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Keynote: Change!
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Keynote: Change!
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Language: EN.
Segment:1 Introductions.
SIMON INGER: Well, hello. Hi, my name's Simon Inger. And I'm the Society Street Conference Chair. Wow. What can I say? Three weeks ago, we were still thinking we might be holding this conference face-to-face in DC, but with a gargantuan effort, particularly from our program chair and with continued strong support from our sponsors and speakers, we've been able to pivot rapidly into this virtual meeting and make it free to attend.
SIMON INGER: So instead of welcoming you to our inaugural US event in DC, I am happy to welcome you to our inaugural virtual event instead. Society Street was conceived as an event that would allow society leaders to consider holistically the many often siloed aspects of a society's mission. This year, with the operational environment changing so rapidly, we hit on the theme of embracing the mission, perhaps getting societies to focus in on their core functions.
SIMON INGER: And now in the middle of a global pandemic, we all rapidly started to cope with an even greater change and are all trying to assess what changes are likely to be permanent. I know that all of our speakers today have been evaluating these changes and their impact on societies. We've restructured our day to fit a virtual environment and split the event into five consecutive sessions to maximize our chances of making this a technical success.
SIMON INGER: And you'll have to bear with us a little bit, because we're learning this at the same time as you are really in many ways. But before we embark on our day, I do want to take the opportunity to thank all of our sponsors, especially our gold sponsors, Wiley and Elsevier, for their assistance in supporting Society Street. In addition, Cactus has stepped in to help provide this virtual environment for the conference and Cadmore Media will be hosting the on-demand version of this conference, extending the potential audience greatly.
SIMON INGER: Thank you for being here to make this a success. Enjoy the conference. Without further delay, we'll embark on our first session, 'Change!' And of course, nothing could be more topical. So in the chair for our first session is Margaret Vitullo from the American Sociological Association. At this point, I'll bow out.
SIMON INGER: And thank you again, and good luck.
MARGARET VITULLO: As mentioned, I'm Margaret Weigers Vitullo, Deputy Director of the American Sociological Association. As our organizers mentioned, the larger theme of this conference is strategic thinking and planning for the future of associations as we work to embrace our missions. We're doing that work at an unprecedented moment in history. The COVID-19 crisis is impacting every part of our global community.
MARGARET VITULLO: This morning session, although planned long before the current crisis, is remarkably well-situated to helping us and our societies cope with this challenge and the many others we face. The two presenters have comments that will address the reality that societies can and must change to find ways to embrace our missions in the context of the rapidly shifting world in which we all find ourselves. They will also address how to lead change, how to adapt, and how to move forward in productive ways and based on personal experience how to do all that even under emergency conditions.
MARGARET VITULLO: So let me briefly introduce our speakers. And then I'll turn the microphone over to them. Our first presenter is Cindy Sparrow, who is the Director of Consort Strategy, a consulting group focused on supporting good governance, strategic planning, leadership development, and organizational growth. Prior to that, Cindy served as the acting Deputy Chief of Emergency Services in the city of Red Deer in Alberta, Canada.
MARGARET VITULLO: Cindy is also the immediate past President and former member of the board of Executive Directors for the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials. She currently serves as a Director with the Alberta E9-1-1 Advisory Association. Our second presented is Mary Williams, who received her PhD in plant molecular biology from Rockefeller University.
MARGARET VITULLO: She serves as the Features Editor for "The Plant Cell," a publication of the American Society of Plant Biologists, where she also edits the online platform Teaching Tools in Plant Biology, which she herself developed. Mary also mentor students through the Plantae Platform at its Plant Science Research Weekly and gives workshops on writing, teaching, and communicating at conferences and universities.
MARGARET VITULLO: Thank you both for being here. Thank you to everyone who's in our audience this morning. Cindy, the floor is yours.
Segment:2 Cindy Sparrow.
CINDY SPARROW: Everybody, it's great to be here with you all. I'd like to say thank you to Society Street as well for inviting me to be here with you this morning. I'd also to give you a giant proper social distance high five to the whole team for rising to the occasion and carrying on a conference in spite of any kind of travel restrictions we're all under right now. Well done. I know it probably wasn't easy to turn an in-person conference into a virtual event in such a short amount of time, but you've done it.
CINDY SPARROW: So well done. Know that I love interacting with people when I am talking to them. So I realized today is a little bit different, but I certainly look forward to interacting you interacting with you at the end of this through the chat function through your comments and questions. So Margaret told you a little bit about my background.
CINDY SPARROW: I am a recently retired deputy chief. I do have experience including fire EMS and 9-1-1 service delivery throughout my 24 years. And certainly, I have experience in leading myself and others through change, particularly in times of crisis or emergency. I'm also a newly self-employed international consultant, who helps with some organizational development, leadership, governance, and strategy, an international consultant who cannot travel internationally right now.
CINDY SPARROW: So that's fine, but what I love is that we can still help people operate from the comfort of our home office. The world's a much smaller place than it was a few years ago. That's for certain. So one of the perks of working for myself and traveling was that when I wasn't traveling, I actually got to work from home, which is unlike a lot of my colleagues and friends.
CINDY SPARROW: They are at a fire hall every day working. And so one of the perks for me was that I get to be at home working. And I would be the odd guy out, but that's not the case anymore, because we live in a world today where now all of you are probably working from home today, took the luster over that perk in a hurry. I as well have some association experience as a past president and a current director with our national and provincial public safety associations.
CINDY SPARROW: So I'm here to talk to you this morning about change, about why it's hard, but what we can do to manage it so that we can meet ourselves through it and so that we can lead others through it as well and thrive in the midst of all of the things that are going on in our world. Can I just take a moment to address the massive amount of change about we've all been going through in the past few weeks?
CINDY SPARROW: In the past few weeks alone, we've now had to work from home, when maybe we didn't before. We've had to start homeschooling our children if we have school-age children. And we don't have teaching degrees, many of us. So we're trying to learn how to navigate that while also working from home. Some of us have been forced into self-isolation, because we've had contact with or have become sick ourselves.
CINDY SPARROW: We don't have the same access to recreational activities that we are used to, because we can't go anywhere where it's too peopley. And our world has completely changed in the last few weeks. And it's not the same as it was a few weeks ago. And it's certainly not the same as it was a few months ago. That alone can feel overwhelming and difficult at times. So in the midst of all of that change, I want you just to give yourself a break and take a breath.
CINDY SPARROW: And remember, that resisting change is as natural as wanting to breathe oxygen. Our brains are just simply programmed that way. And depending on what kind of pain it is and how heavily it impacts us, we have different levels of tolerance for change, for different kinds of changes that may be going on with us. The reason that is is because our brain really likes patterns.
CINDY SPARROW: It likes to keep doing the same things over and over again. Our subconscious programming just likes to run the same programs all the time. When something comes along that distorts that or disrupts it, it's annoying to my brain. If you think about the concept of when you drive back and forth to work every day-- and maybe that's a poor analogy, because my drive back and forth to work every day, like many of yours, is probably from the bedroom down to the kitchen for a coffee into your makeshift office, wherever you might be working at from your homes, so let's say our drive to the grocery store and back at everyday.
CINDY SPARROW: We typically take the path, the same path that we always have, because it's the easiest one. After a while we do it so many times we don't really have to think about it while we're doing it. And we go on autopilot. So if you can imagine that, we go on autopilot. You get home from the grocery store. You're unloading your groceries. If you stop to think about it for a second, you actually didn't have to think about how you have to get back home.
CINDY SPARROW: So that autopilot just comes from our brains patterns, our brains tendency to like patterns, but the problem with that is you could be driving on your path one day not paying attention, being on autopilot and something can jump out in front of you. And when you think about that analogy and apply it to the work that we do and the memberships that we support, it can be the same way.
CINDY SPARROW: If we're not constantly scanning the horizon for change and looking for ways to not rest on our laurels and anticipate change and be ready for it, it can jump out front of us and stop it in their tracks. Part of the patterns that our brain also likes are the really negative patterns. And that's just because programming from way back when we were cave dwellers it's to keep us safe.
CINDY SPARROW: Our brain is constantly scanning for things that might be off sorts, any kind of danger. Back in the day when we were cave dwellers, it's the food, for saber tooth tigers running at us. While that might not be the case anymore, I'm pretty sure we don't have any. I mean, I haven't been outside for probably the better part of the week, but I'm pretty sure we don't have any saber tooth tigers running down the street.
CINDY SPARROW: But it will still be programmed to react negatively to any kind of danger that might be in its way. And it triggers a flight or flight response. And part of that trigger creates the negative pattern for our brains to glom onto it. And then it continues to look for negative patterns, because it scared. So that fear-based reaction causes us to panic. And it makes it tough for us to make decisions when we're constantly in a state of fear.
CINDY SPARROW: I want to talk about how you can reduce your risk to those negative patterns, that negative information. I want to talk to you a little bit today about secondary trauma. And that might seem like a weird thing to talk about today, but it's really not. Because in the midst of this COVID crisis that we're dealing with, we have a ton of exposure through media, through online.
CINDY SPARROW: Everywhere you look there's information about how scary it's getting, how much the cases are increasing, the deaths that are happening and all that information is readily available all of the time. So it's really important in secondary trauma what can happen is even if you are not directly impacted by what's going on the news, if you're constantly watching it, your brain is taking it in as information.
CINDY SPARROW: And your body's responding to the fear and panic. That can create secondary trauma. It can actually treat post-traumatic stress for people. And because this is probably going to be going on for several months, I just want to take a moment to say it's really important to make sure that you're limiting your exposure to just a few times a day.
CINDY SPARROW: Check in to stay informed, for certain, but make sure that you're limiting your exposure to all of the negative news that might be happening in the background, just to limit your risk of secondary trauma and exposure. You see it a lot with them, any kind of prolonged incident where there's a natural disaster. So when I worked in the field, that was one of the things that we talked to folks about all of the time is just to make sure that they're protecting their mental health and limiting their exposure to all of the information that's going on all the time, not to not get informed.
CINDY SPARROW: Just make sure you're staying informed, but make sure not watching it all day long. Another reason why change be so difficult is the change curve. So the impacts of change can be felt negatively-- they're not always felt negatively. Like I said, our tolerance for change is different depending on how the change impacts us. But if we're perceiving it as impacting us negatively, our response to change can mirror the grief cycle.
CINDY SPARROW: And if you remember the patterns of grief, they're shock, denial, anger, depression, bargaining, and acceptance. We may not experience all of those phases in that exact order, but we will experience them as we go through the change. And we get to decide how quickly we go through that change and how long the stay is what we call the valley of despair. The valley of despair part is where you become frustrated and angry, you're in depression about the situation.
CINDY SPARROW: It feels a little bit hopeless, like you don't want to change your anger that you have to change. And your mind trying to find a way to avoid the change, but that's definitely the most uncomfortable part, but your power is knowing that that's coming, that that's a normal part of change and then deciding how you're going to react to it and move forward. We decide exactly how long you stay in the valley.
CINDY SPARROW: We just need to acknowledge that it might feel crappy for a while. But if you can shift your mindset to focus on what you can do about the situation, it can help you move forward and lead yourself as well as others through all of the changes that we've got going on. It's certainly not our fault that poverty is here. It's not our fault that our industries are changing, but it is our responsibility to get ourselves and others through this crisis right now.
CINDY SPARROW: So this next slide is a really humorous video about the stages of grief. And the giraffe acts it out. Because this is a PowerPoint presentation, it's not going to work for us. And I feel like the world's in enough pain today. So you don't want my poor acting skills to try and act it out for you.
CINDY SPARROW: So we're just going to skip the slide. And I'll tell you where to look for it at the end of the show. So some tools and coping strategies for being in the driver's seat, just over the next while, particularly while we deal with COVID and try to lead our associations and societies forward, mental health is a big one, making sure that you're setting strong boundaries around people, around social media, and around news that feeds the panic.
CINDY SPARROW: It's normal to feel some anxiety and fear, but just remember that think of your top two worst things that have ever happened to you, the most scariest things, the most traumatic things that have ever happened to you. And then remember that you've actually already survived them. You've definitely got the tools to get yourself through anything. And you can get yourself through this as well.
CINDY SPARROW: That comes down to your mindset, making sure that you're focusing on your reaction and your perspective. We don't have control over what might be happening in some of other parts of the world, but we do have control over how you choose to experience or perceive it. This isn't a question about whether or not we'll get through it. It's just a question about how you choose to experience it.
CINDY SPARROW: Making sure that we're kind to ourselves, we have to cut ourselves some slack. We are all going through an immense amount of change. The way we operate in this world is different than it was just a few weeks ago. These aren't normal times. And we're all doing the very best that we can under the circumstances.
CINDY SPARROW: Another piece as well is media, making sure that you're limiting your exposure. And I cannot stress this enough. Just plan to unplug for large chunks of the day. Limit your exposure. Don't stay tuned into the constant news loop that's in the background, full of negativity on repeat. Just be sure to keep informed. Make sure that you're going to credible sources to do so.
CINDY SPARROW: I do have some links to websites at the end of my show as well at the end of the slide so that you're able to learn things as well. I'm going to tell you a little bit about a story of change. In my previous role as deputy chief, it was my privilege as part of my portfolio to lead the 9-1-1 center here in Red Deer. And I'm not sure if you're familiar with Alberta, but it's in the middle of the province.
CINDY SPARROW: Our city is in the middle of a province. And it's responsible for 9-1-1 fire and EMS dispatch for a large portion, probably over a third of the province, a large portion province, one of the largest centers, certainly in the province. Now a few years ago, we had some change headed our way that we didn't have a lot of control over. The province decided that it would step in and take over EMS delivery, so ambulance delivery as well as ambulance dispatch services.
CINDY SPARROW: Before, municipalities were responsible for taking care of their own ambulance delivery, ambulance dispatch. So this was a massive change that we didn't really get to say in. And we were going from about 20 plus centers in the province to dispatch ambulance. They were going to minimize it down to just four. So we were all worried about who would and wouldn't be able to. So that was a fear in itself.
CINDY SPARROW: But what ended up happening was Red Deer was one of the successful cities that got to keep EMS dispatch in their center, but there was a catch. We had to change the technology that we use. So our computer systems, our phone systems, and our radio systems as well as our policies and procedures had to change, everything. We'd sit at different desks.
CINDY SPARROW: We had to rearrange our center to be able to connect properly to the technology. Everything that we knew for how to dispatch EMS was going to change the data we became-- what was called a satellite dispatch center. So we made sure that we communicated early on with our team about what was negotiable and what wasn't. We made sure that they understood exactly what we had control over and what we didn't.
CINDY SPARROW: We knew that if we wanted to stay in the game, there were just some things we had to do when they weren't negotiable. So we didn't spend our time spinning our wheels in the mud on that. What we did was decide to have a positive mindset about it and focus on the things that we could change. We normalized conversations about the changes we were going through it.
CINDY SPARROW: And we made sure that we gave people the platform to be involved and empowered to help make a difference and have a say in the pieces that apply to them and the pieces that they could have control over-- so making sure early on that they understood our vision for what it would look like when we flipped the switch on the day of. We had to give them tools to be themselves through the change to make sure they understood exactly what they were going through.
CINDY SPARROW: We talked about the grief cycle a lot, because we were all going to feel it different ways and needed to be there to support one another. So we did make the changes. And on the day of our go live in our center, it went off without a hitch. Now I'm not going to pretend that there weren't difficult times in the very beginning, because it was essentially like everybody starting their first day all over again, with the new technology, using new processes.
CINDY SPARROW: And of course, in the midst of it all, taking 9-1-1 calls for ambulance, where they're getting lifesaving instruction to callers on the other end of the line and still dispatching resources and taking care of everything else. So being able to change and adapt among a crisis or an emergency and not having a lot of say in it can be very difficult, but truly positive mindset was everything.
CINDY SPARROW: So it was having an understanding of the vision of where we were heading, communicating with our teams to make sure they knew what was going on and empowering them and involving them whenever they could, just like you're going to lead yourselves and your associations and your societies through the same thing. This can absolutely be a success story for you. I'm happy to report that the 9-1-1 center is the highest performing center within the province-- within four months of going live is this new satellite center.
CINDY SPARROW: They were the highest performing center in the province. And they maintain that record three years down the road as well. They've just received their fourth accreditation award for a center of excellence in emergency services, which is a really big deal, because it takes a lot of hard work and a lot of the standards that you have to meet to be able to achieve that. And we're the only center in the world to ever be able to achieve this.
CINDY SPARROW: So I've got to say that helping people get through change and understanding, what it feels like, equipping them with the tools to be able to manage it, and then maintaining that positive mindset, the more and more things that are thrown at us, it helped our team flourish in a way that I didn't expect. And they're certainly one of-- they're still absolute rock stars to this day offering the best possible service they can to our citizens in this area.
CINDY SPARROW: So what I want to talk to you about next is being able to embrace opportunity. In change and in process, there are always two sides to every crisis. One parts of the scary, chaos that happens, but in the middle of it, there's always an opportunity to choose to see what you could do to serve better or to rise above and serve better and help lead people through this change.
CINDY SPARROW: Remember, this isn't the first time you've been through difficult things, not in your lives, not in your personal lives, and probably not in your professional lives either. And you're going to be able to get through this. So give some thought to the opportunity that exists right now and how you use it to reach societies and associations forward.
CINDY SPARROW: This next picture I absolutely love. So a few days ago, I was on Facebook. My friend Sherry and her two boys Brandon and Ty-- you can their little photo credit at the bottom-- posted this picture on Facebook. So probably like many other schools in the areas where you live, a few weeks ago we were told that schools are going to be closed for the rest of the year.
CINDY SPARROW: The school year was done. And if you can imagine, little boys who are 6 and 8, who absolutely still love school, they were devastated. So mom said, that's fine. We're going to homeschool you. One of the first projects that they have for science was planting seeds and letting them grow. And so when I looked at this picture, I immediately thought it reminded me that we have an opportunity to plant good seeds today so that we're set up well for the future.
CINDY SPARROW: And if you look, they are leaning right into the science. So embracing that opportunity and using this as a way to pivot and grow in ways that we may not have before. Societies have a major opportunity today to step up and support their members in possibly different ways than they may have before. The work that you do as societies and associations is so important, because the work that researchers do and your support for them is important to our entire world.
CINDY SPARROW: And if you were not there to help them through advocacy and creating impact and influence, who's going to do it if you don't exist anymore. So in order to be able to thrive through this COVID crisis and through the changes that are happening in our industries, some key things need to happen. Number one, communication, reassuring your members that you're there for them, you're working on their behalf, reaching out to them often, making sure you're communicating the vision, be clear on where you're headed, identify any changes that are coming down the road and what they can expect, and keep them informed in the process.
CINDY SPARROW: Another one is to be really solutions focused. It's really easy just to give up in the midst of change and it's too hard, but truly your role as associations and societies is way too important to be able to just step down and take a backseat. You have to be first, and you have to be up front. Identify any barriers that are in your way and remove them quickly. Don't focus on being perfect for execution.
CINDY SPARROW: Just move forward and keep trying things to step up and serve. Another opportunity that's really great right now is that we have a chance to collaborate. We're going to have to do work in ways that we haven't before. If you're struggling to get there on your own, are there other organizations that you can partner with so that you can work together to achieve your goals and move the needle on whatever it is that you need to make a difference for for the members that you serve?
CINDY SPARROW: This is really key, community. During times of crisis and particularly during times when we're isolated at home, community is so incredibly important. When we have a crisis or emergency, we have an emergency management, a term that's called the milling about theory. Often after a big emergency, whether it's the responders after they're done on the call, or it's the people-- the bystanders or the victims that were involved in the call that was happening, what they do is they kind of hang around together.
CINDY SPARROW: They might not be saying much, but they're just hanging around. It's just that simple connection where they get a chance to normalize the abnormal things that are going on and feeling that connection and that belonging and that sense of me too, I'm struggling too-- so making sure that you're offering community to your members in the way that they need it. And if you're not sure what they need, then reach out and ask them.
CINDY SPARROW: That's the best way to support them. And then above all else, your role in advocacy and creating impact influence is such a major key important part of what you do for the membership that you serve. Make sure that you're kind to each other. Take care of people. And step up and serve them well during this time. It's definitely going to be a challenging time.
CINDY SPARROW: And we can be in it for the long game and really reap the opportunities to be able to serve in new and wonderful ways. So I wish you all well. I thank you for your time this morning. I'm going to leave my contact information here. And the slides will be available on the website I believe as well as soon as we're done. So thank you so much, everybody, for your time this morning.
CINDY SPARROW: And I'll turn microphone phone back over to Margaret.
MARGARET VITULLO: Thank you for that inspiring and really useful presentation. We are now going to be turning to Mary Williams. And so, Mary, the floor is yours.
Segment:3 Mary Williams.
MARY WILLIAMS: Thank you. When Sam asked me to talk about change, I didn't really anticipate the context at which we'd be talking about change. Even Superman can't be expected to change this quickly, but Cindy did a great job of really addressing the situation we're in. I'm going to step back and talk about change that's a little bit slower. I'll talk about how in the last five years ASPB has been transforming itself from sort of a club to more of a community.
MARY WILLIAMS: So this is really the story of the evolution of the American Society of Plant Biologist. So once upon a time, dinosaurs ruled the earth. And everyone was happy and everyone thought nothing would ever change, but one day something changed. And as you know, a meteoroid came. It struck the Earth. It changed the climate.
MARY WILLIAMS: A lot of the plants died, and so did the dinosaurs. Once upon a time, professional societies were well-funded and supported, just like the dinosaurs. We kind of thought nothing was ever going to change, but, of course, one day something changed. And these are situations that affect all professional societies. Of course, for many of us who rely on journals for our revenue, open access is a huge threat, but we've also seen across the board tendencies towards declining membership.
MARY WILLIAMS: And of course, there's these generational changes of people not feeling so inclined to necessarily want to join this sort of exclusive club. It's just a whole different view of the world, but many of these changes, we can see really stem from the development of the internet. So why has the internet transformed the world so much? And a big part of that is because the internet has changed the way we access information.
MARY WILLIAMS: It's taken power away from gatekeepers. It's democratized information. If you think about some of the roles of professional society, they have been keepers of knowledge and keepers of information, but that power is gone now. So we have to think about how can we deal with these changes. Luckily, we aren't dinosaurs. So we can forecast and anticipate the changes that are coming and that we need to make.
MARY WILLIAMS: And we can choose to evolve before it's too late. So I want to use an example. Another industry that's been transformed by the internet, and this is the hotel industry. So you know once upon a time, when you went somewhere, you booked a room in a hotel. But now people look at hotels as being a little bit dull. They're sort of old-fashioned boring. Why not stay in some cool, hip exciting treehouse?
MARY WILLIAMS: So that hotel industry has obviously had to rise to the challenge that's been given to them. And they've addressed this in many ways. They've thought about the things, how do we stand out? What do we offer our clients? Well, we're clean, which you can't always guarantee for an Airbnb. We're safe. We're reliable.
MARY WILLIAMS: We're comfortable, but one of the things they've really emphasized is the service. So when you come to our hotel, there will be someone at the desk to give you the key. A concierge will help you find a restaurant. Someone might carry your bags. Someone will come to your room and clean it if you need problems. They'll even bring you new toilet paper if you need it.
MARY WILLIAMS: So this has been one of the ways that the hotel industry has kind of addressed this challenge. And so what we have done as a professional society is we've asked, what do we need to do to address the challenge that the internet and the rest of the changing world has brought us? So what we've chosen to do is really reinvent the way we present ourselves and the way we act. So we're no longer sort of an exclusive VIP members only cluby-type thing.
MARY WILLIAMS: Instead, we have become and evolved really into something that's much more of an embracing, warm, accepting, and welcoming community. We are very eager to have early career scientists, in particular, feel like this is a place that they want to be part of. And so what I want to talk you through some of the ways we've done this. Oh, just briefly, the ASPB was founded in 1924.
MARY WILLIAMS: So we're nearly 100 years old. And like many professional societies, much of our revenue comes through the journals, through membership, and through the meetings we run. And as well as supporting those activities, we also use some of that revenue to pay for education and outreach and policy. And of course, our discipline is plant biology. So the goal we have is to try to figure out how do we transition into a society that meets the needs of plant scientists today and into the future.
MARY WILLIAMS: So we need to figure out, what do tomorrow scientists need? What do they want? What do they value? And then how can we recruit them to become loyal members of our community? We've also had to look at how we communicate. It's not enough anymore to send out a newsletter twice a year out to the community. So I'll talk about how we've evolved that as well.
MARY WILLIAMS: And then finally, I'll address a little bit about how we've done this, while still trying to balance the budget. So when we asked what do early career researchers want, and need, and value, one of the things that we find as is found in this Wiley membership survey from 2014, yes, of course, they value the journals. The journals aren't going away. That's never going to be a problem, but what else can we do to support them?
MARY WILLIAMS: So much of what they're looking for is they're looking for a place they can get new skills and knowledge and opportunities. So we've really kind of addressed many of these things that early career scientists need through some of the activities we've done. So in order to do that, we've taken advantage of the internet.
MARY WILLIAMS: And we've essentially created an alter ego. And if you think of the ASPB as Clark Kent, Plantae is our alter ego Superman. And it provides us an opportunity to do lots of these different things that we know early career scientists want. For example, we have a series of webinars, Plantae webinars. And they cover topics that our scientists are interested in, such as leadership, career development, science communication, research tools, and techniques.
MARY WILLIAMS: And this is a hugely popular series that we've been running for several years now. And it's definitely given us a much higher profile in the community. We also have a platform where people can write articles about things they're interested in, whether it's about current research or it's about ideas about how to survive your postdoc, or how to get a faculty position, or how to get a job in industry.
MARY WILLIAMS: So this has become sort of the site where people come to learn information. We have within this online community, we have lots of communities or networks where people can join to learn and gather resources and network. Some of them are private and have private conversations, but many of them are public, where you can come, for example, if you want to learn what to do with your seven-year-old while they're homeschooling them.
MARY WILLIAMS: We have resources for teachers, and educators, and parents as well as other members of our society. I'm a believer that if you're going to ask someone to give some time to a project that you're working on, them you need to give them something back. And often, for an early career scientists, they're looking for things that they can put on their CV. So we have a variety of what I called named programs, which these are competitive programs that people apply to.
MARY WILLIAMS: And when they're accepted into the program, they have a title. So one of our programs is called the Plantae Fellows program. And these are scientists from around the world, our Plantae Fellows. We've got a few dozen of them. They run our networks. They help us with continuing education and career resources. We have a weekly column that comes out called Plant Science Research Weekly.
MARY WILLIAMS: And the fellows write short articles of new research articles so you can sort of catch up and keep up to date with what's happening in the world of research. Each of our journals has an assistant features editor panel. These are members of the editorial board, but they tend to be more junior in their career. And these scientists write sort of one page highlight articles about some of the articles in our journals.
MARY WILLIAMS: It's a very popular and successful program. And the students get not only a line on their CV, but they get articles that they've written for our journals on their CV. So this is a really great program. Another one we have is called the CONVIRON Scholars Program. This is a sponsored program. CONVIRON is a growth chamber company. Plant biologists need a place to grow their plants.
MARY WILLIAMS: Some people grow them in fields, but some people grow them in a controlled environment chamber, such as you would get from CONVIRON. So convention sponsors this program. We have I think 2016 early career scientists from around the world. And we run them through a mentor online program that includes writing skills, career development skills, leadership skills, and other things.
MARY WILLIAMS: So these are some of the things we've developed, all driven over the internet that have provided some of the opportunities and skills that we know that our early career scientists are looking for. I mentioned also that we've evaluated how we communicate and figured out ways that we can communicate better. Of course, social media is a big part of what we do, but what we realized is that communication has to be bi-directional.
MARY WILLIAMS: So we can't just send our newsletter a couple of times a year and think that we've done our job. We need to listen to the members of our community. And we need to find out, what do they want? What do they value? Social media is a great way to do this. And we've actually found that to be super informative as we've been developing these programs. People get excited about them or maybe they give us suggestions for ways to do it.
MARY WILLIAMS: Just this last week, we've been hearing from our community that most universities have an online seminar-- I mean, sorry, a live seminar series, where they bring researchers to the university to speak. So we've been asked could we set up a virtual seminar, research seminar series for everyone to participate in. So that's one of the things we learn from the community. And now we've been able to act very quickly and establish this.
MARY WILLIAMS: And we actually hope to have our first seminar April 1, next week. So it's been a very great response to what the community needs. We've also put early career scientists on committees. This shows that they're valued and that they have a voice. We have an open floor town hall at our annual meeting. Again, this is an important way that people can communicate with us and let us know what.
MARY WILLIAMS: Sometimes it's uncomfortable, but it is necessary. And I just want to point out we have these really active social media channels. We have one for Plantae, one for ASPB, our journals. I have my own. And I also want to point out that in plant science a very large and growing part of our community are based in China. China has taken on the need to improve their crop productivity very seriously.
MARY WILLIAMS: So it's difficult to communicate with scientists in China, but we have an active WeChat channel. And if anyone wants to talk about that later, I'm happy to share. And I mentioned also that, because we are so visibly involved in training, I get invited to give workshops all over the world. And these are just some of the places I've been in the last few years.
MARY WILLIAMS: Of course, this year they're all going to be virtual, but the nice thing is is that by going, I'm hosted by the institution. And yeah, I get to meet and mingle with early career scientists and tell them about our great programs, but also show them the value of joining the ASPB. So the challenge-- of course, I had to come to the challenge-- the challenge is revenue. So how do we do these great things in the context of not spending all of our money and raising some additional money?
MARY WILLIAMS: So of course, these programs are really designed to encourage membership. We set out to say, how do we make this look like a place that people want to support through membership? We also had been developing these nice programs. And we're writing grants and getting funding to continue to support the programs, but we have other outstanding questions. So where do we set our author fees?
MARY WILLIAMS: That's a tough question that most people are grappling with. Should do our webinars be paid access? Can we find additional sponsors? Should we package some of the things we're doing into sort of paid credentialing programs? These are all the things we're struggling with. But I do want to leave you with some good news. And that is that not all dinosaurs went extinct. Archaeopteryx is an ancestor-- it's a winged dinosaur.
MARY WILLIAMS: And it's an ancestor of modern birds. So I want to think about what can we learn from archaeopteryx. If everybody went extinct, except this one small lineage of dinosaurs, what did they do differently? And how can we learn from that? Well, the key is that small dinosaurs survived. And if you look at this slide, you can see a velociraptor, which I know everybody is familiar with, because we've all seen Jurassic Park, which is not even a very big dinosaur.
MARY WILLIAMS: And if you look at archaeopteryx, it's the size of a pigeon. So what did small dinosaurs do? How did they survive? What was different about them? Well, what's really interesting is that this lineage of dinosaurs actually started off big. And it had been moving into a smaller and smaller size before this great catastrophic event.
MARY WILLIAMS: And in fact, the small size is what allowed them to learn to fly. You have to be small to fly. A T-rex can't fly. So what I wanted to challenge you to think about over the rest of the day is what can we learn from archaeopteryx, and how can we get small so that we can survive and transition? Why can a big dino do?
MARY WILLIAMS: And I just wanted to put this slide in. Unfortunately, it's an animation that doesn't work in whatever we're in-- in PDF, but one thing that evolutionary biologists know is that people get stuck or organisms get stuck on fitness peaks. So you might be in a place where you're very well-suited for your environment. And as long as the environment doesn't change, great.
MARY WILLIAMS: But if you want to move to another fitness peak, maybe in response to a change in your environment, that's difficult. I think Cindy mentioned the valley of despair or something like that. There's sort of a valley of not being a good fit but your environment. So even though we have to change, even though we have the foresight of the need to change, evolution is hard.
MARY WILLIAMS: And change is hard. That doesn't work. So here's my advice. I think the things that we need to do to learn from the winged dinosaurs is we need to get small. We need to cut back. We need to focus on our key priorities. And we need to do some housekeeping.
MARY WILLIAMS: We need to do an inventory of all of our services. Look at the IT. Look at the accounting. Look at the marketing. Where can we cut? Where can we trim? What can we consolidate? Maybe you're paying one organization for IT, one organization for broadband, one organization for fulfillment lines.
MARY WILLIAMS: Maybe you can pull those things together. You can renegotiate. There's a study in the UK that shows that people who change energy companies regularly actually spend less money than people who just stick with one. And if you think about it, energy companies are always trying to give you a good deal. So if you have this great sweet deal for three months and then switch to another sweet deal for three months, yes, you'll save money.
MARY WILLIAMS: Maybe you're sitting with someone who's just bloated and bloated. And you could reconsider that. Maybe there's things you could can curtail or eliminate. And I also want to focus on the fact that in addition to your community and your members, your staff is really important in helping you survive. So what can you do to re-energize and retrain your staff?
MARY WILLIAMS: Are there things that you're outsourcing that maybe you can retrain staff to in-source? Be prepared to become less hierarchical. As I said, change is hard. If you're the head of a big organization, you probably are going to find it very difficult to suddenly give power to all of your employees, but think about that hotel. Every member of that staff community of the hotel is able to answer questions and deal with the situations that arise.
MARY WILLIAMS: Your staff should be communicating and interacting regularly with the community, in conferences, online through social media. Maybe you need to improve your internal communication. Give your staff a sense of power and ownership and commitment so that they can help you survive these changes that you need to make. Sorry, wrong button. And this is a great cartoon I found, which is, but what if we retrain our staff?
MARY WILLIAMS: What if we take someone, give someone a course so they can do Google Analytics and now they have all these skills and then they decide to leave and find greener pastures? And the guy on the right says, well, what if we don't retrain them and they stay? So think about that. Really invest in your employees. So again, I just want to kind of give you a hope at the end of this, which is many of us are big dinosaurs.
MARY WILLIAMS: We probably for a long time have thought that we're great, and we're going to be around forever. But now we do know that change is upon us. And we need to find a way to evolve and change. And what I would really like to hope that we can do for the rest of the-- in my time zone afternoon is to think about what kinds of changes we can make so that we can come out of this-- in our beautiful plumage.
MARY WILLIAMS: So not all dinosaurs are chickens. There's fantastic birds that we can all hope to become one day. So thank you very much.
Segment:4 Q&As.
MARGARET VITULLO: Thank you, Mary. That was that was absolutely fantastic. [INAUDIBLE] for questions. And I'm going to see if we can get a micro question in for each of you. So first, for Cindy, leaders often, especially in small organizations end up actually blurring the lines between strategic thinking and operational work. What's your one sentence suggestion for leaders today that are madly working on trying to operationally respond to COVID, while they also need to be thinking about the big picture kind of thing that Mary is talking about?
MARGARET VITULLO: What do you tell those leaders?
CINDY SPARROW: Right. I think it's really easy to get caught in the weeds very quickly and become very myopic in your view of dealing with just the operations. But you're right. It's making sure that your team understands, has a shared vision of where you're heading. I think that shared vision that's created by all of you in the very beginning, it gives you your target on the wall to look at every single day so that you don't get stuck in the weeds.
CINDY SPARROW: That's vital for your survival and for your ability to respond appropriately. So they're just responding to the small things and constantly putting out tiny fires all day long. You're looking at the bigger picture overall and headed for managing all of it really well-- so shared visions.
MARGARET VITULLO: Thank you. And Mary, I wonder if you can dry out one particular example. You created Teaching Tools and Plant Biology, which is this on award winning online platform that is in front of the paywall completely. Can you tell us very briefly how that fits in with your business model of your association? Do you see that resource as [INAUDIBLE] the evolution of associations toward those beautiful birds you showed us?
MARGARET VITULLO:
MARY WILLIAMS: That's an interesting question. So we actually started it in part to continue to keep the subscription of our journals high. I mean, this was a sweet deal. If you subscribe to a journal, you get great research. And you get these nice educate-- and we did that for a while. But what we were hearing was people were saying, it didn't really fit well with them. Why are you making educational resources that aren't available?
MARY WILLIAMS: And, yes, we made them available to people in developing countries, but it was difficult. Your university had to register. So eventually, we realized that, yes, you know, it was a difficult decision to make in terms of the financial impact, but the goodwill that we get from having teaching tools that are open access is great. And of course, as I said, we're trying to position ourselves as not a closed off community, because that's not the future.
MARY WILLIAMS: The future is not a closed community. The future is an open community. How are you an open community? You need people to believe in you. You need people to support you and want to be part of you.
MARGARET VITULLO: We've actually got three minutes left. I'm going to do one more question. And you can each say just a word about it, Cindy and then Mary. So this open community and having staff interacting with the public, how do you do that? What's too much? Is there a guideline that you can offer about sort of opening up those gates as opposed to the usual like really tight communication control that happens in organizations?
MARGARET VITULLO: Cindy, what do you say?
CINDY SPARROW: I think it comes down to having the key things that your team needs to understand that they can communicate together. So if you have those points of your, again, the shared vision of, what is it that we want to communicate and how do we want people to understand what we're doing, if you can empower your team with that information, they can be a little a lot more flexible on how to deliver the message.
MARGARET VITULLO: That's great. I think you have a target for where you're going. And you have a mission and vision that's really clear that your staff know how to embody in what they're saying. Cool. Mary, what would you add or what would you change about that?
MARY WILLIAMS: Well, when we started this effort to be more transparent through social media, someone had the bright idea that we should keep a spreadsheet of all of our tweets. But of course, that's not how social media works. You have to be fluid and flexible and respond. So getting everybody who's participating to know, OK, maybe there's something that I need to get some advice on, but kind of empowering people and training people is a big part of it.
MARY WILLIAMS: I would also say that we have brought in some early career scientists as interns and as employees. And they are really helpful.
MARGARET VITULLO: That's fantastic. Well, this has been so exciting. I wish I could have taken notes on everything. I believe that there will be a recording of this available to people. Sam and Simon can fill us in and make absolutely certain that's true. I also believe that we're going to have a 10 minute break before the next session starts. Thank you to the audience for being here.
MARGARET VITULLO: Thank you for sending in great questions and for the very active chat that we've had. And I think that's it for us for the moment. We actually finished up about 50 seconds early. So you have a little bit longer to go and have your break. Thanks, all.
CINDY SPARROW: Thank you.
MARY WILLIAMS: Thanks. Bye.
Segment:1 Introductions.
SIMON INGER: Well, hello. Hi, my name's Simon Inger. And I'm the Society Street Conference Chair. Wow. What can I say? Three weeks ago, we were still thinking we might be holding this conference face-to-face in DC, but with a gargantuan effort, particularly from our program chair and with continued strong support from our sponsors and speakers, we've been able to pivot rapidly into this virtual meeting and make it free to attend.
SIMON INGER: So instead of welcoming you to our inaugural US event in DC, I am happy to welcome you to our inaugural virtual event instead. Society Street was conceived as an event that would allow society leaders to consider holistically the many often siloed aspects of a society's mission. This year, with the operational environment changing so rapidly, we hit on the theme of embracing the mission, perhaps getting societies to focus in on their core functions.
SIMON INGER: And now in the middle of a global pandemic, we all rapidly started to cope with an even greater change and are all trying to assess what changes are likely to be permanent. I know that all of our speakers today have been evaluating these changes and their impact on societies. We've restructured our day to fit a virtual environment and split the event into five consecutive sessions to maximize our chances of making this a technical success.
SIMON INGER: And you'll have to bear with us a little bit, because we're learning this at the same time as you are really in many ways. But before we embark on our day, I do want to take the opportunity to thank all of our sponsors, especially our gold sponsors, Wiley and Elsevier, for their assistance in supporting Society Street. In addition, Cactus has stepped in to help provide this virtual environment for the conference and Cadmore Media will be hosting the on-demand version of this conference, extending the potential audience greatly.
SIMON INGER: Thank you for being here to make this a success. Enjoy the conference. Without further delay, we'll embark on our first session, 'Change!' And of course, nothing could be more topical. So in the chair for our first session is Margaret Vitullo from the American Sociological Association. At this point, I'll bow out.
SIMON INGER: And thank you again, and good luck.
MARGARET VITULLO: As mentioned, I'm Margaret Weigers Vitullo, Deputy Director of the American Sociological Association. As our organizers mentioned, the larger theme of this conference is strategic thinking and planning for the future of associations as we work to embrace our missions. We're doing that work at an unprecedented moment in history. The COVID-19 crisis is impacting every part of our global community.
MARGARET VITULLO: This morning session, although planned long before the current crisis, is remarkably well-situated to helping us and our societies cope with this challenge and the many others we face. The two presenters have comments that will address the reality that societies can and must change to find ways to embrace our missions in the context of the rapidly shifting world in which we all find ourselves. They will also address how to lead change, how to adapt, and how to move forward in productive ways and based on personal experience how to do all that even under emergency conditions.
MARGARET VITULLO: So let me briefly introduce our speakers. And then I'll turn the microphone over to them. Our first presenter is Cindy Sparrow, who is the Director of Consort Strategy, a consulting group focused on supporting good governance, strategic planning, leadership development, and organizational growth. Prior to that, Cindy served as the acting Deputy Chief of Emergency Services in the city of Red Deer in Alberta, Canada.
MARGARET VITULLO: Cindy is also the immediate past President and former member of the board of Executive Directors for the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials. She currently serves as a Director with the Alberta E9-1-1 Advisory Association. Our second presented is Mary Williams, who received her PhD in plant molecular biology from Rockefeller University.
MARGARET VITULLO: She serves as the Features Editor for "The Plant Cell," a publication of the American Society of Plant Biologists, where she also edits the online platform Teaching Tools in Plant Biology, which she herself developed. Mary also mentor students through the Plantae Platform at its Plant Science Research Weekly and gives workshops on writing, teaching, and communicating at conferences and universities.
MARGARET VITULLO: Thank you both for being here. Thank you to everyone who's in our audience this morning. Cindy, the floor is yours.
Segment:2 Cindy Sparrow.
CINDY SPARROW: Everybody, it's great to be here with you all. I'd like to say thank you to Society Street as well for inviting me to be here with you this morning. I'd also to give you a giant proper social distance high five to the whole team for rising to the occasion and carrying on a conference in spite of any kind of travel restrictions we're all under right now. Well done. I know it probably wasn't easy to turn an in-person conference into a virtual event in such a short amount of time, but you've done it.
CINDY SPARROW: So well done. Know that I love interacting with people when I am talking to them. So I realized today is a little bit different, but I certainly look forward to interacting you interacting with you at the end of this through the chat function through your comments and questions. So Margaret told you a little bit about my background.
CINDY SPARROW: I am a recently retired deputy chief. I do have experience including fire EMS and 9-1-1 service delivery throughout my 24 years. And certainly, I have experience in leading myself and others through change, particularly in times of crisis or emergency. I'm also a newly self-employed international consultant, who helps with some organizational development, leadership, governance, and strategy, an international consultant who cannot travel internationally right now.
CINDY SPARROW: So that's fine, but what I love is that we can still help people operate from the comfort of our home office. The world's a much smaller place than it was a few years ago. That's for certain. So one of the perks of working for myself and traveling was that when I wasn't traveling, I actually got to work from home, which is unlike a lot of my colleagues and friends.
CINDY SPARROW: They are at a fire hall every day working. And so one of the perks for me was that I get to be at home working. And I would be the odd guy out, but that's not the case anymore, because we live in a world today where now all of you are probably working from home today, took the luster over that perk in a hurry. I as well have some association experience as a past president and a current director with our national and provincial public safety associations.
CINDY SPARROW: So I'm here to talk to you this morning about change, about why it's hard, but what we can do to manage it so that we can meet ourselves through it and so that we can lead others through it as well and thrive in the midst of all of the things that are going on in our world. Can I just take a moment to address the massive amount of change about we've all been going through in the past few weeks?
CINDY SPARROW: In the past few weeks alone, we've now had to work from home, when maybe we didn't before. We've had to start homeschooling our children if we have school-age children. And we don't have teaching degrees, many of us. So we're trying to learn how to navigate that while also working from home. Some of us have been forced into self-isolation, because we've had contact with or have become sick ourselves.
CINDY SPARROW: We don't have the same access to recreational activities that we are used to, because we can't go anywhere where it's too peopley. And our world has completely changed in the last few weeks. And it's not the same as it was a few weeks ago. And it's certainly not the same as it was a few months ago. That alone can feel overwhelming and difficult at times. So in the midst of all of that change, I want you just to give yourself a break and take a breath.
CINDY SPARROW: And remember, that resisting change is as natural as wanting to breathe oxygen. Our brains are just simply programmed that way. And depending on what kind of pain it is and how heavily it impacts us, we have different levels of tolerance for change, for different kinds of changes that may be going on with us. The reason that is is because our brain really likes patterns.
CINDY SPARROW: It likes to keep doing the same things over and over again. Our subconscious programming just likes to run the same programs all the time. When something comes along that distorts that or disrupts it, it's annoying to my brain. If you think about the concept of when you drive back and forth to work every day-- and maybe that's a poor analogy, because my drive back and forth to work every day, like many of yours, is probably from the bedroom down to the kitchen for a coffee into your makeshift office, wherever you might be working at from your homes, so let's say our drive to the grocery store and back at everyday.
CINDY SPARROW: We typically take the path, the same path that we always have, because it's the easiest one. After a while we do it so many times we don't really have to think about it while we're doing it. And we go on autopilot. So if you can imagine that, we go on autopilot. You get home from the grocery store. You're unloading your groceries. If you stop to think about it for a second, you actually didn't have to think about how you have to get back home.
CINDY SPARROW: So that autopilot just comes from our brains patterns, our brains tendency to like patterns, but the problem with that is you could be driving on your path one day not paying attention, being on autopilot and something can jump out in front of you. And when you think about that analogy and apply it to the work that we do and the memberships that we support, it can be the same way.
CINDY SPARROW: If we're not constantly scanning the horizon for change and looking for ways to not rest on our laurels and anticipate change and be ready for it, it can jump out front of us and stop it in their tracks. Part of the patterns that our brain also likes are the really negative patterns. And that's just because programming from way back when we were cave dwellers it's to keep us safe.
CINDY SPARROW: Our brain is constantly scanning for things that might be off sorts, any kind of danger. Back in the day when we were cave dwellers, it's the food, for saber tooth tigers running at us. While that might not be the case anymore, I'm pretty sure we don't have any. I mean, I haven't been outside for probably the better part of the week, but I'm pretty sure we don't have any saber tooth tigers running down the street.
CINDY SPARROW: But it will still be programmed to react negatively to any kind of danger that might be in its way. And it triggers a flight or flight response. And part of that trigger creates the negative pattern for our brains to glom onto it. And then it continues to look for negative patterns, because it scared. So that fear-based reaction causes us to panic. And it makes it tough for us to make decisions when we're constantly in a state of fear.
CINDY SPARROW: I want to talk about how you can reduce your risk to those negative patterns, that negative information. I want to talk to you a little bit today about secondary trauma. And that might seem like a weird thing to talk about today, but it's really not. Because in the midst of this COVID crisis that we're dealing with, we have a ton of exposure through media, through online.
CINDY SPARROW: Everywhere you look there's information about how scary it's getting, how much the cases are increasing, the deaths that are happening and all that information is readily available all of the time. So it's really important in secondary trauma what can happen is even if you are not directly impacted by what's going on the news, if you're constantly watching it, your brain is taking it in as information.
CINDY SPARROW: And your body's responding to the fear and panic. That can create secondary trauma. It can actually treat post-traumatic stress for people. And because this is probably going to be going on for several months, I just want to take a moment to say it's really important to make sure that you're limiting your exposure to just a few times a day.
CINDY SPARROW: Check in to stay informed, for certain, but make sure that you're limiting your exposure to all of the negative news that might be happening in the background, just to limit your risk of secondary trauma and exposure. You see it a lot with them, any kind of prolonged incident where there's a natural disaster. So when I worked in the field, that was one of the things that we talked to folks about all of the time is just to make sure that they're protecting their mental health and limiting their exposure to all of the information that's going on all the time, not to not get informed.
CINDY SPARROW: Just make sure you're staying informed, but make sure not watching it all day long. Another reason why change be so difficult is the change curve. So the impacts of change can be felt negatively-- they're not always felt negatively. Like I said, our tolerance for change is different depending on how the change impacts us. But if we're perceiving it as impacting us negatively, our response to change can mirror the grief cycle.
CINDY SPARROW: And if you remember the patterns of grief, they're shock, denial, anger, depression, bargaining, and acceptance. We may not experience all of those phases in that exact order, but we will experience them as we go through the change. And we get to decide how quickly we go through that change and how long the stay is what we call the valley of despair. The valley of despair part is where you become frustrated and angry, you're in depression about the situation.
CINDY SPARROW: It feels a little bit hopeless, like you don't want to change your anger that you have to change. And your mind trying to find a way to avoid the change, but that's definitely the most uncomfortable part, but your power is knowing that that's coming, that that's a normal part of change and then deciding how you're going to react to it and move forward. We decide exactly how long you stay in the valley.
CINDY SPARROW: We just need to acknowledge that it might feel crappy for a while. But if you can shift your mindset to focus on what you can do about the situation, it can help you move forward and lead yourself as well as others through all of the changes that we've got going on. It's certainly not our fault that poverty is here. It's not our fault that our industries are changing, but it is our responsibility to get ourselves and others through this crisis right now.
CINDY SPARROW: So this next slide is a really humorous video about the stages of grief. And the giraffe acts it out. Because this is a PowerPoint presentation, it's not going to work for us. And I feel like the world's in enough pain today. So you don't want my poor acting skills to try and act it out for you.
CINDY SPARROW: So we're just going to skip the slide. And I'll tell you where to look for it at the end of the show. So some tools and coping strategies for being in the driver's seat, just over the next while, particularly while we deal with COVID and try to lead our associations and societies forward, mental health is a big one, making sure that you're setting strong boundaries around people, around social media, and around news that feeds the panic.
CINDY SPARROW: It's normal to feel some anxiety and fear, but just remember that think of your top two worst things that have ever happened to you, the most scariest things, the most traumatic things that have ever happened to you. And then remember that you've actually already survived them. You've definitely got the tools to get yourself through anything. And you can get yourself through this as well.
CINDY SPARROW: That comes down to your mindset, making sure that you're focusing on your reaction and your perspective. We don't have control over what might be happening in some of other parts of the world, but we do have control over how you choose to experience or perceive it. This isn't a question about whether or not we'll get through it. It's just a question about how you choose to experience it.
CINDY SPARROW: Making sure that we're kind to ourselves, we have to cut ourselves some slack. We are all going through an immense amount of change. The way we operate in this world is different than it was just a few weeks ago. These aren't normal times. And we're all doing the very best that we can under the circumstances.
CINDY SPARROW: Another piece as well is media, making sure that you're limiting your exposure. And I cannot stress this enough. Just plan to unplug for large chunks of the day. Limit your exposure. Don't stay tuned into the constant news loop that's in the background, full of negativity on repeat. Just be sure to keep informed. Make sure that you're going to credible sources to do so.
CINDY SPARROW: I do have some links to websites at the end of my show as well at the end of the slide so that you're able to learn things as well. I'm going to tell you a little bit about a story of change. In my previous role as deputy chief, it was my privilege as part of my portfolio to lead the 9-1-1 center here in Red Deer. And I'm not sure if you're familiar with Alberta, but it's in the middle of the province.
CINDY SPARROW: Our city is in the middle of a province. And it's responsible for 9-1-1 fire and EMS dispatch for a large portion, probably over a third of the province, a large portion province, one of the largest centers, certainly in the province. Now a few years ago, we had some change headed our way that we didn't have a lot of control over. The province decided that it would step in and take over EMS delivery, so ambulance delivery as well as ambulance dispatch services.
CINDY SPARROW: Before, municipalities were responsible for taking care of their own ambulance delivery, ambulance dispatch. So this was a massive change that we didn't really get to say in. And we were going from about 20 plus centers in the province to dispatch ambulance. They were going to minimize it down to just four. So we were all worried about who would and wouldn't be able to. So that was a fear in itself.
CINDY SPARROW: But what ended up happening was Red Deer was one of the successful cities that got to keep EMS dispatch in their center, but there was a catch. We had to change the technology that we use. So our computer systems, our phone systems, and our radio systems as well as our policies and procedures had to change, everything. We'd sit at different desks.
CINDY SPARROW: We had to rearrange our center to be able to connect properly to the technology. Everything that we knew for how to dispatch EMS was going to change the data we became-- what was called a satellite dispatch center. So we made sure that we communicated early on with our team about what was negotiable and what wasn't. We made sure that they understood exactly what we had control over and what we didn't.
CINDY SPARROW: We knew that if we wanted to stay in the game, there were just some things we had to do when they weren't negotiable. So we didn't spend our time spinning our wheels in the mud on that. What we did was decide to have a positive mindset about it and focus on the things that we could change. We normalized conversations about the changes we were going through it.
CINDY SPARROW: And we made sure that we gave people the platform to be involved and empowered to help make a difference and have a say in the pieces that apply to them and the pieces that they could have control over-- so making sure early on that they understood our vision for what it would look like when we flipped the switch on the day of. We had to give them tools to be themselves through the change to make sure they understood exactly what they were going through.
CINDY SPARROW: We talked about the grief cycle a lot, because we were all going to feel it different ways and needed to be there to support one another. So we did make the changes. And on the day of our go live in our center, it went off without a hitch. Now I'm not going to pretend that there weren't difficult times in the very beginning, because it was essentially like everybody starting their first day all over again, with the new technology, using new processes.
CINDY SPARROW: And of course, in the midst of it all, taking 9-1-1 calls for ambulance, where they're getting lifesaving instruction to callers on the other end of the line and still dispatching resources and taking care of everything else. So being able to change and adapt among a crisis or an emergency and not having a lot of say in it can be very difficult, but truly positive mindset was everything.
CINDY SPARROW: So it was having an understanding of the vision of where we were heading, communicating with our teams to make sure they knew what was going on and empowering them and involving them whenever they could, just like you're going to lead yourselves and your associations and your societies through the same thing. This can absolutely be a success story for you. I'm happy to report that the 9-1-1 center is the highest performing center within the province-- within four months of going live is this new satellite center.
CINDY SPARROW: They were the highest performing center in the province. And they maintain that record three years down the road as well. They've just received their fourth accreditation award for a center of excellence in emergency services, which is a really big deal, because it takes a lot of hard work and a lot of the standards that you have to meet to be able to achieve that. And we're the only center in the world to ever be able to achieve this.
CINDY SPARROW: So I've got to say that helping people get through change and understanding, what it feels like, equipping them with the tools to be able to manage it, and then maintaining that positive mindset, the more and more things that are thrown at us, it helped our team flourish in a way that I didn't expect. And they're certainly one of-- they're still absolute rock stars to this day offering the best possible service they can to our citizens in this area.
CINDY SPARROW: So what I want to talk to you about next is being able to embrace opportunity. In change and in process, there are always two sides to every crisis. One parts of the scary, chaos that happens, but in the middle of it, there's always an opportunity to choose to see what you could do to serve better or to rise above and serve better and help lead people through this change.
CINDY SPARROW: Remember, this isn't the first time you've been through difficult things, not in your lives, not in your personal lives, and probably not in your professional lives either. And you're going to be able to get through this. So give some thought to the opportunity that exists right now and how you use it to reach societies and associations forward.
CINDY SPARROW: This next picture I absolutely love. So a few days ago, I was on Facebook. My friend Sherry and her two boys Brandon and Ty-- you can their little photo credit at the bottom-- posted this picture on Facebook. So probably like many other schools in the areas where you live, a few weeks ago we were told that schools are going to be closed for the rest of the year.
CINDY SPARROW: The school year was done. And if you can imagine, little boys who are 6 and 8, who absolutely still love school, they were devastated. So mom said, that's fine. We're going to homeschool you. One of the first projects that they have for science was planting seeds and letting them grow. And so when I looked at this picture, I immediately thought it reminded me that we have an opportunity to plant good seeds today so that we're set up well for the future.
CINDY SPARROW: And if you look, they are leaning right into the science. So embracing that opportunity and using this as a way to pivot and grow in ways that we may not have before. Societies have a major opportunity today to step up and support their members in possibly different ways than they may have before. The work that you do as societies and associations is so important, because the work that researchers do and your support for them is important to our entire world.
CINDY SPARROW: And if you were not there to help them through advocacy and creating impact and influence, who's going to do it if you don't exist anymore. So in order to be able to thrive through this COVID crisis and through the changes that are happening in our industries, some key things need to happen. Number one, communication, reassuring your members that you're there for them, you're working on their behalf, reaching out to them often, making sure you're communicating the vision, be clear on where you're headed, identify any changes that are coming down the road and what they can expect, and keep them informed in the process.
CINDY SPARROW: Another one is to be really solutions focused. It's really easy just to give up in the midst of change and it's too hard, but truly your role as associations and societies is way too important to be able to just step down and take a backseat. You have to be first, and you have to be up front. Identify any barriers that are in your way and remove them quickly. Don't focus on being perfect for execution.
CINDY SPARROW: Just move forward and keep trying things to step up and serve. Another opportunity that's really great right now is that we have a chance to collaborate. We're going to have to do work in ways that we haven't before. If you're struggling to get there on your own, are there other organizations that you can partner with so that you can work together to achieve your goals and move the needle on whatever it is that you need to make a difference for for the members that you serve?
CINDY SPARROW: This is really key, community. During times of crisis and particularly during times when we're isolated at home, community is so incredibly important. When we have a crisis or emergency, we have an emergency management, a term that's called the milling about theory. Often after a big emergency, whether it's the responders after they're done on the call, or it's the people-- the bystanders or the victims that were involved in the call that was happening, what they do is they kind of hang around together.
CINDY SPARROW: They might not be saying much, but they're just hanging around. It's just that simple connection where they get a chance to normalize the abnormal things that are going on and feeling that connection and that belonging and that sense of me too, I'm struggling too-- so making sure that you're offering community to your members in the way that they need it. And if you're not sure what they need, then reach out and ask them.
CINDY SPARROW: That's the best way to support them. And then above all else, your role in advocacy and creating impact influence is such a major key important part of what you do for the membership that you serve. Make sure that you're kind to each other. Take care of people. And step up and serve them well during this time. It's definitely going to be a challenging time.
CINDY SPARROW: And we can be in it for the long game and really reap the opportunities to be able to serve in new and wonderful ways. So I wish you all well. I thank you for your time this morning. I'm going to leave my contact information here. And the slides will be available on the website I believe as well as soon as we're done. So thank you so much, everybody, for your time this morning.
CINDY SPARROW: And I'll turn microphone phone back over to Margaret.
MARGARET VITULLO: Thank you for that inspiring and really useful presentation. We are now going to be turning to Mary Williams. And so, Mary, the floor is yours.
Segment:3 Mary Williams.
MARY WILLIAMS: Thank you. When Sam asked me to talk about change, I didn't really anticipate the context at which we'd be talking about change. Even Superman can't be expected to change this quickly, but Cindy did a great job of really addressing the situation we're in. I'm going to step back and talk about change that's a little bit slower. I'll talk about how in the last five years ASPB has been transforming itself from sort of a club to more of a community.
MARY WILLIAMS: So this is really the story of the evolution of the American Society of Plant Biologist. So once upon a time, dinosaurs ruled the earth. And everyone was happy and everyone thought nothing would ever change, but one day something changed. And as you know, a meteoroid came. It struck the Earth. It changed the climate.
MARY WILLIAMS: A lot of the plants died, and so did the dinosaurs. Once upon a time, professional societies were well-funded and supported, just like the dinosaurs. We kind of thought nothing was ever going to change, but, of course, one day something changed. And these are situations that affect all professional societies. Of course, for many of us who rely on journals for our revenue, open access is a huge threat, but we've also seen across the board tendencies towards declining membership.
MARY WILLIAMS: And of course, there's these generational changes of people not feeling so inclined to necessarily want to join this sort of exclusive club. It's just a whole different view of the world, but many of these changes, we can see really stem from the development of the internet. So why has the internet transformed the world so much? And a big part of that is because the internet has changed the way we access information.
MARY WILLIAMS: It's taken power away from gatekeepers. It's democratized information. If you think about some of the roles of professional society, they have been keepers of knowledge and keepers of information, but that power is gone now. So we have to think about how can we deal with these changes. Luckily, we aren't dinosaurs. So we can forecast and anticipate the changes that are coming and that we need to make.
MARY WILLIAMS: And we can choose to evolve before it's too late. So I want to use an example. Another industry that's been transformed by the internet, and this is the hotel industry. So you know once upon a time, when you went somewhere, you booked a room in a hotel. But now people look at hotels as being a little bit dull. They're sort of old-fashioned boring. Why not stay in some cool, hip exciting treehouse?
MARY WILLIAMS: So that hotel industry has obviously had to rise to the challenge that's been given to them. And they've addressed this in many ways. They've thought about the things, how do we stand out? What do we offer our clients? Well, we're clean, which you can't always guarantee for an Airbnb. We're safe. We're reliable.
MARY WILLIAMS: We're comfortable, but one of the things they've really emphasized is the service. So when you come to our hotel, there will be someone at the desk to give you the key. A concierge will help you find a restaurant. Someone might carry your bags. Someone will come to your room and clean it if you need problems. They'll even bring you new toilet paper if you need it.
MARY WILLIAMS: So this has been one of the ways that the hotel industry has kind of addressed this challenge. And so what we have done as a professional society is we've asked, what do we need to do to address the challenge that the internet and the rest of the changing world has brought us? So what we've chosen to do is really reinvent the way we present ourselves and the way we act. So we're no longer sort of an exclusive VIP members only cluby-type thing.
MARY WILLIAMS: Instead, we have become and evolved really into something that's much more of an embracing, warm, accepting, and welcoming community. We are very eager to have early career scientists, in particular, feel like this is a place that they want to be part of. And so what I want to talk you through some of the ways we've done this. Oh, just briefly, the ASPB was founded in 1924.
MARY WILLIAMS: So we're nearly 100 years old. And like many professional societies, much of our revenue comes through the journals, through membership, and through the meetings we run. And as well as supporting those activities, we also use some of that revenue to pay for education and outreach and policy. And of course, our discipline is plant biology. So the goal we have is to try to figure out how do we transition into a society that meets the needs of plant scientists today and into the future.
MARY WILLIAMS: So we need to figure out, what do tomorrow scientists need? What do they want? What do they value? And then how can we recruit them to become loyal members of our community? We've also had to look at how we communicate. It's not enough anymore to send out a newsletter twice a year out to the community. So I'll talk about how we've evolved that as well.
MARY WILLIAMS: And then finally, I'll address a little bit about how we've done this, while still trying to balance the budget. So when we asked what do early career researchers want, and need, and value, one of the things that we find as is found in this Wiley membership survey from 2014, yes, of course, they value the journals. The journals aren't going away. That's never going to be a problem, but what else can we do to support them?
MARY WILLIAMS: So much of what they're looking for is they're looking for a place they can get new skills and knowledge and opportunities. So we've really kind of addressed many of these things that early career scientists need through some of the activities we've done. So in order to do that, we've taken advantage of the internet.
MARY WILLIAMS: And we've essentially created an alter ego. And if you think of the ASPB as Clark Kent, Plantae is our alter ego Superman. And it provides us an opportunity to do lots of these different things that we know early career scientists want. For example, we have a series of webinars, Plantae webinars. And they cover topics that our scientists are interested in, such as leadership, career development, science communication, research tools, and techniques.
MARY WILLIAMS: And this is a hugely popular series that we've been running for several years now. And it's definitely given us a much higher profile in the community. We also have a platform where people can write articles about things they're interested in, whether it's about current research or it's about ideas about how to survive your postdoc, or how to get a faculty position, or how to get a job in industry.
MARY WILLIAMS: So this has become sort of the site where people come to learn information. We have within this online community, we have lots of communities or networks where people can join to learn and gather resources and network. Some of them are private and have private conversations, but many of them are public, where you can come, for example, if you want to learn what to do with your seven-year-old while they're homeschooling them.
MARY WILLIAMS: We have resources for teachers, and educators, and parents as well as other members of our society. I'm a believer that if you're going to ask someone to give some time to a project that you're working on, them you need to give them something back. And often, for an early career scientists, they're looking for things that they can put on their CV. So we have a variety of what I called named programs, which these are competitive programs that people apply to.
MARY WILLIAMS: And when they're accepted into the program, they have a title. So one of our programs is called the Plantae Fellows program. And these are scientists from around the world, our Plantae Fellows. We've got a few dozen of them. They run our networks. They help us with continuing education and career resources. We have a weekly column that comes out called Plant Science Research Weekly.
MARY WILLIAMS: And the fellows write short articles of new research articles so you can sort of catch up and keep up to date with what's happening in the world of research. Each of our journals has an assistant features editor panel. These are members of the editorial board, but they tend to be more junior in their career. And these scientists write sort of one page highlight articles about some of the articles in our journals.
MARY WILLIAMS: It's a very popular and successful program. And the students get not only a line on their CV, but they get articles that they've written for our journals on their CV. So this is a really great program. Another one we have is called the CONVIRON Scholars Program. This is a sponsored program. CONVIRON is a growth chamber company. Plant biologists need a place to grow their plants.
MARY WILLIAMS: Some people grow them in fields, but some people grow them in a controlled environment chamber, such as you would get from CONVIRON. So convention sponsors this program. We have I think 2016 early career scientists from around the world. And we run them through a mentor online program that includes writing skills, career development skills, leadership skills, and other things.
MARY WILLIAMS: So these are some of the things we've developed, all driven over the internet that have provided some of the opportunities and skills that we know that our early career scientists are looking for. I mentioned also that we've evaluated how we communicate and figured out ways that we can communicate better. Of course, social media is a big part of what we do, but what we realized is that communication has to be bi-directional.
MARY WILLIAMS: So we can't just send our newsletter a couple of times a year and think that we've done our job. We need to listen to the members of our community. And we need to find out, what do they want? What do they value? Social media is a great way to do this. And we've actually found that to be super informative as we've been developing these programs. People get excited about them or maybe they give us suggestions for ways to do it.
MARY WILLIAMS: Just this last week, we've been hearing from our community that most universities have an online seminar-- I mean, sorry, a live seminar series, where they bring researchers to the university to speak. So we've been asked could we set up a virtual seminar, research seminar series for everyone to participate in. So that's one of the things we learn from the community. And now we've been able to act very quickly and establish this.
MARY WILLIAMS: And we actually hope to have our first seminar April 1, next week. So it's been a very great response to what the community needs. We've also put early career scientists on committees. This shows that they're valued and that they have a voice. We have an open floor town hall at our annual meeting. Again, this is an important way that people can communicate with us and let us know what.
MARY WILLIAMS: Sometimes it's uncomfortable, but it is necessary. And I just want to point out we have these really active social media channels. We have one for Plantae, one for ASPB, our journals. I have my own. And I also want to point out that in plant science a very large and growing part of our community are based in China. China has taken on the need to improve their crop productivity very seriously.
MARY WILLIAMS: So it's difficult to communicate with scientists in China, but we have an active WeChat channel. And if anyone wants to talk about that later, I'm happy to share. And I mentioned also that, because we are so visibly involved in training, I get invited to give workshops all over the world. And these are just some of the places I've been in the last few years.
MARY WILLIAMS: Of course, this year they're all going to be virtual, but the nice thing is is that by going, I'm hosted by the institution. And yeah, I get to meet and mingle with early career scientists and tell them about our great programs, but also show them the value of joining the ASPB. So the challenge-- of course, I had to come to the challenge-- the challenge is revenue. So how do we do these great things in the context of not spending all of our money and raising some additional money?
MARY WILLIAMS: So of course, these programs are really designed to encourage membership. We set out to say, how do we make this look like a place that people want to support through membership? We also had been developing these nice programs. And we're writing grants and getting funding to continue to support the programs, but we have other outstanding questions. So where do we set our author fees?
MARY WILLIAMS: That's a tough question that most people are grappling with. Should do our webinars be paid access? Can we find additional sponsors? Should we package some of the things we're doing into sort of paid credentialing programs? These are all the things we're struggling with. But I do want to leave you with some good news. And that is that not all dinosaurs went extinct. Archaeopteryx is an ancestor-- it's a winged dinosaur.
MARY WILLIAMS: And it's an ancestor of modern birds. So I want to think about what can we learn from archaeopteryx. If everybody went extinct, except this one small lineage of dinosaurs, what did they do differently? And how can we learn from that? Well, the key is that small dinosaurs survived. And if you look at this slide, you can see a velociraptor, which I know everybody is familiar with, because we've all seen Jurassic Park, which is not even a very big dinosaur.
MARY WILLIAMS: And if you look at archaeopteryx, it's the size of a pigeon. So what did small dinosaurs do? How did they survive? What was different about them? Well, what's really interesting is that this lineage of dinosaurs actually started off big. And it had been moving into a smaller and smaller size before this great catastrophic event.
MARY WILLIAMS: And in fact, the small size is what allowed them to learn to fly. You have to be small to fly. A T-rex can't fly. So what I wanted to challenge you to think about over the rest of the day is what can we learn from archaeopteryx, and how can we get small so that we can survive and transition? Why can a big dino do?
MARY WILLIAMS: And I just wanted to put this slide in. Unfortunately, it's an animation that doesn't work in whatever we're in-- in PDF, but one thing that evolutionary biologists know is that people get stuck or organisms get stuck on fitness peaks. So you might be in a place where you're very well-suited for your environment. And as long as the environment doesn't change, great.
MARY WILLIAMS: But if you want to move to another fitness peak, maybe in response to a change in your environment, that's difficult. I think Cindy mentioned the valley of despair or something like that. There's sort of a valley of not being a good fit but your environment. So even though we have to change, even though we have the foresight of the need to change, evolution is hard.
MARY WILLIAMS: And change is hard. That doesn't work. So here's my advice. I think the things that we need to do to learn from the winged dinosaurs is we need to get small. We need to cut back. We need to focus on our key priorities. And we need to do some housekeeping.
MARY WILLIAMS: We need to do an inventory of all of our services. Look at the IT. Look at the accounting. Look at the marketing. Where can we cut? Where can we trim? What can we consolidate? Maybe you're paying one organization for IT, one organization for broadband, one organization for fulfillment lines.
MARY WILLIAMS: Maybe you can pull those things together. You can renegotiate. There's a study in the UK that shows that people who change energy companies regularly actually spend less money than people who just stick with one. And if you think about it, energy companies are always trying to give you a good deal. So if you have this great sweet deal for three months and then switch to another sweet deal for three months, yes, you'll save money.
MARY WILLIAMS: Maybe you're sitting with someone who's just bloated and bloated. And you could reconsider that. Maybe there's things you could can curtail or eliminate. And I also want to focus on the fact that in addition to your community and your members, your staff is really important in helping you survive. So what can you do to re-energize and retrain your staff?
MARY WILLIAMS: Are there things that you're outsourcing that maybe you can retrain staff to in-source? Be prepared to become less hierarchical. As I said, change is hard. If you're the head of a big organization, you probably are going to find it very difficult to suddenly give power to all of your employees, but think about that hotel. Every member of that staff community of the hotel is able to answer questions and deal with the situations that arise.
MARY WILLIAMS: Your staff should be communicating and interacting regularly with the community, in conferences, online through social media. Maybe you need to improve your internal communication. Give your staff a sense of power and ownership and commitment so that they can help you survive these changes that you need to make. Sorry, wrong button. And this is a great cartoon I found, which is, but what if we retrain our staff?
MARY WILLIAMS: What if we take someone, give someone a course so they can do Google Analytics and now they have all these skills and then they decide to leave and find greener pastures? And the guy on the right says, well, what if we don't retrain them and they stay? So think about that. Really invest in your employees. So again, I just want to kind of give you a hope at the end of this, which is many of us are big dinosaurs.
MARY WILLIAMS: We probably for a long time have thought that we're great, and we're going to be around forever. But now we do know that change is upon us. And we need to find a way to evolve and change. And what I would really like to hope that we can do for the rest of the-- in my time zone afternoon is to think about what kinds of changes we can make so that we can come out of this-- in our beautiful plumage.
MARY WILLIAMS: So not all dinosaurs are chickens. There's fantastic birds that we can all hope to become one day. So thank you very much.
Segment:4 Q&As.
MARGARET VITULLO: Thank you, Mary. That was that was absolutely fantastic. [INAUDIBLE] for questions. And I'm going to see if we can get a micro question in for each of you. So first, for Cindy, leaders often, especially in small organizations end up actually blurring the lines between strategic thinking and operational work. What's your one sentence suggestion for leaders today that are madly working on trying to operationally respond to COVID, while they also need to be thinking about the big picture kind of thing that Mary is talking about?
MARGARET VITULLO: What do you tell those leaders?
CINDY SPARROW: Right. I think it's really easy to get caught in the weeds very quickly and become very myopic in your view of dealing with just the operations. But you're right. It's making sure that your team understands, has a shared vision of where you're heading. I think that shared vision that's created by all of you in the very beginning, it gives you your target on the wall to look at every single day so that you don't get stuck in the weeds.
CINDY SPARROW: That's vital for your survival and for your ability to respond appropriately. So they're just responding to the small things and constantly putting out tiny fires all day long. You're looking at the bigger picture overall and headed for managing all of it really well-- so shared visions.
MARGARET VITULLO: Thank you. And Mary, I wonder if you can dry out one particular example. You created Teaching Tools and Plant Biology, which is this on award winning online platform that is in front of the paywall completely. Can you tell us very briefly how that fits in with your business model of your association? Do you see that resource as [INAUDIBLE] the evolution of associations toward those beautiful birds you showed us?
MARGARET VITULLO:
MARY WILLIAMS: That's an interesting question. So we actually started it in part to continue to keep the subscription of our journals high. I mean, this was a sweet deal. If you subscribe to a journal, you get great research. And you get these nice educate-- and we did that for a while. But what we were hearing was people were saying, it didn't really fit well with them. Why are you making educational resources that aren't available?
MARY WILLIAMS: And, yes, we made them available to people in developing countries, but it was difficult. Your university had to register. So eventually, we realized that, yes, you know, it was a difficult decision to make in terms of the financial impact, but the goodwill that we get from having teaching tools that are open access is great. And of course, as I said, we're trying to position ourselves as not a closed off community, because that's not the future.
MARY WILLIAMS: The future is not a closed community. The future is an open community. How are you an open community? You need people to believe in you. You need people to support you and want to be part of you.
MARGARET VITULLO: We've actually got three minutes left. I'm going to do one more question. And you can each say just a word about it, Cindy and then Mary. So this open community and having staff interacting with the public, how do you do that? What's too much? Is there a guideline that you can offer about sort of opening up those gates as opposed to the usual like really tight communication control that happens in organizations?
MARGARET VITULLO: Cindy, what do you say?
CINDY SPARROW: I think it comes down to having the key things that your team needs to understand that they can communicate together. So if you have those points of your, again, the shared vision of, what is it that we want to communicate and how do we want people to understand what we're doing, if you can empower your team with that information, they can be a little a lot more flexible on how to deliver the message.
MARGARET VITULLO: That's great. I think you have a target for where you're going. And you have a mission and vision that's really clear that your staff know how to embody in what they're saying. Cool. Mary, what would you add or what would you change about that?
MARY WILLIAMS: Well, when we started this effort to be more transparent through social media, someone had the bright idea that we should keep a spreadsheet of all of our tweets. But of course, that's not how social media works. You have to be fluid and flexible and respond. So getting everybody who's participating to know, OK, maybe there's something that I need to get some advice on, but kind of empowering people and training people is a big part of it.
MARY WILLIAMS: I would also say that we have brought in some early career scientists as interns and as employees. And they are really helpful.
MARGARET VITULLO: That's fantastic. Well, this has been so exciting. I wish I could have taken notes on everything. I believe that there will be a recording of this available to people. Sam and Simon can fill us in and make absolutely certain that's true. I also believe that we're going to have a 10 minute break before the next session starts. Thank you to the audience for being here.
MARGARET VITULLO: Thank you for sending in great questions and for the very active chat that we've had. And I think that's it for us for the moment. We actually finished up about 50 seconds early. So you have a little bit longer to go and have your break. Thanks, all.
CINDY SPARROW: Thank you.
MARY WILLIAMS: Thanks. Bye.
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Form Title Accessibility and Keyboard Shortcuts
The cadmore media player is a professional video and audio player experience designed to deliver media as well as relevant transcript, segmentation, and metadata. On the screen is a traditional html video player with buttons such as play, pause, forward, captioning, language and play speed selection and more. Adjacent to the video player are generally tabs, one of which shows a scrolling transcript of the video and the other shows any segmentation of the media, sometimes referred to as chapters. At the top of the video is a menu bar containing an Explore button and Tools button. The Explore button allows you to dig deeper into the video by opening up an explore dialog which contains tabs for a visual navigation of the video using thumbnails, an about tab which contains rich metadata about the media, a segments tab which contains further information about the video, and a related tab which contains links to other media related to this media. The tools button opens a menu with options for sharing the media on social media, creating bookmarking links, creating embed codes for your website, generating citations, and more.
Keyboard Shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts only work while you are in forms mode. By entering forms mode, you will be able to quickly access portions of the media player with single key commands.
Spacebar: Play/Pause Toggle
I: Info Menu,
O: Tools Menu
T: Transcript Tab,
S: Segments Tab
F: Forward 15,
R: Rewind 15
L: Languages,
P: Playspeed
M: Mute Toggle,
V: Volume Bar
N: Video Only Toggle,
B: Full Screen Toggle
C: Captions Toggle
Escape: Closes dialogs and menus / Exits Player
Z: Next Transcript Chapter
X: Previous Transcript Chapter
Q: Next Transcript Paragraph
W: Previous Transcript Paragraph
Entire Media
Segment(s)
Custom Clip
Start At:
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Embed Size
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You Size - Responsive
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We Size - Responsive
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Picture Overlay Popup
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400 x 225
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512 x 288
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400 x 700
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768 x 1024
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1024 x 512
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1280 x 608
Form Title Cite
No citation provided.
Info
Segments
Related
Thumbnails
Exit Clip Mode
You have requested to see a portion of the video outside of the clip.
Click OK to switch to the full video or click if you would like to stay inside the clip. You can always go back to the clip with Tools and Clip Mode