Visit debrief

Comments from those that attended the visit:

Tracy's area is big.

There was a change in Gary regarding the financial sustainability of the Ambassador program. Gary appeared not to want to have any arguments in front of Gary.

Gary talked a lot about the museum Monday night activities. He saw it as a way to train his staff regarding the museum exhibits.

Gary is more concerned than Tracy about learning within their areas and about what the problem is that the ambassador problem is attempting to address.

Personal thought: Accounting advice

Although not part of the project, my personal thoughts about budget are that accountability and responsibility are not properly placed. Most businesses have problems with this unless they pay attention to it. Giving someone budgetary accountability and not responsibility for the decision to spend money makes he/she feel like they either shouldn't be held accountable or they should be able to say yes or no on proposed spending.

This type of situation can happen between cost centers and revenue centers because cost centers spend money, but revenue centers have to make money. Gary is a revenue center and Blake is a cost center. Transfer pricing is accounting's solution to this. It turns Blake into a internal revenue center meaning he has to sell his services to Gary and Gary has the authority to say yes or no to any service Blake is selling. Blake has to price his services (internal pricing) as if he was an external vendor. Gary will look at Blake's proposals and agree to the ones that meet his revenue goals and risk-taking adversity levels.

More or less, by act as if they were third parties, it might bring them closer together.

Visit planning

Filming and recording audio was discussed.
Getting a van was discussed.

Stephen discussed his conversation with Gary and Tracy:

They feel like Blake's programming plans are dropped in their laps and they don't have any implementation resources. They feel like the staffing and funding are not there yet. Gary is trying to keep cost down by reducing staff. Blake is in expansion mode and Gary is in reduction mode.

The gardens staff felt like they were spending extra hours for the purpose of Blake's programming and there is little or no recognition of that. Gardens staff feels like they have been taken advantage of.

Stephen wants our group to help with this problem as well.

Personal thought: Sounds like they need a good transfer pricing policy across the property. Decision-making and risk-taking and budgeting are not aligned very well.

Communities of practice revisited

In a community of practice, what is the induction process or rites of passage?

What are the subject matters that need to be mastered?

How many bodies of knowledge does a person get initiated into?

Write a paragraph...I think this is a good idea, or with modifcations, or I don't like it.

We need to have work meetings...Each area needs to get behaviors, content, identities and values.

Community of practice discussion

Thanksgiving Point community: Guests become volunteers, volunteers become ambassadors. Why does this happen?

Brainstorm:

Guests enjoy themselves want to get involved.

Culture review and influence

The scope of our attention is mainly helping parents interact with children. We will assume that Thanksgiving Point will evolve the general rules (e.g. be curtious, be quick to be kind, etc.).

Personal thought: Where in the property will parent/child interaction be most visible?

Expertise can be general and specific. General problem solving skills. Specific content solving skills. Our value add is where our specific expertise lies. We are instructional psychologist and technologists.

According to Stephen, focusing on the family group as guests would be key and best. Engaging with their own family members is where some great discovery learning and fun happens.

Task for next week: List suggested literature. Learning is a form of play.

My culture brainstorm