Collaboration

Last year I reviewed a publication from the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation that dealt with what I believe will be a critical issue for nonprofits in the next decade -- collaboration. If nonprofits are to flourish, they will need to find innovative, creative solutions to intractable problems. That calls for strategic partnerships, in which each player adds targeted strengths to the equation.The Wilder Foundation's booklet was both thoughtful and comprehensive and reflected a commitment to high quality.

When a relative of accused druglord Robert G. Moore was stabbed and killed during a robbery, authorities say, Moore vowed to avenge the death. Over the next eight months, Moore and members of his East Baltimore drug syndicate picked off the man they suspected of killing the relative, former standout high school wrestler Darian Kess, and shot five more people, police and prosecutors say. On Friday, Baltimore State's Attorney Gregg L. Bernstein...

MedImmune Inc., a Gaithersburg-based biotechnology company, said yesterday that it has agreed to collaborate with Rockefeller University to develop a vaccine to prevent or treat illnesses caused by a virulent bacteria, Streptococcus pneumoniae.MedImmune also struck a licensing deal with the New York school for the rights to commercialize any vaccines developed from the collaboration. The two did not disclose financial details of the agreement.The bacteria MedImmune and Rockefeller have targeted is the leading cause of blood stream infections, pneumonia and ear infections in children, and the third leading cause of meningitis.

News Roundup •••• The “is Valve making a console?” rumors got a lot more interesting as Apple is now being linked to the Steamers (as I like to call them), but in terms of “wearable computing” (i.e. Google's first potential Project Glass competitor). Huh? [ Metro ] •••• Video game sales continue to plummet, down another 20% in March. The steepest decline in the area of hardware might be due to the fact that the current most popular hardware available is really freaking old . You're not helping either, Vita . [ Zacks ]

A buzzword among nonprofit organizations lately seems to be "collaboration."Funding sources, eager to see their charitable dollars stretch further in today's very tight economy, are encouraging -- even forcing -- nonprofits to work closely together to meet some social service needs in their communities. The question is whether these efforts are truly collaborative.In increasing numbers, nonprofits are certainly cooperating in attacking deep-seated social problems. In other cases, they may go further and coordinate their efforts.

(Second of 2 parts)Collaboration as a concept may be in, but in practice too many nonprofits stop short of true collaboration. Instead, they may cooperate or coordinate -- but that's far less of a commitment than collaborative ventures.A recent report on collaboration in the nonprofit sector, published by the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation of St. Paul, Minn., provides readers with a wealth of information. The report is a prelude to a forthcoming workbook on the same topic.The authors begin this concise report by first providing the reader with working definitions of cooperation, coordination and collaboration.

Human Genome Sciences Inc., the Rockville biotechnology company mapping genetic codes, yesterday reported a net loss of $12 million, or 62 cents per share, for the first quarter of 1997.By comparison, the company posted a profit of $4.28 million, or 22 cents per share, for the same period last year.Company executives attributed the difference to a sharp variance in the company's receipt of payments from research and development partners.During the first quarter ending March 31, Human Genome said it received $1.3 million in collaboration revenue.

Colorful installations and subdued drawings contrast in Territory/Ambiguity, on display at the Maryland Art Place. Artists Paul Bartow and Richard Metzgar's massive collaboration, a site installation called "Collection Intersection," is bright and busy. Panels of wood, many of which are coated with candy-colored paints, collide with upholstered furniture, industrial building materials and Plexiglas-encased ferric chloride drawings in a large work that fills two of the gallery's three rooms.

Leaders of four Maryland public institutions of higher learning will troop to Annapolis today to tell legislators about how well they're working together to make the state a national leader in biotechnology. Chances are, the lawmakers will not be impressed. In the diplomatic language of supposedly sisterly schools, top educators at the University of Maryland, College Park; University of Maryland, Baltimore County; University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute; and University of Maryland, Baltimore will tacitly admit that they deserve less than top grades for collaboration.

Leading lawmakers served notice to University System of Maryland officials yesterday that they expect it to form a top-level biosciences council to increase research collaboration among its member institutions. Del. Nancy K. Kopp and Sen. Robert R. Neall told Chancellor Donald N. Langenberg and the presidents of four of the institutions that they want the system to develop a comprehensive plan to make the best use of the state's biotechnology research. For the second straight week, the educators came to Annapolis to brief House Appropriations and Senate Budget and Taxation subcommittees on their cooperative efforts in biotech, considered a vital element in Maryland's future economic development.

The air went out of Mirlande Wilson's tale about a Mega Million's jackpot ticket hidden at a Windsor Mill McDonald's Tuesday, when lottery officials announced that the actual winners have come forward - and produced the winning ticket. The timing likely will save Wilson a court battle. Wilson, a 37-year-old mother of seven, was sued Monday in Baltimore City Circuit Court by Mandisa Mazibuko of Germantown in an attempt to block Wilson from cashing. Mazibuko also sought $1 million in damages, plus interest and court costs.

To peer back in time via AMC's hit show "Mad Men" is like gazing into an old GAF Viewmaster. The advertising world it nostalgically depicts, often referred to as the "creative revolution," is frozen in a Purgatorial time warp. Each cultural meme of the show - from the Brylcreemed hair to the mod clothes donned by Don Draper - is a still frame with a Technicolor tint. When held up to the light, it appears more brilliant and unreal. Click fast-forward to a 2012 vantage point, then turn back, and you'll find we've since experienced numerous revolutions, some creative and many destructive.

It is a match made in heaven, or at least in that part of heaven where the hip and young creatives types hang out. For its 2012 DreamHome, the Washington Design Center asked a handful of young interior designers to take inspiration for residential spaces from works of craft. Not just from any crafters, but a group of artists whose works are set to be showcased this summer in a Smithsonian exhibition, "40 Under 40: Craft Futures. " What the room decors and the craft creations have in common is that their authors all began their careers after 9/11, and they brought with them a new, more earnest sensibility.

Here's a tip to everyone making music videos: involve puppets*. Somehow. Sock puppets even. If the new Muppets movie taught us anything - and it taught us a lot -  is that puppets can improve even Jason Segel vehicles. Puppets could make Skrillex music videos passable. So it was a pleasure to see the new video from Baltimore proto-punks Dope Body. It features all the big P's: punks, puppets and paranoia. The video is for Dope Body's "Bangers & Yos," off their first proper album "Nupping," which was released last year.

The Baltimore Sun Though the small statue with the greenish hue is nicknamed "The Modest Venus," she is anything but. It's true that the 10-inch figurine from the Italian Renaissance has one hand demurely covering her fig-leaf area, and the other held up as if to fend off unwanted advances. But around 1500, an anonymous metalworker crafted the Venus from bronze, which is naturally cool and pleasing to the touch. He gave her rounded limbs and an abundance of undulating curves; her buttocks might have been expressly designed to fill an adult's cupped palm.

On the heels of a Johns Hopkins study that showed telephone and web-based coaching helps patients lose weight and keep it off, medical faculty and staff are now collaborating with a private health care firm to make the system widely available. Healthways plans to sell the system called Innergy to insurers, physicians, employers and others who can share it with obese patients. Hopkins will advise the firm on the design and evaluate the program. The program was created by Dr. Lawrence J. Appel, a professor of medicine.

"I think a big wasted resource in this county is senior citizens," says Bob Spongberg, 79, a retired engineer who lives in Columbia. That is why he has volunteered to work with pupils at Harper's Choice Middle School as part of a new collaboration between the school and the county's Office on Aging. The tutoring sessions pair seniors with pupils for an hour once a week. If the program goes well, other schools might add it. "This particular program is kind of a microcosm of what we envision," said Judi Bard, program specialist for the Howard County Office on Aging.

Early Monday morning, before other visitors arrive, artist Jo Smail introduces her students to the striking, often mysterious, results of artistic collaboration. They have gathered in the gallery at Evergreen House, another stop on Smail's own artistic journey. Her work is part of Conversations, a show which gathers the fruit of dozens of creative alliances between past and present faculty members of the Maryland Institute College of Art and artists outside that community. Some paintings grew from an exchange between a teacher and student, or between artists who are related to one another.

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller has called for the establishment of a center in Baltimore for the state's top two public research universities to seek funding of joint projects — a step toward his eventual goal of "reunification" for the institutions. The Calvert County Democrat also called for the Baltimore and College Park campuses to run more joint programs at the University of Maryland's Shady Grove campus in Montgomery County, indicating that he has not given up his long-term aim of merging the three under a single banner.

For generations, music students have been getting gold stars, certificates and other pats on the back from their teachers. But a budding musician with high marks in one state is not necessarily on the same level, judged by the same criteria, as a budding musician in another. Such positive reinforcement may soon carry a lot more weight countrywide. Launched by Carnegie Hall in New York and the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, the Achievement Program seeks to establish the first national standard in the United States for measuring musical aptitude in students of all ages.