by Kat Bair | Aug 1, 2023 | Big Ideas, Blog
I recently had dinner with an urban planner who worked in transportation for the city government. I asked her how work was going, and she mentioned that upcoming local elections were throwing everything into a spin. “Oh, are parts of your work impacted by the...
by Kat Bair | Jul 25, 2023 | Big Ideas, Blog
As a youth pastor, I took a group of high school and college students to a place called Camp Barnabas every year. Camp Barnabas is a summer camp in rural Missouri for children and adults with physical and mental disabilities. The camp functions by pairing campers with...
by Kat Bair | Jul 18, 2023 | Big Ideas, Blog
The first rule of volunteer recruitment is to make direct asks. You’re more likely to succeed with direct asks than a general appeal. The downside is that while direct asks do work, you have to make a lot of them. As a youth pastor, I remember going about...
by Kat Bair | Jul 12, 2023 | Big Ideas, Blog
This week, I asked my husband what he was working on, and he said, “Well, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about quaternions.” “What’s a quaternion?” I asked. “It’s a way of using a four dimensional cube to describe the orientation of something.” My blank stare at...
by Kat Bair | Jun 28, 2023 | Big Ideas, Blog
I stood outside Jeni’s ice cream with an old friend and her two elementary-aged children earlier this week. We were at the ice cream shop 8 minutes before it opened and were chatting on the sidewalk. The younger of the two children looked at her mom and said, “What...
by Kat Bair | Jun 13, 2023 | Big Ideas, Blog
My dad was a self-taught deep sea fisherman. It all started with him bringing one of his fishing rods from the lake and just casting it in the surf while we were on a family vacation to the beach. After a few little catches, he wound up asking some other fishermen on...