Girls Scouts of the USA, Here I Come!

I am thrilled to announce that next month I will start work in an exciting new position at the Girls Scouts of the USA (which most of us know as just the Girl Scouts).

Founded in Savannah, Georgia on March 12, 1912, it moved its national headquarters in 1915 to New York City, where it has been every since, on 5th avenue, just a few blocks from Bryant Park, and south of Patience and Fortitude (the two stone lions outside the main branch of the NYC Public Library).

When I began exploring L.A.M. (Life-After-the-Museum), there were a number of avenues before me:

• Innovating within informal learning spaces (museums, libraries, after school programs, etc.)
• Experience design and learning product design
• Digital learning programming
• Disruptive-Innovations-R-Us

I could have picked one area and gone deep – and I met with many remarkable, talented, and generous people across a range of organizations in each area (often thanks to introductions from other remarkable, talented, and generous people – you know who you are!).

In the end the Girl Scouts offered me something that brings all four together. To quote from the email that went out today from my new supervisor, the incomparable Tony Doye, to introduce me and the position to my new colleagues, I will be “responsible for guiding [the Girl Scout’s] digital UI/UX design to create an integrated customer experience, building and managing cross-functional teams to inform an improved customer experience, partnering and collaborating with IT who will develop the technology associated with the desired customer experience, and driving an iterative process that continually enables us to learn and grow through a variety of digital channels.”

In short, beginning on August 13th, as their new VP of Digital Experience, I will be helping the Girls Scouts bridge their legacy programming into the digital age.

As important as WHAT I will be doing is WHOM I will be serving – millions of girls around the country and the hundreds of thousands of adults who support them. I spent a dozen years at Global Kids supporting NYC urban youth to become global leaders. I then spent a half-dozen years at AMNH helping youth to become science-informed citizens. I couldn’t be more excited for my next step to be supporting girl leadership around the country (or, as they say in the Scouts, G.I.R.L., aka Go-getter, Innovator, Risk-taker, Leader^™).

The Girl Scouts offer programming to help girls thrive in the following ways:

• Developing a strong sense of self
• Displaying positive values
• Seeking challenges and learning from setbacks
• Forming and maintaining healthy relationships
• Learning to identify and solve problems in her community

That’s a mission I can sign on to. In fact, I just have. And I can’t wait to begin to learn all the different ways I can help them advance that mission.

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What now for Mooshme? Will this blog continue to be the place to follow the implications of my work, a space founded to explore the intersection of digital media and museum-based learning? I’m not sure. I need to think some more about that. But for now, watch this space.

p.s. For those reading this after my previous post (“This is not my chair“), it turns out, after an internal review process, the Girl Scouts decided a few years ago to support their staff with… Herman Miller Aeron Chairs! I clearly have ended up in the right place…