Post-game Elegy

Doggerel for the Day-After Va-Lin-tine’s Day …

Does measuring measure up?

Increased scrutiny of fundraising programs and the desire to hold nonprofits accountable is great, but does Charity Intelligence Canada’s recent exposé contribute anything useful?

Can you brand with borrowed content? The problem with curation

We can’t really pay adequate attention to the musings of 500 or more friends on Facebook or Linked-In, or follow hundreds (thousands) of tweets.  Who has time to scroll through and read all those posts – not to mention the links – let alone absorb what’s being discussed and formulate responses? Short of unplugging, how do we cope? All the while more content keeps coming; we keep joining more groups: a vast wilderness of voices gets vaster.

Let them tweet: How social networking builds a better company

Last week in the Globe and Mail (“Time to adapt to social media – or face the consequences,” 13 October 2011). Carly Weeks told readers that many organizations continue blocking “employee access to social networking sites at the office.”

The end of history (museums in Toronto)

I’m not happy about writing this: the city of Toronto decided this week to close “museums with the least attendance, and revenues compared to costs.”  Very sad, and unfortunate, but given how poorly the city’s cultural heritage is managed, not surprising.

Is the Toronto Public Library its own worst enemy?

Library supporters see Doug Ford — Toronto city councillor and the mayor’s brother/muse — as a sign of the apocalypse (and he may be; has anyone checked for a cloven hoof?). Until that’s verified, however, I wanted to point out that Vincent Lam’s well-intentioned article in today’s Globe and Mail has one very serious flaw: he takes for granted that “modern citizens know a library’s worth.” Museums and other cultural organizations – most nonprofits, in fact – have the same mistaken assumption: they expect people know “who we are and will support us.”  They don’t, and won’t.

Museums should “stick to their knitting.”

I have no idea why the Bytown Museum thinks anyone should care if John McCrae, author of the touchstone poem “In Flanders Field,” was gay.