FREE WHITEWATER

City, Marketing

Forget Selling

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Whitewater can do much better than this.

There’s a useful place for sales and marketing in commerce, but they’ve been applied mistakenly and ineffectually to Whitewater’s politics. 

It’s been years and years of selling the town, with every tired expression about being a destination community, exceptional place to live, work, and play, etc.

Those who have pushed this tired approach won’t stop – it’s all they know, some believe it truly works, and some simply want others to believe it works (so as to receive credit for their efforts, however unproductive they truly are). 

For those who believe, there’s a combination of situation and confirmation bias at work: the twin assumptions that where one is, and the like-minded people to whom one speaks, are evidence of universal conditions & acclaim. 

Most of these low-quality sales pitches fail because unctuous pitchmen assume that prospects elsewhere are so gullible or so dim that they’re susceptible to…. low-quality sales pitches.

That’s false: most people are very sharp, and see through yet another stale presentation of exaggerations and distortions.

After these many years, of selling the city, various projects, and now even test scores as though they were miracle products, one would think that Whitewater would be a city of gold: El Dorado on Cravath.

If half of these pitches, claims, contentions, announcements, declarations, and special meetings had been half of what’s been claimed for them, we wouldn’t have had the need for still more pitches, claims, contentions, announcements, declarations, and special meetings. 

A bright, shining exaggeration, so to speak, is still an exaggeration.  The overwhelming majority of people – here and outside the city – know this.  They’re more than able to see through the dull, hackneyed, and inflated. 

We would do much better – for ourselves and our prosperity – to abandon disordered exaggerations for an accurate description of our small city. 

Accurate is not inadequate – on the contrary, it’s the only description worth respecting, beautiful in itself. 

When we embrace straightforward presentations – and one day that will be the only kind we’ll make – Whitewater will achieve truly the prosperity that crude sales pitches cannot provide.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 9.3.14

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Good morning, Whitewater.

It’s midweek already, and our Wednesday looks to be sunny with a high of eighty-three. Sunrise is 6:22 AM and sunset 7:26 PM. The moon is in a waxing gibbous phase with sixty-four percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1783, the Revolutionary War comes to a formal end:

The Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783, ended the American Revolutionary War between Great Britain on one side and the United States of America on the other. France, Spain and the Dutch Republic had separate agreements; for details of these, and the negotiations which produced all four treaties, see Peace of Paris (1783).[1][2] Its territorial provisions were “exceedingly generous” to the United States in terms of enlarged boundaries….

Signature page of the Treaty of Paris from copy at the National Archives and Records Administration.

Preface. Declares the treaty to be “in the name of the most holy and undivided Trinity”, states the bona fides of the signatories, and declares the intention of both parties to “forget all past misunderstandings and differences” and “secure to both perpetual peace and harmony”.

  1. Acknowledging the United States (viz. the Colonies) to be free, sovereign and independent states, and that the British Crown and all heirs and successors relinquish claims to the Government, property, and territorial rights of the same, and every part thereof;
  2. Establishing the boundaries between the United States and British North America;
  3. Granting fishing rights to United States fishermen in the Grand Banks, off the coast of Newfoundland and in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence;
  4. Recognizing the lawful contracted debts to be paid to creditors on either side;
  5. The Congress of the Confederation will “earnestly recommend” to state legislatures to recognize the rightful owners of all confiscated lands and “provide for the restitution of all estates, rights, and properties, which have been confiscated belonging to real British subjects” (Loyalists);
  6. United States will prevent future confiscations of the property of Loyalists;
  7. Prisoners of war on both sides are to be released; all property of the British army (including slaves) now in the United States is to remain and be forfeited;
  8. Great Britain and the United States are each to be given perpetual access to the Mississippi River;
  9. Territories captured by Americans subsequent to the treaty will be returned without compensation;
  10. Ratification of the treaty is to occur within six months from its signing.

Signing Statement. “Done at Paris, this third day of September in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-three.”

On this day in 1947, a government sale takes place:

1947 – War Assets Office Sells Hemp Factory

On this date the federal War Assets Office sold a local government-owned hemp mill to Walworth Foundries. The mill, located on Highway 14 two miles north of Darien, consisted of 20 acres where marijuana was grown and seven buildings where the hemp was used to create rope and burlap, as part of the war effort. [Source: Janesville Gazette]

Google-a-Day asks a question about classification:

Under modern classification systems, in what clade will you find birds?

Film, Technology

The Death of Film: After Hollywood Goes Digital, What Happens to Movies?

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In this documentary, directors Jason Gwynn and Jay Sheldon interview film projectionists during their last days on the job at a soon-to-be-defunct movie theater. As Hollywood studios move toward digital distribution, many theaters are forced to abandon their 35mm projectors—and pay up to $150,000 for new projection technology. This change, as the documentary explains, is heartbreaking for the people responsible for reels and reels of film.

If you enjoyed this short, you may also want to read Matthew Dessem’s essay at The Dissolve about the challenges of preserving movies in a digital age. “Unless the unique challenges of digital preservation are met,” he writes, “we run the risk of a future in which a film from 1894 printed on card stock has a better chance of surviving than a digital film from 2014.”

Courtesy of Jason Gwynn & Jay Sheldon

Via The Atlantic.

Education, School District

Whitewater’s Educational Focus

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It’s perfectly reasonable to choose from among many diverse occupations. 

Location makes a difference in these choices: students in desert communities don’t dream of becoming local fishermen.

For Whitewater, while there’s sure to be more than one career path, it’s practical and reasonable to contend that a university town should encourage a university education as part of an attainable, practical path.  

It’s more than odd that in a city that’s put millions in public money into tech ventures (of whatever kind and merit), there’d be a lack of willingness to encourage lots of students to think about college and prepare accordingly. 

There’s no judgment in this; it’s simply a practical goal aligned with our location.

It’s also aligned with the publicly-stated goals of our city, Community Development Authority, tech park, and school district to promote Whitewater as a tech-savvy, competitive community.

I’ve disagreed with public money for some of those goals, but no one disagrees that we’ve heard them time and time again from many public officials.

How odd, then, to hear that one of the explanations for the low ACT participation rate in our university town is that college isn’t for everyone. 

Of course there are options, but if school administrators are now rationalizing low ACT participation in a city with a campus, of all places, that’s a sign of how badly the sales pitch for these test scores has gone. 

Yesterday’s tech-savvy marketing contradicts today’s low test-rate rationalizations.

There’s a solution to all this – forget trying to sell results as though they were cheap products. 

Tomorrow: Forget Selling.

Education, School District

The Better, Reasoned Approach on ACT Scores

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There’s been ongoing discussion about the ACT test results at our high school. Among a smaller percentage of students, those scores are higher over these last two years. That’s good news for those who actually took the test.

Results require a context; the fitting context for scores is the participation rate of students taking a test.

Participation rates are critical for understanding an organization’s genuine progress because they show how broad-based an accomplishment truly is.

Unlike the state, unlike most districts with four-year UW System campuses, and even unlike most districts in Rock, Jefferson, and Walworth counties, our district has a low and declining participation rate.

Our much-touted success has come through the efforts of fewer and fewer students.

Participation Ranking of Nearby Communities. The table below shows how Whitewater ranks by ACT composite participation rate, as compared with nearby districts, over several years (’09-’10, ’13-’14).

CITY COUNTY ’09-’10 ’13-’14 CHANGE
1 WILLIAMS BAY WALWORTH 71 74.3 +3.3
2 LAKE MILLS JEFFERSON 56.9 70 +13.1
3 PARKVIEW ROCK 62.1 68.3 +6.2
4 CLINTON ROCK 64.5 61.5 -3
5 ELKHORN WALWORTH 55.1 60.8 +5.7
6 EAST TROY WALWORTH 72.5 60.5 -12
7 MILTON ROCK 63.7 60.3 -3.4
8 BELOIT-TURNER ROCK 60.2 60.2 —
9 LAKE GENEVA-
GENOA CITY		 WALWORTH 49.3 59.5 +10.2
10 JANESVILLE ROCK 58.7 57.5 -1.2
11 DELAVAN-DARIEN WALWORTH 50.4 57.1 +6.7
12 WATERLOO JEFFERSON 49.3 56.5 +7.2
13 JOHNSON CREEK JEFFERSON 55.1 56.3 +1.2
14 BIGFOOT WALWORTH 58.4 56.3 -2.1
15 JEFFERSON JEFFERSON 52.4 53.6 +1.2
16 FORT ATKINSON JEFFERSON 54.1 52.2 -1.9
17 PALMYRA-EAGLE JEFFERSON 59.1 52 -7.1
18 WATERTOWN JEFFERSON 45.5 48.6 +3.1
19 EDGERTON ROCK 52.3 47.1 -5.2
20 WHITEWATER WALWORTH 66.2 45.8 -20.4
21 BELOIT ROCK 45.2 44.2 -1

Only Beloit had a lower participation rate. No district had a steeper participation drop.

Credit where credit is truly due. I’ve written about the latest scores before, and I’ve properly credited the students who took the ACT, and the teachers who helped them achieve good scores.

They – individually and specifically – have earned these results.

Organizationally, however, these are increasingly limited results that do not redound to the credit of those who have presided over a marked decline in overall participation.

Even in a university town, we now have only a minority of students taking the ACT.

Three sketchy comparisons in a row. We’ve now heard three feeble comparative contentions about Whitewater’s scores: a comparison to the state, a comparison to UW Systems schools, and now a comparison to nearby schools.

In not one of those cases does our participation rate compare well. In the case of nearby schools, it’s not even an apt comparison – many of these districts are far smaller.

The use of the Rock Valley Athletic Conference is especially blatant cherry-picking: these districts are much smaller than our district and they’re not even demographically similar communities. It’s an athletic not an academic conference, after all.

The better approach. Instead of deceptive and dodgy crowing about being number one, here’s how these results could have been presented:

Whitewater High School’s ACT test-takers have earned higher scores this year than last. We’re proud of their accomplishments, but we know that there’s critical work to be done to make sure that more students take the test. Each and every year, we should strive to assure that greater numbers of students in our university town take the ACT.

That would have been fair and serious.

These scores should have been more than an organization’s political claim, more than a transparent PR talking point. There’s not enough bright red font in all the world to make a dodgy claim a sound one.

Schooling, Education, Lifelong Learning. Men and women truly committed to scholastic accomplishment – rather than flimsy public-relations efforts — should understand the difference between sound analysis and deceptive crowing. They should embrace the former and reject the latter.

Ironically, the touting of these results as proof of organizational (rather than individual) success fails to meet the standards of reasoning that one should expect from properly educated students.

Participation shouldn’t have declined so precipitously; greater participation shouldn’t have been set aside or ignored for some future time.

There could have been greater participation, rather than decline, these last few years.

I’m confident that Whitewater should and can do better.

Success is more than a topline score.

Prior posts on this topic: Whitewater’s ACT Scores and Participation Rates and What’s Being Done is More than Just a (Sketchy) Number.

Data are available at the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction website: WI DPI Dashboard.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 9.2.14

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Tuesday brings a one-third chance of thunderstorms on an otherwise sunny day with a high of seventy-nine.

Downtown Whitewater’s board meets this morning at 8 AM. This evening, Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.

On 9.2.1969, a new way to do banking begins in America:

On this day in 1969, America’s first automatic teller machine (ATM) makes its public debut, dispensing cash to customers at Chemical Bank in Rockville Center, New York. ATMs went on to revolutionize the banking industry, eliminating the need to visit a bank to conduct basic financial transactions. By the 1980s, these money machines had become widely popular and handled many of the functions previously performed by human tellers, such as check deposits and money transfers between accounts. Today, ATMs are as indispensable to most people as cell phones and e-mail.

Several inventors worked on early versions of a cash-dispensing machine, but Don Wetzel, an executive at Docutel, a Dallas company that developed automated baggage-handling equipment, is generally credited as coming up with the idea for the modern ATM. Wetzel reportedly conceived of the concept while waiting on line at a bank. The ATM that debuted in New York in 1969 was only able to give out cash, but in 1971, an ATM that could handle multiple functions, including providing customers’ account balances, was introduced.

On this day in 1862, rumors cause a Wisconsin panic:

1862 – Rumored Indian Attack Panics Citizens

On this evening, Manitowoc settlers were awakened to the cry of “Indians are coming.” Messengers on horseback arrived from the Rapids, Branch, Kellnersville, and other nearby communities, announcing that Indians were burning everything in their path, starting what was known as the “Indian Scare of 1862.” Fire and church bells gave warning to frightened residents.

Over the next few days, people from the surrounding areas fled to Manitowoc and other city centers. Ox carts were loaded with women and children carrying their most valuable belongings. Men arrived with guns, axes, and pitchforks, anything with which to defend themselves and their community. A company of recruits from the Wisconsin 26th Regiment formed themselves into two scouting units, both of which returned to report that there was no threat of an Indian attack.

Even after the excitement had subsided, many frightened farm families could not be persuaded to return home. [Source: Manitowoc County, Wisconsin Genealogy]

Google-a-Day poses a history question:

What major English constitutional document, sent to Charles I, set specific liberties that the king could not infringe upon?

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 9.1.14

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Good morning, Whitewater.

We’ll have a likelihood of showers this Labor Day, with a high of eighty.

Do peacocks fly? Yes, and they come when called, too:

On this day in 1775, King George refuses the Olive Branch Petition from America:

Richard Penn and Arthur Lee were dispatched by Congress to carry the Petition to London, where, on August 21, they provided Lord Dartmouth, Secretary of State for the Colonies, with a copy, followed on September 1 with the original. However, the King refused to see Penn and Lee or to look at the Petition, which in his view originated from an illegal and illegitimate assembly of rebels.[6]

Instead, on August 23, in response to the news of the Battle of Bunker Hill, the King had issued the Proclamation for Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition, declaring the North American colonies to be in a state of rebellion and ordering “all Our officers … and all Our obedient and loyal subjects, to use their utmost endeavours to withstand and suppress such rebellion.”[6] The proclamation was written before Lord Dartmouth had received the Petition. Because the King refused to receive the Petition, the Proclamation effectively served as an answer to it.[7]

Google-a-Day asks a geography question:

The European country that has a half-submerged church in the middle of its largest artificial lake is located in what peninsula?