Flagrant Hypocrisy

Politics, power and the Experience

2008-07-09T07:49:00.006-04:00

I wrote most of the below in response to this post by Nisha, but I realized I wasn't quite done with the topic and wanted to expand on it some more. So, here goes:

Nisha points out that despite the fact that the experience AIESECers in the U.S. is different from that of people in the rest of the world, it is still a worthwhile experience that has affected hundreds of people. But to me, this only highlights the incredible power of the AIESEC Experience: even stepped on, oppressed, and downtrodden as it is in the U.S., there are thousands of members who have felt their lives impacted by the power of the organization.

But my experience has also shown me that there are hundreds of members who aren't getting that experience--ones who aren't benefiting from AIESEC in anything resembling the way you and I and most of the people who read this have. It's apparent from conversations with newer members who told me the conference they paid over $400 for was worthless, from the feedback I've heard from AIESECers abroad who received interns from the U.S. with no preparation or understanding of the organisation (and summarily would hesitate to take another American trainee), and from the poor trainees coming to the U.S. without any sort of support network because the leadership of AIESEC U.S. chose to follow the course it has. These people are fed up, and they are leaving, and in many cases they are telling all their friends to not make the same mistake.

The fact of the matter is that yes, some people are still managing to fight their way to get an amazing AIESEC experience. But there is no question in my mind that throughout my involvement in AIESEC U.S. I've had to fight to stay motivated, to stay involved, to find new opportunities to apply my skills and talents. The most heart-breaking thing for me about my experience in the U.S. is the utter lack of meaningful involvement opportunities for members as more and more work gets centralized in the hands of fewer and fewer people. I've had conversations with many who, thanks to the lack of leadership development in the U.S., felt like they no longer had anywhere to go in AIESEC, and nothing to accomplish.

My experience with other AIESEC nations has made two things painfully apparent:

1. There is a better way to do AIESEC than what exists in the U.S. That revolves around following the AIESEC Way, and truly becoming the platform for young people to discover and develop their potential.

Saying that the market in the U.S. makes such a mission impractical is utter crap--the mission is powerful and impactful to the right target audience, and developing 10 future leaders is better than sending 100 people to have a summer vacation in Brazil or Egypt (like every other program). The countries that follow the international mission certainly have problems of their own, but most importantly they have engaged members who are actively benefiting from their involvement in AIESEC because their organizations are focused on serving members, not "customers" (students we send abroad; companies who take trainees).

2. The major positive impact on my life has been made at the local and international levels of the organization. When I think back to my most impactful experiences within AIESEC, these are the international conferences, my meetings with AIESECers from abroad that I wouldn't have been able to have otherwise, my traineeship, etc, etc, etc.

These are also the shared experiences I have had with my first team (the Fearsome Foursome + Friends), the members I've seen taking their first steps in AIESEC and going on to accomplish awesome things, the conversations I've had and the connections I've made.

Certainly, I value the network I've built on the national level as well, but that has largely been facilitated without the help of the national structure, and most of my interaction on the national level has been a history of negatives and demotivational events. Indeed, I would say that all of my (not insignificant) involvement on the national level has been a net negative for both my sanity and my AIESEC productivity.

So the point of the action that the LCPs have taken is not about power. The point is that we could be doing much more to provide AIESEC experiences if we weren't getting our hands chained together by either conscious decisions or incompetence at every step of the way. The point is that we haven't been able to do what we felt was necessary in order to participate in an AIESEC we could believe in. The point is fixing the problem of having an AIESEC U.S. that holds us back instead of encouraging us to do more, to get more involved, to continue to move forward. The point is to make sure that the AIESEC Experiences we have had, the ones that have been cut short, filled with frustration, and that we have had to fight tooth and nail to pull out of the entrails of a rotting organization, pale before what the members who follow us will have.

And that ability, to give people the AIESEC experiences they deserve, is one worth fighting for.

Being AIESEC

2008-04-18T01:57:00.002-04:00

Does this website accurately represent your idea of AIESEC? Is it the website of an organization you would be proud to be a member of? You be the judge...

A little clarification

2008-03-13T00:24:00.002-04:00

I keep getting inexplicable comments about how I should update my blog, despite the fact that I've actually been doing so in some way or another fairly regularly. So, I thought I'd state my current online "strategy" a little more clearly, rather than just expecting people to read what's written to the right of this blog.

My web presence can be summarized as follows:

This blog: Used for musings on AIESEC structure and other, more AIESECy topics. Not really about my general life.
elepsis.org: My personal website, and a tumblelog of sorts (aside from the fact that I can never resist at least a little commentary). If you want to know what's going on in my life, what my experiences in Kazakhstan are like, and all that fun stuff, that's the place to follow. I realize that's inconvenient for those of you who just keep up with people's blogs by checking the list on nomadlife.org, but sorry -- it's better for me. :p
A bunch of other sites and services, that you can learn about here. I'd love to have some more friends at all of these.

So, just so you know, I *am* updating my blog. You're just not reading the right one. ;)

In Kazakhstan

2008-02-23T06:18:00.002-05:00

I'm alive and well. In fact so far my experience is fantastic; it remains to be seen whether the honeymoon period will wear off.

I start work Monday, at which point I will have internet access regularly. That's also the point at which I will write something more thorough, I think.

Meanwhile, tomorrow I will get to go watch the elections for AIESEC Almaty. They have 14 applicants for seven roles, and the whole election process is scheduled to take place from 9:30 a.m. until 7 p.m.! Holy crap, eh?

Finally, I saw on Shanky's blog that he has been mugged quite badly. Keep him in your thoughts.

Growth without integration isn't growth.

2008-01-31T14:48:00.000-05:00

Note: This post was originally written a week ago, and then I discovered that not writing on your blog for a year or so is a good way to get your account to time out. Read on anyway, if you care.

I found myself unexpectedly quoted recently in a rather fascinating discussion our oft-admired Madison kids were having. The specific problem facing Madison at present is one I suspect we are a ways from encountering ourselves at GT, but many of the underlying issues are ones that apply universally. So I'm going to muse for a bit.

Many of the Madison kids who expressed concern over the growth strategy noted, with justified alarm, that many of the new members said they didn't feel integrated and that a sense of community was being lost. The natural assumption, based upon the principle of biggest change, is seemingly to say "Well, we grew much more last semester than we're used to, and the growth is what caused the lack of integration."

I'm not sure I buy that, though. At GT we've sadly had continuing trouble with integrating our members and with retaining quality people over long periods of time. This is tremendously worrying for me personally and for us as an LC. Now, compared to Madison, it can certainly be said that our model for recruitment was different and the bar for membership much lower; as such a higher rate of attrition was to be expected. But nonetheless, looking at our core active membership we can pretty much point to 4-5 members per recruitment class who hang around for over a year of involvement.

At our Leadership Team Retreat, we at one point went around and asked the new members what the moment that made AIESEC click for them, and that drew them into the organization was. Virtually all of them said it hadn't happened yet, and that they started taking on leadership roles because they felt like if only they did a little more that life-changing experience that we all know so well would strike them like a bolt of lightning. These members, who joined just a semester ago and who (one would think) we were paying particular attention to, didn't feel integrated. And that's with a recruitment that brought in (after a very casual screening) roughly 25 people. Already we've only kept about 10 of those.

What I'm getting at is that member engagement isn't necessarily a problem of growth. Rather, it is one of whether the systems that you put in place, whether that be coaching or anything else, are functioning correctly. And while rapid growth could be one way those systems might break down, it isn't the only one. God knows our oft-overhauled coaching system has broken down about eight different ways now.

From conversations with other members I respect and admire, it appears to me that the key to a member's integration is two-fold:

Creating binding personal ties to one or more individuals. While the sense of community in an LC as a whole is a tremendously valuable factor that must be preserved to the maximum extent that it is possible, in the end what keeps people coming back and doing work is their bonds within smaller groups. It is small groups of people who do the greatest things. The purpose of the overall LC being the creation of an atmosphere rather than a community, as someone mentioned, is certainly different, but not necessarily wrong.
Giving people a sense of purpose. Members must see that the time they put in and work they do are worthwhile both in the sense that they grow from it personally and in that they are helping to achieve AIESEC's mission (or 'what we do,' if you will...).

The central question for an LC's growth, then, is whether the LC can grow while still providing those two core aspects of integration. This is where the questions raised by the esteemed Mr. Lichtenheld come in, and the question becomes, what sort of systems must you create to ensure that both of these happen? Certain aspects of an LC's functionality become significantly more difficult; key principles like flatness and consensus-based decision making must be re-evaluated.

But ultimately it comes down to whether you can provide every member with those two facets to catalyze their AIESEC Experience. If you do not, you cannot, and perhaps should not, retain them.

This is the cycle that Madison appears to have overcome successfully in the past; this is the cycle that we at GT are still working to break out of. We've decided to take in 27 members this semester. Let's get it done.

P.S. Dear Madison: the fact that you are even able to have a conversation of this type, with a diversity of inputs and experiences this extensive, is pretty mindblowing. Props, and I can't wait till we're there ourselves.

Love.

2007-06-29T15:52:00.000-04:00

Came across a cute ad on some blog today. I thought it was touching/amusing, and it led me to a quite fascinating site that collects high-quality advertisements from around the world. I wonder what advertisements for a particular culture say about that group--I imagine this could easily be instructive, particularly for us as AIESECers. The most striking thing? The extent to which most ads, even those targeted at drastically different markets than my own, are instantly and universally understandable. Globalization at its finest.

More ads here.

I... I just don't get it.

2007-06-15T15:35:00.000-04:00

One of my coworkers has a cell phone ring tone which begins with the brilliantly professional line, "Shut up, already, damn!" and then goes on to play a little beat. The ring tone is rather loud, and this coworker appears to get at least five or six such calls a day. God help us all when he's not at his desk to pick up, because let me tell you, that ringtone goes over really well when one of us many surrounding cubicle monkeys is on the phone with a client.

What in the world makes anyone think this passes for acceptable in a business environment? What happened to workplace etiquette? I'm just mystified.

Love the Wiki

2007-05-30T17:33:00.000-04:00

Came upon a fantastic video explaining -- humorously and clearly -- the basics of what a wiki is and how it works today while searching for a newsfeed aggregator. Seeing as we've been having lots of conversations lately about how to teach our people to use the online systems, this sort of video totally hits the spot.

What other creative ways should we use to teach people to use our wiki, members section, AIESEC.net and AIESEC NG? I'm pretty desperate for ideas, since my thought of "the first time people use it and actually have to edit a decent page, they'll learn it" doesn't seem to have worked thus far. How do I make people Love the Wiki?

Sometimes I write.

2007-03-09T14:45:00.000-05:00

You know, like real stuff. Not blog entries. I never write those.

Actually, in my non-AIESEC life I'm a senior editor for GT's student newspaper, the Technique. So I sometimes write editorials for it. Here are a few recent ones:

- Abstain from abstinence-only sex ed

- Airport security still ineffective

- Find opportunities to aid, explore world
(my attempt at shameless AIESEC promotion, timed to coincide with our recruitment. :))

Since I never seem to get the time to write up anything decent here, let's just pretend these are my blog posts.

And also...

2006-11-28T19:39:00.000-05:00

- (XKCD)
I laughed out loud. At work. Even though I've seen that comic before. :/

It's not a joke, it's country

2006-05-22T13:09:00.000-04:00

So we are, through some odd coincidence of fates, blessed with a TV in our room (something rather out of the ordinary among residents, since we're not paying for it and apparently it normally costs 12 Euros a month to rent). One of the channels we happen to get is Viva, a German VH1 equivalent, and being that our other options are CNN, one French channel and six or seven Spanish channels (none of which show anything particularly interesting for people who don't speak English), we've been watching a whole lot of it.

As a result, I've suddenly been introduced (and when I say introduced, I mean "I've watched these same videos about 15 times over") to quite a bit of German music, some of which is pretty damn cool.

One particular oddity, though -- and this is a shockingly popular group for some reason that totally escapes me -- is Texas Lightning, a German "country" group composed of an American woman and four very, very German guys who... uh... yeah, perform country songs. In English. And are top-rated in several charts in Germany, and were Germany's representative in the Eurovision contest. WTF, Germans?

Some artists/songs/videos that I've kinda (in some cases, to my own shock) grown to like, though:

- Lafee - Virus
- Gnarls Barkley - Crazy
- Bob Sinclair - Love Generation
- Rosenstolz - Ich bin Ich (This song has a very cute video)
- Tobias Regner - I Still Burn (I just think this song is silly)
- Seeed - Ding (Most. Bizarre. Music Video. Ever. Really needs to be seen to be believed.)
- Rapsoul - Gott schenk ihr Flügel (German rap is cool)
- Oomph! - Gott ist ein Popstar (uh, yeah, it's exactly what it sounds like)

And there are a few more I can't recall offhand (like one fun song that's all about Cinderella). European videos are so much fun. :D I won't even get started on the commercials...

Barcelona, catchup edition (part one)

2006-05-20T05:50:00.000-04:00

So I started this post a week ago, but then Dima managed to shut my browser with the post half-written and I haven't been able to recover from the associated depression and post again until now. I've been doing a pretty woeful job of keeping up, hence catch-up.

Touristy destinations visited in Barcelona so far:
- Park Guell, which was all sorts of awesome. I spent close to half a day there and could easily have spent more. Aside from the neat architecture throughout (and it's a rather large park), there are numerous trails to explore, and one can get really neat views of Barcelona from a number of places at the park. Of what I've seen so far, this was my favorite place. Oh, and it doesn't cost anything to get in, either.
- Casa Milà (La Pedrera), which, while also quite interesting, did not really blow me away. The building has been converted into a museum, with the attic focused on Gaudi and a (rather plain) hall on the bottom levels used for traveling expositions. The particular exposition we attended happened to be of works by Ukranian painter Kasimir Malevich, whose work I must admit to not understanding an iota. His most famous painting (lauded by art critics: "after 1910, he proceeded by means of successive illuminations...to the supreme enlightenment of the black square surrounded by white") is pretty pointless as far as I can tell. But hell, that's why I'm not an art critic.
- Speaking of art, though, I also went to the MNAC, the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. Not all of the art was particularly amazing as far as I could tell, but I was highly impressed by several of the pieces (enough to have jotted down some of their names and artists -- Vase with Flowers by Francesc Lacoma i Fontanet and some ridiculously awesome sculptures by Pau Gargallo, for instance. Well worth the (discounted to 4 euros) cost of admission.

The plan for today is to hit up the Museu d'Història de Catalunya and work through a few more of the museums over the course of the next week. Should be quite fun.

Feel more real

2006-05-11T16:54:00.000-04:00

"It's like when you put instant rice pudding mix in a bowl in the microwave and push the button, and you take the cover off when it rings, and there you've got rice pudding. I mean, what happens in between the time when you push the switch and when the microwave rings? You can't tell what's going on under the cover. Maybe the instant rice first turns into macaroni gratin in the darkness when nobody's looking and only then turns back into rice pudding. We think it's only natural to get rice pudding after we put rice pudding mix in the microwave and the bell rings, but to me that's just a presumption. I would be kind of relieved if, every once in a while, after you put rice pudding mix in the microwave and it rang and you opened the top, you got macaroni gratin. I suppose I'd be shocked, of course, but I don't know, I think I'd be kind of relieved too. Or at least I think I wouldn't be so upset, because that would feel, in some ways, a whole lot more real."

- The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami