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News for September 2007
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 27 September 2007 |
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25 September 2007 |
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| Blog Action Day: Blog About the Environment on October 15 |
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I'm not sure how effective it is, but October 15 is Blog Action Day. This year is dedicated to the environment. I plan on participating and encouraging Gilbert Authors Network bloggers to participate as well, if only to track the spread of ideas in a coordinated action like this.
Posted: 9/25/07; 10:08:23 PM # |
| ‘Giving’ and Taking: Christ Hedges Reviews Bill Clinton's New Book |
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Chris Hedges has written a scathing review of Bill Clinton's book Giving. It's a well thought out critique of a certain kind of annoyingly popular charity screed. Early in the review he writes: "It is filled with a lot of vapid, feel-good stories about ordinary and wealthy Americans setting out to make the world a better place." I don't recommend the book, but if you're interested in exploring some classic tensions between charity and justice, I highly recommend the review.
Posted: 9/25/07; 9:54:54 PM # |
| MySpace Censors Anti-War Websites |
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It amazes me how many people use a corporate social networking profile as their personal home page. There are so many good arguments against this already, but Myspace just added a new one of particular relevance to social change organizations and their supporters. It looks rather likely that MySpace is censoring outbound links in people's profiles and blogs. The evidence so far is that they are redirecting links to certain anti-war sites back to a page owned by MySpace, meaning if you or a supporter of yours tells other people on MySpace about an organization with a blocked site, they will prevent that link from working.
Posted: 9/25/07; 9:05:54 PM # |
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19 September 2007 |
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| Speed Geeking |
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I'm a big fan of disciplines of brevity. Although I've never tried its predecessor (speed dating), I will be doing a demo of my (no longer very) secret project in a Speed Geeking format at Web of Change. The basic idea is a series of very short presentations designed to pack of lot of introductions into a very short period of time. It will be interesting to see what sorts of projects and pitches do best in this context. And what does it mean to do well anyway? As with speed dating, my guess is that I will know I'm doing well if people want a longer demo.
Posted: 9/19/07; 3:38:31 PM # |
| Web of Change 2007 |
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I will be at Web of Change for the first time this year. It's billed primarily as a networking event, with an attendance of less than a hundred people. If you're there, please say hello. If you're not, take a look at the agenda. Nice high-level issues and frames which would make great topics for local leadership discussions.
Posted: 9/19/07; 3:34:14 PM # |
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17 September 2007 |
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| Alliance for Justice Comments on Proposed 990 Changes |
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The current U.S. government has a pretty well established history of surreptitious and legalistic undermining of civil society. The Alliance for Justice is working to make sure that the entire nonprofit sector doesn't get hobbled in it's advocacy rights through I.R.S. changes to Form 990 - the one that every organization above a certain size is required to complete. If this sort of thing concerns you, you might want to read their comments on the proposed changes. It infuriates me that student loan-sharks and mercenary companies who are on the public dole can bribe and lobby to their heart's content, but the nonprofit sector's already very limited ability to do so may be curtailed even further.
Posted: 9/17/07; 7:29:37 PM # |
| Social Media: Don't Promote. Participate! |
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I liked Chrysi Philalithes' short set of tips on organizational use of social media. She has five tips, but if you can grasp just the first one, then I think you'll probably do just fine: (1) Don't promote. Participate! (2) Know your audience and let them get to know you, the person, not the company. (3) Let go. (4) It's a marathon not a sprint. (5) Extend your reach.
Posted: 9/17/07; 7:22:47 PM # |
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13 September 2007 |
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| DirectTV & Dish Network Fail Public Television |
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In a great example of what happens when a media channel oligopoly controls the content that they distribute, you need look no further than what's happening with how public broadcasting is missing from DirectTV and Dish Network. As we move closer to the date when TV goes digital only in the US, addressing these failures of the market becomes critical. Network neutrality is not just an Internet issue, as Michael Soper points out. Take a look at his call to action and see what influence you might be able to bring on these two networks.
Posted: 9/13/07; 3:10:18 PM # |
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10 September 2007 |
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| The Blogging Revolution |
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I'm teaching my blogging workshop this week, so it seems appropriate to mention a related resource or two. Although it is focused on the business of government, David Wyld's report on The Blogging Revolution (98 page PDF) covers a solid half of the issues that any civil society organization would need to address. The second section on blogging as a social phenomenon is particularly strong and touches on such core issues as The Blogging CEO, Employee Blogging, and Social Networking. Part Three opens the door to some issues that nonprofits are mostly still ignoring, including The ROI of Blogging and Blogging Behavior Research. If you're serious about blogging as a strategy, you ought to take a look at this.
Posted: 9/10/07; 9:48:22 PM # |
| Capacity Building for Local NGOs |
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I just finished exploring Lainie Thomas' Capacity Building for Local NGOs (index page for eight PDFs), published by the Catholic Intitute for International Relations and made available in its entirety online by Progressio. Although it follows the traditional focus on the organization (rather than the community of practice or the network), this is nevertheless very good basic material for grassroots organizations. Over the course of eight substantial chapters, the book really does cover a remarkable range of subjects, including: organizational principles, the role of trustees, meetings, strategic planning, accounting systems, staff development, project management, filing and record keeping, and external relations and publicity.
Posted: 9/10/07; 9:37:39 PM # |
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9 September 2007 |
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| Reviving Anorexic Web Writing |
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I really enjoyed Amber Simmon's article on Reviving Anorexic Web Writing at A List Apart. She believes that we have starved the life out of most web writing and made it lifeless and insipid. I think most writing at nonprofit web sites is like that - utterly unmemorable. If they make an effort at some liveliness, it is often cliched. I would love to see more organizations take a risk on writing with heart.
Posted: 9/9/07; 10:49:24 PM # |
| Write a Perfect Email |
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Wired has a great little article on how to write a perfect email. Just four rules: brevity, context, something to act on, and a deadline. I know from experience that following these rules yeilds results. Of course, the real trick is getting your correspondents to follow them too! Maybe that's what I'm trying to do by recommending them to you.
Posted: 9/9/07; 10:04:51 PM # |
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5 September 2007 |
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| Online Community Organizing: Proven Techniques for Building Power, Leadership, and Connection |
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Most nonprofit efforts to build online community amount to little more than inviting people to a bulletin board and telling them to "talk amongst yourselves". If you have experience with old school community organizing strategies and tactics, you probably sense that online community building could be so much more than that. After several years of consideration, I'm finally teaching a seminar on this subject: Online Community Organizing: Proven Techniques for Building Power, Leadership, and Connection will be held on Friday, October 12, 2007. I'll be teaching ways to generate self-sustaining energy among stakeholders, selecting and training community organizers, identifying your organization's resources and opportunities, leveraging common purpose and collective action, and building online leadership. I'll cover both strategic considerations and shorter term tactics.
Posted: 9/5/07; 5:12:52 PM # |
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4 September 2007 |
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| Tools for Radical Democracy: How to Organize for Power in Your Community |
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If the title of Joan Minieri and Paul Getsos' book: Tools for Radical Democracy, sounds a little like Alinksy's Rules for Radicals to you, then you're probably someone who will want this book. Like Alinsky's classic text, this book is a practical manual on community organizing, updated for the 21st century. The book's chapters include: recruiting consituents, involving members, developing leaders, identifying issues, researching politics, developing strategies, planning campaigns, running actions, forging partnerships, and movement building. With a thousand books out there that frame capacity building as purely about the organization, it's refreshing to see a book that focuses downward - at the community level - and outward - at social movements. In a network centric world, those are the two levels at which we need to focus and this is an ideal book to help us do so.
Posted: 9/4/07; 8:45:53 AM # |
| Beautiful Code: Leading Programmers Explain How They Think |
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I recall my early days in college, when I was first exposed to two disciplines: community organizing and computer programming. I was always attracted to the aesthetics in both and felt that beauty had something to teach us about effectiveness. Not the superficial prettiness of gorgeous (but unread) pamphlets or fancy (but unused) interfaces. Rather, I was interested in deeper beauty, in elegance. I find that this is an interest shared far more often by programmers than by organizers.
Andy Oram and Greg Wilson have edited a remarkable book entitled Beautiful Code, with contributions from thirty-three of the most outstanding programmers of our time. Most of the essays don't require deep knowledge of particular programming languages, and don't be put off by the actual code sprinkled throughout the text. Collectively, the authors explore how and why beauty matters in the context of computing. It's mind boggling how relevant the insights are to other fields. They explore things like: the power of fractal sensibilities, elegance and simplicity, reframing as a means of discovering deeper patterns, how deep beauty inspires trust and creates understanding, and the nature of flow.
One of the most powerful lessons I took away from this book is the difference between a collection of hacks and beautiful code. We live in a time when everyone wants quick tips and hacks, but a big pile of these does not constitute a strategy. An interest in beauty in all our fields of practice will help us unify our work and give it a power it couldn't otherwise have.
Posted: 9/4/07; 8:31:16 AM # |
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3 September 2007 |
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| A Vote for More War: States and Congressional Districts |
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I've pointed to the fantastic work of the National Priorities Project before, but they're getting a lot more attention these days. This is in part because people are so utterly fed up with the Iraq War and in part because of the way in which they have broken down the numbers. Take a look to see what the war is costing in your district and what it could buy if our national priorities were more in line with those of civil society.
Posted: 9/3/07; 10:52:18 PM # |
| Americans Who Tell the Truth |
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Robert Shetterly's portraits of Americans Who Tell the Truth are an inspiration. I still remember fondly my days as a lobbyist, when I realized how easily legislators could be embarrassed by the truth and how much power that gave the people, so long as a little bit of media was still honest. Although civil society has gotten as caught up in spin as many of our institutions, I believe our moral core is well represented by the people in these portraits. (The first page alone: Rachel Carson, Ralph Ellison, Susan B. Anthony, Rosa Parks, Abraham Lincoln, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Howard Zinn, Mother Jones, James Baldwin, Martin Luther King, Jr., Cesar Chavez , Chief Joseph Hinmaton Yalektit, Dorothea Lange, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Emma Goldman.) I encourage you to look among these 108 paintings and quotations and find those truth tellers that speak best to the history of your organization's mission.
Posted: 9/3/07; 10:29:52 PM # |
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2 September 2007 |
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