With the launch of the updated Society website (www.barbershop.org) and an impending upgrade completion to the backbone of Ebiz (https://ebiz.barbershop.org/ebusiness/), we are entering an era of new and exciting growth for the Society’s online presence and membership services. To that end, we humbly ask:

So what do you want?

While suggestions such as “Make it work all the time!” may seem dreadfully helpful, we would encourage feedback for very specific features that perhaps have been overlooked, lost over time, or would make a nice addition to our web services.

For example, these are some on my “wish/to-do list”:
1) A searchable list of each and every quartet name that’s ever been registered in the history of the Society, past and present.
2) A comprehensive historical record of all past champs with photos and video
3) An iPhone app for tags
4) Google Maps chapter rehearsal venue locator synched up with Ebiz
5) Downloadable Excel files for every viewable list in Ebiz

We’re excited about what’s possible and would love to know what’s on your wish list. Let us know!

I’m about to launch into what amounts to a pep talk, and I hate pep talks. They don’t work for me. The emotions fade quickly, and then I’m left with the same circumstances and no more solutions than I had before. I’m left even more cynical. Don’t give me a pile of shiny, trite mantras that don’t point me where to go next.

I’m not pretending to have all the answers here, so why am I even writing this? Because I see a lot that makes me feel positive about the future. You choose whether I’m being trite or not. If I get to be dismissive about empty motivational speeches, it’s only fair that I be equally dismissive toward the gloom and doom demotivational speeches many of us have been giving lately, even if unintentionally. Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks for visiting the blog concerning the 33% criterion.  The position paper mentioned on page 24-25 of the July/August 2009 edition of  The Harmonizer is here: 7th Chord Position Paper. A copy of the article in The Harmonizer is here: The Hallmark 7th Chord.

Although this is not technically a change to the definition of the barbershop style, this criterion has been used for almost 40 years in defining the style that we are treating this change as such.  Given that, the process for change is as follows: Read the rest of this entry »

This is a VERY important post—so important that staff will be meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 16 to discuss your replies. It’s a little long, but worth it.

If you can fill in the above blank without hesitation, you probably misunderstood the question. Read on, your answer will require some pondering. Your answers could also help focus staff, Society, district and chapter efforts for years to come. We look forward to some thoughtful discussion! Read the rest of this entry »

We’d save a lot time if we’d all been born with a big scrolling LED sign implanted on our foreheads, one that displayed our brain’s default settings. We would think twice about engaging someone in a discussion about the Society’s future if we saw the following message scrolling just below his toupee: “I am the messenger of truth and light, and I share no arguments or perceptions—only facts. Disagreement proves that you’re trying to bring down the Society!”

Most people are much more reasonable than this, although many folks seem to drop 30 IQ points the moment they sit down at a keyboard. Wouldn’t it be great if we could access everyone’s default settings menu, like we can with our computers and cell phones? It sure would help the folks “debating” (i.e., talking past each other) regarding U.S. health care legislation. The defaults of opposing sides reveal far more than particular policy points: Read the rest of this entry »