Past Projects
I did not set about doing these projects with the organizational structure I now use to discuss them. Each project occurred as a result of my response to a need, my interest in the situation, the fact that I cared about the people and had a desire to help them solve their problem if I could find a way to do it and still get my own needs met.
I have organized these projects under a label describing their primary utility as a solution to a problem. Each project had multiple purposes for all the participants, but I am just picking a very specific feature of the project to label it here. I use these labels to help myself sort out all the projects I have done. Then these types of projects I have created become like a tool in my toolbox that I can pull out and use in a particular situation where it is appropriate.
When evaluating a project, I look at both the positive and negative results. Each contains half of the solution to the problems I will confront in the future. And by being willing to look at both, I understand how things work better and can improve processes in the future where there is clearly a need to do so and leave things alone when they work just fine as they are.
Development
I have been a professional developer since 1982. I use the term developer in the broader sense, as someone who creates something from scratch and turns it into either a business, a website, a project or event. A developer identifies a need, and creates something that fills that need, including all the connections between people, operational proceedures, marketing and promotion that makes the project, business or event successful. Once I have identified something I am interested in doing, I usually assemble a team of people who can provide the necessary expertise to make it a success. I have a systematic approach to development. I consider it both creative and analytical. Click Here for more information about how I create and some of the tools I use to develop.
I have acted in the role of developer to create the following businesses, non-profit organizations and projects:
Businesses
Non-Profit Organizations and Projects
Recognition Delivery and Connections
As the Founding Director and Executive Director for Building Bridges, a non-profit organization, I have created the Recognition Role for Building Bridges so that it may serve other non-profit organizations. Examples of my work can be found at: Building Bridges in the Recognition Role and Building Bridges in the Connection Role.
Exchanges
Individuals, businesses, service agencies and educational institutions all have difficulties in exchanging goods and services at times. For the nonprofit agency, they must figure out how to take what the public wants to give and convert it into the things that they need. There are many problems to be solved that require time, space, expertise, transportation, labor and sales of donated items. Many times non-profits have to turn away gifts because they don't have the means to convert it to what they need when they need it or they can't take it at the time offered.
PianoDonatinon.info Project
- Customer Service: Our business Piano Finders is frequently contacted by individuals who need to have their pianos moved out of their home either because they were moving, remodeling or replacing their piano. They often didn't know what to do. I worked out all the problems to help make it possible for them to donate their pianos quickly to local non-profit organizations. Piano owners usually have a lot of sentimental attachment to their piano and regret having to give it up. It matters to them if they can see it go to a good cause.
- Producer: In my capacity as producer for the DVC Dance Showcase, I identified several financial needs for the event that DVC could not afford to pay for. I was able to work out a partnership with D & R Masters, Inc to pay for those services at the time the event needed it and then Building Bridges reimbursed D & R Masters, Inc. as pianos donated were converted to cash.
- Broker: I created a partnership between piano dealers, rebuilders, movers, locations and salespeople to convert pianos into cash and barter dollars for other non-profit agencies once the system was in place. The project now receives request from potential donors and non-profit organizations from all around the United States.
This was a difficult problem to solve, but has brought more than 100,000 dollars to local non-profits to date. At this point in time, the project mainly serves the San Francisco Bay Area, and Piano Finders is not able to match the donors to recipients as easily outside our local area. This project is ready to be duplicated in other areas across the United States so that the needs of other donors and recipients can have their mutual needs met. I will be putting a mechanism in place to allow others to duplicate this model at their local level.
Standards
When dealing with the purchase of expensive items that require a lot of expertise to evaluate, the consumer has increasing need for the businesses they work with to behave ethically. The piano market, back in 1982, often took advantage of the ignorance of the consumer. No information was available to the consumer to help them make informed decisions and to know what to look for in the dealers they bought pianos from. Since my husband is a concert pianist and composer and also a piano rebuilder, people sought him out for advice on the problems they were trying to solve. I used my skills to create a business out of that need.
Piano Finders
My husband and I began Piano Finders in 1982 in response to a consumer need and have spent the past 23+ years setting up standards of appraisal, rebuilding, business practices and consumer education to help customers make informed decisions that they can feel comfortable with after the purchase is made. In 1996, we closed our brick and mortar showroom and moved the business to the web, scaling down the size of our rebuilding shop. Since that time, we have had more than 23 million hits on our website to date as customers, manufacturers, piano teachers, rebuilders, technicians, performers and students consult the online articles and services. Piano Finders has been the incubator for many projects that have moved out later into other projects, businesses or community service. We have developed working relationships of trust with clients from almost every walk of life and position in society.
The Individual
Sometimes by taking the needs of one individual and working back up through the system to see why those needs are not being met, you can find out more about the problems in our society than any other way. By tracing backwards from one person, I have revealed problems and worked out solutions for my husband's career as a concert pianist, a homeless 24 year old in Walnut Creek, my own needs, the needs of a small business, the needs of a non-profit, the needs of a social group. Each of these explorations has led to effective solutions and contributed to my understanding of how people and systems work. Almost every project I have gotten involved in started with an individual who was willing to talk to me about their problem. Some projects started as a result of my concern about why something wasn't working for me.
Local to National TV Broadcasts
Arts & Entertainment Network Broadcast - ACE Award Nominee: In 1987, I put together a partnership between Televents Cable (our local cable station) in Concord, Piano Finders and Kendall Ross Bean and acted as Producer and Artistic Director to create a Classical Music Video featuring Kendall performing the Chopin Polonaise in A-flat Major . It had 100 edits between the performance at the piano and the inner workings of the piano. This was created locally and then I flew to New York and presented it to A & E. They decided to air this video first, and at the time, it was the first Classical Music Video to be broadcast on US & Canadian Television, or at least as far as we knew at the time. The video received nationwide publicity on Television and newspaper media because it happened at about the same time as MTV became popular and it was a stark contrast of music style from MTV. Our local cable station submitted it to the National Academy of Cable Programming for an ACE Award. The video was nominated and we were flown to Las Vegas for the Awards Ceremony. The Cable ACE Award (earlier known as the ACE awards) was an award that was given from 1978 to 1997 to honor excellence in American cable television programing. It was originally created to serve as a cable television counterpart to the Emmy Award, which did not recognize cable programming prior to 1988. The CableACE awards were discontinued in 1997 when their organizers, the National Cable Television Association, finally decided that the Emmys were sufficiently recognizing cable TV programing making a separate awards show unnecessary.
PBS Broadcast - Kendall Ross Bean Children's Concerts. In 1992 San Mateo KCSM PBS station filmed the Kendall Ross Bean Children's Concert. I brokered the connection with KCSM and acted as Producer and Artistic Director of the television production. The final show was 54 minutes and was broadcast locally by KCSM and then sent Nationally to local PBS stations across the country who had the option to pick it up and air it. These Kendall Ross Bean Children's Concerts ran from 1990 to 1997 and more than 10,000 children attended these shows during daytime field trips from their local schools. We did another broadcast in 1994. And by 1997, the shows had over 100 performers in them, featuring music, dance and drama.
