Results tagged “doctorwho” from Uncivil Society
This Slate Q&A re dealing with a difficult board of directors has been making the nonprofit rounds. Personally, I think the following approach is rather efficient:
Still using the break to gain some perspective. In the meantime, here are a few news items that stick out:
- This article has been making the rounds in design circles, and it really is a must-read for do-gooders of all stripes. I've been writing about the link between design and social benefit for a while, and it's a theme whose importance will only grow.
- Bruce Nussbaum on the shift from innovation to transformation. I have much more to say on that--in fact, I've already said a fair bit about it, if you read my articles carefully. What social enterprise folks should note: it's not just the talk about earned income & learning from hedge funds that face obsolescence.
- FilmLA has been in the news due to the decline of filming in Los Angeles. What I hadn't known: that a nonprofit coordinates movie, tv & ad shoots in the area.
- When can museums sell their works?
- Shaolin monks inspire controversy with their temple management franchise initiative.
- BBC announces the next Doctor today!
Possibly the strangest news story this week--a guy tries to win back his ex-girlfriend by . . . well, here's the nefarious plot:
A man who had been dumped by his girlfriend offered a friend £20,000 to kidnap her while disguised as a Dalek, a court heard.
James Wakefield's bizarre plan was for Aaron Rawson to don a £40 toy Dalek voice-changer helmet from Woolworths so that the woman wouldn't recognise him.
He would then abduct her from her home at knifepoint and take her to a wood. . . .
Rawson, 21, claimed he thought Wakefield was joking until the next day when he bought the helmet, along with other equipment including night vision goggles, handcuffs, an air pistol, a balaclava and a boiler suit.
It's a bizarro version of Abducted by the Daleks, the unauthorized soft porn film in which the Daleks kidnap women in the woods and order them to strip.
Moral of the story: People are weird.
Doctor Who.
For folks who can't see the connection between my professional life and these various and sundry interests, I'd suggest first--if ya got nothing better to do this summer--that you reread my article on nonprofit design and look for the various thematic hints I've been dropping on this here site. I also have a few larger projects that will make things clearer, and as they get farther along I'll describe them in more detail here.
But for Doctor Who, there's also a more direct connection than my universal theory of do-goodery: Doctor Who is itself a social enterprise, an innovative hybrid venture in service of the public good.
No, really. Y'see, the BBC is a corporation expressly formed for public purposes, such as "sustaining citizenship and civil society," "promoting education and learning," and "stimulating creativity and cultural excellence." Doctor Who is not just the show that receives the greatest number of mentions in the BBC's Annual Report; it's also regularly cited as a show that strengthens families, teaches children, fosters creativity and embodies the highest values of the dramatic arts. Moreover, Doctor Who generates substantial financial returns through the BBC's commercial arm, thereby funding not just itself but the whole of the BBC's public mission.
Of course, with this public mission comes a range of issues quite familiar to anyone who was worked with charitable dramatic productions. How much is appropriate to spend on talent and special effects? Can a program be too commercial? And in a morally diverse society, exactly what social values should it espouse?
Once Series 4 has been shown in its entirety here in the States I'll post an illustrative scene or two, but for now, just this simple observation. When you come into my office and see the show playing in the background, the Daleks on bookshelf and the sonic screwdriver next to my laptop remember--this stuff isn't just entertainment; it's saving the world!
This weekend in the UK marks the first part of what promises to be an epic finale of the latest season of Doctor Who. From a DW message board, here's one viewer's moral dilemma.
Seek comfort here....
I have to play a charity gig to fund a mission to help Orphaned Kids in Romania, tomorrow nite. 7pm.
Would have wrangled out of it but my daughter is the one who organised it! It'll def get a mention in between tunes. . . .
I still can't convince my 11 year old that the gig is a better option. Poor kid. Watch Dad gig or The Stolen Earth! Guessing that'll be one less!
All others who have to miss it. Share your pain here!
I love this, in part for the bit about how it was only his daughter who kept him from canceling, in part because I thoroughly relate.
The current season of Doctor Who has several running themes, one of which is disappearing bees. The educational comic story featured above, by R. Kikuo Johnson (other contributors to this PBS series include Mark Evanier, Rick Veitch, Thomas Yeates, Lauren Weinstein and more cool comics folks) notes that "the search for solutions . . . is a race against time," which means that the Doctor may be just the right person to figure it out.
(I'll keep this spoiler free by holding off the explanation I think makes the most sense--at least in Doctor Who terms--but in case you're wondering, click here and read around the highlighted terms.)
Just sent out a draft of the last in my Blog@ Superman series. I'll be writing a bit more on the Siegel case as well as other things related to comics & design--in fact, I'd write about the Gordon Lee case now if it weren't 4:20 in the a.m.--but that series had reached a good place to wrap up.
Below: the music that was playing as I hit send, as well as what's been playing a bit as I write. And if you don't get the pun in the title, it's both a reference to the imminent end of the Siegel series and this scene from, well, you know.
Below: the most memorable excerpt from this adventure, when the Doctor says goodbye to his granddaughter, who is staying on earth with her new beau:
I'm spending the day typing as fast as I can about the nature of social enterprise in relation to transcendent value. In the background right now, chosen specially for today's work: Doctor Who and my favorite among his enemies, the Cybermen.
There is very little regulation in the charity game, and if someone like Roger Chapin, the “nonprofit entrepreneur†who founded the Coalition to Salute America’s Heroes and Help Hospitalized Veterans, wants to mismanage your money, he has great leeway in doing so.
The notion that charities are subject to "very little regulation" may be a laugher to folks in the, um, biz, but perception matters more than reality.
Here come the drums . . .
The Dalek above is a life-size fully operational replica constructed by prisoners in Australia:
Mike Burrell, Trade Instructor from Woodford Correctional Centre, helped the five prisoners create the Dalek. "It took six months of occasional time when we were in between production. It was made mostly out of ply but there are a lot of technical difficulties. Ply's flat and most of the Dalek is round and lumpy so it was difficult. It was set up to help them with their skills and technical abilities."
It's now up for bid on eBay, with proceeds to benefit a children's hospital.
Humans have an innate drive to rise above the mundane. Not just poets, painters and priests--everyone, from cubicle workers to garbage collectors sanitation engineers strives to be part of something more.
Today's example: forklift operators, celebrating the central role played by a Hyster lift in helping the Doctor save Earth from certain doom over Christmas.
Yesterday we featured a Special K's cause marketing partnership with . . . well, if you look carefully, you'll notice that it doesn't name the cause or the charity. The reason: it's breast cancer. Presumably they feel that no one would buy cereal with cancer on the box.
The cartoon above took a much bigger risk. It's today's Funky Winkerbean strip, the culmination of a storyline in which lead character Lisa Moore dies due to breast cancer. This strip also has a significant social enterprise component: the cartoonist, Tom Batiuk, has been working in partnership wiith Cleveland's Ireland Cancer Center to establish and finance Lisa's Legacy Fund for Cancer Research and Education. In fact, the Fund will receive 100% of the proceeds from the book collecting the strips in the storyline.
But not everyone thinks this is a good thing. Check out the heated comments on TheCancerBlog, particularly from one angry grandmother:
I think you are on an ego trip and feeling that you are doing something good. Well it is not good and you need to fix it. Consider your public and remember, children are reading your work. Young mothers with breast cancer are reading your work.You are hurting people who already have more hurt in their lives than you can possibly imagine. As a mother and a grandmother I beg you to stop hurting and begin to give some hope to those who must face each day with the knowledge that hope is all they really have.
Which got me thinking about the family and social responsibility. Should society be obligated to shelter children from the dark side of life? Must public life paint the picture of a Secret world in which every outcome is positive?
Contrast the American criticism of Lisa's death with the popular acclaim afforded the new Doctor Who series in the U.K., in which "everything dies" is the pervasive recurring theme. Doctor Who is unapologetically marketed as a children's program, and even the happy endings have a tragic core.
My own take: death, pain, loss--these are part of life, the ultimate natural law. Without them there is no growth, no change; pretend they don't exist and you risk being unprepared to face them down. In this regard the family can play an invaluable role as a social enterprise, teaching kids how to respond to the negative in ways that make life better for us all.
