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  • June 09, 2021 5:49 AM | Anonymous

    Reposted from Security Management

    Security, investigators, and executive protection professionals around the world appreciate the evolution and advancement in technology that have added to their daily everyday carry. But with new operational requirements and threats, security professionals need to be creative with the items they add to their daily use.

    For instance, the use cases for unmanned systems are only limited to the imagination and the legal operating theater. Within North America, there are laws, regulations, and licensing requirements that need to be met to operate an unmanned aerial system (UAS)—commonly referred to as a drone. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Transport Canada– Canadian Aviation Regulations (CARs), and Mexico’s Directorate General of Civil Aeronautics (DGCA)—all have similar rules. For example, all drones weighing more than 250 grams (.55 pounds) must be registered with the countries’ relevant agencies before being used.

    Elsewhere in the world, laws and regulations around the use of UAS did not exist and it was a bit of a “wild west” operating within a legal grey zone. Now, however, these rules are beginning to emerge. In Africa, only a handful of countries have regulations with regards to UAS use. Algeria is one of them, where authorities will confiscate your UAS when you arrive in the country because they are currently banned.

    Despite the myriad of rules and regulations—and the lack of them in some instances—security organizations are beginning to use UAS for surveillance.

    In the United Kingdom, for example, in 2016 the newspaper The Echo reported that police used a UAS ahead of a convoy during predawn raids in Liverpool. The UAS used in the morning raid was to assist the operation and to ensure officer safety.

    During a presentation a few years later, Inspector Force Coordinator Adam Cooke mentioned the cost savings with regards to UAS operations versus traditional aircraft use. The cost benefit of operating a UAS versus a traditional four-person crew helicopter is apples versus oranges. UAS preparation and cost when compared to traditional aircrafts are in the thousands of dollars. Traditional aircrafts require flight crews, equipment maintenance, and fuel—just to name a few items. UAS operations require the same but a UAS can cost much less than a helicopter or airplane.

    Since the Drone Revolution started in 2010, I have had the opportunity to use and manage UAS in some unique ways—including as part of an everyday carry when using micro systems, UAS that weigh less than 250 grams. When used properly, these tools can enhance security practitioners’ capabilities exponentially from help in identifying the best location for a camera, checking perimeter fencing, or inspecting equipment—the sky’s the limit.

    When a micro system will not cut it, UAS can be scaled up to fit the need. While operating remotely outside of North America, a team contacted me with a unique problem. They wanted to use a UAS for surveillance ahead of a vehicle convoy to identify threats while the moved some high value cargo. The operational location was essentially an unpopulated no man’s land.

    We ultimately decided to use a UAS gas-powered fixed-wing stall landing system with eight hours of flight time, decent cruising speed, and some custom-built optics. The concept was great, however, there was a problem with the existing infrastructure. After some creative problem solving, we were able to launch the operation and the program is still operational with some upgrades thanks to the constant innovation of UAS.

    Along with private security teams, wildlife conservation services are also using UAS to combat and surveil poachers and track animals and animal migration patterns. UAS operations globally are even protecting endangered species by protecting not only the endangered animal but also its habitat.

    For instance, a logistics company was having issues with last-mile border-crossing attacks. To mitigate the threat, the company’s security director decided to use an off-the-shelf quadcopter to conduct surveillance and keep an eye on the crossing. On more than one occasion, the UAS alerted the security team to contact authorities to take action on an issue while minimizing any losses.

    UAS use is also increasing for overseas close protection teams, which are using these systems to advance routes and avoid bad actors. Some security teams are using Unmanned Sea and Underwater Systems to patrol waterways, sub-terrain water system infrastructure, and the hulls of their clients’ boats. There are even some professionals that are using Unmanned Land Systems to perform property inspections, surveillance, and patrols.

    Most modern unmanned systems are now intuitive and cost effective. The applications are endless, making it worth consideration for your everyday carry toolbox.

    See Original Post

  • May 25, 2021 7:41 AM | Anonymous

    By Patrick HardyLL.M. CEM, CBCP, CRM, President - Hytropy.com

    Introduction

    The global impact of COVID-19 has required cultural property professionals around the world to adapt quickly and recognize the importance of a robust disaster plan. These plans, when properly designed and implemented on a property, provide the tools necessary to empower staff, volunteers and management to navigate a multi-dimensional disaster response. Without a plan, incident responses are inconsistent, confused, and lacks continuity necessary to maintain the highest service standards. Now that we are at the likely end of the biggest pandemic in 100-years, now is the time to redesign and consider appropriate updates to the emergency response and business continuity program for your property.  

    Designing a Complete Disaster Plan

    A comprehensive property disaster plan at a minimum contains three major elements: The Risk Analysis, the Emergency Response Plan, and the Business Continuity Plan. Each plan represents a separate phase in the emergency preparedness cycle.

    Risk Analysis - The Risk Analysis essentially asks one question: “What threats do we face?”. It should identify potential threats to your property’s operation in the categories of natural disasters (i.e.: hurricanes, COVID-19 etc.), technological disasters (i.e.: power outage, HAZMAT spill) and security emergencies (i.e.: terrorism, active shooters). While there is a temptation by experienced cultural property professionals to simply do this by “gut” instinct or from past experiences, the Risk Analysis should be conducted by a multi-prong analysis of data from local, state, and federal sources. Neglecting to do so can miss critical threats. For instance, prior to 2020, few people had a real grasp of the potential for a crippling pandemic, even though the federal government placed pandemics in their National Planning Scenarios as early as 2003. There are additional steps for artifacts, documents, and other culturally significant elements that need to be considered in any comprehensive disaster program.

    Emergency Response Plan - The Emergency Response Plan is a comprehensive document covering every element of the initial response to an incident on property. This may be termed the “lights and sirens” phase of an emergency. It should cover evacuation, shelter-in-place, and lockdown of the property, and how to set up an emergency leadership structure. However, the plan must also address crisis communication, utilities, worker injuries, equipment, supplies and training. Most plans cover about 20% of what they really need to be effective and must be improved regularly. Many times, properties only consider how to handle the first 30-60 minutes of an emergency, and do not consider how to handle long-term lockdowns, shelters-in-place, or evacuations. For example, after the Washington Navy Yard shooting in September of 2013, the FBI and other law enforcement officials had most of the buildings sealed as part of a processed crime scene. Even IT professionals, who needed to get their laptops to ensure they could access critical documents, portals and thumb drives were denied the ability to even reenter their own offices. 

    Business Continuity Plan - The final piece of a property disaster plan is the Business Continuity Plan (BCP), which is a purely recovery document. Any property will have multiple service processes (POS, in-room experience, dining, etc.) that will require a comprehensive recovery examination. However, there are pieces of the BCP that should be incorporated into your Emergency Response Plan, because there are elements of recovery that also fit into a property’s initial response phase, such as recovering utilities and ensuring that generators are set to automatically response during a blackout. BCPs are highly technical documents and should NOT be written by laypeople. They require technical expertise to develop operational recovery times and points that align with a metric of consequence of late recovery for both brick and mortar as well as Information Technology. Exhibits and artifacts that have to be contained within environmentally-controlled units need to develop backups and vendors with continuity capabilities.

    Learning the Lessons from COVID-19

    Once a comprehensive disaster plan has been designed, constructed, and implemented, it must be put to the test through regular disaster exercises or through the crucible of an actual disaster. COVID-19 has provided an opportunity for many disaster plans to be activated for the first time and put under the stress of an actual emergency. No disaster plan is perfect, nor can it ever be. However, what separates average disaster plans from exceptional plans are those that adapt and improve through a rigorous lessons-learned process after each event. COVID-19 is no different. To prepare adequately for a second wave, cultural property professionals and their management teams must do three things:

    Conduct Debriefings with Management and Staff – These are a series of meetings that reveal the strengths and weaknesses of the pandemic response. It should be thorough and cover each part of the response plan no matter how large or small the property, including communication (this is key!), operations, human resources, volunteer management, finance, and initial recovery. For complex properties, this process is not short, and will likely involved multiple meetings over several days. For smaller properties, this can be as short as 20-30 minutes with two or three groups of staff. Regardless, this process should be conducted by someone totally unaffiliated with the property. No exceptions. Management should NEVER lead the meetings, as employees will be extremely reluctant to critique what would be perceived as their supervisor’s policies and procedures.

    Complete an After-Action Report – Once the meetings are concluded, a complete report should be written by an Emergency Preparedness Specialist called an “After-Action Report”. This is a document that provides actionable improvement steps on what procedural, functional, and policy modifications need to be made to strengthen the property’s pandemic response. Steps on plan modifications, additional training, equipment, policy adjustments, and other elements of the response should be evaluated independently by an outside specialist to ensure nothing is omitted.

    Redraft the Disaster Plan – Once these weaknesses have been corrected, the disaster plan should be fully redrafted with these changes that have been developed. Otherwise, the lessons-learned are useless! The disaster plan will then be improved and grow in operational sophistication as these lessons are implemented into the property.

    Conclusion

    The COVID-19 Pandemic is an unprecedented challenge to cultural properties worldwide. Property management teams from small properties to large complexes should develop and maintain a sophisticated disaster plan, which includes participation from an experienced Emergency Preparedness Specialist. This plan, if implemented properly, will provide cultural property professionals and their staff the tools to respond to any emergency they face.

  • May 25, 2021 7:20 AM | Anonymous

    Reposted from Artnet News

    Next month marks the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, which saw the city’s prosperous Greenwood District, home to the historic Black-owned businesses of Black Wall Street, burned to the ground in a deadly blaze. In memory of the victims and survivors, a new history museum and memorial, Greenwood Rising, is slated to open early this summer.

    It’s an important moment for a city that for decades did not acknowledge the dark legacy of the massacre and the forces of systemic racism that shaped Tulsa as it rose from the ashes. Until 2019, the state of Oklahoma did not include the massacre as a mandatory part of public school curriculums.

    “It’s time for us to stop sweeping this under the rug,” Phil Armstrong, head of Oklahoma’s 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Commission, which is overseeing the museum project, told Artnet News. “Let us honor the memory of those who lost their lives and the survivors.”

    The 1921 massacre in Tulsa was ignited by a news story—later disproven—that a Black man had assaulted a white woman in an elevator. But it was more fundamentally fueled by simmering resentment over the wealth of Greenwood’s residents.

    In an attack that gained broad pop culture representation in HBO’s Watchmen in 2019, a white mob killed an estimated 300 Black Tulsans, destroyed the homes of 10,000 others, and caused some $200 million in today’s dollars in property damage, according to academic research.

    A New Way to Present Traumatic Stories

    Determining how to best tell the story of the massacre was a challenging process that evolved over time, particularly over last summer, as Black Lives Matter protests rocked the nation.

    “From the onset we’ve been really sensitive to the visitorship who will be coming through, including communities that have been heavily impacted by trauma,” L’Rai Arthur-Mensah, the project director at Local Projects, told Artnet News. “In the aftermath of the George Floyd killing, I came to the team and said, ‘I have a young Black son. I’m worried about how I’m going to be able to engage with the material that we place in this museum.'”

    Clearly, this called for a more sophisticated solution than a sign with a trigger warning, telling visitors to enter at their own risk.

    That’s why Local Projects created two paths through the exhibition, one of which offered what it dubbed an “emotional exit” offering a less graphic telling of Tulsa’s history. The display will open for all viewers with a recreation of life in Greenwood before the massacre, including a holographic barbershop installation sharing the hopes and dreams of those who called Black Wall Street home.

    Visitors will then be able to opt out of the more triggering visuals in the museum’s “Arc of Oppression” section, which details the systemic racism faced by Black Americans, particularly in Tulsa, including the influence of the Ku Klux Klan, as well as a recreation of the chaos of the massacre itself. Projected photographs will showcase the destruction and violence of the deadly incident, paired with audio accounts from some of the survivors.

    “A lot of people in the Black community don’t need to relive this history. It’s really about educating others,” Arthur-Mensah said. “So you can go through a separate path where you don’t see all the images or have to stand in the middle of the massacre as it’s happening.”

    “We don’t want you to fully bypass the story. You should still understand this history, but you don’t have to trigger yourself in any way to do that,” she added. “You can find ways to educate without traumatizing.”

    Regardless of what path visitors take through the galleries, they will end on a note of hope in a section titled “Journey Toward Reconciliation.” The exhibit explores how the community rebuilt after the massacre, how it was fractured again by urban renewal programs in the 1960s and the construction of a highway that split the town into two, and how it united yet again through telling its own story.

    “The museum is really highlighting the history of the community and the resiliency of the people,” Arthur-Mensah said.

    Community Collaboration

    In telling that history, the Greenwood Rising team worked closely with the community to ensure that local voices were being heard. That included conversations with Tulsa educators, activists, and politicians, as well as a public forum that allowed the community to provide their feedback about how the story of the massacre should be presented.

    “There were some hard conversations—when dealing with any sensitive materials, you won’t make everyone happy,” Arthur-Mensah acknowledged. “As designers, it is not our job to tell other people’s stories. It’s our job to provide platforms and vessels so that people can tell their stories for themselves.”

    The 7,000-square-foot new museum is just one of the ways in which the community is marking the massacre’s centennial. The Tulsa Race Massacre Commission also runs the Greenwood Art Project, which will open an exhibition featuring 33 Oklahoma-based artists next month, among other programming. Tulsa’s Philbrook Museum of Art currently has two exhibitions inspired by Greenwood history.

    “This has not been a bed of roses,” Armstrong admitted. “There’s been a lot of time establishing trust and rapport and credibility with the community, not only among Black citizens, but white citizens [who worried], ‘Was this just another way to try to make white citizens feel guilty for what happened a hundred years ago that they had no part in, creating another echo chamber where nothing really gets done?”

    The goal is to make Greenwood Rising “a safe space for healing from racial trauma,” Armstrong added. The museum hopes to offer this not only through its exhibits, but also through additional space for community meetings and programming. The objective is for visitors to come away “not just being lightened and educated on this history, but to leave with a commitment to better racial relations within their own individual lives and take that back to their communities.”

    See Original Post

  • May 25, 2021 7:14 AM | Anonymous

    Reposted from AAM

    “For museums, the choice is either resilience or irrelevance. When museums see themselves not only as serving their community but as their community, they will undoubtedly be resolute, fortitudinous, adaptive, and unrelenting despite the challenges they face.”

    —LaNesha DeBardelaben, President and CEO, Northwest African American Museum, Seattle, Washington

    Extraordinary times demand that museums rethink and reposition themselves to be more integral and valued members of their communities. As the pandemic unfolded, societal inequities intensified and revealed structural, philosophical, and ethical weaknesses within museums and cultural organizations. Additionally, it became clear that government agencies and the general public did not view museums as essential players contributing to the vitality of community life.

    These stark realities necessitate new approaches to address the loss of public participation, diminished financial resources, and racial inequities, and systemic exclusionary practices in museum workplaces, boardrooms, collections, and programming. Further, climate change and environmental injustices, agile digital strategies, flexible internal operations, and healthy community partnerships are but a few of the realities museums need to acknowledge and address. Unfortunately, many museums are still operating with inflexible mindsets, outdated assumptions and practices, and long-standing traditions that have been immune to critical examination.

    This is an opportunity to “go down to the studs,” tackle embedded assumptions and reimagine museums as integral to public vitality and the greater ecosystem of which they are a part. To do so, institutions must rethink holistically—inside out and outside in—and re-envision what they are and what they can be.

    Resilience positions museums to nurture more flexible and responsive operating models for a world where disruptions will continue and social and environmental issues will persist. Are museums part of the solution? We believe they are, but we also know that meeting this moment will require more than a pivot; museums will need to undergo transformational change.

    The Resilience Model

    What do we mean by resilience? Most definitions of resilience focus on the ability of an organization to bounce back from adversity. Resilience is much more than reacting to events thrust upon us or those of our own making; resilience is about anticipating disruption and generating an array of responses to flourish in the face of change.

    Without a strong, strategic foundation from which to grow resilience, institutions are vulnerable to ongoing disruptions. The process of reframing, realigning, and reinventing any museum’s understanding of its work first requires analysis and ownership of its institutional history and current practices. When organizations are able to do this, they harness the awareness needed to build resilient mindsets, values, skills, and relationships that elevate their value in a rapidly evolving world.

    The Resilience Model highlights five resilience goals forming a system of tightly interrelated operational components that are the lifeblood of agile, responsive organizations. Immediately surrounding the goals in the diagram at right are six resilient characteristics that institutions must embrace in order to effectively address the constantly changing external realities of the local and global environments in which they operate. The Resilience Model, featured in the resource The Resilience Playbook, outlines five goals, each supported by four plays, that capture a series of actions for museums to undertake the work of becoming resilient. This unprecedented opportunity is the moment to reimagine museum relevancy moving forward.

    The Resilience Model is a holistic approach to institutional transformation that addresses the changes needed to establish museum resiliency. It is built on:

    • tackling embedded racial inequities and colonial and exclusionary practices to achieve greater resiliency;
    • examining all institutional assumptions to reveal inherent strengths and vulnerabilities and identify the re-envisioning and rebuilding needed;
    • participating in resilience work at the board, executive leadership, staff, and volunteer levels while engaging communities and stakeholders;
    • listening with humility, learning, and co-creating solutions internally and externally;
    • re-envisioning a resilient institution not as an isolated effort but an integrated way of being for the greater good; and
    • remembering transformational work is a long-term commitment of revitalization where short-term benchmarks create momentum.

    The Five Resilience Goals 

    Goal 1. Activate Equity and Inclusion

    Resilient organizations need to move past intention and into action. Resilience is about mindsets and being ever-flexible. “Activate Equity and Inclusion” is Goal 1 because it is central to the success of an institution’s internal and external relationships and current and future resilient decision-making. Equity and inclusion reflect a complex and expansive ideology to be embraced throughout the organization and with their communities.

    In the US, in particular, there is an imperative to address racial inequities; however, all diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion work is embraced within this goal. Equity and inclusion efforts require both individual (personal) and institution-wide work.

    Commit to Resilience: Center equity and inclusion in all of your decision-making.

    • Reflect on and acknowledge the organization’s current status in relation to equity and inclusion, including a focus on gaps and opportunities.
    • Develop shared language and shared understanding about the power of diversity, equity, access, inclusion, and anti-racism as the foundation for current and future initiatives.
    • Develop specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound actions that will lead to greater equity and inclusion across the organization.
    • Make equity and inclusion the work of the entire organization at all levels now and into the future.

    Goal 2. Renegotiate Community Value 

    The realization that museums were not considered essential at the outset of COVID-19 laid bare that museums have a lot of work to do to earn community respect. Effective community engagement is a long-term commitment based on listening to communities and co-creating strategies that strengthen community vitality. Further, this goal is about shifting the role of the museum from being a destination toward being a fully integrated community partner that actively affirms that collective problems, such as socioeconomic inequities, climate change, and educational systems in crisis, require collective solutions. Museums cannot stand on the sidelines expecting others to address these persistent and urgent issues; museums must do their part.

    Commit to Resilience: Redefine the organization as integral, relevant, and vital to public life.

    • Integrate shifting external realities and needs locally and globally as part of staying current and relevant.
    • Identify opportunities where the organization can be a key player in the community ecosystem and larger world.
    • Leverage institutional capacity, offerings, collections, and facilities to make a meaningful difference to communities.
    • Build strategies, relationships, and partnerships to expand the museum’s impact.

    Goal 3. Reimagine Impactful Role 

    This goal advances resilience by asking institutions to challenge their assumptions about how their pasts continue to influence current operations for good or ill. Confronting, naming, and owning exclusionary practices and colonial roots is essential internal work: no museum can achieve true resiliency without addressing the evidence and nature of past decisions, harms caused, and the embedded practices that may have left many without a voice or representation.

    While part of this goal is about decolonizing the museum, it is also about addressing institutional priorities, practices, and processes that reveal realities about authority and power, diverse approaches to working with the public, and collection equity and access. Understandably, this process of deep assessment will lead to repositioning the museum’s purpose, mission, and institutional commitments.

    Commit to Resilience: Reinvent the organization for the greatest relevance.

    • Address the organization’s historical origins in order to rectify past practices that excluded, misrepresented, or disrespected the rights and identities of people, cultures, and traditions.
    • Redefine principles to strengthen connections with communities and the public to support relevant, meaningful, and inclusive practices.
    • Revitalize the strategic framework with a relevant mission, an inspirational vision, core values, and an institutional commitment to equity, inclusion, and anti-racism supported by policies and practices that champion positive, sustainable change throughout the organization.
    • Commit to agility and resilience as external trends and issues prompt shifts, further refinements, and responses over time.

    Goal 4. Retool Financial Mindset

    This goal underpins the essential need for financial strategies to support the work of transformation, building financial resilience, and instilling the ability to be flexible and prepared. Understanding the connections between financial resources and the institution’s internal and external realities is about aligning institutional convictions with the resources required to address them.

    Critical examination of the museum’s business model once again challenges assumptions and assesses where and how every resource is secured and invested, thus catalyzing new decision-making criteria and processes and laying the groundwork for rigorous resilient practices. Instilling institution-wide financial literacy gives board and staff members an understanding of, and respect for, the intricacies of running a museum’s complex operation.

    Commit to Resilience: Build financial resilience.

    • Build financial rigor and minimize vulnerabilities through informed actions.
    • Strengthen financial literacy among all staff and board members.
    • Align financial and physical resources to support the organization’s mission, vision, values, and equity and inclusion commitments.
    • Develop a financial road map with tools and metrics that deliver on anti-racism and inclusion, community value, impactful role, and leadership.

    Goal 5. Advance Agile Leadership

    The final Playbook goal speaks to our understanding that institutional reframing, realigning, and reinvention are unlikely to occur without organizational leaders (including staff leaders) who are receptive to making change. Change requires a sense of urgency and champions for change combined with an integrated and inclusive approach to examining organizational culture and structures. That means unlearning old behaviors in order to pursue a new clarity of purpose rooted in a “values first” approach.

    Museums must re-examine board and staff roles and responsibilities and their policies and procedures in order to ensure agility. Accept that no individual has all the answers, especially when it comes to complicated crises like COVID-19 and systemic racism. Resilient leaders use diverse teams to help them problem-solve, and, in doing so, they foster learning environments.

    Commit to Resilience: Recalibrate leadership for peak performance.

    • Create a leadership model that is holistic, integrated, and inclusive.
    • Co-create a value-driven organizational culture that informs how work is done at the staff, board, and volunteer levels.
    • Reconfigure your organizational structure to achieve greatest impact.
    • Build a learning organization that is responsive and agile.

    Many conversations, actions, and decisions will occur before organizations are authentically equitable, inclusive, resilient, and active participants in their communities. While each institution will envision its own path into the future, all must address past and current practices before moving forward.

    The Resilience Model requires intentionality, diligence, courage, patience, and, above all else, an institutional commitment to do the work and accept the need for change. In the end, we hope the Resilience Model and The Resilience Playbook generate deep self-reflective conversations in the field, leading to meaningful changes and a growing community of resilient museums.

    See Original Post

  • May 25, 2021 7:07 AM | Anonymous

    Reposted from Artnet News

    Police in Berlin have captured Abdul Majed Remmo, the fifth and final suspect connected to the shocking 2019 jewel heist at Dresden’s Green Vault Museum, or Grünes Gewölbe.

    Authorities had been searching for the 22-year-old man since he evaded capture in a sting operation late last year. He is the twin brother of fellow suspect Mohammed Remmo, who is already in custody. Remmo will appear before a judge next Tuesday where he could face charges of aggravated gang theft and arson, reports CNN.

    Germany’s federal police worked with the Berlin state authorities, Dresden police, and special forces to make the arrest.

    Due to German privacy laws regarding ongoing criminal proceedings, the brothers have not been officially named by law enforcement officials. The Remmos are already widely known, however, as one of the nation’s most notorious crime families. They are believed to also have stolen a $5 million commemorative gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum in 2017, among other high-profile crimes.

    At the Green Vault Museum, the thieves stole three sets of Baroque jewelry, all lifted from a single display case in an early morning heist. The institution, which was founded by Saxon ruler Augustus the Strong in 1723, is known for its historic collection of precious treasure.

    The media speculated that the stolen jewelry could be worth as much as $1 billion—which would make it Europe’s most costly museum heist—but the state considers the objects priceless due to their cultural value.

    “We cannot give a value because it is impossible to sell,” Dresden’s State Art Collections director, Marion Ackermann, told the Associated Press at the time of the crime. “The material value doesn’t reflect the historic meaning.”

    Police made three arrests in connection with the crime in November 2020, and a fourth the following month, when they nabbed Mohammed Remmo. The search for the treasures is ongoing.

    See Original Post

  • May 25, 2021 7:00 AM | Anonymous

    Reposted from the Harvard Business Review

    Everybody wants to be happy. But how can we meet that sometimes elusive goal? This was a difficult question even before the global pandemic, but nowadays just thinking about it can seem futile. Parents are trying to balance the demands of remote work and online schooling; people who live alone try to keep their focus in isolation. When life is measured by back-to-back Zoom meetings, even taking a shower can seem like a win.

    The transformation of the workplace into scheduled online meetings has led to another source of deprivation: The removal of serendipitous encounters. For many people, hearing a colleague say, “Thank you so much” in the hallway, or a manager telling you “Great job” after a presentation were a highlight of office life. Now, these seem like traditions from another lifetime. Without water cooler interactions, casual lunches, and coffee breaks with colleagues, we don’t have the same opportunities for social connection as before. Without them, it can be much harder to find joy in our work. So, what can we do about it?

    We offer a humble suggestion: Kindness. This past year, most management advice has focused on how to sustain productivity during the pandemic, yet the power of kindness has been largely overlooked. Practicing kindness by giving compliments and recognition has the power to transform our remote workplace.

    The Benefits of Kindness

    A commitment to be kind can bring many important benefits. First, and perhaps most obviously, practicing kindness will be immensely helpful to our colleagues. Being recognized at work helps reduce employee burnout and absenteeism, and improves employee well-being, Gallup finds year after year in its surveys of U.S. workers. Receiving a compliment, words of recognition, and praise can help individuals feel more fulfilled, boost their self-esteem, improve their self-evaluations, and trigger positive emotions, decades of research have shown. These positive downstream consequences of compliments make intuitive sense: Praise aligns with our naturally positive view of ourselves, confirming our self-worth.

    Second, practicing kindness helps life feel more meaningful. For example, spending money on others and volunteering our time improves wellbeing, bringing happiness and a sense of meaning to life, research finds. Being kind brings a sense of meaning because it involves investing in something bigger than ourselves. It shapes both how others perceive us — which improves our reputation — and how we view ourselves. We draw inferences about who we are by observing our own behavior, and our acts of kindness make us believe that we have what it takes to be a good person. In the remote workplace, where cultivating moments of joy is difficult, this may be a particularly important benefit that translates into long-term job satisfaction.

    Third, as we found in a new set of studies, giving compliments can make us even happier than receiving them. We paired up participants and asked them to write about themselves and then talk about themselves with each other. Next, we asked one of them to give an honest compliment about something they liked or respected about the other participant after listening to them. Consistently, we found that giving compliments actually made people happier than receiving them. Surprisingly, though, people were largely unaware of the hedonic benefits of being kind.

    Why does giving compliments boost our happiness to such a degree? A key ingredient of well-being that we’ve sorely lacked during the pandemic plays a role: social connection. In our studies, we found that giving compliments engendered a stronger social connection than receiving compliments because giving them encouraged people to focus on the other personSure, receiving a compliment feels great, but making a thoughtful, genuine compliment requires us to think about someone else — their mental state, behavior, personality, thoughts, and feelings. Thinking about other people is often a precondition to feeling connected to them. In this way, compliments can become a social glue, enhancing connections and positivity in relationships, and making us happier.

    Nonetheless, people are often hesitant to give compliments. Why? The idea of approaching someone and saying something nice can trigger social anxiety and discomfort, recent research by Erica Boothby and Vanesa Bohns shows. For this reason, we assume people will feel uncomfortable and be bothered by receiving a compliment, when the opposite is true.

    In addition to these psychological barriers, working remotely has added more structural barriers to random acts of kindness, compliments, and recognition. Before the pandemic, organizations often recognized employees through formal programs, while serendipitous encounters could easily generate a simple thank you or words of praise. By contrast, today’s Zoom meetings tend to follow strict agendas that leave no room for any other topic, let alone compliments.

    Organizations benefit from actively fostering kindness. In workplaces where acts of kindness become the norm, the spillover effects can multiply fast. When people receive an act of kindness, they pay it back, research shows — and not just to the same person, but often to someone entirely new. This leads to a culture of generosity in an organization. In a landmark study analyzing more than 3,500 business units with more than 50,000 individuals, researchers found that acts of courtesy, helping, and praise were related to core goals of organizations. Higher rates of these behaviors were predictive of productivity, efficiency, and lower turnover rates. When leaders and employees act kindly towards each other, they facilitate a culture of collaboration and innovation.

    Bringing Kindness to Work

    How can leaders promote kindness in the remote workplace? First, they can lead by example. People are naturally sensitive to the behaviors of high-status team members. By giving compliments and praising their employees, leaders are likely to motivate team members to copy their behavior and create norms of kindness in teams.

    Second, leaders can set aside time during Zoom meetings for a “kindness round” in which team members are free to acknowledge each other’s work. This need not take much time — even a few minutes a week will suffice. But these few minutes can boost morale and social connection, especially when months-long projects are mostly completed over Zoom.

    Third, consider small spot bonuses. Companies such as Google have used “peer bonus” systems to encourage employees to send small amounts of money (from a fund in the organization) to each other to show appreciation for particularly effective work. Even a few dollars could have a positive effect; research finds that people appreciate small acts of kindness as much as large ones. A gift card or a small gift sent through the mail might work just as well. Simply knowing that one is appreciated can trigger the psychological benefits of kindness without costing the organization substantial sums.

    The power of kindness can mitigate the ill effects of our increasingly online social world. It is an essential leadership skill that can cascade through people, changing the culture of the workplace along the way.

    See Original Post

  • May 25, 2021 6:56 AM | Anonymous

    Reposted from The Washington Post

    “What is that?” Jackie Eyl, a museum employee, asks.

    “A rat,” the girl responds.

    “It’s not an ordinary rat,” Eyl explains. “It’s a spy rat.”

    The CIA during the Cold War used dead rats to pass messages and money between agents, she says. She tells the girl that the agents tucked the items inside the animals and then sprinkled them with hot sauce to ward off hungry cats.

    “Isn’t that nasty? Isn’t that gross?” she says as Izzie laughs. “Do you want to see dog doo?”

    “Yeah,” Izzie says in a tone that expresses, “Of course.”

    Soon, Eyl is showing her tiger dung that was used in Vietnam to conceal a radio transmitter.

    Nothing is quite as it seems in the Spy Museum, which warns visitors as soon as they step off the elevator that they are leaving the world they knew and entering the shadow world. Here, in this secret world of spies, a pencil can contain a map, and a chess board can serve as an escape kit. Here, visitors aren’t just visitors. They are given agent names and missions to complete.

    The transformative nature of the museum makes it an especially fitting home for Patrice, a robot who is also much more than she appears.

    The small, sleek robot is opening up the museum to hospitalized children and young adults who can’t physically get to the building. From their beds at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, they can control where Patrice goes and what her camera sees. They don’t just occupy a virtual space; they command a physical one. As they explore, their faces fill a screen near Patrice’s head, and their voices come out of her speakers.

    “The robot, it disappears, it becomes them,” says Eyl, who is the director of youth education for the museum. “When we’re looking at Patrice, we’re looking at the child, and we don’t make any distinction.”

    With Izzie, that becomes clear as soon as her face appears on the screen, ready to take a tour. Eyl and Lucy Stirn, the museum’s school and youth programs manager, let Izzie do the driving and decide where to stop. Along the way, the two trained educators alternate between calling her by her real name and her spy name, Agent Kayak.

    Do you want to see some spy gadgets, Agent Kayak? 

    Do you want to race, Agent Kayak?

    Museum staff members used to visit children at hospitals, but the pandemic forced those trips to stop. Then in November, Eyl saw an email from a Johns Hopkins medical student who remembered going to the museum as a child. He wanted to know whether the museum was interested in getting a robot that could remotely facilitate connections with hospitalized youths.

    “This is really cool,” Eyl recalls thinking. “It’s another way to go beyond the brick and mortar.”

    An email exchange followed, and soon, the museum staff was meeting Patrice and learning how to operate her.

    Galen Shi, a medical student at Johns Hopkins University, is the founder of the WeGo Foundation, which provided Patrice. When we talk on a recent evening, he explains that the idea of using robots to allow children to escape the hospital, if only for a short while, came to him after he volunteered at an outpatient clinic and interned with a company that was using robotics to improve the delivery of health care.

    “I kind of brought those two ideas together,” he says. “When you’re at the hospital, you kind of lose a lot of your autonomy. A lot of things happen to you. One of the things we cherish about this is giving these kids their sense of autonomy back.”

    Patrice, he says, was named after the director of child life services at Johns Hopkins, who has played an important role in the project. The robot is the first that the group has housed at a D.C. venue, but she is not the first of her kind. She has two more experienced siblings who live in Baltimore. A robot named Kevin is located at the Maryland Science Center, and one named RAE, which stands for Remote Aquarium Explorer, is at the National Aquarium.

    Shi says the group is applying for nonprofit status, and the dream is to have a fleet of robots in venues across the world, so that hospitalized children and eventually adults in assisted-living facilities can choose to go anywhere they want.

    At the core of the effort is accessibility. It is opening up spaces and experiences for people who would otherwise be left out.

    “I think covid has opened a lot of people’s eyes about this,” Shi says. Before the pandemic, people could sympathize with how it felt to be stuck inside hospitals and other facilities, looking at the same walls each day, he says. “Now, they can empathize.”

    Izzie’s stepmom, Brittany Sims, describes the 12-year-old as a naturally curious child, the kind who will throw out random facts about walrus anatomy. But Izzie’s cystic fibrosis has meant long hospital stays, and by the end of them, she is usually so bored that she just wants to sleep, Sims says.

    The day Izzie toured the Spy Museum was different, Sims says. She describes Izzie as excited for it to start and still talking about it after it ended.

    “She told me about the tiger poop,” she says, laughing.

    So far, the museum has given only a handful of tours to hospitalized children using Patrice. On that night, they did three and allowed photographer Sarah Voisin and me to witness them.

    A short while after Izzie says goodbye, Patrice flickers her lights, and on her screen appears a 4-year-old girl, holding a small Troll doll.

    Stirn and Eyl show an impressive amount of energy and enthusiasm during each tour. They present exhibits with an excitement that doesn’t let on that they have talked about them countless times. But working with hospitalized children means also knowing when to cut tours short, and within a few minutes, the 4-year-old makes it clear that she wants to go.

    The two women say goodbye and wait for Patrice to let them know when the next child is ready.

    Soon, 7-year-old Hayden Dawes, who has hydrocephalus and has been in the hospital for a week to replace a shunt, appears on the screen. He holds a wand and waves it in a magician-like manner.

    “What are you going to turn me into?” Stirn asks.

    “A bunny rabbit,” he says, smiling, before flicking his wrist.

    Stirn drops to the floor and starts hopping toward one of the display cases, signaling to Hayden to follow.

    Only here, he is not Hayden. He is Agent McGillicuddy.

    See Original Post

  • May 12, 2021 8:38 AM | Anonymous

    Reposted from ABC7 Chicago

    Chicago's DuSable Museum has turned over hate mail letters to the U.S. Secret Service they received shortly after President Joe Biden's inauguration.

    DuSable is America's oldest museum dedicated to African American history and culture.

    "It's just essential people know what we are dealing with," said Perri Irmer, president and CEO of the DuSable Museum.

    Days after President Biden's inauguration, Irmer said she received mail that had the president's image and a funeral banner, as well as latter warning the first lady to leave the White House in three days and leave Washington.

    Irmer said the museum has received six of these types of letters in total.

    "It is incredible at this time, with all the things we are dealing with, that a museum or any other cultural institution would be targeted this way," she said.

    Irmer said the museum now has increased security at a time when they are already struggling. The pandemic has forced them to lay off staff. Irmer hopes to get federal funding to help with security costs.

    "It's important that people are aware of this need and this targeting because today it may be the DuSable Museum of African American history, tomorrow it could be anybody else," she said.

    The DuSable Museum is scheduled to reopen on June 19, with not only extra COVID protocols but now more safety measures.

    See Original Post

  • May 12, 2021 8:05 AM | Anonymous

    Reposted from AAM

    Since 1981, the Museum Assessment Program (MAP) has been assisting small and mid-sized museums in their quest to achieve best practices and national standards. The process begins with an application to AAM for one of the assessments, followed by a self-study evaluation and an on-site visit by a peer reviewer. As a peer reviewer, I have assisted a number of museums through the MAP program. After an intensive on-site visit, the peer reviewer submits a final written report emphasizing the strengths of the museum and where improvements are needed. The museum uses the report, with its recommendations, for strategic planning. The ultimate goal is to strengthen the museum to better serve its constituents and communities. All of this revolves around the museum’s mission statement and the implementation of that statement. A core area for measuring how successfully the museum implements its mission is disaster preparedness and emergency response, the two areas I will share tips on in this post.

    When I began to write this piece, I concentrated on the fiduciary responsibility museums and museum staffs have to hold their collections in public trust, and how part of that trust is ensuring a safe environment for the collections, staff, and visitors. But I was struggling with how to include all the necessary documents, instructions, and scenarios for disaster preparedness and emergency responses. The words were difficult to come by, and the more I tried the worse the piece began to sound. I then called upon a colleague and dear friend of mine to get his opinion. I read what I wrote, and he listened appreciatively. I expressed my concern the piece sounded too academic, and more like a report. His reply was, “Don, remember when you were recruiting me to be a MAP peer reviewer?” I said, “Yes, I do.” He said, “You gave me a piece of advice I have never forgotten. You said, ‘Keep it simple and keep it practical.’ You have forgotten your own advice.”

    That cleared the mental log jam, and gave me a fresh start. Of course, we know what our responsibilities are as museum professionals: the safety of our collections and the physical safety of staff and visitors. Many books, articles, and other sources of information on disaster preparedness and emergency response are available on AAM’s website as well as the websites of other professional associations.

    Most of the MAP assessments I conduct are for small and midsize history museums, historic sites, and house museums located in small communities; communities where everyone pretty much knows everyone else. For museums like this, planning for a disaster is often a question of resources. For that reason, rather than dwell on the particulars of what makes a good plan, I will concentrate on how to acquire the resources to execute one if necessary, particularly if the museum is on a limited budget in a small town.

    Related Stories

    The list of potential emergencies and disasters is far greater than the space allowed for in this piece. The sections below represent common emergencies and disasters I have reported about in my assessments.

    Water 

    Water, or the threat of rising water, is a concern for many museums. The threat may be a nearby river, heavy downpours, or a burst pipe. If there is a nearby cold storage/freezer facility, become friends with the owner or manager. They could provide free freezing services to preserve wet documents until proper conservation is arranged.

    If your facility is in a flood-prone area or an area susceptible to hurricanes, take proactive preparatory measures before disaster strikes. Purchase heavy-duty plastic sheeting in rolls. You can cut rolls of this heavy sheeting to fit over collection storage shelving. Your local home improvement store may donate these rolls or sell them to you at their cost.

    While at the home improvement store, talk with the owner or general manager to arrange for sand and sandbags. Again, these items may be donated or sold at cost to your organization. Take the time now to fill the sandbags, staging them near doors to prevent flood waters from entering your building.

    If your facility is in a hurricane zone, measure the windows and buy sheets of plywood to fit each window, as well as screws. Mark each board with the window it fits and keep a record of which board fits which window. Hurricane warnings are usually given with enough time to board up the windows and place sandbags at the doors. The ideal hurricane protection would be to install hurricane shutters.

    In a hurricane-prone area, purchasing a generator would be a wise investment. A backup source of electricity is necessary if the power goes out for an extended period of time. The generator will keep the temperature and humidity levels stable enough to prevent damage to the collection from mold and mildew. You could approach a board member to offset the cost of the generator.

    Become acquainted with local merchants who receive shipments in boxes. Ask them to give you the boxes for use as temporary storage of artifacts after a disaster. The boxes will not be acid-free, but they will only be used for a short duration as the collection status is determined. Your local moving and storage company may supply boxes as well as temporary storage space, if needed.

    Earthquakes

    If you are located in an earthquake-prone zone, survey the collection storage area to determine if the shelving and the artifacts placed on it would be susceptible to damage. Consult with your local emergency personnel to determine the best way to store the artifacts. This may mean lowering the shelf height, or placing significant artifacts at a lower level or in a special room isolated from the rest of the collection.

    Human Error

    While water damage is the number one potential disaster, the next-most-likely emergency is a visitor or staff member injuring themselves or needing medical attention. At least one staff member who is authorized to call emergency personnel must be on-site during all hours the museum is open, including public and non-public hours.

    An incident report needs to be completed as soon as possible after the accident or injury. This report should include the name, address, phone numbers (home, work, and cell), and email address of the injured party, as well as the date and time of the incident, what happened, and the names and contact information of any witnesses. The staff member completing the report should sign and date the report, and electronically send a copy to the museum’s insurance carrier or agent.

    First Aid

    Staff and volunteers need to be trained in first aid, CPR, and the use of a defibrillator. Perhaps a board member could provide the funds necessary to purchase the defibrillator and stock the first aid kit.

    Contact the local American Red Cross office for classes on first aid, CPR, and the use of the defibrillator. The Red Cross may offer these classes at no charge to the museum.

    Fire

    The greatest potential disaster your facility and collections face is fire. Every staff member, volunteer, and board member needs to be familiar with the written evacuation plan for the building in the event of a fire. Fire drills should be conducted on a regular schedule to practice evacuating the building and accounting for everyone in the building.

    Contact the local fire department and give the firefighters on every shift a tour of your facility. The tour should cover the entire building, including public, administrative, collections storage, and exhibit prep and shop areas. Tell the firefighters the most significant artifacts, documents, photographs, or paintings, and where are they located. Make sure the fire chief and fire marshall join the tour, so they can direct firefighters to these critical areas of the museum. Keep in mind that water-damaged artifacts and documents can be restored.

    Disasters and emergencies are circumstances we do not like to think about. They are the unthinkable. However, we must face the reality that they are bound to happen, and we need to be prepared to handle them.

    See Original Post

  • May 12, 2021 8:01 AM | Anonymous

    Reposted from OCCRP

    Interpol introduced on Thursday a new app that can help law enforcement and the general public fight art and antiquities trafficking, the international police agency said in a statement.

    Called ID-Art, the app uses sophisticated image recognition software which can identify whether an item is part of Interpol’s extensive database of known looted art and antiquities. 

    “In recent years we’ve witnessed the unprecedented ransack by terrorists of the cultural heritage of countries arising from armed conflict, organized looting and cultural cleansing,” said the agency’s Secretary General Jürgen Stock. 

    “This new tool is a significant step forward in enhancing the ability of police officers, cultural heritage professionals and the general public to protect our common heritage,” he added. 

    Police, customs officials, private collectors, art dealers and art enthusiasts will be able to instantly check if an object is among the more than 52,000 items currently registered with Interpol as stolen. 

    The illegal antiquities trade is a multi-billion dollar global industry according to a 2018 report by Standard Chartered Bank, and it’s beneficiaries are not just high society art aficionados, often the trade is a major funding source for criminal and militant groups on the supply side.

    “You cannot look at it separately from combating trafficking in drugs and weapons. We know that the same groups are engaged, because it generates big money,” said Catherine de Bolle, Executive Director of Europol after a major crackdown on the illegal antiquities trade last year.

    The looting of cultural property from active war zones, like Afghanistan, is considered a war crime under the 1954 Hague Convention.

    Despite that fact, lax provenance requirements mean that looted and stolen pieces will often resurface on the legitimate market and find their way into major auction houses or the collections of famous museums. 

     Sometimes it happens unbeknownst to both buyer and seller, but sometimes not. Interpol hopes that the app will help remove excuses for ignorance.

    “Interpol’s new ID-Art App is a major milestone in the international fight against the illicit trafficking of cultural property,” said Ernesto Ottone, UNESCO’s Assistant Director General for Culture. 

    “Indeed it is both preventive and reactive as it allows everyone to record cultural objects and sites into the app. This has the potential to improve due diligence practices with potential buyers of cultural artefacts,” he said.

    See Original Post

  
 

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