N.E. Brigand Posted January 12, 2013 Share Posted January 12, 2013 Good for G7 for making difficult decisions and doing what they feel is best for the resilience if the activity. You can't say nothing needs to be done when you don't have a Glassmen or Teal Sound on the field in 2013... they are at least doing something about it. Carry on! What does the G7 plans say about anyone but themselves? All I see is the G7 planning for the G7, and it doesn't really matter to them what happens to the corps remaining in DCI. IMO they are trying to save their own bacon... Teal and Glassmen who? MiM doesn't bother me and G7 doesn't bother me. It's not a political or massive corporate take over. It's non-profit band. The non-G7 have the power to do what they wish and they aren't as helpless as people would like to think. People get defensive because of already instilled hate for George Hopkins and nothing more (even though Hop isn't the only one). I wonder if it was the bottom 7 corps that wanted to create their own circuit if people would be so against it. You're ducking the question. You said that the demise of Teal Sound and hiatus of Glassmen showed that something needed be done, and thank goodness DIE SIEBEN were doing something. But as JimF says, what on earth will DIE SIEBEN be doing for the lower-tier corps? If you can't answer that, your argument falls apart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N.E. Brigand Posted January 12, 2013 Share Posted January 12, 2013 Fewer people need to be involved with the decision-making process at DCI. More bold steps and clear actions should be taken. If they #$*@ up, they should be replaced by others who will similarly have consolidated control and will take bold actions. Given the 2010 proposal, which SEPTYNIU would almost certainly implement once they have control of seven out of twelve votes, will there afterward be any way to replace them if their actions do in fact cause more harm than good? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danielray Posted January 12, 2013 Share Posted January 12, 2013 D-Ray: The G7 directors are mainly looking out for 'their own' interests as opposed to the interests of the entirety of DCI. That in of itself is fine; Hopkins must look out for the best interest of The Cadets and Gibbs must look out for the best interest of BD. However, what is best for DCI (as a whole) is not always what is best for an individual corps. Therefore a person who has decision making authority for an individual corps should never be placed in charge of making powerful decisions for an entire activity; that creates a huge conflict of interest when the needs of the group conflict with the needs of the individual corps. Mozilla Foundation is a 501c3 organization that is funded primarily by Google, which it... oddly... competes directly against. The Mozilla Foundation is both brilliant and fascinating from both a structural and organizational perspective. I recommend anyone not familiar with how they are organized and how they operate learn more about it. Drum corps could really learn a lot from these type of structures. The current model is fatally broken and radical change is needed. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RockyGranite Posted January 12, 2013 Share Posted January 12, 2013 (edited) People keep chiming in with this bit that these same corps directors were the ones that caused DCI to be in the current position. The answer here is both yes and no, but first... we must acknowledge that if it wasn't for them, the activity would not exist at all anymore... done.... finished... over. Now, just because someone is on a board of an activity, it does not mean they are in charge of the decision-making process. In fact, many of the decisions during this period went in exactly the opposite way that these individuals wanted, simply because of the way DCI is set up. The real issue here is that at DCI everything is a design by committee. If you want to have a horrible result, get more people involved. A perfect example... our company is in the middle of a major rebrand for a very large organization. The initial concepts when working with the brand manager were brilliant. In order to get final sign-off, the brand manager had to take it to various groups within the organization to get their sign-off. Each group wanted to change or add some small details that they felt addressed their individual priorities. This morning I got the concepts incorporating each group's requirements. They are horrible in comparison to the original. But, no one is really unhappy... while no one is really happy. This is design by committee... dulling brilliance, making no one happy, but no one really unhappy. Less people need to be involved with the decision-making process at DCI. More bold steps and clear actions should be taken. If they #### up, they should be replaced by others who will similarly have consolidated control and will take bold actions. Adding more people to the decision-making process is 100% the wrong thing to do. So, back to addressing your point... yes, they were there. Yes, they were on the board. But... the way the organization was structured, it was design by committee, so not exactly what you are describing. Actually, your example is not perfect in that the scenario you describe has no resemblance to how DCI operates...at least, not as far as I know. Correct me if I'm wrong, but DCI has an annual meeting of the bulk of the constituent corps members who decide the broad direction and an eight person Executive committee, three of whom are not corps directors, who handle day-to-day decisions and implementation of the decisions of the larger body. I don't see the dangers you describe really being a problem for DCI. Edited January 12, 2013 by RockyGranite 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skywhopper Posted January 12, 2013 Share Posted January 12, 2013 (edited) MiM doesn't bother me and G7 doesn't bother me. It's not a political or massive corporate take over. It's non-profit band. "Non-profit" does *not* mean no money is involved. Lots of money is involved! DCI's revenue is not "massive" but compared to any individual corps, it is very large indeed. The G7 want more of that money than they already get (they get a large share already). The non-G7 have the power to do what they wish and they aren't as helpless as people would like to think. People get defensive because of already instilled hate for George Hopkins and nothing more (even though Hop isn't the only one). No one says they are helpless. They are acting in a powerless fashion, whining and blaming others and asking for even more special treatment instead of taking action for themselves. I had plenty of good things to say about Hop in re the Cadets 2011 show's success, but people aren't reacting badly because Hop is involved. They are reacting badly because Hop is doing (more) bad things to drum corps. If he decided to lead on a constructive proposal I would embrace it. I wonder if it was the bottom 7 corps that wanted to create their own circuit if people would be so against it. If they had a credible threat to hold over DCI in order to demand more revenue, yes, people would be against it. But the anger is *not* about the idea of a separate circuit, it's that the G7 is *threatening* a separate circuit in order to get a bigger share of money that DCI redistributes to the member corps. The separate circuit is a threat and a backup plan, but that's not what makes people upset. The fact that DCI has thus far allowed them to start up a competitive circuit using DCI resources (the fact that the MIM shows are on the DCI schedule are already a huge giveaway to this would be competitive organization) is the upsetting thing. That and just the idea that DCI should exist to serve the top 7 who already get the most revenue and the most attention. Edited January 12, 2013 by skywhopper 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garfield Posted January 12, 2013 Share Posted January 12, 2013 (edited) Mozilla Foundation is a 501c3 organization that is funded primarily by Google, which it... oddly... competes directly against. The Mozilla Foundation is both brilliant and fascinating from both a structural and organizational perspective. I recommend anyone not familiar with how they are organized and how they operate learn more about it. Drum corps could really learn a lot from these type of structures. The current model is fatally broken and radical change is needed. Interesting. Mozilla Foundation is a known quantity to me because I was brought up to speed several years ago by my brother, who is a chief engineer at one of the world's foremost video and audio editing software companies. The cynic in me (follow the money) was more interested in why Google would be so supportive of a direct competitor, and the answer is very simple: Google support for Mozilla requires that Google is the primary search vehicle in Firefox. Further, when you peruse the antitrust files at the department of justice you find that Google would be well-suited to avoid antitrust attacks if it supported the efforst of a, perceived, direct competitor. The reality is that neither Mozilla nor its open-source products are a direct competitor at all, except maybe in the context of an ant vs. an elephant. And, in fact, the revenue generated by Google as a result of being the default search engine on Firefox is so small as to be nothing more than a rounding error on Google's balance sheet. The significance of "support" of the Mozilla foundation is, clearly, only represented in the court room. A further look at the Foundation's revenue statements proves the point: Without Google's support the foundation wouldn't exist in practical terms because the amount of support for the project from the "public" is truly minimal. A whopping 14% of the foundation's revenues came from "the public" (and "public support" is non-governmental support that can include corporations); the vast majority of its revenues come from investment income on its, roughly, $25million investment account. The orginal funding for the Foundation came from AOL, not Google. They also pay their senior people nearly $500,000 a year. While it's a good goal for drum corps to be able to pay that amount for top-qualifed leaders it is, at present, only a goal. It would be equally difficult to convince a sizable chunck of drum corps' "top corps" to pay for leadership worth $500,000, and only on the basis of ego alone. All that said, there are some interesting things about the Foundation that might be applicable to drum corps. For instance, their structure of requirements for making grants, and the restrictive covenants that are place on recipients of grants, in particular the review process that guarantees the attainment of goals before the majority of the grant is paid out to recipients. This type of restriction could work in drum corps whether it's based on finances, longevity, and/or placement. It could also be based more closely on the overall altruistic goals of the organization, such as promoting drum corps more deeply in the scholastic community. (Two things here, Mozilla's grants annually are expressed in tens-of-thousands of dollars, where its income is expressed in millions. Obviously, the central mission of DCI - returning as much as possible to the member corps - would have to be thrown to the scrap heap for the Mozilla model to work in DCI). Mozilla is very lean (except for the payrolls); they run the organization on a skeleton crew (but, interestingly, their "Program Service efficiency" is only about 75%. For such a skeletal organization, they chew up an sizable percentage of revenues in Management & General Expenses. I find it difficult to envision scaling the Mozilla model to an organization of DCI's current size, let alone the size that we'd like to have it be. If it were that effective, at scale, why wouldn't Google itself utilize it? Still, you know my interest in your ideas and thought processes, and we agree that the current model is completely unsustainable, so I'd be interested in you sharing what parts of the Mozilla Foundation would interpret well to DCI. Edited January 12, 2013 by garfield Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
audiodb Posted January 12, 2013 Share Posted January 12, 2013 I wonder if it was the bottom 7 corps that wanted to create their own circuit if people would be so against it. But the G7 say they don't want to create their own circuit, remember? They want to work over work with DCI to get what they want (or else). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garfield Posted January 12, 2013 Share Posted January 12, 2013 Now you're confusing people. :) Not all of us :tongue:/> . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garfield Posted January 12, 2013 Share Posted January 12, 2013 Given the 2010 proposal, which SEPTYNIU would almost certainly implement once they have control of seven out of twelve votes, will there afterward be any way to replace them if their actions do in fact cause more harm than good? I'm dying to know what SEPTYNIU stands for... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrumManTx Posted January 13, 2013 Share Posted January 13, 2013 But the G7 say they don't want to create their own circuit, remember? They want to work over work with DCI to get what they want (or else). What exactly are their demands for DCI? Take over the BOD? Or is there more? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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