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News for March 2008
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 27 March 2008 |
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24 March 2008 |
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| Synergos Knowledge Base: Partnership-Building Processes |
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Synergos is an international anti-poverty organization focused on leadership networks and systemic, lasting change. As you might imagine, they are sitting on a vast amount of learning that they have accumulated in their twenty years of existence. The Synergos Knowledge Base collects some of this learning, focused on the topic of philanthropy and partnerships. I was particularly interested in the section on Partnership-Building Processes, but I recommend you scan it yourself for items of interest. There are gems buried in here.
Posted: 3/24/08; 8:14:13 PM # |
| The Codebreakers |
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The 2006 BBC documentary The Codebreakers is a great place to start if you're interested in seeing how organizations in developing nations are using free and open source software to get around U.S. corporate monopolies on computing.
Posted: 3/24/08; 8:00:28 PM # |
| Google for Non-Profits |
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Much has been made in some circles recently about the launch of Google for Non-Profits, the nonprofit-centric layer of language on top of Google's many excellent ad-supported services. It's a fine idea, of course. However, I wish there were a section entitled Is Google for Nonprofits Right for You. For example, if you have even the slightest bit of worry about the privacy of your users from government spying, I would be highly cautious about this. Google has been more cooperative with both China and the Bush administration than I think is appropriate for the smaller, more vulnerable activist organizations that might gravitate toward the Google platform.
Posted: 3/24/08; 7:55:21 PM # |
| Hopes for Wireless Cities Fade as Internet Providers Pull Out |
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A recent article in the New York Times on the sad state of many municipal wireless projects in the U.S. is entitled Hopes for Wireless Cities Fade as Internet Providers Pull Out. It describes how commercial ISPs (primarily EarthLink) that were partnering with cities to provide access are now pulling out of these projects because they don't see them as profitable. What the article fails to reveal is the heavy-handed political pressure the ISPs put on cities to make sure they got a piece of the action in the first place. Maybe now these cities can finally get on with the business of creating public utilities and nonprofit projects for this purpose, rather than trusting these so-called partners.
Posted: 3/24/08; 7:49:32 PM # |
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19 March 2008 |
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| Nonprofit Technology Consulting Skills: Apr. 25th, 2008 |
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I came down with a terrible head cold recently and so was unable to teach a recent online seminar. Our participants very kindly helped us reschedule and the upside of that is that there are still a couple of open seats. The Nonprofit Technology Consulting Skills seminar will be on Friday, Apr. 25th, 2008, 8:30 am - 2:45 pm. We'll be covering the basics of truly effective planning, responsible promotion of projects and technology, and common flaws in projects and how to overcome them.
Posted: 3/19/08; 3:55:50 PM # |
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18 March 2008 |
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| 17 Tips For Getting Bloggers To Write About You |
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I am asked every week or more about how an organization can get bloggers to write about them. My first answer is always to suggest that they identify the bloggers in their midst and dive right in. But sometimes they don't want strategy, they just want tips. In which case, I can now direct them to Cory Doctorow's 17 Tips For Getting Bloggers To Write About You.
Here they are in brief (but you really ought to go read them for the full effect): Have a link. Have a permanent link. Have a link for everything. Use real links. Use links that go to pages. Flash sites stink. PDFs stink. Streams stink. Put your URL on your images. Linking policies are ridiculous. Don't worry about "bandwidth stealing." Offer high-res images. Forget the "copyright protection" Javascript. Enough with the legal boilerplate. Let bloggers know how you'd like to be attributed. Creative Commons licensing takes the guesswork out of blogging. Send suggestions by the preferred means.
Posted: 3/18/08; 7:19:10 PM # |
| Simplicity |
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A colleague of mine once called the relationship management platform that we developed at Social Ecology "the Emacs of nonprofit software". This was both a compliment and an insult, since Emacs is a notoriously powerful and far from intuitive text editor whose proponents tend to use it for just about anything. I had a painful moment the other day when I looked at this comic by Eric Burke: Simplicity. Does it ring a bell for you too?
Posted: 3/18/08; 6:43:59 PM # |
| Market Ideology and the Myths of Web 2.0 |
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I have wondered for some time if we didn't need to renumber the web in order to feel ok about indulging in another anxious hype cycle. It's nice to know that I'm not alone in my thinking that the term "web 2.0" is, at best, just another name for the web in general. Even Tim O'Reilly admitted that "Web 2.0 was a pretty crappy name for what's happening". In his First Monday article entitled Market Ideology and the Myths of Web 2.0, Trebor Scholz takes apart the claims of this conveniently fuzzy concept. I recommend you read this piece before you ask (as I recently saw someone do on a mailing list) if you and your organizations are "web 2.0" enough.
Posted: 3/18/08; 6:34:34 PM # |
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12 March 2008 |
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| Scaling Up Listening: Powerful Online Relationship Building - Online Seminar |
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You've probably had the experience where a single act of listening to a donor unleashes unanticipated resources on a scale that outstrips a thousand acts of pitching and persuading. The Internet makes it possible to do more than just talk endlessly to more people. It allows us to listen to them and enroll them as never before. On Friday April 18th, 2008 at noon Pacific Time, I'll be teaching this workshop online: Scaling Up Listening - Powerful Online Relationship Building. As with our other workshops, I'll strike a balance between the transformative, strategic lessons, and the immediate, tactical ones.
Posted: 3/12/08; 4:26:39 PM # |
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10 March 2008 |
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| Ready to Lead: Next Generation Leaders Speak Out |
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In Daring to Lead we learned that three out of four executive directors surveyed (a sample of about 2000 from eight US metropolitan areas) said they would be likely to leave their jobs within the next five years. The Meyer Foundation has now released the obvious successor to that study, looking at who is (and who isn't) ready to replace these leaders. Ready to Lead: Next Generation Leaders Speak Out (cover page for 36 page PDF of full report and many other documents) presents the result of a survey of over 6000 "next generation" leaders.
The news isn't entirely grim, but it's not pretty either. Barriers for these leaders include: the burden of fundraising, demands for overwork, a sense that it's not the ideal way to make a difference, and a preference for program work.
The report makes recommendations to current leaders, emerging leaders, boards of directors, capacity builders, and funders. My favorites, from across the categories, include: (1) Replace dated power structures. (2) Help staff build strong external networks. (3) Find or be a mentor and good role model. (4) Pay reasonable salaries and provide benefits. (5) Upgrade training programs to be relevant and fresh, including coaching. (6) Engage in and ask about succession planning. (7) Recognize generational differences.
Posted: 3/10/08; 5:18:03 PM # |
| Recut, Reframe, Recycle: Quoting Copyrighted Material in User-Generated Video |
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Nonprofits that are moving into the increasingly accessible field of user generated video have found an invaluable resource in a new report by Pat Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi. Recut, Reframe, Recycle: Quoting Copyrighted Material in User-Generated Video (cover page for 22 page PDF) explores the topic of fair use in some detail, showing the legal basis for satire, parody, commentary, discussion triggers, illustration, diaries, pastiche and collage.
Posted: 3/10/08; 5:00:21 PM # |
| IssueLab: Call for Research on Volunteerism |
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I remain a big fan of IssueLab, the civil society research aggregator. In April, they are focusing on the topic of volunteerism and have a Call for Research on that subject. They are pretty flexible about the nature of this research, so if you have anything that you think might qualify, I encourage you to explore sharing. The topics that interest them are: national and regional trends in volunteering, evaluation and analysis of strategies for volunteer management and recruiting, the motivations for volunteering, the relationships between giving and volunteering, virtual volunteering, and case studies on volunteering.
Posted: 3/10/08; 4:47:55 PM # |
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8 March 2008 |
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| International Women's Day 2008 |
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Today is International Women's Day. I encourage you to read the fascinating history of the day, which goes back nearly a hundred years. If you have been involved in any recent events that relate to the day, you can also use the site to upload videos and other documentation.
Posted: 3/8/08; 6:04:42 PM # |
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6 March 2008 |
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5 March 2008 |
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| The Golden Goose: Building Trust Online with Donors, Activists, and the Media on April 11, 2008 |
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The currency of civil society is trust. It's trust that brings us volunteers. It's trust that raises money. It's trust that builds movements. So, it's probably no surprise that this is one of my favorite workshops to teach: The Golden Goose: Building Trust Online with Donors, Activists, and the Media. It's a single session workshop, to be held on Friday, April 11th, 2008. As usual, we'll touch on both long lasting strategies and immediately applicable tactics. I encourage you to take a look.
Posted: 3/5/08; 5:08:59 PM # |
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3 March 2008 |
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| Social Networks Are Like The Eye |
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Nicholas Christakis gave a talk at Edge on how Social Networks Are Like The Eye (both video and text available). The metaphor, of course, centers on the idea of how very complex structures emerge and how they function, but it's the research on the flow of ideas and the dynamic, evolutionary qualities of networks that he and James Fowler have done that particularly interested me. In particular, the notion of "social contagion" (applied to the study of obesity, in one case) that is absolutely fascinating. If you're interested in networks and civil society, this is an absolute must-read.
Posted: 3/3/08; 6:51:26 PM # |
| Online Social Networking as Participatory Surveillance |
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The current issue of First Monday is fantastic. I'll probably reference several of its articles over the course of the week, but I want to mention this one right away. Anders Albrechtslund lays out the case for Online Social Networking as Participatory Surveillance. His perspective is quite positive and he doesn't touch on the genuine concerns about surveillance that many of us have these days, but that isn't his point. He is looking at surveillance from a truly peer to peer perspective and this is useful and fascinating.
Posted: 3/3/08; 6:40:12 PM # |
| Don't Kill The Instant Messenger |
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I really enjoyed Angela Winter's Don't Kill The Instant Messenger, a description of the agonizingly slow process of adoptions of information technology at The Sun magazine (one of my favorites, by the way). I particularly enjoyed the story of the subscriber, back in the Eighties, who wanted to give gift subscriptions to 400 people (!) and wanted to fax the list in. He had to buy them a fax machine, have it shipped to them, and then he could place his order. Suffice it to say, The Sun does have a decent website where you can enjoy many of their extraordinary articles.
Posted: 3/3/08; 6:30:20 PM # |
| The Rebirth of American Civic Life |
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In a Boston Globe editorial called The Rebirth of American Civic Life, Robert Putnam explores issues of civic engagement related to the current U.S presidential election and points out that the only group that maintained the elevated engagement brought about by the 9/11 disaster is young people. He weighs in on the controversial Democratic superdelegate issue, but its the background of the piece that I found more interesting.
Posted: 3/3/08; 6:23:54 PM # |
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