region has been based in natural resources, and our information economy continues to mirror that dependency. The Northwest's primary information sector includes businesses and organizations devoted to the processing and distribution of information: the postal service, the telephone utilities, computer service companies, market research firms, filmmakers, publishers, libraries, printers, ahd so on. Based on 1985 employment figures, close to 30% of all employed people in the Pacific Northwest work in these primary infor.mation industries, exactly the same rate as that found for California in a recent study. Information processing and dissemination is certainly a big business in the Northwest, with an enormous impact on how we live and work. For the most part, our information industries are local or David Lansky is Acting Director of CUE. This article is a revision of an article originally appearing in The Northwest Information Directory,© 1986 by Fred Mei;er Charitable Trust Page 4 RAIN Fall/Winter 1986 regional service companies-the cable franchises, newspaper publishers, communications companies. Washington State has witnessed a boom in software development companies, and is the home of Microsoft, Inc., a $150 million business. The Puget Sound area also houses the Boeing Computer Services company, a $10 million Boeing Aircraft spinoff which supports hundreds of clients nationwide with computer timesharing services. In Oregon, the "Silicon Forest" shelters a dozen computer hardware manufacturers of varying sizes, including Tektronix's 20,000 employees and Floating Point's $50 million array processor business. In recent years, both Washington and Oregon have made major commitments to attracting foreign information industry companies, and large Japanese firms such as Sharp, Hitachi, and Fujitsu have located in the Northwest. As Table 1 shows, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho have also developed domestic information-production businesses. With the exception of these few-but important -computer harqware and software producers, the Northwest's primary information economy is transaction-based. The region claims few prominent publishers, nationally recognized research centers (except for Washington's Battelle Institute), or database developers. Most of our primary information industry is concerned with servicing a local economy which continues to depend on natural resource processing for much of its sustenance. As elsewhere in the industrialized world, all economic activity in the Pacific Northwest depends increasingly on access to timely, accurate, and relevant information. Government planners, bank managers, hospital administrators, assembly line supervisors, and
police officers spend most of their time acqumng, analyzing, and sharing information. Since the acceptance of Frederick Taylor's school of "scientific management" in the 1930s, our society has spread the gospel of process measurement and evaluation leading to rational decision making. We believe that knowledge about production processes will permit increasingly efficient allocation of people and capital resources, thus improving productivity with fewer inputs. Economists measure this secondary information sector by estimating the proportion of work done in each industrial,, sector which is devoted to information handling. By this method, the northwest states devote about one-fourth of their workforce to the secondary information sector, almost the same as the proportion of the California work force engaged in that kind of work. A second way to look at the importance of the ·information handling sector is through the types of jobs held by regional workers. Table 2 shows the percentage of all workers (as of 1983) in each job role, regardless of industry. The secondary information sector in the Northwest is not distinguished, and appears to be neither ahead nor behind national trends. It is worth noting that employment in one of the most information-intensive industries-state and local government-is continuing to decline. Between 1975 and 1985, for instance, the percentage of the Oregon workforce employed by government agencies declined by 5.2%; in the other northwest states government employment declined from 1.9% (Montana) to 3.2% (WashiDgton). In general, our regi0n's development of information activities has come in terms of support services for the management · of traditional industry. There have been few efforts to capitalize Table 1. Selected Statistics on regional strengths in building a strong information economy. Northwest residents have created and implemented some of the most creative strategies for community development and management seen anywhere in the nation, yet few of these have penetrated the secondary information sector. The importance of community involvement and open political processes has not translated into more jobs devoted to communication, public liaison, and involvement processes. The enthusiasm for Pacific Rim markets and relationships has not produced significant programs in Asian languages and cultures, neither in the classroom nor corporate office. Our struggle to manage enormous geographical spaces has produced little marketable expertise in communications networks and distributed management techniques. We will need to develop a vocabulary and self-consciousness about these regional specialities if we are to capitalize on our strengths and take on a role of national leadership. In Megatrends, John Naisbitt introduced many readers to the reality of the contemporary "information age," and stressed that his method and his vision had less to do with what was to come than with simply describing what was already true in 1983. As early as 1973, Harvard sociologist Daniel Bell outlined The Coming of Post-Industrial Society, stimulating a decade of serious scholarly literature on the economic shifts facing the world. Updating his analysis in 1979, Bell wrote that: "The crucial point about a post-industrial society is that knowledge and information become the strategic and transforming resources of the society, just as capital and labor have been the strategic COMPUTER SOFTWARE DAILY TOTAL NEWSPAPERS Alaska Idaho Montana Oregon Washington POPULATION 406,000 943,000 787,000 2,632,000 4,130,000 MFG.FIRMS 0 8 3 26 39 FIRMS 43 74 67 328 590 NEWSPAPERS 7 11 10 20 25 26 61 61 109 143 Sources:The 1985 IMS/AYER Directory of Publications. IMS Press: Fort Washington, PA, 1985, and Electronic Yellow Pages Manufacturer's Directory and Services Directory. Produced by Market Data Retrieval, Inc. Available through Dialog Information Services files 509, 510. Fall/Winter 1986 RAIN Page 5
and transforming resources of industrial society. The crucial "variable" for any society, therefore, is the strength of its basic research and science and technological resources-in its universities, in its research laboratories, and in its capacity for scientific and technological development." As Bell's chart (Table 3) shows, the postindustrial society's "transforming resource" is information, and its "strategicable resource" is knowledge. Ironically, a glance at the economic development initiatives debated in the Northwest in the 1980s reveals a region focused on moving from a pre-industrial to an industrial economyf based on Bell's terminology. William Paisley, a Stanford University communications theorist, has insisted that even Bell's vision of the "post-industrial society" is already out-of-date. He examines the skills people need in the Information Age and identifies the coming era with the "algorithm"-the computer programmer's term for a highly structured series of steps that must be followed to complete a task-a computer's "recipe." Paisley asks us to look beyond the "information age" to the Age of Algorithms, in which the primary resource "is the intelligence of people. Developing this resource is not only a cultural Table 2. Percentage of workers in each job role ALASKA IDAHO Total number of workers 206,000 412,000 INFORMATION-BASED OCCUPATIONS Executive, administrative 13.3% 8.9% Professional speciality 13.3% 11.5% Technicians 2.7% 2.6% Sales 9.7% 11.2% Clerical 17.9% 15.6% OTHER OCCUPATIONS Service 14.5% 14.3% Precision production 14.6% 11.9% Machine operators 2.6% 5.5% Transportation 4.5% 4.9% Handlers, laborers 3.9% 3.8% Farming, forestry, fishing 2.9% 9.8% priority; it is an economic priority as well." In the Age of Algorithms, economic value is derived from "information-seeking, problem-solving, decisionmaking, and other tasks of learning, working, and everyday life." How well has our region understood, anticipated, and responded to these trends? As elsewhere in the West, the pioneer traditions of individual enterprise and limited public planning have dominated the development of the information economy. Our region is dotted with creative and important projects, but no unifying vision or common purpose guides these isolated efforts. Paisley tells us that the priority is the "intelligence of people," and Bell stresses that "knowledge and information" are the transforming resources of this new age. Yet a look at the Northwest's principal efforts in social and economic development reveals modest activity in these areas. Instead, economic development remains focused on the attraction and subsidy of manufacturing industry, particularly those in the high-technology fields, and the region's innovative projects are isolated and underfunded: • In)983, the Washington Legislature created the Washington High Technology Coordinating Board "to improve the state's climate for technological development." The board has MONTANA OREGON WASHINGTON 359,000 1,192,000 1,832,000 9.6% 10.8% 11.7% 12.0% 12.4%. 14.3% 1.9% 2.9% 3.1% 12.3% 11.5% 11.9% 13.3% 17.0% 14.0% 14.5% 13.8% 13.6% 12.6% 9.3% 11.9% 3.2% 6.4% 4.8% 5.8% 4.2% 4.3% 3.9% 5.1% 4.6% 10.7% 6.6% 5.6% Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor s'tatistics. Geographic Profile of Employment and Occupation-1983. October 1984. Bulletin 2216, P. 61. Page 6 RAIN Fall/Winter 1986
published fourteen reports on various aspects of economic development and high-technology and has conducted an extensive evaluation of technical education at the state's public universities. The board was defunded in July 1986, and its functions transferred to other st~te agencies. participate in an Instructional Televison Network. • The Learn Alaska Network is a satellite communications system linking public schools. and university programs throughout Alaska. Telephone "audio conferences" can include up to·: · 80 sites, and over 240 communities can • A consortium of federal, state and local agencies in Alaska hosted The Northern Information Networking Conference, a conference exploring the applications of new technologies to natural resource projects and the possibilities for coordinating data-gathering ac ti vi ties throughout the state. • The SNOTEL network includes 550 automated sensors planted in the region's most important 3. The postindustrial society: a comparative scheme MODES Production Economic sector Transforming resource Strategic resource Technology Skill base Methodology Time perspective Design Axial principle PREINDUSTRIAL Extractive Primary Agriculture Mining Fishing Timber Oil and Gas Natural power (wind, water,draft animal, human muscles) Raw materials Craft Artisan, farmer, manual worker INDUSTRIAL Fabrication Secondary Goods producing Durables Nondurables Heavy construction Created energy (electricity, oil, gas, coal, nuclear power) Financial capital Machine technology Engineer, semiskilled worker Common sense, trial and Empiricism, error, experience experimentation Orientation to the past Ad hoc adaptiveness, experimentation Game against nature Game against fabricated nature Traditionalism Economic growth POSTINDUSTRIAL Processing and recycling Tertiary Transportation Utilities Quaternary Trade Finance Insurance Real estate Qui nary Health Research Recreation Education Government Information (computer, data transmission systems) Knowledge Intellectual technology Scientist, technical and professional occupations Abstract theory: models, simulations, decision theory, systems analysis Future orientation: forecasting and planning Game between persons Codification of theoretical knowledge Reprinted by permission of the Harvard Business Review. An exhibit from "Communications Technology-For Better or For Worse," by Daniel Bell (May/June 1979. Copyright 1979 by the president and fellows of Harvard College, all rights reserved. Fall/Winter 1986 RAIN Page 7
watersheds. Each sensor reports daily snowpack, temperature, and precipitation data to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. • Almost one-half of the inhabitants of the Northwest have access to cable television, with 1.5 million'homes in 809 communities receiving cable. • The Western Library Network, a computer · system which catalogs over 3.5 million items housed in northwest libraries, supports 210 online users who make 700,000 database inquiries each month. The database adds 400,000 new titles each year. • At least 73 daily newspapers are published in the Northwest, along with over 270 periodicals scattered through the five states. We take most of these systems for granted, though we rely on them both directly and indirectly every day. Market research, political polls, environmental ~mpact statements, public hearings on local issues, the Freedom of Information Act, the pleth?ra of popular and scholarly periodicals, the videotape and compact disk booms are part of our economy and are vehicles for the information which shapes our economic decisions. ·Yet we continue to lack a vocabulary or set of measuring tools to analyze this component of our economy. "What's the difference between intellectual assets and labor assets? To date, economic theory has made little effort to distinguish between intellectual services and physical labor services ..." Forrest Woody Horton asks us to "treat information as a real economic good," to recognize that we have left an era of lab~r as a fundamental economic good, and of capital as a fundamental economic good, and are entering one where intellectual skill becomes the critical . ~ommodity and force in shaping productivity. ·What is the Northwest's "capacity to produce and distribute knowledge-that is, to develop ·its huma~ resource?" Are we focusing public and expert attention on developing the region's intellectual and human resources? How would we begin to sketch an analysis of the Northwest's particular strengths and weaknesses? !he . ~egion c~ntains a number of great umversihes and pnvate enterprises with hundreds of thousands of skilled "knowledge workers." We have seen that over half of the northwest'$ Page 8 RAIN Fall/Winter 1986 workers are in the information "business," and must marvel at the sheer quantity of experience, wisdom, and value that represents. With only 3.5% of the nation's population, the Northwest shelters 5.5% of its.software firms (but only 2.6% of its computer and chip makers). We need to recognize the measurable economic importance of the region's intellectual resource. Thousands of northwesterners sell their expertise outside of the region: planners in Saudi ~rabia, agronomists in Nigeria, language teachers m Japan, teachers in California, authors in New '! o~k. How much of the world is craving knowledge m J.ust the areas of our region's greatest strengths; agriculture, forestry, energy extraction, and participatory government! As the recent Information Highways volume :evealed, the Northwest has developed a sound mfrastructure for the transmission of print, digital, and other information media. Microwave networks sat~llite links, transportation networks, and th~ basic soundness of our telephone systems provide the basis for a limitless array of information transactions. At the same time, much of our potential to develop an "information economy" remains unf~l~illed. Washington State University lacks suf~icient fu~ds to complete the on:.line cataloging of its very important library; the Montana Health Sciences Net~ork recent~y lost funding for a simple 1-800 phone lme to permit Montanans access to basic h~alth care information; the Idaho Regional ~ibrary Network lost its funding in July 1985. In a time of scarce resources, public agencies have ~lected .to place a lower priority on various mformahon services: education, libraries, and the communications infrastructure. The Northwest's corporate sector has also failed to respond to the basic economic tr~nds of the day. At the same time, some institutions are discovering that they can market their information products on the commercial market: Columbia Information Systems sells access to its on-line database of consu?'er behavior to banks throughout Oregon and Washington; the National Oceanic and ~tmosp~eric Administration sells a variety of mformahon services including satellite data oceanographic measures, climatological data, and many publications; Kaiser-Permanente Health Research Foundation sells access to its database of subscriber health data. When the region was settled by Europeans, at the dawn of the communications age, few people completed secondary school, and a handful attended college. A century later, over 75% of
northwesterners complete high school (compared with only 66% of the U.S. as a whole) and almost 20% achieve college degrees (compared with 16% nationally). As the level of individual education increased, the ability of the average citizen to learn outsid~ of the academic institution began to grow, and the past twenty years has seen a tremendous surge in continuing and self-education by books, periodicals, "in-service" training, videotapes, and night classes. Most of us recognize that we have entered an era of what William Paisley calls learning work, when "learning and working should not be separate but rather intertwined activities in both childhood and adulthood." As learning and working become one and the same, we will adjust our understanding of the northwest economy to recognize the importance of the information sector. Public policy considerations will incorporate an analysis of the contribution of each policy to the region's information industry. Support for basic education, for universities and training centers, and for economic sectors that depend upon knowledge processing and intellectual skills will increase. We can adopt the information age and make it our own, tailor it to our ·own culture and regional traditions, and build our economic future on the great foundation of valuable information resources we already possess. ti Fall/Winter 1986 RAIN Page 9
COMMUNICATING WITH A LASER Electronic publishing may revolutionize the business of nonprofit organizations STEVE JOHNSON & BETTY DURHAM Until recently the ability of the small computer as a word processor, no matter how sophisticated the software, has been limited by the quality of printers. Most personal computer users have been forceq to choose between speed and quality. Less expensive, but high speed, printers using a dot matrix process are great workhorses for businesses that crank out reams of financial statements. For higher quality work, more expensive and slower daisy wheel (also called letter-quality) printers, which imitate the impact printing wheel of electronic typewriters, have been available. Over the last several years the distance between the two types of printers has narrowed. Dot matrix printers have increased the quality of print (often at the loss of some speed), and daisy-wheel printers have increased their output speed. Then two years ago a new type of printer appeared, the laser printer. The laser printer, while not as fast as a dot matrix printer, is faster than a letter-quality printer, and offers a quality of type unsurpassed by any other printers for · desktop computers, and in fact challenges the domain of professional typesetting. Hewlett Packard was the first company on the market with a laser printer. Their product, the Lascrjet printer, selling more than any other, has proven itself to be a quiet (fewer moving parts, no impact devices) alternative to the· daisy wheel printer. Steve Johnson is editor of RAIN and manages CUE 's desktop publishing service. Betty Durham is a free lance graphic designer and desktop publishing trainer at CUE. Page 10 RAIN Fall/Winter 1986 But it is Apple's Laserwriter printer that initiated the desktop publishing revolution. The Laserwriter was the first programmable las~r printer. Postscript, a page-description language developed by Adobe Inc. in California, helps the Laserwriter reproduce full pages of text and graphics at 300 dots per square inch, over four times the resolution of the HP Laserjet. Pof?tscript allows the Laserwriter to treat characters as graphic clements. The instructions provided to the Laserwriter are made mathematical formulas responsible for precise shaping of characters. The size of the type is limited only by the size of the paper. The Laserwriter comes with 1/1.5 megabytes of R.AM and a half megabyte of ROM, that stores a library of fonts that can be reproduced in different sizes and styles using Postscript. And, most important, Apple already had the Macintosh, a computer whose potential as an electronic publishing tool was realized with the introduction of the Laserwriter. When first introduced, the Macintosh was thought of as a cute computer-a term one would never apply to an IBM computer. With a weird device to replace curser keys, called a mouse, the use of pictures (icons) instead of command keys, the Macintosh seemed to have no particular niche. It seemed too expensive to penetrate the home computer market, and too cute for the more serious business world. The Macintosh has several key features that make it a good electronic publishing tool. The high resolution of the Macintosh screen makes it possible to view and work with both text and
graphics. It is easy to use. The mouse has more dexterity than the standard curser keys. When the Mac was first sold the only bonified printer for it was Apple's own dot matrix, the Imagewriter. Using the word processing software that was packaged with the Mac, -Macwrite, it was possible to type interesting looking documents. While MacWrite lacked some of the more sophisticated capabilities of other word processors, and while the Imagewriter was at best a medium-quality dot matrix printer, still the Macintosh was capable of printing in different type styles. Early Macintosh users cranked out interesting documents, modifying their appearance with dozens of type styles, shapes and sizes. But it was clearly a limited set-up. Unless one was curious to see how financial documents for in-house distribution looked in Old English type style, what was the practical application? There was another attribute of the Macintosh that users were having a great deal of fun with-graphics. Packaged with the original Macintoshes was a program called Macpaint, which allowed one to draw pictures on the screen. This capability was again thought of as cute, but really ·not of any great practical use. One critic referred to the Mac as a $2500 Etch-a-Sketch. On the Macintosh a writer, publisher or graphic artist could reproduce fairly high quality graphics and text. Now, if there were just some program that would allow one to mix the text and graphics in order to, for example, produce a newsletter. After all if you could produce both graphics and high quality text, why not also eliminate the need for mnually pasting up text on paper layout boards. So a new kind of software program entered the scene. The software programs, called page layout or page composition, allow one to work with a page of text and graphics on the screen. The typical screen imitates the typical layout table of a graphic artist-you create columns with gutters, place graphics in windows, and cut or paste things. With the software one can create multi-page documents, all with the same, or all with unique formats. Some degree of leading (spacing between lines), automatic hyphenation, and kerning (control of space between certain characters) are being added as the programs mature. With a desktop publishing system, while it is possible for almost anyone to produce cameraready pages for printing, there are still many defects in the process. Computeriz.ed layout is sometimes very slow. Advanced features like kerning and hyphenation are not really available yet. The typefaces are still maturing. Only the more expensive systems have full-page screens. The 300 dots per square inch (dpi) on the Laserwriter, compares well to the daisy-wheel (at 72-150 dpi). However, the resolution is a long way from typesetting (1200-1900 dpi). The graphic material, especially photographic material, produced is still relatively low quality. But this is all bound to change, we hear. 1987 is said to be IBM's year to enter desktop publishing. IBM has remained characteristically silent about forthcoming products from its new desktop publishing unit, dubbed the Publishing Systems Business Unit, headquartered in White Plains NY. Page layout software programs are being developed for the IBM-compatible market, including a version of the most popular page layout program for the Macintosh, PageMaker. Laserprinters are dropping in price. There are over a dozen manufacturers making printers ranging from $1500 to $5000. ,Apple is developing a personal laserprinter to compete in the low-end market. New typefaces are being designed that come closer to typeset quality. More sophisticated small optical scanners and digitizers are coming out that allow one to reproduce higher quality graphics and photographs. The long term effects of desktop publishing are far-reaching. New work relations, job redefinition, and publishing industry shakeup are all probable effects. Also, since desktop publishing may bypass the services of the typesetter and paste-up artist, the computer operator maintains a greater degree of control over the finished product, and participates fully in the creative process of publishing. The Seybold Outlook says, "we have termed desktop publishing the great equalizer." It does indeed elevate the appearance of paper output of a small organizations to the level achieved by large organizations with complete graphic and art departments. As high quality output has gotten easier to produce, documents have begun looking more and more professional, presentations have become more complex, and the amount of information provided has increased. But, even the most dedicated desktop publisher admits for written communications that demand premium quality, the typesetting industry's services are indispensable. It is not clear if desktop publishing can replace the need for ·typesetting and graphic designers. Many people may try to do more of their own publishing only to find they don't have the time, Fall/Winter 1986 RAIN Pagel1
patience or skill. The graphic design and typesetting businesses may just learn to use the tools themselves. They would then become the primary target of marketing and new technical developments. Also, while documents look better now, in the long term, as we get used to the higher quality printers, the standards will get higher, and today's laserprinter document will look like yesterday's electronic typewriter. A Desktop Publishin~ Service For Nonprofit Orgamzations For the last eight months the Information Technology Institute has offered a desktop publishing service for nonprofit organizations. Apple Computer Company's Community Affairs Program provided the equipment and the Oregon Community Foundation provided a grant to develop the service. It has turned out to be one of the most dynamic programs we have instituted. The institute provides training in the use of Macintosh computers, including word processing (in effect, typesetting), graphics, and page layout. An organization can choose between two levels of training-one for typesetting only, the other designed for design, typesetting, and layout of more complex documents. After going through the training, organizations can use the computers and laserprinter in the institute's computer lab to produce newsletters, flyers, resumes, business cards, forms, or whatever else demands a typeset-like appearance. The institute has built up a library of graphic images-called, in the desktop publishing trade, digital clip art-that can be incorporated into documents. We also transfer data for cJjents from IBM-comptib.le machines to the Macintosh. One of the most exciting elements of the desktop publishing program has been the development of a desktop publishers users group. The group has met regularly since last spring. It is made up of typesetters, graphic designers, publishers and writers, and others who have begun to use computers for publishing. In this context we have been able to discuss very practical issues (just how do you get tabs from word processing documents into page lay programs?), and more theoretical issues involving changes in the publishing industry. We have learned many things about the ups and downs of publishing on a personal computer. There's no doubt it is a wonder. The times it works, Page 12 RAIN Fall/Winter 1986 and the times one feels satisfied, and delighted far outnumber the bad experiences. But there is also a tendency for computer hardware and software manufacturers _or retailers to over simplify the publishing process, or over-state the capabilities of their products. You may not save money or time. It takes a long time-most of the time, months-to become truly proficient at using the popular page layout software programs. Sometimes it is easier, less time consuming, and less expensive to do manual paste-up. In some cases the computer is best used as a typesetter and not for page layout. Graphic reproduction on desktop publishing systems holds great promise, but it is still in its infancy. The small computers are just not yet capable of storing the amount of information needed to store and reproduce graphics and photographs. The most definite advantage to desktop publishing is control over the creative process. If you would like to have more to do with your publications instead of turning them over to specialists scattered around town, then you'll become an enthusiastic desktop publ.isher. ti
MANAGEMENT IS A TEAM SPORT Managing a nonprofit organization in the eighties JAMES MARSHALL & JUDY PHELAN Management has become a team sport. Theories of managing have progressed from the caricature of the loud, cigar-chomping Theory X autocrat barking orders at quivering subordinates to the mellow, easy-going Theory Y manager who casually solicits ideas and plans from every subordinate in the organization. Management books and articles abound with advice on techniques to turn your team around to make your organization a winner. Distilling advice on techniques is what this article is about. We try to take the complex job of management and break it into tasks that you can practice in your organization. The tasks are the "plays" you can use as coach to your management team. Management's Four Basic Plays Play Number One: Keep the Operation Going Whether brand new to the job or an old-timer, the manager has a fundamental reponsibility to keep the operation going. This means maintaining the routine functions-making sure the organization is within budget, having the reports ready for the Board of Directors, and getting the paychecks out on time. Keeping the operation going also means James Marshall, PhD, and Judy Phelan, M.S. W., serve on the faculty of CUE 's School of Management. James Marshall is a consultant and trainer in management and a Portland City Commissioner's Assistant. Judy Phelan is a trainer and consultant and aMultnomah County District Attorney's Assistant. putting out the fires that erupt from time to time. Firefighting-responding ,appropriately to the periodic or not so periodic crisis-is a manager's responsibility. The more firefighting managers perform the less attention is given to the routine functions of the organization. Without attention, the routine function can become the next crisis. One way to keep the routine operation running and give the manager time to attend to the other plays is to practice delegation. In order to get things done through others a manager must learn to delegate. Managers may feel that because they are in charge they have to do and decide everything. Delegation is the only efficient way to get all the tasks completed. There are six different levels of delegation that a manager can use to keep the operation going: 1. Direct the subordinate to look into a particular situation and give the manager the details. The manager reserves the right to make the decision. 2. Ask for an analysis and a set of recommendations for review. This gives the subordinate the opportunity to demonstrate their analytical abilities, yet allows the manager to make the final decisions. 3. Direct the subordinate to review the situation, make a decision, and advise the manager of the intended action. Do not implement until the manager approves. 4. The subordinate reviews the situation, makes a decision, and advises the manager of the intended decision. The subordinate implements the decision unless the manager specifically directs him/her not to. Fall/Winter 1986 RAIN Page 13
5. The subordinate is directed to review the situation and take appropriate action. The manager asks to be notified of the action after it has occurred. 6. The highest level of delegation allows the subordinate to make the decisions and take action. The subordinate advises the manager at regularly scheduled reporting times of what has occured. It is important to select the level of delegation that is appropriate for each employee. The first two levels of delegation are most suitable for new employees unfamiliar with the organization. Play Number Two: Get the Lay of the Land Managers need to examine the internal and external lay of the land. The internal lay of the land is more than an organizational chart. It requires a shared knowledge of the roles and responsibilities of all the team players. One technique to assist managers in learning the internal 'lay of the land is called management-bywalking-around. Abbreviated to MBWA, this simple technique allows managers to observe first hand how the organization functions and performs. Knowing the lay of the land internally is only part of it. Managers must know the external lay of the land as well. One must identify these players-the people and organizations that affect your agency, or that your agency affects. The list may vary depending on the game-the projects of the moment. Mangers need to make a point of keeping in touch with external players-their clients, constituencies, and supporters. Keeping the external players informed on a regular basis will go a long way when soliciting external help on a project. Play Number Three: Set Priorities Management means getting things done through people. Determining just what it is that needs getting done and by when doesn't happen by magic. A manager must set the goals so the efforts of the team have direction, purpose and focus. In an era of reduced resources, managers must strive extra hard to preserve comfortable working conditions and bearable workloads. By drawing all the players into the game plan a manager can have more effective plans with priorities shared by the whole team. Page 14 RAIN Fall/Winter 1986 Delta Airlines is an organization that has been successful at setting priorities and drawing all the employees into the process. The management of Delta Airlines is composed of a committee of nine people. Because Delta views the employees as the experts on what needs to be done to best serve the company's customers, all employeers are part of the game plan. Over an eighteen month period the nine committee members meet with the employees in large groups. The purpose of the meetings is to get feedback. The questions asked of the employees are: 1. What should I know about your job? 2. What are some of the problems you see that we need to do something about? 3. What are the oppotunities I need to know about? 4. What do you need to know from me to better do your job? Taking the feedback garnered from a collection process, such as Delta uses, and adding to it less formal feedback from internal and external players will give a manager and the management team a list of opportunities, issues and problems that require attention. The critical issue is determining where the resources of the organization should be directed in order to address that list. CarefyJ selection of "doable" actions is the best use of the organization's resources. Questions to consider in making that selection are: 1. How significant is it to the organization? 2. Huw much influence do I have over it? 3. What is the likelihood for a successful action? 4. How much time will it take to correct it or act on it? 5. How much will it cost? Balancing the answers to these questions can lead to a realistic appraisal of the opportunities, problems, and issues facing the organization. This is the kind of information that is essential in order to set realistic, "doable" priorities. Managers, in this era of fewer resources, must focus their energies on these "doable" priorities and deploy their limited resources selectively and with great care. Play Number Four: Build the Team With any team the players change. They move to other teams, lose interest, or get sidelined for any number of reasons. Managers must work at keeping the regular team functioning and scout for new
players for the future. Scouting for new players can be done using the vehicle of an ad hoc committee. Assigning a project to a task force or committee serves a dual function for the manager. First, it allows managers to delegate a project. Secondly, it allows managers to "scout" for future players for, the management team. Members of a task force . have the opportunity to show the organization · how well they can play the management game and what kind of team member they would be. Another aspect of building the team is managing the participation of the players on the team. The job of the manager is to keep the players headed in the same direction. Managing participation is essential for getting things done through people. To do this a manager is expected to: 1. Set the goals for the team. The group needs to know what they are to produce and what outcomes are expected. 2. ·Provide a safe environment for doing the task. Managers need to give the group permission to examine the issue at hand openly and candidly, without fear of punishment. 3. Ensure that resources are available to do the tasks. The group needs adequate time, a meeting place and appropriate materials and support for the job at hand. 4. Provide facilitation for the team. This can be done by having the manager facilitate, or the manager can delegate the responsibility to another. 5. Make sure that the team has the authority to implement the approved results. Giving a team the responsibility to arrive at a solution and failing to allow them to implement reasonable solutions is the fastest way to block participation in the organization. The results of practicing the four basic management plays-keeping the operation going, getting the lay of the land, setting priorities, and building teams-can make you more effective as a manager, and your organization more productive. The results are both rewarding and impressive. ti Nonprofit Management Reading List By James Marshall and Daniel 0 'Toole One of the keys to being an effective manager is to have a good balance of theory and experience. Books can provide lots of theory and a good deal of reporting on the experience of others. But which books? The following bibliography is the latest version . of one that we use in our classes in CUE's School of Management, and elsewhere. It is a listing of books in major areas of management and administration. We have tried to provide a mix of the classics and the more contemporary in each area. Theory Administrative Revolution, (The) ,George Berkley, Prentice Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632, 1971, $2.95 American Bureaucracy, Peter Wop, Norton, 500 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10036, 1977, $12.50 An End to Hierarchy! An End to Competition, Frederick Thayer, Watts, Frankin, Inc. 730 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10019, 1973, $2.95 British Factor-Japanese Factory,,Ronald Dore, University of California Press, 2223 Fulton St., Berkeley, CA 94720, 1973, $6.95 · Games Mother Never Taught You, Betty Barragan, Warner Books, 75 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10019, 1978, $2.50 In Search of Excellence, Peters and Waterman, Harper and Row, E 53rd St., New York, NY 10022, 1973, $19.18 Nature of Mangerial Work, (The), Henry Mintzberg, Harper and Row, E 53rd St., New York, NY 10022, 1973, $12.50 Organization and Bureaucracy, Nicos Mouzelis, Aldine Publishing Co., 200 SW Mill River Rd., Hawthorne, NY 10532, 1968, $13.95 Organizations in Action, James Thompson, McGraw Hill Book Co., 1221 Ave. of Americas, New York, NY 10020, 1967, $15.95 Small is Beautiful, E.F. Schumacher, Harper and Row, E 53rd St., New York, NY 10022, 1975, $2.95 Work and the Nature of Man, Frederick Herzberg, New American Library, 1301 Ave. of Americas, New York, NY 10019, 1973, $1.50 Behavior Administrative Behavoir, Herbert Simon, Macmillan Publishing Co., 866 Third Ave., New York, NY 10022, 1957, $5.95 Comprehensive Stress Management, Jerrold Greenberg, William C. Brown, 1983 Fall/Winter 1986 RAIN Page 15
Games People Play, Eric Berne, Ballatine Books, Inc., 201 E. 50th St., New York, NY 10022, 1978, $2.25 Integrating the Individual and the Organization, Chris Argyris, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 605 Third Ave., New York, NY 10016, 1964, $18.95 Management of Organizational Behavoir, Hersey and I31anchard, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, NJ • 07632, 1977, $8.95 Neurotic Organization, (The), Kets DeVries and Miller, Jossey-Bass, 433 California St., San Francisco, CA 94104, 1984, $19.95 Organizational Behavior, Hamner and Organ, Business Publishers, 1818 Ridge Rd., Homewood, IL 60430, 1982, $26.95 Personal Space, Robert Sommer, Prentice Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632, 1969, $2.95 Ropes to Skip and Ropes to Know, (The), Ritti and Funkhouser, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 605 Third Ave., New York, NY 10016, 1982, $14.95 Silent Language, (The), Edward Hall, Doubleday, 501 Franklin Ave., Garden City, NY 11530, 1973, $2.50 Social Phsychology of Organizations, (The), Katz and Kahn, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 605 Third Ave., New York, NY 10016, 1978, $18.50 Toward a Psychology of Being, Abraham Maslow, Van Nos Reinhold Co., 135 W. 50th St., New York, NY 10020, 1968, '$5.50 Personnel Analyzing Performance or Ya Really Oughta Wanna, Mager and Pipe, Pitman Learning, 19 Davis Dr., · Belmont, CA 94002, 1984, $9.95 Collective Bargaining, Neil Chamberlain, McGraw Hill Book Co., 1221 Ave. of Americas, New York, NY 10020, 1965, $17.95 Human Side of Enterprise, (The), Douglas McGregor, McGraw Hill Book Co., 1221 Ave. of Americas, New York, NY 10020, 1960, $15.95 NOW Employees, (The), David Nadler, Gulf Publishing Co., PO Box 2608, Houston, TX 77001, 1971, $11.95 Personnel Policy in the City, Frank Thompson, University of California Press, 2223 Fulton St., Berkeley, CA 94720, 1978, $3.65 Psychology of Union Management Relations, Stagner and Rosen, Books Cole Publishing Co., 555 Abrego St., Monterey, CA 93940, 1966, $5.95. Public Personnel Administration, 0 . Glenn Stahl, Harper and Row, E 53rd St., New York, NY 10022, 1976, $19.95 Quality Circles in Service Industries, S. and N. Ingle, Prentice Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632, 1983, $12.95 Urban Community and Its Unionized Bureaucracies, (The), Spero and Capozzola, (out of print) Work in America, H.E.W., MIT Press, 28 Carleton St., Cambridge, MA 02142, 1973, $4.95 Worker's Control, Hunnius, Garson and Case, (out of print) Page 16 RAIN Fall/Winter 1986 Finance Economics and Public Purpose, John Galbraith Houghton Mifflin Co., 2 Park St., Boston, MA 02108, 1 1973, $18.95 Financing State and Local Government, Maxwell and Aronson, Brookings Institute, 1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20036, 1977, $4.95 How Effective are Your Community Services Harry Hatry & others, Urban Institute, M St., NW, Washington, DC 20037, 1977, $10.00 Managing Fiscal Stress, Charles Levine, editor, Chatham House Publishers, PO Box 1, Chatham, NJ 07928 1980 $14.95 I f Managing with Less, Elizabeth Kellar, editor, International City Management, 1140 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20036, 1979, $12.00 Politics of City Revenue, (The), Arnold Meltsner, University of California Press, 2223 Fulton St., Berkeley, CA 94720, 1971, $4.95 Polit~cs of the Budgetary Process, , Aaron Wildavsky, Little, Brown and Co., 34 Beacon St., Boston, MA 02114 1979, $5.95 , Politic~, Ec~nomics, and Welfare~ Dahl and Lindbolm, Umvcrs1ty of Chicago Press, 5801 Ellis Ave., Chicago, IL 60637, 1953, $6.95 Practical Financial Management, John Matzer, . International City Management, 1140 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20036 Public Finance in Theory and Practice, Musg·rave and Musgrave, McGraw Hill Book Co., 1221 Ave of the Americas, New York, NY 10020, 1975, $19.95 Social Indicators, Raymond Bauer, (out of print) Zero-Sum Society, (The), Lester Thurow, Basic Books, 10 E 53rd St., New York, NY 10022, 1980, $14.50 Politics, Social Change, Comparative Before the Fall, William Safire, Doubleday and Co., Inc., 501 Franklin Ave., Garden City, NY 11530, 1975, $12.50 Feminine Mystique, (The), Betty Friedan, Dell Publishing Co., 245 E 47th St., New York, NY 10017, 1977, $1.95 Globel Reach, Barnet and Muller, Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1230 Ave of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 1976 $4.% I I Ideology and the Organization of Community in China, Franz Schurmann, University of California Press, 2223 Fulton St., Berkeley, CA 94720, 1968, $7.95 Inequa!ity in an Age of Decline, Paul Blumberg, Oxford University Press, 200 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10016, 1980, $8.95 Japan as Number 1, Ezra Vogel, Harvard University Press, 79 Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138, 1979, $12.50 Megatrends, John Naisbitt, Warner Books, 75 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10019, 1983, $4.50 Ordeal of Change, (The), Eric Hoffer, (out of print) Reveille for Radicals, Saul Alinsky, Random House, Inc., 201E50th St., New York, NY 10022, 1969, $2.95
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