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News for April 2007
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 29 April 2007 |
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| Funder Networks Research |
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A few years back, Grantmakers for Effective Organizations completed a remarkable array of research on Funder Networks. Their definition of what a "funder network" is might not be the one we would use today (it means funder association in this context), but the research is no less valuable for that. Their reports include: mission area maps, knowledge management practices, a survey of milestones and effectiveness, collaboration through networks, and the impact on resource flows. I would be very interested in knowing what the impact of this research has been and whether there is any new research planned into more emergent concepts of networks.
Posted: 4/29/07; 11:01:31 PM # |
| Workflow Patterns |
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Whether you're new to the field of process mapping or an old hand, I think you'lll find this collection of Workflow Patterns compiled since 1999 to be incredibly handy. I think this is a tremendously valuable resource for those managers who are struggling to provide communication centered leadership over technology projects.
Posted: 4/29/07; 10:56:13 PM # |
| Most Katrina Aid From Overseas Went Unclaimed |
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Since Hurricane Katrina, there have been thousands of organizations who have been working to help the communities of New Orleans. Although the U.S. government has not been the kind of partner that they and the nation hoped they would be, it's profoundly disturbing to read that Most Katrina Aid From Overseas Went Unclaimed. There were plenty of other governments who wanted to help, but ours didn't allow that to happen.
Posted: 4/29/07; 10:52:39 PM # |
| What Do You Do When Someone Steals Your Content |
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I've had to deal with a fair amount of content theft over the years. In most cases, it's just been the standard blog hijacking of one sort or another. But in one case, it was a fairly prominent colleague and an even more prominent publisher lifting a well regarded article of mine. What's disturbing is the hijacking cases were all easy to resolve, but with the latter I just faced stonewalling. So I have to say when I read Lorelle VanFossen's excellent guide on What Do You Do When Someone Steals Your Content, I was pleasantly surprised. It seems that I have more options than I thought! I want to pass this guide on to you, because I've heard of plenty of organizations with popular content who are losing traffic to people who are using that content without permission.
Posted: 4/29/07; 10:48:37 PM # |
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26 April 2007 |
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| Prices Slashed, New Hard Copy Edition, and New Licenses For Groups, for Tech Planning Manual |
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Communication Centered Technology Planning is a rich 254 page guide to some of the core concepts of our work at the Gilbert Center, with sections on Strategy and Leadership; Cooperation, Integration, and Listening; Weblogs, Email, and Other Tools; and a library of Annotated Resources. I'm very excited to announce three changes to this book that will make it accessible to a great many more people.
First, the prices of the various editions of the book have been sliced in half! The personal digital edition is now only $29.99. Second, small organizations no longer have to get a full corporate license. There are licenses available for small and large teams, of up to to five and up to twenty people respectively. Finally, for the first time, we are making a hard copy edition available as well. If you're the kind of person who likes manuals that you can hold in your hand, we now have a version for you.
Posted: 4/26/07; 9:39:57 PM # |
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25 April 2007 |
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| The Journal of Networks and Civil Society: Call for Papers |
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I'm very pleased to announce the second thematic issue of our journal series, entitled The Journal of Networks and Civil Society. This journal is intended to complement our previous issue, which focused on the role of ICT in social change. The inaugural call for papers for this journal asks for researchers and practitioners to submit papers and proposals dealing with a number of related topics including: community ties and the effectiveness of movements, civil society organization in the context of networks, key leverage points in the (re)building of social networks, network building as advocacy and social change strategy, and new funding and accountability models for network centric civil society initiatives.
Posted: 4/25/07; 2:14:38 PM # |
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22 April 2007 |
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| Ten Mistakes Teachers Make |
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In honor of the tenth anniversary of Nonprofit Online News, Asher Bey of The Guru's Handbook wrote a piece on Ten Mistakes Teachers Make. Links to deeper commentary are provided for each of the ten mistakes, which are: (1) accepting, without considering, constraints on how you teach, (2) teaching the subject and not the student, (3) not listening, (4) hiding your mistakes, (5) proving yourself competent to teach, (6) answering every question, (7) letting ego teach, (8) missing the other layers, (9) keeping to a script, and (10) believing the role.
Posted: 4/22/07; 10:21:11 PM # |
| Disseminate Information, Protect Democracy |
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I've been known to joke that postal rates are the only thing around which civil society in the United States will unite. Nevertheless, I am profoundly worried about the free speech implications of the latest actions of the U.S. postal regulators. As described by Teresa Stack of The Nation in Disseminate Information, Protect Democracy, it seems that they've adopted a model that puts enormous new burdons on the smallest magazines in the country. They accepted a proposal by Time Warner to drop postal policies that have been in place since Benjamin Franklin and create new barriers to entry for independent voices.
Posted: 4/22/07; 10:11:49 PM # |
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21 April 2007 |
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| Due Diligence Tool: For Use in Pre-Grant Assessment |
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Since 2004, Grantmakers for Effective Organizations publishes a Due Diligence Tool for use in pre-grant assessments. I understand that this (available as a free 65 page PDF) is GEO's most popular resource. I'm not entirely clear on the methodology for developing the tool (this is one of those situations where they've identified "best practices" without explaining what makes them the best), but I think some of the guidelines and worksheets are quite useful. For example, the authors layout seven elements of a healthy nonprofit organization: (1) A Healthy Governance Function, (2) A Competent Executive Director, (3) A Sound Financial Management System, (4) A Workable, Legal, Human Resource Policy, (5) A Successful Fund Development Strategy, (6) A Clear, Consistent Message, and (7) A Good Program That Advances the Mission.
Posted: 4/21/07; 3:27:18 PM # |
| World Bank Parody Site |
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Employees of the World Bank have been publishing a delightful parody of their organization entitled Bank Swirled. Even if you don't know what's going on at the World Bank these days (since a neoconservative architect of the Iraq War was put in charge), I think you'll find it very well done. It's especially relevant to those of you who travel in the same international development circles as the bank does. I would love to see more parody of civil society organizations. Got any leads?
Posted: 4/21/07; 3:04:53 PM # |
| Twelve Breeds of Client and How to Work with Them |
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Many of my readers are consultants, but even if you're not, you may find some useful insights in FreelanceSwitch's article on the Twelve Breeds of Client and How to Work with Them. The author breaks things out this way: the Low Tech Client, the Uninterested Client, the Hands-On Client, the Paranoid Client, the Appreciative Client, the Get-A-Good-Deal Client, the I’ll-Know-It -When-I-See-It Client, the Always-Urgent Client, the Design-By-Committee Client, the Doormat Client, the Budget Client, and the You-Should-Be-So-Lucky Client. As a client, do you see yourself in there somewhere? What would the breeds of consultants be?
Posted: 4/21/07; 3:00:46 PM # |
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19 April 2007 |
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| Top Ten Reports of the Year (2006) |
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At Nonprofit Online News, we try to include a rich mix of easily digestible tidbits, gateways to varied resources and solid research. The latter often takes the form of freely available reports that, while they might be read in one sitting, may require further study in order to extract full value. This reflects our general belief that, in the context of interruptions and quick fixes that dominates online communication, occasional deep and focused thinking is a good thing for civil society leaders.
It is with a sense of that agenda that we continue our ongoing series of "top ten" articles in celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Gilbert Center and Nonprofit Online News with the ten reports from last year that we think are most worth your time. A couple of them are from us, and the rest are from a wide variety of international organizations. All of them have broad implications.
Posted: 4/19/07; 5:56:35 PM # |
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18 April 2007 |
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| Slashed Price of Nonprofit Online Classified Ads |
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We introduced Nonprofit Online Classifieds just over three years ago, in March of 2004. In that time hundreds of folks have used this very unobstrusive service to reach our readers and indeed, we often use it ourselves. Today, as part of our ongoing celebration of our ten year anniversary as an organization, we are pleased to announce that we're slashing the price of Nonprofit Online Classified Ads. The old price was $50 per ad. The new price, reflecting the year in which Nonprofit Online News was started, is $19.97. That's it. No gimmicks, no promotional requirements, just a 60% price cut.
Posted: 4/18/07; 6:23:43 PM # |
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15 April 2007 |
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| NetSquared Innovation Awards Proposals |
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NetSquared has collected about 150 proposals for their Innovation Award. They are letting people vote on these, but it's not entirely clear up front how the votes will be accounted for. (It's definitely clear that getting project backers to campaign to get people to vote is an awesome traffic building idea that I wish I had thought of myself.) The projects are competing for the opportunity to present at this year's NetSquared Conference. Voting has been extended through Monday, April 16, 5 PM PDT. You can vote for between five and ten projects. Unless you are already a partisan for one project or another, be prepared to spend some time actually really the full proposals. I guarantee you will learn something from them, even if you're too overwhelmed by the options to actually vote.
Posted: 4/15/07; 11:49:10 PM # |
| Living in a State of Fear |
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I wish I could have attended last month's panel on Living in a State of Fear in New York, but I had to content myself with reading the submitted papers of the three panelists. As a way to understand the political context in which we in civil society have to do our work, these papers will give me ideas to think about for some time to come.
The questions the panelists were given included: "To what extent today does it seem as though politicians are more likely to advise the public to fear everything and not simply fear itself? Has fear assumed the character of a ‘natural’ problem that is detached from any specific experience? In this form, does this become a perspective on life rather than a response to any particular threat?"
Posted: 4/15/07; 11:27:58 PM # |
| Peter Suber's Open Access Overview |
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We're looking carefully at the economies and business models of peer-reviewed journals, given our recent publication of the Journal of Information Technology in Social Change. Peter Suber made some suggestions about some steps we might be able to take toward more open access and so I took some time to read up on the topic. Suber's own Open Access Overview is a great place to start.
Posted: 4/15/07; 11:22:44 PM # |
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13 April 2007 |
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| Peace Be With You, Kurt Vonnegut |
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Harvey Wasserman has written my favorite obituary so far, of one of my favorite writers, in Peace Be With You, Kurt Vonnegut. He emphasizes Vonnegut's steadfast advocacy for working people, his opposition to war in all its forms, and his support of the arts. All of which makes him a kind of civil society hero, as far as I'm concerned. Wasserman quotes Vonnegut: "To hell with the advances in computers. YOU are supposed to advance and become, not the computers. Find out what's inside you. And don't kill anybody." And: "You meet saints everywhere. They can be anywhere. They are people behaving decently in an indecent society."
Posted: 4/13/07; 11:35:16 AM # |
| Fleishman Fellows Papers |
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The Sanford Institute of Public Policy makes available the collected papers of Fleishman Civil Society Fellows, from 2002 through 2006. The topics include: cross-sector partnerships, access to the law in Tanzania, lessons for emerging philanthropic sectors, democracy in South Africa, the gloablization of American philanthropy, and the challenges of NGO professions.
The Fleishman Fellowships are a once a year gathering of a handful of fellows from across all aspects of civil society. It's a four week mini-sabbatical with access to the resources of the Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University, weekly colloquiums, and of course, other fellows.
Posted: 4/13/07; 11:30:36 AM # |
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12 April 2007 |
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| A More Accessible Email Newsletter - Revision #9 |
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Within a few months after the Nonprofit Online News website was launched in 1997, we needed a way to reach people who wanted to get our news on a regular basis. It was a reader who suggested that we create an email edition. And so we did, establishing for years to come the importance of email to The Gilbert Center, both in our own communication and in our exploration of effective practices for civil society.
Our plain text newsletter format hasn't changed much since that decision and it's served us well, but it's time for an update. With that in mind, I am pleased to announce #9 in our countdown of improvements to Nonprofit Online News, in honor of its tenth anniversary: a More Accessible Email Newsletter. Starting today, we will be working to adopt the Text Email Newsletter (TEN) Standard.
Posted: 4/12/07; 10:21:03 PM # |
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10 April 2007 |
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| Course Corrections: A Mid-Career LifeWork Seminar |
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I have two openings coming up for people who are interested in LifeWork coaching and counseling with us, and one of the best ways to explore that is to take one of our related seminars. I'll be teaching Course Corrections: A Mid-Career LifeWork Seminar on June 1st & 8th, 2007, from Noon - 1:30 pm (PDT). This is a highly interactive, live online seminar specifically designed for people who are already doing good work, but who want to be doing their life's work.
Posted: 4/10/07; 4:42:41 PM # |
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8 April 2007 |
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| A Critique of the New Journal's License and Some Possible Solutions |
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Michelle Murrain has taken me to task over the license of the new Journal of Information Technology in Social Change. She did me the courtesy of making room for my reply and I took her up on that, explaining our decision and trying to get the ball rolling on some new approaches we might take. A thoughtful discussion has ensued in the comments and I invite you to dive in. It's always an interesting challenge, trying to figure out how to pay the bills while trying to make the world a better place. I believe this dialogue represents how we can meet that challenge and create our future: One foot in the world as it is and the other in the world as we wish it were.
Posted: 4/8/07; 9:50:54 PM # |
| April Posts at With - Focus on the NTC 2007 |
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My writing last week was tightly constrained by my obligations at the 2007 Nonprofit Technology Conference, but my posts for April at With are so far focused entirely on the conference. I write about mapping NTEN, my reasons for attending the NTC, meeting people (I hope these serve as little introductions to people you might want to meet), some highlights from the backchannel (not as rich as one might think at a conference like this), and my effort to demo a "secret project" of mine. I hope these tidbits interest those of my readers who did not attend the conference. There are more posts about the conference to come, including links to various resources that you could probably put to use.
Posted: 4/8/07; 9:25:50 PM # |
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4 April 2007 |
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| The Journal of Information Technology in Social Change, Spring 2007 |
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I'm proud to announce the inaugural issue of the Journal of Information Technology in Social Change, the first of the new quarterly, peer-reviewed, theme-based Journals of the Gilbert Center.
I am proud of the communities that brought this publication together: the practitioners and academics who have come together to push the edges of our understanding of technology and social change, the broad range of reviewers who took seriously our challenge to them to help us select the papers that would most advance our mission to support civil society, the staff of NTEN and The Gilbert Center who, at first awkwardly and then more smoothly, collaborated to make this happen, and everyone who helped us through the learning curve of producing our first peer reviewed publication.
Papers were selected from a large pool of remarkably visionary submissions, with the goal of helping us learn about the emerging tranformation of civil society in the new world of networks. Even papers which were turned down for this issue are in excellent company and made for fascinating reading. Our inaugural issue includes papers on ICT in the global south, lessons learned reporting in humanitarian work, civil society in online Australia, modernizing the aid relief supply chain, the challenge of data integration, coordination of ICT, and online volunteers. There are also over 100 annotated resources from Nonprofit Online News.
Posted: 4/4/07; 10:02:25 PM # |
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2 April 2007 |
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| Mapping NTEN |
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Over the next few days, I will be attending the annual Nonprofit Technology Conference, and with any luck, I’ll be blogging about the conference regularly over at With, my new Author's Network blog. As befits that blog and the essential nature of a conference, I’ll be focusing on the theme of connection. To kick that off, I sought the help of Richard Rogers of Govcom.org and the Issue Crawler tool and started Mapping NTEN. While this by no means represents the entire universe of NTEN’s organizational network, it’s a snapshop of the kinds of connections that are revealed from the online connections between NTEN members.
Posted: 4/2/07; 1:21:02 PM # |
| How the Public Library Became Heartbreak Hotel |
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I'm always on the search for those stories and analyses that show how deeply connected much of the disparate work of civil society organizations actually is. In How the Public Library Became Heartbreak Hotel, Chip Ward, who just retired as the assistant director of the Salt Lake City Public Library System, paints a vivid portrait of how urban public libraries have become the daytime service centers for some of the neediest people in the country.
Posted: 4/2/07; 12:26:03 PM # |
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1 April 2007 |
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| News for April 1997 |
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Today is the tenth anniversary of Nonprofit Online News. No fooling. We've been doing this for ten years. In our first month, which I'm almost embarrassed to link to here (except this is the Internet, where the past lives forever) had three painfully thin news items. In this coming month, we will be wrapping up our tenth anniversary with the remainder of our series of announcements. I'll be happy of even half if it comes together and I think you will be too.
Posted: 4/1/07; 1:50:58 PM # |
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