So, based off this post on Tom Schade’s site that’s a reprint of something Gini posted to some UUMA email list or chat or something, the 100k is in part to better come up with a strategic plan.  From that post,

“The Board responded by authorizing the use of $100,000 from reserves for a management consultant to support the Administration in creating a strategic plan, aligning programmatic efforts to the plan, evaluating the outcomes of those programs, and reporting, and to work with the Board to assure accountability going forward.”

And this makes sense to me, because I read that Strategic Vision that was in the Board Packet (and yes, I read the Board Packet, but that’s because now that I’m the Appointments Committee I feel pretty obligated to keep up with that stuff.)  And I just didn’t like it that much.  And here’s why.

I highly recommend you pause reading this and go read it.  It’s at http://www.uua.org/documents/moralespeter/2013_strategic_vision.pdf and only seven pages long, the first of which is just the title page.

The biggest, massive alarm bell that rang for me when I first read it was this line, on page 4 under overarching strategies.

“We are in the process of shifting from content creation to “curation.” Curation refers to the role of vetting and sharing resources as opposed to creating them.”

No No NO!!!  As something of a UU Social Media Expert, which is really weird to say but I suppose justified now that I also get paid to do it and have also entered the world of UU Social Media Consulting, the UUA *should* be behind content curation.  Random individuals should not be relied on to define what Unitarian Universalism is and produce content that reflects their own personal definitions.  That’s what’s happening right now – for example, last year when I put out the “Love Without Exceptions” graphics, that’s just what I think Unitarian Universalism is/should be.  But what authority do I have to define that?  I didn’t have that authority for my congregation, much less the entire denomination.

The UUA should be the creators of content for individuals and congregations to curate and send out to the world, not the other way around.  And I really can’t stress that enough.  And I say this as someone who is a co-founder of the UU Media Collaborative that is a UU content creator – the reason we had to step up is because of the total lack of anything coming out of the UUA on the social media graphics front.  And that’s a problem.

Next in the vision there’s a lot of talk about Congregations and Beyond, which once again, is great and all but so far meaningless to me.  I think it holds great promise, but as far as I can see, nothing’s actually been done.  Maybe there have been changes on the staff level, but as a somewhat well connected UU, I honestly can’t see how there’s been any sort of meaningful programming around Congregations and Beyond, beyond well, an unmoderated facebook group and conversations.  Conversations aren’t enough.

Now, with the five-year tactics section, the first is about communication.  I whole-heartedly agree about how important in this day and age a good communication strategy is.  But President Morales said that the staffing decisions recently made were made with this strategic vision in mind and more than one of the positions let go involved communication.  Now, I don’t know the details of what those positions did beyond the title, but eliminating communication positions when you say communication is the first strategic tactic to use over the next five years just doesn’t make sense to me.

Then content curation is back as a tactic that I think made a couple more hairs go gray.  NO.  I really can’t stress enough that the role of the UUA should be creation, not setting back and letting others define Unitarian Universalism and it’s mission/vision/message.  If you move into curation that’s what you’re doing – letting others define the message.  There’s no accountability with the Denomination only focusing on curation – I can make an image that goes viral that says Unitarian Universalism is all about pretty pictures of kittens, but that’s just not what UUism is about.

Ok, so I know a lot of my beef is with the curation vs. creation side, and I admit that’s probably a minor point to a lot of people.  But I also know quite a bit about content curation vs. creation and I think the vision is totally wrong in that area.  Most of the areas I don’t know much about, but if I find one part highly, highly alarming then it stands to reason there are other areas in there that are equally problematic to others who have expertise in those fields.

The vision, after re reading it, doesn’t leave me just feeling uninspired, I leave feeling like I’ve got no clue what it actually means in the real world.  It’s written in that non-offensive UU corporate speak that we all know oh so well.  There’s very little actionable things in that vision, and I can totally understand the Board’s frustration there.
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Oh, and as a final point, look at those tactics:

Communicate a new vision for Unitarian Universalism

Nurture new forms of congregational organization

Implementation of Ministry strategic review recommendations

Diversity in ministry

Regionalization

From content creation to curation

Public Witness and Social Justice

Stewardship

Notice things that are lacking?  I do.  Things like spiritual depth, faith development, religious education, you know, like, religious things.

So enough with the platitudes and the buzzwords of “Content Curation” and “Congregations and Beyond.”  Let’s get to work on something concrete and let’s actually see and measure how that work is going.  I for one applaud the board in making sure this happens and hope they continue pushing the administration for more concrete accountability.  Not everything can be paired down to an excel spreadsheet to be analyzed, but more can that what was presented in this vision.