I GO BACK TO COLLEGE EVERY THREE MONTHS. Not as a student in the traditional sense, but as a member of the VanderCook College of Music board of trustees. I look forward to it, not only because I’m supporting something I believe in deeply — the development of future music educators, but also because the president of the college, Charlie Menghini, was my high school band director and any time we get to spend together is good for my brain. Even though, technically, I’m his boss now (which makes me giddy at the improbability of it all), I’m still his student.

Last month, I made the quarterly trek to Chicago and spent a couple of days with Mr. M (as we called him in high school.) The morning after the board meeting I did a message delivery training session for several members of the faculty and staff. It was the final phase of a pro bono Message Lab I conducted for the college to help it refine it’s messages in the marketplace.

Winning through fundamentals

Later that afternoon Mr. M drove me to the airport, enthusing about how good my session was and how much he learned from me — compliments I still don’t really know how to accept from him. Then, as we almost always do, we talked about challenges and success and how success isn’t complicated. It just takes hard work and attention to the basics. “It’s the fundamentals that make a difference,” we excitedly shout at each other as we trade stories from our work. (Note to Mr. M: Did you see the piece in today’s Wall Street Journal about Disney returning to hand-drawn animation for its next feature instead of computer animation? It’s all about how technology isn’t what sells the film. It’s about how good stories sell the film. Ah … the power of the fundamentals.)

On the plane back to Sacramento my mind kept circling back to a brief discussion we’d had in the board meeting. Mr. M is Master of the Handwritten Note and has created a tradition at VanderCook where the students themselves write personal, handwritten thank-you notes to people who donate money to the college. It turns out, each year when they do this, Mr. M gets calls and emails — and sometimes handwritten notes — from donors telling him how much one of those notes made their day. And sometimes, Mr. M told us, a donor will send the college more money with a note thanking the college for the thank-you note!

Talk about succeeding through the basics.

To write is to affirm

That a genuine gesture of appreciation — in writing —  could result in surprise and delight among a donor, even inspire more giving, is pretty awesome stuff.

“I think affirmation is the most basic need people have,” Mr. M told me as we drove toward O’Hare last month. “Next comes the desire for information and inspiration, but first they need affirmation.”

Hard to argue with that.

The truth is, the main thing that keeps us from writing a note is usually a lame excuse. “My handwriting sucks.” (That’s me I’m quoting.) OK, typing is officially allowed, but print it out, jot an additional note in the margin, sign it, stuff it, stamp it and send it. Voila — it’s a personal note.

I was reminded recently of how penning a note to someone is anything but second nature for most of us. A good friend had gone on a job interview that seemed promising. He emailed me:

“You probably have a feel for this, being a business person and all. Should I send an actual thank-you note for the interview, or do people these days prefer emails?

Write the note, I said. Real pen. Real paper. Real stamp. You’d be amazed, I told him, how few job candidates I get thank-you notes from. He wrote the note. And he got the job. The coolest thing though? He sent me a thank-you note for telling him to send a thank-you note.  One word and a quirky smiley face. I know it was tongue-in-cheek, but I’m saving it.

For the love of Great Aunt Maggie

A colleague of mine, Jessica Smith, is using her considerable celebrity as a blogger to invite people to join in her declaration of November as Handwritten Note Writing Month. It’s her answer to National Novel Writing Month, which she has participated in in the past, but without finishing. This year she wanted to write something every day that she could finish and that would be especially meaningful. She started with her Great Aunt Maggie who is fighting stage 3 breast cancer.

It’s a great idea.

Email, Twitter feeds, Facebook postings — I love them all. But they leave no artifact; they cast no shadows and carve no initials into the trees of our lives.

I wrote a letter when I was in ninth grade — typed, actually, on my mom’s old Royal typewriter —  and asked my sister, Kathleen, three years ahead of me, to drop it in the mail room for Mr. Menghini at Winnetonka High School.  In the letter I invited my future friend and mentor — but then, just a way-cool band director — to come to a concert at the junior high to hear me play drums.

What a nerd.

More than 25 years later, I was on stage in Chicago’s Symphony Hall, listening as Mr. M — now Dr. Charles T. Menghini — introduced me as the graduate commencement speaker.

“In 1978, I received a letter from a young man who was in junior high school …”

I was stunned, and my eyes grew damp as I realized he still remembered that cheeseball letter. I started my speech haltingly, slowed by unexpected speed bumps of emotion.

Afterward, I gave Mr. M a big hug and I told him I couldn’t believe he still remembered that letter.

“Remember?” he said. “John, I still have it.”

***

Please visit Jessica Knows to learn more about Jessica Smith’s month-long experiment in handwritten notes.

Given the subject matter, I’d be remiss if I didn’t raise my hand in support of Hallmark greeting cards and stationery supplies. Yes, they’re a client, but they’re also a personal favorite.

If you haven’t committed your holiday donations yet, I invite you to consider VanderCook College of Music. 
 

 

© 2009 John Armato

Update on Thursday, November 5, 2009 at 7:58PM by John Armato

Appreciated a nice note from Elizabeth Cottrell, founder of the Facebook group “Revive the Art of Personal Note-Writing.” Check it out.