yknot

Legal and PR teams are almost always in conflict. Good leadership knows how to weigh the advice of both because it has a bigger job than staying out of court. It has to also ensure the long term success of the organization and that generally includes retaining as much public good will and trust as it can, especially in the face of a crisis. You can't always do that by listening to lawyers because sometimes good legal advice is bad business advice. The ongoing damage to BSA's reputation is almost fatal and needs to countered. The abuse scandal has paralyzed the organization in a way that it can't see any path forward, but there are some. To clarify a point, you do not wage war on victims. You also do not wage war on the attorneys, because that is same as waging war on the victims. You wage war in the court of public opinion to protect your reputation. Program aspects are the positive narrative we can control and promote, but we don't. A blue ribbon million dollar PR consultant would be great -- BSA has been in need of one for decades -- but the most effective PR is just based on common sense communications and coordinated information sharing. It is a natural by product of good leadership. Someone mentioned that surrogates would be useful but then correctly noted we don't have any, at least not in the traditional sense. We're too fractured and too radioactive to recruit any. As someone else noted, though, we do have surrogates at the Council and local levels who have been trying on their own to counter the tidal waves of negative news. This is where BSA has failed to provide any real leadership, direction, or resources. None of that is overly expensive, it is again just basic communication and common sense and most of it would fall well outside of any legal concerns. Another way to look at surrogates is to partner with other organizations doing positive things relative to what you do. There are proactive messages that could be sent that would if not repair at least stem some of this damage but almost nothing is being done. The Girl Eagle Scouts event was good but far too anemic and a one off. My last criticism of BSA leadership, and specifically Mosby, is the lack of internal communication to the troops throughout this crisis. He took the helm of an embattled organization, yet it took weeks if not months for the rank and file scouter to hear one word of reassurance or inspiration from the new leader. There is an important internal component to good public relations that starts with an organization's own employees or volunteers. These people, if treated well, are usually sympathetic to your cause and are your first army on the ground. In order for them to act as grass roots surrogates, however, they need to be kept informed and motivated. There's no legal excuse to hide behind here. It's pretty simple for a leader to at least issue motivational statements to his team and only once or twice over this long year has he done so.

Everybody makes mistakes. Pharma companies produce bad medicines. Car companies produce inferior products. But companies with integrity own up to mistakes in an upfront way, communicate about them, and somehow convince the public that they are still better off with access to medicines or vehicles because of the overall good they do in their lives. That's what leaders do. BSA has had no such advocate. I'm not defending anything wrong that was done. But if you believe along with the lawyers that the world is better off without scouting, then yes, accept the silence of our leadership and prepare for the end of scouting.

I worked in PR as a consultant at the highest levels for Fortune 100 top executives for big pharma, big auto, big energy, big tech. This is not how it is played. You don't wait, you get out first. You control the message. You are not passive or silent. Any corporate level executive, any upper management at even a mid level business, would know this. It is inexplicable how passive and mute BSA has been.

Yes, yes and yes. We are getting the pants beaten off of us by more sophisticated operators. We have got to learn how to chart our own course.

War looks like leadership. And that's how you win. You mention Mosby. Perfect. Where is our leader? BSA named its reorg ruminations The Churchill Project. What leadership skill did its namesake wield better than any other WWII leader? Words. He communicated, he inspired, he motivated. Where is Mosby? Where is his appeal to the troops to fight the good fight? It has nothing to do with waging war on victims. It's simply about reminding everyone what is good about scouting and why we need to do our best at the unit level to keep it going. On this he has been virtually silent.

The problem is this is war. Stop fussing about how fair or unfair it is, or how we used to do things, or parsing out the legal angles and simply figure out how to win it. No one at BSA is a war time leader.

I wouldn't do that. Just because something happened 50 years ago doesn't mean it can't be verified even if the perpetrator is dead. I believe in a reasonable look back process because forensic investigation can validate many claims. Also, the vast majority of the claims -- about 85% -- were made by men in their mid forties to early fifties so the reality is that many perpetrators or at least corroborating witnesses are certainly possibly alive.

Most of the people who I know who have been "first" at something are oblivious to being "firsts". Or, if they are aware, they are embarrassed or aggravated by it. For the most part, they've simply been people who were driven enough by passion or ability that they succeeded in overcoming barriers where others before them had failed. Some of these girl Eagle Scouts no doubt have pushy parents or some hubris of their own, but for the most part they seem to be just more great scouts. I don't have any issue with BSA making a big deal of this because it's good PR and will help market the organization at a time when it needs all the good press and recruitment help it can get. I think it has been destructive for BSA to focus so intently on promoting Eagle Scout status but that's a crisis for a future day if and when it emerges from bankruptcy.

Except I'd gladly pay 45 cents for a thin mint or a snickerdoodle. Would like some right now. Not so popcorn.

Visiting the American cemetery at Normandy with my dad who was a WWII vet was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. The rows of headstones, mostly of young people, were sobering. Driving down the coast and looking up at the cliffs they climbed up under fire left me speechless. I look at my teenage sons, and think of my dad. He couldn't wait to enlist, and signed up at 17 the day after he graduated high school. They are capable of the same, but thank God this generation hasn't needed to ask it of them.

I don't know. I think the average suburban kid in a stable home is well protected from physical harm, but psychologically I think society dangles them over cliffs. In many ways, kids are not allowed to be kids any more. Mentally they are pushed into adult situations and adult stress loads. The attraction for this kind of literature and media may be that it presents kids with characters who are able to survive in chaotic, dangerous worlds where adults are no longer in control or can't be trusted. Whatever it is, there is definitely something going on though and it's disturbing.

I was aghast when Hunger Games made it onto our district's 4th grade summer reading list. We're a long way from Lassie.

That's kind of pervasive. Most Young Adult literature and media present children as heroic figures in dangerous mythical or dystopian settings, resolving crises that adults can't solve or can't do so alone. In this case, I'm not sure if you watched the video, but the scouts and the media weren't exemplifying. The scouts were mostly aghast at what happened to a 14 year old. All they were doing was honoring and remembering him. They certainly weren't saying they wanted to go to war.

It's a big country so there's lots of things many of us have never seen, but I assure you do exist. You can downvote it, but this is the trend. Around me if you try to take your kids door to door no matter how good the cause someone will call DYFS on you. Townships absolutely do not want kids going door to door. COVID is only making it more the norm for any kind of door knock activity.

I can tell you in my town that there is an exemption for charitable but you still need to obtain a no cost license and they will not grant a license to anyone under the age of 18. That is a model ordinance in effect in multiple municipalities here.

Some do but not all. There are also municipal laws that can preclude this as well. Additionally, at least in my state, school districts will not allow any affiliated organization, like a PTA or athletic associations, to incorporate any kind of door to door nonprofit solicitation by kids.

Door to door sales by minors are illegal in many states. Some allow kids over the age or 14 or 16, some of those only with a permit. From I've seen, scouting is mostly oblivious of this because it continually pushes door to door popcorn sales. In some states it also includes solicitation so that would preclude scouting for food.

Unless your tent buddy is hiding snacks you are definitely safer with two. But a tent buddy is also just safer in general for lots of reasons, especially with kids.

That's why I said issue it as an interim policy during the pandemic.

Almost no time in the lower 48 is not hungry black bear time. They woke up in my area earlier this week when the temps briefly went above 40 degrees and were on the move and hungry looking for a midwinter snack. Black bears are not true hibernators except in the extreme north. Don't pay attention to the calendar, pay attention to the thermometer.

Seems kind of stupid to me to not allow a parent to tent with a scout if you want scouting to survive in the pandemic era. Then you are requiring a scouting family to buy two tents and possibly twice the gear just to accommodate a bizarre requirement. On the other hand, being completely liability driven, I do not advocate flaunting BSA policy. I do think BSA needs to issue some interim temporary policy modifications to make outings easier for scouts during the pandemic. It is also not safe to have scouts tenting alone in some situations. Far better to have a tent buddy, especially in bear territory. In pandemic times, the safest buddy is a household pod member, which could be either a parent or a sibling who falls outside of the two year limit rule.

That is the reality today. If you don't figure in all your hidden overhead costs when setting your rate, fee, or bid, you will not earn a profit and survive. A hundred years ago it was just a guy and his hammer and stuff you could cut down or dig out of a field. Now it's insurance, workers comp, licensing fees, materials, vehicles, etc. etc.

When teams of lawyers are earning $400-$2000 an hour sometimes the percentage approach works out better. Have you ever gotten a legal bill and seen how much it costs for the simple task of having an admin level person at a law firm put something in fed ex lol? It's mind boggling, but sometimes the percentage approach actually caps the legal fees.

Someone once corrected me when I said most of our Troop achieves Eagle because the percentage didn't include cubs but I did not double check them. Our base unit is pretty much an Eagle Mill (not my choice).

These are some of the arguments against herd immunity, which is a seriously misapplied term from production animal medicine where it really refers to either vaccination or slaughter. Vaccines can not only mount a better immune response than natural infection they can also help better avoid undesirable sequelae.