Andy wrote: "Those of us who had to work with him during his short tenure as an AOS committee member, knew him as non-performing Harvey. He sure could talk the talk though."
I began my work with the AOS in 1996 and ended it in 1998. During that "short time" I facilitated a comprehensive plan to scan and index the world's orchid literature. This included partnerships with the Missouri Botanic Garden, Michigan State University, and the National Agricultural Library. Also during that period, MSU scanned, indexed and made available on the web about 8,000 pages of classic orchid literature (see http://digital.lib.msu.edu/collections/index.cfm?CollectionID=14). [I note in passing that the AOS never fulfilled its contractual obligations to MSU, which I think says a lot about what kind of organization it is.] Given that my time was volunteer and that developing partnerships is not something that happens overnight, I don't think I have any reason to be ashamed. I never promised fast results (unlike Helga and Joe), although some in the AOS might have had that expectation. Jobs that are worth doing sometimes just take awhile (especially when other organizations are involved), and we were making forward progress. Lessons learned for me included not trying to include in any significant way an organization that is made up of volunteers in a project that can only be done well by professionals. Reasons for this are many, but among them are as follows: *Many of the volunteers, while expert in their own fields, imagine themselves to be expert in other fields and insist on having their own way, putting the organization in direct conflict with its partners; *The volunteer organization brings comparatively little money and little patience for projects that take time to accomplish (for example, anything involing external grant funding or group projects); *They do not partner well with organizations that have their own professional standards which some in the volunteer organization refuse to recognize much less honor (even though the partner organization cannot and would not violate these professional or legal standards which bind them); *The volunteer organization is not accountable for its actions (including contracts or even complying with relevant legal restructions) in the same way that its partner organizations are [an example was a high official in the AOS once suggesting to me an action that was clearly in violation of US and international intellectual property law and one that would have been unacceptable to any of the partner organizations]; *There is no structure of accountability in the volunteer organization. It's no one in charge and everyone in charge, resulting in a lot of confusion and "turf" problems; and *The leadership is unstable because it is changing all the time, so agreements made by one leadership team might not be honored by a later one. Enough for now. Never again will I throw my pearls before such swine. Harvey Brenneise _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [email protected] http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
